TiVonage Voice Mail
Copyright (c) 2005 Marty Lamb

DESCRIPTION:
------------
TiVonage presents a familiar user interface for voice mail in
a Vonage voice over IP account.

Messages are downloaded from Vonage, converted to MP3, and played
directly on TiVo.  Calls can even be returned via the TiVo interface!
(Click2Call will be invoked, ringing first your phone, then the
phone of the person who left you the message).


HOW TO START TIVONAGE:
----------------------
Windows: run.bat
  Linux: run.sh

The first time the app is run, a quick-and-dirty configuration wizard will
be presented.  This is required so the application can log in to your Vonage 
account.  You can also launch the wizard at any time by launching  
config.bat (on Windows) or config.sh (on Linux).

Your settings will be stored under your home directory, under the
.hme/TiVonage folder.

You MUST have a command-line based MP3 encoder installed.  TiVonage
includes a script/batch file (encode.sh/encode.bat) that uses sox and
lame to convert voice mail to .mp3 format.  Windows versions of sox and
lame are included; Linux versions are easy to find, so do whatever is
appropriate for your distribution.  You may already have them.

IMPORTANT:  WHEN CONFIGURING TIVONAGE (config.bat/sh) YOU MUST PROVIDE
THE FULL PATH TO YOUR ENCODER SCRIPT.  On the computer used to develop 
TiVonage, the setting for "Step 6 of 7: MP3 Encoder Command Line" is

     /home/mlamb/workspace/tivonage/dist/tivonage-0.21/encode.sh $1 $2
     
Yours will be different, but must be similarly precise.  On Windows
machines, it will begin with your drive letter (e.g., C:\...).

TiVonage requires a startup parameter called TIVONAGE_HOME.  An attempt
is made when TiVonage launches to set this automatically.  It may fail
if there are spaces in the path where TiVonage is installed.

HOW TO USE
----------
First, you must have a Vonage account (duh).

TiVonage can only handle one account at the moment, mainly because of
the way its configuration data is stored.

If I built this right, you don't need any instructions after the app
is configured; one of the primary goals of TiVonage is to behave
exactly as a TiVo user would expect.


BUGS:
-----
Nothing major, but there are a few rough edges:

  - the background screens are blotchy to the point of
    distraction.  A better background image is welcome.

  - many possible connectivity exceptions with Vonage are
    being silently ignored, or dumped to the server console.

  - the code structure itself is embarrassing, as
    it was built while I was learning the hme and bananas
    APIs.  I'll be the first to point out that it needs
    aggressive refactoring.

This has undergone substantially more testing under Linux than Windows,
but should run under both.


QUESTIONS, FEEDBACK, ETC:
-------------------------
Please send to Marty Lamb at:
tivonage at martiansoftware dot com
