Month: July 2007
-
/
Ooma, ooma, ooma… a collection of links about the buzz
Continue Reading: Ooma, ooma, ooma… a collection of links about the buzzLate last week there was quite the buzz in the VoIP part of the blogosphere about “Ooma” a new company with $27 million in funding that claims to “transform telecom services” and let you “make local and long-distance calls anywhere in the US for free” (provided, of course, that you live in the US). I saw all the coverage and thought about writing something here, but I just couldn’t get overly excited to do so. My first reaction was, well, “how is this different from PhoneGnome or other similar systems?” (And I enjoyed the fact that PhoneGnome promptly came out with a “Build Your Own Ooma” Challenge!)
My second reaction was that with their peer-to-peer architecture (letting others share your phoneline) there are bound to be security concerns (opinions here and here) and that it looks like it involves changing out your existing firewall/router and that simply isn’t something I see people wanting to do.
Anyway, there’s been a whole lot of words written on this issue and so I thought I’d point to some of the pieces out there. First, some nice summaries:
- ComputerWorld’s IT Blog Watch: “Ooma selling free phone service”
- Jon Arnold: “Ooma – a Triumph…
-
/
New version of IM+ out that lets you do Skype from your Blackberry…
Continue Reading: New version of IM+ out that lets you do Skype from your Blackberry…About a month ago, I wrote about the “IM+ for Skype” client that let you use Skype on your Blackberry. Well, a new version 2.5 is out now and Jim Courtney over at Skype Journal has a review. Jim is quite enthusiastic about a new feature that lets you specify the number at which IM+ will call you back (rather than only calling you back on your mobile). I also found this interesting:
As an added benefit, IM+ 2.5 will not only make calls to those in my Skype Contacts but also my Blackberry address book. In summary IM+ provides a very versatile way of combining access to both Skype and Blackberry resources.
Interesting to see the merger of Skype and Blackberry directories. I’ve not yet played with it and don’t see myself having the time to do so in the next bit, but Jim says he’ll be writing more in the time ahead about it.
Technorati tags: skype, blackberry, rim, im+, im, shape services, jim courtney, skype journal -
/
Test post #2 – from offline editor – please ignore
Continue Reading: Test post #2 – from offline editor – please ignoreSorry about the second test post, but it seems something is not working right. Posts are now appearing, but the heading is not.
-
/
Test posting – please ignore
Continue Reading: Test posting – please ignoreHmmm… new posts do not seem to be appearing on this weblog… so I’m just posting this from within the TypePad web interface before I contact TypePad support.
Please move along now… nothing to see here! 😉
-
/
Remote VoIP teleworker sets serve as an Internet connectivity warning device…
Continue Reading: Remote VoIP teleworker sets serve as an Internet connectivity warning device…Here’s a great side benefit of having an IP phone in teleworker mode hanging off of a system somewhere out there on the Internet – you have a close-to-instant warning system about Internet connectivity issues.
Take this morning… I walk into my home office and see that one of my phones has come out of its sleep status and the backlight is on and showing "CONNECTION PENDING…" with these black square boxes next to it. I glance at another IP phone: "PLEASE WAIT"
Oh, %#$#?!. It’s going to be that kind of Monday morning!
Yes, indeed, as I woke up the PCs, I did indeed have no connectivity. Couldn’t get to any websites and all the IM clients were cycling waiting to get connected. After doing the usual power-cycling of the cable modem and verifying that I could get an address but couldn’t ping beyond the next hop router, a relatively-quick call to Comcast brought the word that there was a "partial outage" in my area and that connectivity might be going up and down for the next two hours.
Great. Wonderful way for a home office worker to start a Monday.
But it did remind me of one great…
-
/
iSkoot – cool idea for a Skype client for Blackberry, but I don’t see me using it much because…
Continue Reading: iSkoot – cool idea for a Skype client for Blackberry, but I don’t see me using it much because…Last week I wrote some first impressions of iSkoot, a new Skype client for Blackberry, and while I still think it’s a very cool idea, I don’t see myself using it all that much. Why not? Very simply…
Battery life!
