Having set up VoIP software (voipbuster, skype etc) on my PC, it now
seems a great idea to configure my PC to answer my home phone and
connect the two together somehow. This would allow me to call my PC
from my mobile phone, (at local call rates), and then connect to any
other number worldwide using VoIP. Even better if it were possible for
someone to call me using VoIP and my computer dials my mobile phone
and connects me to the incoming VoIP call.  There seems to be a whole
lot of VoIP software out there, and a whole lot of PC based telephone
answering machines, but nothing that seems to interface the two
together.  Is there any software out there which could the job I
describe?

You should consider Asterisk.  One popular package people use is
Asterisk@Home (http://asteriskathome.sourceforge.net/).  You setup
Asterisk to run voipbuster or any provider for that matter.  This
machine running Asterisk will be a server handling all your VoIP
calls.

You can then install any VoIP soft phone (ex X-Lite) on your PC(s) to
connect to your Asterisk server to make/receive calls on your VoIP
account.  If you have your Asterisk server accessible on the internet,
you'd be able to connect to the server remotely and make/receive calls
as well.

Dear hilbe-ga,

Many thanks for this suggestion. Apologies for a slow response, but
I've been moving around a bit recently!  I visited the Asterisk
website and it certainly seems a very capable system.  Although I
haven't read the full manual, the introduction looks very daunting
with talk of programming in C etc.  It also appears to need external
hardware since it makes the point that the onboard modem port would
not suffice as an interface to the PSTN.  I'm not sure whether or not
this would be well beyond my capabilities, but will definately
investigate further.

I am still open to suggestions for any other user-friendly options in the meantime.

Many thanks again for your input.

Regards,

Andy