Joy of Gadgets

As I was reminded by Rob Wolpov, the CEO of Junction Networks when I chatted with him on Wednesday, the last time I wrote about them, I referred to the press release pairing their OnSIP hosted PBX service and the Fring VoIP client for mobile phones as a “publicity stunt.” I didn’t quite say that, but I wasn’t generally high on the pairing, only because it seemed a bit like a “no duh” to me. I did say it was a good PR move, though.

While Junction Networks provides PBX services using that “new fangled” VoIP technology, they are very “old school voice” when it comes to IP phones–they don’t care what you use so long as it is compatible with the service. Ok, restrictions on handsets are as old as the Bell System, but it’s “old school” for anyone who has had a landline anytime in the past two or three decades.

Meanwhile, as a result of selling their IP-based PBX service to smaller businesses–the 3 to 50 seat crowd–they have had to come up with handset recommendations for potential customers. There are hundreds of IP Phones, analog telephone adapters, and even software phones to choose from. How does the relative VoIP handset newbie choose?

Junction Networks has the answer: OnSIP Team Reviews. They review handsets based on a number of criteria–including compatibility with their own service–and post them for all to see. Currently, they have only 3 handsets reviewed on the site, but the plan is to write up the results of some of their other testing to give you a balanced opinion. The site will also include analog telephone adapters and VoIP client software.

Unlike, say, a company that sells IP phones, Junction Networks isn’t selling phones. The only interest they have is ensuring you choose the method of accessing their service that works best for you. The exceedingly clever part, though, is that while they are giving away free information that essentially anyone can use–even non-customers–they are getting free advertising and a lot of community goodwill. Having built a fairly successful career on that relatively simple concept, I have to say it’s a win-win-win for everyone.

Michael Graves also talked with Rob Wolpov and posted his take on this announcement.

While I admit I like the idea of a more capable Apple iPod Touch (with a built-in mic and camera), and I agree that it will be a great mobile multimedia device, I disagree with Andy Abramson’s assertion that it will be big for VoIP.

One of the use cases Andy mentions that he think will be huge is “Pre-teens who need a phone but can’t afford a contract.” First of all, the iPod Touch is quite a pricey device for most teens, whereas your typical prepaid phone is a lot cheaper. Sure, some teens will get an iPod Touch, but unless the price goes down, not as many as Andy thinks.

Once you get past the price issue, the second, more important piece of functionality is missing from the iPod Touch: SMS. This is the killer app for teens. I know, I had one staying with me for 10 days. I know there are probably services that make that happen, and with Apple’s Push Notification Sevices, realtime SMS on an iPod Touch is doable.

Even if such a service exists, how will the teens find out? Word of mouth, I suppose. Even so, most of these services require credit cards for payments, making them non-starters again for teens.

Now, I do agree that an iPod Touch with an integrated microphone would make a compelling VoIP device. The reason I don’t think it will be big? The lack of background applications. In order to make and receive calls, you have to leave an application running in the foreground. That might work for making calls–which I could see some business travelers using–but for receiving calls? A non-starter from my point of view.

It’s that time again:

FreeConferencing.com Launches: Until they do something to equalize inter-carrier compensation between most civilized parts of the United States and rural locations, services like FreeConferenceCall.com and now FreeConferencing.com will continue to exist and be profitable. By hosting these services in, say, rural Iowa, they actually make a small amount of money per minute on incoming calls. Anyway, FreeConferencing.com is a way to do a one-to-many call, complete with a web-based console to manage the call.

Vonage Trying To Act Like Mobile Phone Carriers: Vonage, the VoIP landline replacement service provider that refuses to die, is now offering a deal where you can sign up and not pay for equipment, shipping, or activation. The catch? You have to sign a two year agreement complete with early termination fees that are, according to my calculations, worse than a mobile phone contract.

iPopperz Fashion Earphones: Personally not my thing, but these are relatively inexpensive, in-ear haedphones with a number of styles, colors, and whatnot. I would consider buying the black, green, and black pair. One cool thing: they sell replacement earpads. Granted, there is a huge amount of markup there, but it’s the first time I’ve seen them available.

Bad Experience on DeFi Mobile: I briefly wrote about DeFi Mobile in October. Wasn’t sure how well the service was going to be when it went live, but someone forwarded me some correspondence to and from the company related to their experience. In short: it was bad voice quality and improper CallerID. Anyone have a good experience with DeFi Mobile?

