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October 2012

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How to Setup a Wi-Fi HotSpot in Windows 8

October 31, 2012

Have you ever wanted to share your wired-only connection and turn it into a Wi-Fi hotspot? How about turn your wireless EVDO, 3G, or 4G wireless Internet connection into a Wi-Fi hotspot? Well, with Windows 8 you can! Actually, Windows 7 supports this too, though not many people know about it.

Asterisk 11 - What's New! [VIDEO]

October 26, 2012


At AstriCon we finally heard about the new features in Asterisk 11. One of the most exciting features is WebRTC, which I wrote about earlier, including videos. On the last day of AstriCon, four members of the Asterisk team got on stage in front of hundreds of AstriCon attendees and unveiled what's new in Asterisk 11, including insights as to how and why they added these particular features. One new feature is a unique Call IDs record associated to each and every call to enable powerful Call ID logging.

Still decent AstriCon Attendance on Last Day

October 25, 2012

WebRTC Demo Plus WebRTC Asterisk Integration

October 24, 2012

At AstriCon at sat in a jam-packed session on WebRTC, which featured Digium's Joshua Colp and Voxeo Labs / Tropo's Tim Panton. The talk explained how WebRTC is going to change the communications landscape, but more than that they did an actual demo showing a browser-based VoIP call to a WebRTC-enabled Tropo application. The source code was ridiculously short and simple, which means a lot of the complexity has been modularized into the WebRTC spec. I captured the video using my iPhone 4S in 3 video segments.

AstriCon 2012 Luncheon 360 Degree Panorama

October 24, 2012

Dan Jenkins Discusses Asterisk, HTML5, NodeJS with CRM Integration

October 24, 2012

SugarCRM's Clint Oram's AstriCon Keynote [VIDEO]

October 24, 2012

David Duffett AstriCon 2012 Keynote [VIDEO]

October 24, 2012

Mark Spencer AsteriCon 2012 Keynote! [VIDEO]

October 24, 2012

AstriCon 2012 Exhibit Floor Panoramic Photos

October 23, 2012

AstriCon 2012 360 Degree Panoramic

October 23, 2012

Digium's Steve Sokol Explains the Various Digium IP Phone Models

October 23, 2012

Digium's Joshua Colp Discusses Asterisk Configuration Framework & Teases WebRTC

October 23, 2012

Shaun Ruffell Leads Intro to Asterisk Development Session

October 23, 2012

Packed AstriCon Session on 'Intro to Asterisk Development'

October 23, 2012

Digium's Billy Chia Gives Overview of Asterisk

October 23, 2012

Asterisk 123 Session Kicks Off Sessions

October 23, 2012

AstriCon 2012 Atlanta Begins!

October 23, 2012

Skype for Windows 8 Launches Simultaneously with Windows 8 & Microsoft Surface

October 22, 2012


I predicted back in August, "I wouldn't be surprised though if this [Skype for Windows 8] simultaneously launches the same day as the Windows 8 Surface tablet - it certainly would be one of the first apps I'd try out on the new tablet. "

Well, looks like I was right. Microsoft is releasing Skype for Windows 8 on the same date that Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface tablet launches. I gave an early preview of the Skype for Windows app, which you can check out.



Looking at Microsoft's promotional video (below) it appears to show a later, more refined version than the beta I checked out.






ringDNA iPad Softphone Integrates with Salesforce.com

October 4, 2012

Vsnap, the Video SMS Alternative Aims to Add Emotion & Video to Short Messages

October 4, 2012

Phonism Cloud-based IP phone provisioning services

October 4, 2012

Phonism pitches their cloud-based IP phone auto-provisioning service targeting service providers. It aims to make provisioning easier as well as monitor endpoints. However, RFC 6011 User Agent Configuration aims to make auto-provisioning of SIP endpoints easy as well. So easy in fact, that the goal would be you could buy a SIP phone from Amazon.com, take it home and then enter a number on the keypad to automatically provision the phone with the cloud-based provider of choice.

Zello.com touts their social radio at ITEXPO

October 4, 2012

StartupCamp6 Comms Edition at ITEXPO West Kicks-Off

October 4, 2012

Microsoft Lync Pavillion at ITEXPO Features PlayStation 3?

October 4, 2012

ITEXPO West 2012 Videos

October 4, 2012

E911 on Mobile VoIP is Seriously Broken - Here's How to Fix It

October 3, 2012

I moderated an interesting session at ITEXPO on E911 with a focus on cloud-based hosted IP-PBXs. Hosted PBX providers offer their customers significant cost savings and an advanced telephony features while eliminating the need for customers to procure and manage their own communications network infrastructures. However, the need – and regulatory mandate – for emergency services brings with it a host of challenges for these providers, including servicing nomadic users within and beyond the service provider coverage footprint, meeting FCC/CRTC, state and local E911 regulations, and efficiently provisioning and maintaining customer records in 911 databases.

