On 12/21/2015 9:05 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
[snip]

I would never phone home to see if I had messages.

My home phone (cable) now allows forwarding calls to a cell phone. Most of the
time, I wouldn't do that (since it would forward all the junk calls). I'll do
it if I'm expecting an important call.

Years ago, I had some software to implement an answering machine
with a PC (and modem). When a call arrived, it could be configured
to email a notification *or* WAV file of the incoming message to
an email address. This was handy when I was traveling as I didn't
have to tell people I was traveling, where I was, etc. And, didn't
have to keep checking the machine to see if anyone had called
since the last check!