Qwest Offering Free WiFi Nationwide: If you happen to live in an area where Qwest is your local exchange carrier and you get high speed Internet from them, now you can take it with you–sort of. Qwest has signed a deal with AT&T to provide Qwest customers free WiFi at 17,000 AT&T operated WiFi hotspots. Personally, I think it’s worth $9.95 a month for Boingo, which offers WiFi at AT&T locations and a whole bunch more!

Pat Phelan and others gotta be thinking about this: how to pair up their global SIM with the iPhone without, say, encouraging people to unlock their handset or using SIM hacking tools. My answer: become an authorized “carrier” partner with Apple. Sell the iPhone with your SIM. Make it easy for people to go iPhone and not be ripped off for global roaming.

My guess is that the price would have to be unsubsidized, since there’s no proper monthly fee charged by these service providers. You might also consider disabling GPRS data by default since many of these “global SIMs” don’t offer data, or don’t do it at an affordable enough rate to use for anything more than a small amount of data.

Or do one better. Does Apple allow you to use, say, an iPhone you bought through AT&T with an O2 SIM? O2 is Apple’s carrier partner in the UK? If it does, then provided Apple “authorizes” the MaxRoam (or other global) SIM for use in the Apple iPhone, they don’t even need to sell the phone!

Of course, this will probably never happen. But it’s a nice idea.

I feel like I wrote too many posts this week. I did a fair amount of cross-posting this week, which ends up being good for my pocketbook. However, I feel pretty spent. I just want to curl up and watch South Park. Especially this episode about Over Logging (On).

Here’s what I got out this week:

• Flashphone: If You Can See A Web Page, You Can Use It (From voip.com/blog)
• Thomson’s Symbio Cordless DECT VoIP Phone (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Truphone SIM Cards Coming Soon (From The VoIP Weblog, The Wireless Weblog, and The Mobile Technology Weblog)
• Listening In? Give Me A Break! (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Symbio DECT Cordless VoIP Phone By Thomson (From voip.com/blog)
• audioengine AW1 Wireless Adapter (From The Wired Home Weblog, Tech Without Wires)
• Why Do FM Transmitters Suck? (From Digital Music, Tech Without Wires, and The Gadgets Weblog)
• VoIP Deices Are Not Fun To Configure (From voip.com/blog)
• Ooma’s Still Alive. So? (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Apple ][gs Turned Laptop (From The Republic Of Geektronica)
• Fring Now Native on iPhone (From The VoIP Weblog, The Mobile Technology Weblog, and The Wireless Weblog)
• Distributing VoIP Throughout Your Home, Part 1 (From voip.com/blog)
• Distributing VoIP Throughout Your Home, Part 2 (From voip.com/blog)
• Trixbox Goes 2.0, Gets More Hands Off (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Distributing VoIP Throughout Your Home, Part 3 (From voip.com/blog)
• What Is A Phone, Anyway? (From voip.com/blog)
• Black and Decker Pocket Power (From The Gadgets Weblog)

Well, so much for this list being shorter. That happens when you see topical gadgets and good cross-promotion opportunities.

Aside from The Mobile Technology Weblog being new to my weekly roundup, there’s also one new blog on the list this week I hadn’t talked about previously: Businesspundit. Creative Weblogging asked me to do a few posts over there over the next several weeks to promote some of the business blogs in CW’s network. I’m not used to writing about business per-se, so it’s going to be a challenge, albeit temporary.

With all my blathering out of the way, here’s this week’s list of posts I made in the blogosphere:

• JetBlue Bringing (Extremely Limited) WiFi To The Skies (From The Mobile Technology Weblog)
• ZINK Digital Camera Printer (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Jajah Direct Had Nothing To Do With Jangl (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Give The Gift Of Free Calling With MOBIVOX (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Skype Co-Brands VoSKY Exchange For Businesses Worldwide (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Nokia 6708: Not So Great (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Wireless USB Display Adapter (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• iPod Touch and iPhone Hacked With A SIP Stack (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Skype PRO Now Available in US/Canada (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Abbeynet’s Mozilla VoIP Extension: Open To Anything (From The VoIP Weblog)
• A Wireless Christmas Tree (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Picasa Web Albums Now iPhone Optimized (From The Mobile Technology Weblog)
• MAXroam On High Streets in UK and Ireland (From The VoIP Weblog)
• SpinVox: Speech To Text For Your Mobile (From The Mobile Technology Weblog)
• Bootstrapping Your Business Is Better (From Businesspundit)
• Legitimate Companies Contributing To The Spam Problem (From I Got Spam?!)
• Space Invaders Door Mat (From The Gadgets Weblog)

We had a bit of snowfall here in the Seattle area on Saturday. It made getting around a little bit entertaining. My son decided to scrape what little snow he could up and made a tiny little snowman, which you can see at the right.

