An internet phone application for a Snow Leopard Mac Mini

Question

The Mac Mini which I purchased , used , because it satisfied the Phone Valet software requirements , plus maintaining usability coordinating as much of the former G5's conformity as one might hope . The folks who provided the Phone Valet device stopped writing for it in the early summer of 2011 .
The Mac Mini is running well
  Model Name:                Mac mini
  Model Identifier:            Macmini2,1
  Processor Name:          Intel Core 2 Duo
  Processor Speed:          2 GHz
  Number Of Processors:          1
  Total Number Of Cores:          2
  L2 Cache:          4 MB
  Memory:          2 GB
  Bus Speed:          667 MHz
The telephone upgrade was up next , and for that we entertained a Gigaset SL78h as a beautiful and portable choice for keeping the computer to telephone compatabiility open via the Phone Valet software & hardware application .
The USB port on the Gigaset SL78h is advertised as a microsoft written port . This was unfortunately a swing and a miss in the guess work that assumed (guessed) a discoverable compatability of the Snow Leopard system with a usb ported , configured , handset .
I am presently interested in discovering how to bring the Gigaset SL78h handsets beyond the Mac OSX Preferences recognition in "Network" as a Modem . What can allow Snow Leopard to recognise the device into the informational cognisance , sharing of Address Book , and Phone Valet call monitoring activities enjoyed by the previous system which when hooked up directly with the Phone Valet to computer compiled all the activity nice and neatly .
I am paying "Vonage" for the access to my number and connections to other numbers via the internet in packets . The phone uses a Verizon FIOS connection through a combined Verizon modem and a Zytel Prestige 861 . With one other "Vonage" provided Motorola device , plus an Airport extremes ports for access which used to be read by the G5 via the Phone Valet hardware . Seems the data is either bypassed or unread by OSX's Snow Leopard , or I have hooked it up in new and unusual ways .
Having a similar successul setup would be inspirational over here . Moral is steady but could be improved with an application which could talk to both the Gigaset SL78h and the Address and Phone Valet applications , or a recognition of a correct sequence of hardware connections .
In all cases thank you for bearing with me this long , and if able to provide a hint to the correct direction to take for success , a thousand thanks .
Frederick R Perez

Answer 1

For your stated goal, network-attached storage (NAS) or an always-on Mac client would be a simpler solution. Either preferably with RAID, and with provisions and storage for periodic archives.
A Mac OS X Server box is overkill. The Mac client boxes have 10-client sharing.
If you want single-signon and shared directory services and mail and web and various of the other pieces and services that are available within, then you can grow into a Mac OS X Server box.
A server is rather more to manage, regardless of what you choose. You're getting DNS and networking and other core pieces, minimally, and you're also responsible for many of the configuration settings and services and details that a client box receives from a server box. And you're definitely dealing with protections and such across multiple boxes.
For some other perspectives, there are various previous discussions of this posted around the forums. A search that includes NAS should kick over a few of these; this is a typical low-end alternative to running a server.