Menu ▾ ▴

NCID 1.3 Released

Network Caller ID (NCID) Release 1.3

Overview

This release continues with fixes, code improvement, and new features.

A WiKi page has been created for the FCC weekly file of unwanted calls you can blacklist.

Instead of one directory for modules, recordings, and system scripts, each is now placed in a separate directory. Package upgrades check to see if modules and recordings need to be moved to their new directory. Any user generated modules and recordings will also be moved to the new directories.

The new ncidd.conf file allows selection of the distributed recordings in their new location. It is important to move any changes from the current configuration files to the new one.

New recordings were added to the distribution. All distributed recordings were donated by users. One recording received was in Italian and although the distribution will have English-only voice files, a Wiki page has been created for users to donate recordings in their native language.

The tar archive install for Cygwin, FreeBSD, TiVo, and Mac is replaced by an install script that contains the embedded tar archive. The script detects if it is doing an install or upgrade. For an upgrade, the install script will preserve existing configurations. Any that are changed, during the upgrade, will have .new appended to the name. This allows the user to easily copy his or her changes to the new configuration file and then replace the old configuration file with it.

The new install script is easy to use. Examples using the Mac install script:

List options: sh ncid-1.3-mac-osx_install.sh -?
List files: sh ncid-1.3-mac-osx_install.sh -l
Install or upgrade NCID: sudo ncid-1.3-mac-osx_install.sh

Features and fixes for this NCID release

  • Announce hangup has three new recording files
    to choose from:

CallingDeposit.rmd
CannotBeCompleted.rmd
NotInService.rmd

The PVF (portable voice format) source files are provided in the NCID source distribution. You can create your own raw modem device (RMD) file from it if you have a modem that requires a different RMD file format from the ones provided.

  • The ignore1 option in ncidd.conf was improved and expanded to include the blacklist and whitelist. Previously it only applied to aliases. This option is for US/Canadian phone service only.

  • ^1?<number> was added to the alias/blacklist/whitelist simple expressions. It makes the leading 1 optional. This Simple Expression is for US/Canadian phone service only.

  • New Feature: Regular Expressions can be used in an alias. Previously it was only available for the blacklist and whitelist. Use the regex option in ncidd.conf to turn the feature on. The feature is off by default. Simple Expression syntax is mostly different from Regular Expressions. NCID uses POSIX Extended Regular Expressions.

If you are new to regular expressions the Introduction to Regular Expressions may be helpful.

  • New Feature: blacklist and whitelist match name. The match name for an entry replaces its comment. The blacklist name will replace an alias or caller name on hangup. The whitelist name will replace an alias or caller name when it is found in the whitelist. See Using Hangup for more information on how to use this.

  • Automatic hangup has two new WiKi pages:

  • The new NCID User Manual is a rename of an improved and expanded version of NCID_Documentation.

  • There were fixes and improvements for ncidd, cidalias, cidcall, cidupdate, and ncidutil.

Fedora Upgrade Note

When doing an upgrade from NCID 1.2 on Fedora, the client post-script (installed with NCID 1.2) fails. Everything is installed properly but if you have had any clients with output modules running, you may need to restart them after the upgrade.

NCID project home page

NCID package description and features

NCID package release notes and distribution files

NCID User Manual

NCID Man Pages

NCID Modem List

NCID WiKi

NCID API

NCID SDK

Posted by John L. Chmielewski 2016-01-03

Log in to post a comment.