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April 2009

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Free Calls on Skype

April 23, 2009

3 UK is opening up its network to allow anyone with a 3 SIM and a compatible handset to have unlimited Skype-to-Skype calls and instant messages without ever having to pay. 3UK announced that on May 1st users with a 3UK SIM and a 3-provided Skype-enabled handset will be able to use Skype for free. Additionally, previous deals for free Skype required a monthly topup of £10 on pay-as-you-go and there will be no data charges. Thus, Skype will be 100% free, subject to their fair use policy of course.

Plantronics Voyager PRO

April 23, 2009


The Plantronics Voyager Pro is the successor to the much-loved Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth headset, which goes on sale today, although, Best Buy started selling its stock a bit early. I have a review unit which I plan on testing and giving my thoughts/opinion on in the new few days. I reviewed its predecessor, the Plantronics Voyage 510, which had a cult following. I was a big fan of the Voyager 510 and have one on my desk.

Using monit Tool to Monitor Asterisk

April 17, 2009

Your IP-PBX is one of the most critical pieces of corporate infrastructure. It cannot afford any downtime, which is why the fives 9's (99.999%) of reliability was coined. While Asterisk is a pretty stable open source IP-PBX platform, it it still in its infancy, so it hasn't had the same time that the old 'Big Iron PBXs' have had to reach five 9s of reliability. Then again, many traditional PBX manufacturers have abandoned 100% proprietary hardware and use many of the same standard off the shelf components that are in Asterisk, including motherboards, memory, processors, etc.

eBay to Launch Skype IPO

April 14, 2009

It just gets better and better - First, there was the legal fight between Joltid (Niklas Zennstrom) and Skype/eBay that I wrote about. Then the NY Times reported that Skype's founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, were in talks with several private equity firms to make a bid to buy back Skype. Now, eBay today announced they want to spin off Skype as an IPO. Apparently, they don't like the bid prices offered by Niklas and Janus.

GVDialer for Google Voice

April 11, 2009

GVdialer is an intriguing mobile application for Google Voice, supporting iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Microsoft, and Symbian. GVdialer enables you to use Google Voice with your mobile phone while enabling some cool features. For instance, you can present your Google number as your Caller ID on outgoing mobile calls, thus keeping your mobile number private. This also gives you a one number identity to share with people.

Using the app installed you can dial directly from your phone's contacts, speed dial, call log or keypad, and GVdialer will automatically connect the call using Google Voice.

Even cooler you have Google Voice feature access including instant access to Google Voice's voice mail, Inbox, and GOOG-411.

As seen in the iPhone application, GVdialer lets you configure when GV would be used, i.e.





Skype Founders Bid to Retake Skype from eBay

April 10, 2009

Well well well. It appears the legal fight between Joltid and Skype that I reported several days ago has deeper ramifications than I first thought. The NY Times is reporting that Skype's founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, are in talks with several private equity firms and along with their own financial resources, plan to make a bid to buy back Skype.

eBay has been shopping around Skype for the "right" price. Niklas, who founded Joltid along with Mr. Friss have an ace up their sleeve, namely certain licensing rights to the peer-to-peer technology used in Skype.

As I wrote nine days ago, there are serious implications over the Joltid lawsuit against eBay/Skype and I 'hinted' at Skype's potential demise:

Skype's technology roots are in Kazaa, the P2P file-sharing network.




KIRK 2010 <strike>WiFi</strike> DECT VoIP phone

April 9, 2009

The KIRK 2010 WiFi DECT VoIP handset launched today. This is the latest edition to the Polycom KIRK Series. I wonder if Captain Kirk is aware that Polycom is trying to copy his copyrighted 'communicator'?

Then again, Kirk's communicator didn't have a numeric keypad. Just turn the dial and instantly talk to the Star Trek Enterprise's bridge (hundreds of miles away) with seemingly no latency either.

IPEVO S0-10W Skype Desktop Phone

April 7, 2009

IPEVO's S0-10W Skype Desktop Phone is a pretty neat Skype phone, that unlike most Skype phones, was designed for your desk, not to carry around. That includes the IPEVO Wi-Fi Skype phone, I recently reviewed. While the IPEVO Wi-Fi Skype phone was designed to be portable and carry around, Skype phones like these are small which means a very small speakerphone (or none at all), resulting in limited or no hands-free speakerphone capabilities. The IPEVO S0-10W Skype Desktop Phone solves that problem.

Rather than sporting an Ethernet connection, however, it uses a built-in Wi-Fi adapter, so you could carry this around the house / business if you wanted to (still needs power, so would have to plug it back in).

Tweefind a new rank-based twitter search

April 6, 2009

Fellow VoIP blogger Luca has launched a new endeavor called Tweefind, which is a rank-based twitter search engine rather than a simply timeline search on keywords.

Luca explains:

How is the Tweerank calculated? Behind the scenes there is a sophisticated algorithm which analyzes how users use Twitter and calculates their rank accordingly. The rank is obtained taking into account a certain number of different parameters in a certain timeframe:

  • # followers
  • # following
  • # of tweets
  • # of RT he/she receives
  • # of replies
  • # of distinct users who reply
  • # of distinct users who retweet
  • # of RT he/she makes
  • # of links the user shares
  • much more...

Luca explains that a twitter user's ranking can change daily, depending on how much they use twitter, and other variables. It's an interesting model.


OCS 2007 R2 PIC problem with AOL Fixed

April 3, 2009

Skype for iPhone Passes 1 Million Downloads!

April 2, 2009

According to Skype, "In less than two days, Skype for iPhone has been downloaded more than one million times - around six downloads every second. This is a phenomenal performance, and we're confident that it's one of the fastest-downloaded iPhone apps ever. We'll be back next week with an update, but for now, Skype on "

That's pretty damn fast. Now imagine if AT&T allowed Skype over 3G on un-jailbreaked iPhones? That number might be double or triple.

Skype in Legal Fight with Joltid over P2P technology

April 2, 2009

Skype and Joltid Limited are in a legal dispute over Skype's licensing of Jolitid's P2P communication technology. This is news to me, since I thought Skype invented the P2P technology used in Skype. Skype's technology roots are in Kazaa, the P2P file-sharing network. Both Skype and Kazaa were co-founded by Niklas Zennstrom.

What Skype & Rich Tehrani Do in Vegas Stays in Vegas

April 2, 2009

I won't comment on Rich taking pictures of scantily clad women unawares. In fact, I won't comment at all. I'll just steal Rich's pictures of the Skype CTIA event party in Las Vegas. The glass pool table with the Skype logo looks pretty cool, as does the giant mockup of an Apple iPhone.

AsteriskNOW 1.5.0 Released

April 1, 2009

How to Use Skype over 3G on iPhone

April 1, 2009

If you are looking to use Skype over 3G, look no further. I found several good tutorials online, but many of them were incomplete, so figured I'd write my own tutorial. As you probably know, Skype by default requires WiFi in order to make calls, but we're going to fix that so you can have some nice Skype over 3G action!

First, you will need to jailbreak your phone.

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