Or the lack thereof. Yes, indeed, it all does seem to come down to batteries, and iSkoot seems to certainly consume its share of power. Now granted, my Blackberry 7290 is an older model and for all I know could probably use a new battery, but in “normal” operation, I can charge it up and then have it run for a good 3 or 4 days before it needs a recharge. However, start up iSkoot and I found I suddenly needed a recharge by the end of the day!
In fairness, iSkoot is not alone in this… the other Blackberry IM clients I’ve used, both the Windows Messenger client and also most recently the IM+ client for Skype also have this same problem. I’m assuming it has something to do with the need to regularly use the data connection for updates to status and to update chat messages.
I can see this actually being most useful to me when I’m traveling and…
-
/
iSkoot provides another Skype client for Blackberry devices… review – and my first reaction is that it has a challenge with the "instant" part of "instant messaging"
Continue Reading: iSkoot provides another Skype client for Blackberry devices… review – and my first reaction is that it has a challenge with the "instant" part of "instant messaging"NOTE: Please see the updates at the bottom of this post.
Back on Monday, Jim Courtney over at Skype Journal IM’d me (on Skype naturally) asking if he could do a test call to me on "another Skype client for the Blackberry". Naturally, I said yes and in a moment or so we were speaking. It turned out that he was using a new beta application from iSkoot. From the news release:
The new iSkoot v1.1 delivers a comprehensive mobile Skype experience on BlackBerry: With the click of a button, users can instantly chat with their Skype contacts, make and receive Skype calls, and use SkypeOut™ to inexpensively call regular phone numbers nearly anywhere in the world. iSkoot v1.1 also displays complete Skype contact status information, so BlackBerry users can see which friends, family members and business colleagues are available, as well as manage their own online presence. This latest release features a next generation, easy-to-use interface especially designed for BlackBerry users and will offer additional features soon. iSkoot works without any need for PCs, special hardware, custom phones or Wi-Fi hot spots, and utilizes the existing mobile network infrastructure to route Skype calls through the voice channel.
It…
-
/
iPhone meet kitchen mixer – Will It Blend?
Continue Reading: iPhone meet kitchen mixer – Will It Blend?Okay, I’m sorry, but I just find this way too funny. Do I refer to this as “DisruptED Telephony”?
Tip of the hat to Chris Brogan for tweeting it and Doug Haslam for posting it.
Kudos also to Blendtec, maker of mixers, for coming up with this “Will It Blend?” series of videos. I admit that I did watch some of the others in the “Don’t Try This At Home” category. Fans of a certain recent movie release might enjoy what happens to a Transformer… suffice it to say that it… um.. transforms, rather permanently.
Obviously this particular video is probably also doing well for Blendtec… so far since it was posted yesterday there have been almost 241,000 views of the video at the time I am writing this.
Technorati tags: phones, blendtec, willitblend, apple, iphone, humor -
/
ZDNet blogger to return his iPhone… because it doesn’t have enough *phone* features!
Continue Reading: ZDNet blogger to return his iPhone… because it doesn’t have enough *phone* features!Interesting post yesterday at ZDNet, “Apple seems to have forgotten the phone in the iPhone“, where blogger Matthew Miller writes about his disappointment after 10 days of iPhone usage. Since I can’t get an iPhone because of where I live, I’ve only very peripherally been following iPhone news (figuring that when I can eventually get one it will be improved by then). Of course, you could not have missed the predictably huge initial reactions about the device being “magic”, but now we are starting to see real and more honest appraisals as people actually get to work with the devices. In Matthew Miller’s case, here is his list of what the iPhone is missing related to telephony:
- Low volume speakerphone (basically useless at max volume through mono speaker)
- Mid volume speaker
- Tough to speed dial (at least 5 presses/slides to call one of your )
- No smart dial (filtering of contacts as you enter letters or numbers)
- Reception issues (full signal to no signal in same area)
- No instant messaging application
- Non-removable battery that cost $86 to replace from Apple
- Weak Bluetooth radio (profiles and reception with headset)
- No DUN (Bluetooth or cabled)
- No custom ringtones
- No MMS functionality…