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Get the Full IP Communications Experience

October 8, 2006
I can't help but feel like a proud parent as we get ready for this week's ITEXPO. The team I work with have absolutely outdone themselves and the scope of this event is beyond my imagination. To think this show started in 1999 at the Hotel Del Coronado a stones throw from the San Diego Convention Center -- it's current home.

As you get ready to come to ITEXPO this week there is one request I would like to make of you and that is this event has more content than any previous event in TMC history and it certainly has as much education as any event I have ever been to. The goal of this blog entry is not to brag but to ensure you are spending enough time in the sessions in the conference rooms and/or on the show floor.

My request is that you plan to have enough time to absorb everything -- the exhibits -- there are more exhibits at this show than ever before -- and all the sessions. For example the keynotes at this show should be spectacular -- you won't want to miss them.

There are a few places you may want to you study carefully before coming to the event and I also suggest you make sure you bring colleagues as there is too much content for a single person to ingest by themselves. Some companies are sending more than a dozen representatives and while I admit that is probably overkill it also allows an organization to absorb everything of importance. Nothing is left to chance.

Please spend some time studying the Internet Telephony Conference site especially the conference page and PDFs of the expo brochure and agenda at a glance. Two other items of interest are the dates & times and resource center.

Also check out the special attractions:

Battle for the Enterprise/SMB
Disaster Planning Seminar and Workshop
IPDR.org's Quintuple Play IP Services Track
Ingate's SIP Trunking Workshop
Reseller Solutions Day
Service Provider Shootout
Voice Peering Workshop

Also keep an eye out on the expo blog and pay special attention to entries like Quintuple Play, IPTV Conference, Asterisk Training, ITEXPO Special Attractions, Enterprise VoIP Peering Comes of Age, SIP Trunking Session at ITEXPO, UTStarcom FMC, Maximizing Service Provider Revenue and more.

Consider this entry your pre-show welcome. I look forward to greeting you more formally -- and sharing the full IP Communications Experience™ with you -- this week in San Diego!

Blogger Hacked

October 8, 2006
Today is the day of hacks (see Skype Clone) – it seems the post late last night about Google exiting from the click to call business was hoax. Someone hacked into Blogger and impersonated Google. This is not the first time this has happened according to an email I received from Andy (related post) and Om questions whether there is a wider problem afoot with Blogger as this is not the first time this has happened. Hats off to blogger Michael Arrington from TechCrunch who was quick to postulate this post was a hack early on.

But one has to wonder why a person would derive any sort of enjoyment by spreading the word that Google is cancelling their click to call program. In the grand scheme of things is this such a big deal anyway? After all the world will keep spinning with or without this service provided by Google. This episode shows us once again it getting more and more difficult to build hack-proof software.

Skype Clone

October 8, 2006
Generally when software reaches one tenth the popularity level of Skype many programmers try to hack it, break it, and do other things that can make Skype user’s lives difficult and make a name for themselves. In this case though it seems hackers are looking to clone Skype. Perhaps this cloned version will allow users to not have to pay to make Skype Out calls.

This is obviously a serious matter and remember now, eBay’s resources are behind the company. I wonder what the auction giant will do to put an end to such efforts. Then again if these underground projects are happening in China and Russia as this blog entry says, what can be done? says, what can be done?