VoIP and Gadgets Guide
Debit Card Fraud – No Wonder They Get Away With It – Banks are Clueless!
I’m a busy guy, so sometimes I don’t check my bank statement and debit purchases for a couple of months. Well, today I see a strange debit charge for $146.25 made on 1/12/2010 – over 2 months ago. Here’s the strange part – the address for the debit charge was listed as “110... »
Cool New Microsoft 720p LifeCams with TrueColor Technology
Microsoft today announced TrueColor Technology which they claim enhances the color and brightness of webcam video in the worst of lighting conditions. True Color Technology is a new image processing technology that automatically adjusts the picture quality to provide more colorful video. It does this through a proprietary combination... »
AudioCodes SPS Brings Microsoft OCS Features to Legacy SIP Phones
Some very interesting news from AudioCodes with the launch of AudioCodes’ SIP Phone Support (SPS) for Microsoft Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS). AudioCodes is well known for their VoIP gateway products – well think of SPS as a gateway between SIP IP phones and Microsoft OCS. Essentially, AudioCodes’ SPS enables connectivity... »
IceWarp Unified Communications Server 10 Review
I tested and reviewed IceWarp Server 10 for TMC’s Unified Communications Magazine, which will be published very soon. I was very impressed with the product and thought I’d share my test results here. Check it out… IceWarp Unified Communications Server 10 www.icewarp.com Pricing: 10 users=$549.54; 50 users=$2041.25; 100 users = $3821.04 30-day fully-functional... »
Free calls to Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day
My Irish brethren, rejoice! For free mugs of beer phone calls are upon us this St. Patrick’s Day! Truphone is offering free calls to Ireland, USA, the UK, Canada, and Poland all day. Not sure how or why other countries that don’t have a large Irish demographic were included, i.e. Poland. But considering the... »
Covad Nationwide Ethernet Service Launches on Tax Day
Covad Communications, which has been testing their Ethernet service, announced today the launch date for nationwide Ethernet services – namely April 15th (aka Tax Day, “Pay the Man Day”, etc). I almost went with Covad’s solution when TMC moved to our new headquarters, but decided to go with Optimum Lightpath instead ($2500/month for... »
New Nimbuzz Adds VoIP over 3G
My jailbroken iPhone already does VoIP over 3G. But for you fools who refuse to jailbreak your iPhone and wish to remain in Steve Jobs’ walled garden, this bit of news might make your day. The latest Nimbuzz now allows you to make VoIP calls over 3G on iPhone. Nimbuzz said, “Yes,... »
Sprint Nextel Loses VoIP Outsourcing Contact with Time Warner Cable
As if the financial news for Sprint couldn’t possible get worse, according to Kansas City Journal, Sprint Nextel Corp. is losing an outsourcing contract with Time Warner Cable Inc. worth as much as $250 million per year. A spokesman for Time Warner Cable stated that they are phasing out the agreement with Sprint to handle... »
Avaya IP Office 6.0 Released
Today, Avaya IP Office 6.0 was released bringing additional new features to this tried and true SMB phone system. I reviewed Avaya IP Office back in 2004 and it certainly has come a long way since then. Avaya claims that this new version of Avaya IP Office enhances user experiences for greater... »
LastApp for iPhone = Alt-Tab
A very cool new app in Cydia called LastApp lets you quickly switch between the last two apps running on your iPhone. Think of it as Alt-Tab for the iPhone. It only works with jailbroken iPhones (obviously). Simply go into Cydia and then choose your activation method via the Activator preference pane in Settings.... »
Skype for Symbian
Skype for Symbian is now a downloadable application for Nokia phones and works over both WiFi and 3G. Over 200 million Symbian users around the world can now use this Skype app to make FREE calls to other Symbian mobile users without chewing up cellular minutes. That’s a huge market! You can download it... »
Verizon Wireless Outage Nationwide
Verizon Wireless customers are experiencing a 3G outage nationwide. Some have been able to rectify the issue by unplugging their battery and plugging it back in, while others are still having a complete outage – both voice and data. Blackberry users are also offline, so no email access. Ironically, Verizon Wireless put out a... »
New CKEditor (FCKEditor) on Movable Type
CKEditor (formerly FCKEditor) is one of the best WYSIWYG editors. In fact, some of us within TMC have had an affectionate nickname for the old name due to it sounding very close to something X-rated. Dropping the ‘F’ (bomb?) might explain why they renamed it to CKEditor. One of my pet peeves when... »
Bill Miller Leaves Digium
Digium and TMC having dinner Left-to-right clockwise: Steve Sokol, John Todd, Russell Bryant, Dave Rodriguez (TMC), Greg Galitzine (former TMC), Jane Brooks, Tom Keating (TMC), Bill Miller Last week I heard Bill Miller, VP Product Management for Digium had left for another opportunity. Bill has been with Digium for as long as I... »
My How Far Asterisk has Come!