So without further ado, here’s some posts I penned in the past week:

• Squishy Breast Stress Release Toy (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Cook Anywhere, Anytime! (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• fringME! Gives A Whole New Meaning To Find Me (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Black And Decker VPX Starter Kit Review (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• VoIP Can Be Sniffed? Get Real! (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Inflatable Solar Making Solar Affordable (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Jangl Now Supports SMS (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Technicolor–In A Lightbulb (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Skype High Quality Video Testing (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Onion And Gatorage Charging An iPod Debunked (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Cubic Telecom and Global Roaming Join Forces (From The VoIP Weblog)
• A Church Key That Stores Data (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• A Dryer That Irons Your Clothes (From The Gadgets Weblog)

Man, oh man, I wrote a lot of stuff this week. Let’s get straight on with it:

• Charge Your iPod With An Onion And Gatorage (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Use Your Nokia N95 As A Lightsaber (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Defensio Launches Comment Spam Filtering Service (From I Got Spam?!)
• Skype 2.0 For Linux Adds Video (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Plastic As Strong As Steel? (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• MAXroam Offering Free Inbound Numbers In More Places (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Feel Getting Pwned By A n00b (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Ways To Deal With Email Spam (From I Got Spam?!)
• Skype For Linux and iSight Camera Is No Go (From The VoIP Weblog)
• 20 Gigabyte Wireless? (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Numbr Expanding Their Service? (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Jangl and JAJAH Bringing Voice 2.0 To The Masses (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Windup Phone Charger Doesn’t Work (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Phishing Without Clicking? (From I Got Spam?!)
• Cubic Mobile, a.k.a. Pirelli DP-L10 (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Yak4Ever No Longer Yakking (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Want A Solio For 20% Off? (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Cubic Mobile, a.k.a. Pirelli DP-L10 (From The Gadgets Weblog) — yes, I did the post both places
• Juketower: Singing In The Shower Goes High-Tech (From The Gadgets Weblog)

This was one of those weeks were I felt “needed”–a lot. It made for a stressful week. Ended the work week on a high note, though, which is always a bonus.

Meanwhile, here’s this week’s rundown of what I’ve written:

• Receiver Initiated Authentication: The Holy Grail Of Spam Filtering? (From I got Spam?!)
• Charge a USB Device By Breathing (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Skype Improved Video Quality–But Only With Logitech Cameras (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Environmentally Friendly Gadgets May Be Less Reliable (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Keyboarding Not Responsible For Carpal Tunnel (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• High Quality Skype Video On The Mac? (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Digital Smoking Won’t Solve The Problem (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Skype Not Always Effective In Hotel Rooms (From The VoIP Weblog)
• How Big Was That Last Earthquake? (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• MaxRoam Has Competition: United Mobile (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Not Your Typical Cup-O-Noodles (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Do Carriers Need UMA? (From The VoIP Weblog)
• VoIPSupply Launches IPCameraSupply.com (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Wearing Fuses Around Your Neck (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Clever Drawer For Your Wall (From The Gadgets Weblog)

The folks at Creative Weblogging–the people behind Gadgets Weblog, VoIP Weblog, and a slew of others, were serving up a “compromised” creative–a ad with malicious intent. In short, what it was doing was redirecting people to a site that, if you were running Internet Explorer and had scripting turned on, would install malware on your box. I announced it on both my CW blogs here and here.

Fortunately for me, I usually browse with Firefox and the NoScript extension–on my Mac. Needless to say it didn’t do anything to my machine when I ran across it. I personally recommend browsing the Internet with that combination. Or, if you’re stuck on using IE, disable active scripting.

Anyway, with the help of the various editors at CW, the malicious ad was tracked down and removed from the CW network. There was much rejoicing.

Meanwhile, you can safely look at the following articles I wrote this past week:

• Airports Charging For Power (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Skype 1.4 For Linux Now Available (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Alaska Airlines To Bring WiFi To Planes (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Cubic Telecom’s CEO Admits To Errors (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Sushi-Rolling Machine (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Jangl Partners With Fubar (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Universal Power Adapter (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Mobivox Gets 11 Million In Series A Funding (From The VoIP Weblog)
• Vringo Wins MIPCON’s Mobile TV & Internet Award (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• Connecting The Islands Of VoIP (From The VoIP Weblog)
• White LED Lights Coming! (From The Gadgets Weblog)
• T-Mobile Being Sued For Locking Mobile Handsets (From The Gadgets Weblog)