One of the more fascinating discussions revolved around PBX vendors offering their own SIP softphones for mobile devices (iOS, Android, etc.) and it's impact on 911 emergency dialing.

Watchitoo's Playground Unveiled - Watch out Skype & Google Hangouts!

October 3, 2012


Watchitoo today unveiled Playground, their cloud-based video collaboration platform for small and medium businesses featuring up to 25 participants that can do video, screen sharing, chat, and file sharing. I did a demo of Playground last week and I was very impressed. During my demo with Watchitoo's CEO Rony Zarom and a PR representative we had 3 webcams streaming and he started a screen-sharing session. Next, he started a HD YouTube video.

DIGITALK, the One-Stop Shop for Wholesale Carriers & Service Providers

October 3, 2012

AT ITEXPO Paul Bassa, VP Product Marketing gave me an overview of U.K.-based DIGITALK, which offers platform and application products backed by full services support, that offers provisioning, prepaid charging, payments, and carrier routing to minimize operations overheads and maximize service margins. They offer pre-sales consultancy, through installation and commissioning, to worldwide 24x7 SLAs.

They offer a mobile VoIP app on consumer side and allow service providers to white label the app and they help with the Apple iTunes app submission process. The mobile VoIP app has prepaid capabilities built-in, allowing you to simply enter a PIN to activate.

They build all their own products, including their own session border controller (SBC) and can do carrier to carrier routing, management, SIP trunking, wholesale billing, and reporting. They also have a Web API to allow you to build your own portals.



Toopher Two-Factor Authentication Leverages Mobile Phone Location

October 2, 2012


I met with Toopher's Josh Alexander, Co-founder & CEO to discuss their two-factor authentication platform. He explained their their two-factor authentication is drop-dead simple leveraging your mobile phone's location - pulling location data from GPS, 3G/4G triangulation, and Wi-Fi, which usually grants accuracy of at least a couple hundred feet even when indoors.

Two-factor authentication is nothing new - Google for instance offers two-factor authentication by sending you a SMS to your mobile phone with a PIN to authenticate your device. Of course, I experienced an issue with Google's YouTube two-factor authentication because my house has poor cell signal and I didn't receive the SMS. Josh told me that's why there is a pretty low adoption rates of many competing two-part authentication methods.


Novus Distributes First Enhanced Media Gateway for Microsoft Lync Server 2013

October 2, 2012


Novus, a boutique telecommunications and IP distributor serving value-added resellers throughout North America, announced today the distribution of Ferrari electronic’s OfficeMaster Gate media gateway featuring recently released firmware that supports the new features of the next generation Microsoft Lync Server 2013, including the IPv6 protocol. Novus is the official distributor of Ferrari electronic products for the North American market.
 
Ferrari electronic worked in close collaboration with the Microsoft Lync product team in Redmond, Washington to develop the new firmware for the OfficeMaster Gate media gateway and it has been rigorously tested at Microsoft over the last few months. The new firmware from Ferrari electronic was released to coincide with the availability of the Lync 2013 Preview on July 16, 2012.
 
“Ferrari electronic is currently the only European manufacturer of an enhanced gateway certified for Microsoft Lync Server 2010, and it’s the first manufacturer to integrate its gateway with Lync Server 2013,” said Novus Managing Partner Chris Meehan. “This creates a compelling value proposition for resellers because they can install software-based OfficeMaster Gate gateway cards now as proof of concepts and deliver a highly scalable gateway solution with a tremendous ROI to small and medium-sized businesses looking for Lync migration solutions.”
 
Novus offers the Ferrari electronic OfficeMaster Gate media gateway and OfficeMaster SBA survivable branch appliance to resellers in flexible configurations as either appliances or PCI boards.
 
“Resellers will find the licensing options particularly appealing, since they can optionally configure gateway and survivable branch appliance functionality on a single card to reduce power consumption, minimize rack space and further reduce costs while benefitting from ongoing improvements through firmware upgrades that are free of charge within the current revision,” added Meehan.
 
To further incentivize resellers to deploy the Lync Server 2013-ready OfficeMaster Gate media gateway, Novus is announcing a free comprehensive private training program for resellers who sign up to carry the Ferrari electronic products.










RCA Makes Android IP Phones? Who Knew?

October 2, 2012

I'm here at ITEXPO in Austin, Texas, a leading communications tradeshow, when what do my wondering eyes see? An email promotion from RCA promoting their new Android-based IP phones - the RCA IP150, RCA IP120 and the RCA IP110. Here's a screenshot of part of the email:



When I think of RCA my nostalgia kicks in and I think of two things, both of which are antiquated technologies.

One, I think of my grandparents huge TV inside a wooden frame that sat on the floor. Nowadays you hang up your flat-screen TV and the TV never touches the floor.

Two, I think back to my dad's Elvis Presley "Hound Dog" RCA record with the cool logo of dog with its mouth aimed inside the record player, similar to this Elvis vinyl record:


As a 6-year old kid I assumed the RCA dog was because the song on the record was "Hound Dog".










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