I just wrote about Bill Miller leaving Digium and how Bill was one of the important faces at Digium and the VoIP industry as a whole. What I wrote at the end of the article got me thinking about the VoIP industry: I hope this isn’t the start of... »
Vonage World $14.99 Unlimited Promo Plan for 6 Months
Today, Vonage has launched a new promotion for Vonage World calling plan that allows new customers to sign up for $14.99 for the first 6 months with a one year agreement. According to Vonage, this plan gives you unlimited calls to over 60 countries at a 40% reduction in cost from the previous rate... »
Cablevision Connects PC to TV Using Software
Who’d a thunk that your cable box could magically transmit your PC’s video and audio directly to your TV with no wires? Cablevision just released a new piece of software that you simply load onto your PC and then your screen pixels and audio are transmitted across the coax to Cablevision’s centralized network where... »
Textecution Disables Texting, Email and Web Browsing While Driving
Wireless Zone is now offering its customers a free application called Textecution which locks a phones texting capabilities when the user is behind the wheel. The application is targeted towards parents who are concerned about their teen’s texting while driving habits. It leverages GPS to detect if you are traveling more than 10mph and... »
GoToMeeting Outage
Noticed a problem with GoToMeeting yesterday and learned via Twitter they indeed had a service outage. GoToMeeting is used by thousands of businesses and probably millions of users to give sales demos, online training, and more. I live in GoToMeeting and WebEx due to all my press briefings with vendors showing me their... »
Skype to 3G Carriers – Tear down this VoIP over 3G wall! Verizon Complies
We can end my speculation now – Verizon Wireless is indeed enabling Skype to work over Verizon’s 3G network. Wow! This is ginormous game-changing news. It would appear the great firewall between allowing VoIP over 3G on carrier’s networks is finally cracking. Verizon and Skype have announced they are enabling global Skype calling via... »
What’s Wrong with Windows Phone 7?
So everyone is gushing over how sexy the new Windows Phone 7 Series is. Microsoft has done a “reboot” of their mobile operating system and gone to an entirely new operating system. Sorry Windows Mobile fans, your old apps won’t work on this new phone. Engadget: “Forget everything you know about Windows... »
Skype to Offer VoIP over 3G on Verizon Wireless?
Skype’s PR man Chaim Haas emailed the TMC team to tell us that Skype and Verizon Wireless will have a joint news conference next week being hosted by Verizon Wireless and Skype at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Now this is mere speculation, but this could potentially mean Skype over 3G on Verizon’s network. Currently,... »
Moving a Data Center
Moving a data center can be fun. Yes, if you enjoy being up from 6am (Friday) to 2am (Saturday) it’s a real blast. And then spending all day Saturday until 10pm screwing in rails, rackmounting servers, installing new KVMs, connecting patch cables, power cords, surge protectors, Gigabit PoE switches, IP phones, etc. Of... »
No, Gremlins Didn’t Eat TMCNet’s Web Servers
Starting tomorrow around 7am, TMC will be shutting down its entire data center and moving it to a world-class building about a mile away. So when you see www.tmcnet.com, blog.tmcnet.com (several blogs), and various other tmcnet.com domains going offline, no worries. Gremlins aren’t chewing the wires and we’re not under a DDOS attack. We’ll... »
VoIP on iPad – Yes!
Yes, it’s true – you can do VoIP on the new Apple iPad. The iPad sports WiFi, 3G, speaker, and a microphone – all you need to do VoIP. But the real kicker is that Apple just modified their iPhone/iPad SDK to ALLOW VoIP over 3G. Yes, my friends, now you too can hold... »
Rock Out to the Asterisk Song
GM Voices, creator of professional voice prompts for companies has just released “The Asterisk Song” with patriotic Asterisk lyrics such as “It ain’t no punctuation.” For true Asterisk patriots, “asterisk” aka “*” can not be used in a sentence unless it has something to do with the open source Asterisk platform. Sure an “asterisk”... »
Skype Outage Problem Yesterday
I received word from various sources that Skype was having problems yesterday morning. So while in the press room at ITEXPO I fired up Skype, sign-ed in and was able to use it. Hmm. No problem here. I let it go until later that evening when I met with a Skype executive at Andy... »
Truphone Brings Wi-Fi Calling To Nexus One
At ITEXPO I learned from Truphone’s PR team that they released a new Android application updated to operate on Google’s new device. Here’s the news: Hot on the heels of the release of Truphone’s VoIP enabled Truphone for Android application earlier this month, Truphone, the next generation global mobile operator, today announces that it is the... »
Carrier Peering Federation Enables HD Voice and HD Video
One of the more interesting bit of news coming out of ITEXPO is that XConnect is not only offering “High-Definition (HD) Voice Peering Federation”, but they’re also offering a free one month trial. Their federation service for carrier peering let’s you carry both HD voice and HD video by passing codecs across carrier networks.... »
FREETALK Connect Alliance Formed at IT EXPO 2010
Andy Abramson (aka Mr. Harem of VoIP/Communications clients) told me that the new FREETALK Connect Alliance formed at ITEXPO has received a lot of interest from various companies looking to join in addition to the 14 charter members that have already joined. Here’s the news announcement: FREETALK Connect Alliance Formed at ITEXPO 2010 with 14 Charter... »