Dave Michel’s Notable News Feed
mjgraves | February 13, 2012
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, “The internet is big. Really, really big. I mean it’s just mind-bogglingly big. ” It’s amazing that we can find anything at all. It’s especially nice when smart people help us to find things.
Over the past number of months Dave Michels has evolved his Pin Drop Soup blog into something more. It’s now just one aspect of his TalkingPointz web site. Dave has started offering his keen insight into the world of telecom in the form of reports detailing the product offerings and strategies of various large telecom vendors. Dave’s reports present the kind of info that you’d expect from a large consulting firm, but priced to be accessible to a small business.
Another part of the evolution of the site has been the development of a really smart news feed. Beyond the traditional blog roll, Dave has gone to a lot of trouble to aggregate RSS feeds from a myriad of Telecom and UC sources.
Dave’s news feed is a fine example of what you can do using Yahoo Pipes. I wish I’d thought to do it, but then I wouldn’t have known about much of the enterprise UC content that Dave brings to the table.
Go now. Subscribe. You’ll be glad that you did.
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magic jack PLUS Now Officially Offering HDVoice
mjgraves | February 7, 2012 This morning’s news dump included an email from a marketing service being used by magic jack. Some while ago when I heard a rumor that Vocaltec was working on some means of supporting HDVoice in the next generation of their magic jack product/service. While the new magic jack PLUS started to ship backing August todays email was the first I’ve seen that actually mentioned HDVoice.
According to the web site for the service;
“magicJack PLUS™ service has received rave reviews and many people think it is the best Call Quality they have ever heard. The magicJack PLUS™ has added High Definition Voice. Best Call Quality and it’s FREE.”
The big change from magic jack to magic jack PLUS is in the hardware. The little USB interface device once required the used a computer. With an RJ45 connection to your home network the new version can run completely standalone. No computer required. This was largely a competitive issue driven by the NetTalk Duo.
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Insight Into Free Conference Call Services
mjgraves | February 1, 2012 In the novel “Stranger in a Strange Land” the legendary science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once wrote, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” This came immediately to mind when I stumbled upon Fee Fighters where I found a post that was a nice explanation of how free conference calling services work.
The author quite rightly points out that Google Voice and Vonage will not place calls to the rural rate centers with the exorbitantly high termination costs that make the free conference service possible.
My preferred ITSP, OnSIP by Junction Networks, charges a uniform per-minute rate for calls to most rates centers in North America and Western Europe. However, when it comes to those rate centers in rural areas that host free conference services their plan changes. If we call such services they charge us “the true market rate” which can be up to 20x the normal rate. They made this abundantly clear back in 2009 when the policy was enacted.
We find no fault with OnSIP and their policy in this regard. In fact, we decided that we saw value in adding an optional private conference bridge to our OnSIP account, even though it costs us $20/month.
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Cory Doctorow: General Purpose Computing Is Under Threat
mjgraves | January 31, 2012It’s well known that I’m no Apple fan-boy. While I do admire the company for their design and marketing prowess, I’m uneasy about the extreme control they wield with respect to managing who runs what on iOS devices.
Not long ago I heard a lot of what makes me uneasy about Apple expressed in a more general manner. It was Cory Doctorow addressing 28C3 (Chaos Communications Conference) in December 2011. IT Conversations has the podcast.
There’s a video version, too.
Further to this CBC’s Spark Plus podcast interviewed Cory on the same topic. It’s a little different. He certainly illustrates his points well.
Of course the matter reaches well beyond Apple. They’re just the tip of the iceberg. I’m sure that we’ll be hearing more about this.
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Powerless At FAT: What’s Wrong With This Picture?
mjgraves | January 25, 2012Last week I had occasion to spend several days in Fresno CA. Their airport code is FAT. But FAT is not PHAT. In fact, it’s powerless.
Like many places in the country Fresno is busily enhancing their airport. The terminal from which I arrived and departed looks like a brand new building.
The terminal had all the traditional conveniences; public restrooms, a few places to eat & drink. Of course it had seating for all the waiting passengers. It has free, but very slow, internet access via wifi. What it lacked was sensible access to AC power for people using their personal electronics.
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Ensuring Productivity In My Home Office
mjgraves | January 23, 2012 I’d like to pose a simple question. What’s the single most important piece of technology in my home office? Don’t dwell on it. What comes immediately to mind?
Those of you who have been paying attention for a while will know that the correct answer is the coffee machine. You may have a different opinion, but as the question was specifically about my home office, I assure you that this is definitely the case.
Like so many people coffee plays an important part in my day, illuminating the foggy crevices of morning, accelerating my migration into the productive portion of the day. I have been heard to refer to coffee as, “that marvelous brown fluid that gives rise to intelligence before noon-time.”
I am admittedly an addict. So be it.
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