VCM (Very Cool Mom) Mother’s Day Report. Spent a wonderful day with the family including watching Manchester United vs. West Ham at 7 am followed by French Toast and watermelon served by Monsieurs Tremblay and Tremblay. Rest of day spent gardening, went for a jog, then dinner with my VCM and Dad. Of course, the conversation eventually turned to the Nokia Blogger Relations Program. (The wha???) My VCM still concerned (as always) that I may be doing something illegal. Much reassuring followed. Was able to demonstrate Nokia N800 Internet Tablet to Dad. Look! No wires! Using the N800, he was able to find his university Masters thesis online. Definite thumbs up from Dad.

 

While I can appreciate Tom Keating’s wholehearted enthusiasm for the rash of gadget deals that abound today, Black Friday and all, I do pause ever so slightly when I remember that isn’t this time supposed to be well, Thanksgiving, as in the Giving of Thanks?

I’m hardly the first person to point out that giving thanks with the right hand hand whilst brandishing our credit cards with the left seems a little crazy. In Canada, many of us watch American news stations showing the 5 am line-ups, door crashing mayhem, and fist fighting moms. But we’re no better. The traditional Boxing Day Sale, the day after the biggest “giving” day of the year, is when Canadians lose their heads.

Who started this anyway? Okay, enough sour grapes.

In Canada that is. We just had our Thanksgiving weekend and thus begins a week of hot turkey sandwiches and leftover root vegetables. Needless to say, I’ve haven’t been blogging, I’ve been eating. 

Although fellow Canadian Alec Saunders sighs about not being able to blog from the dinner table on Sunday because of a Blackberry problem (for heaven’s sake, put that thing away and pass the pumpkin pie), I’m reminded that Turkey Day or no, the VoIP world marches bravely on.

What caught my eye? Reviews of Sony Mylo and the AMD Live Communicator powered by SightSpeed. In my world, I’m anxiously awaiting the arrival of my PhoneGnome.

If you saw Andy’s tip for bad hair days, here’s a little additional info for the gals. Check out my video blog post: girl tips for video blogging on bad hair days.

We just had our first winter storm blow through. The result was twenty-seven hours of no power. After the first two hours my son proclaimed the most boring day of his life (no computer, no Nintendo). In the midst of trying almost every home VOIP solution under the sun, I’ve still hung onto my landline. Good thing too. Even my cell phone battery died. Of course, my PhoneGnome didn’t mind. Without power or Internet connection, landline calls worked just fine thanks.

Hi and welcome to my blog about VOIP, voice over IP, Internet phone, broadband telephone, or whatever you feel inclined to call it. This is NOT a blog about women, or even necessarily about women who use VOIP services–I mean how boring is that. I called it The VOIP Girl because well I’m a gal. And I want to write about this voice over ip. That’s about it. What really prompted me to get going however, is the fact that there are few women commentators on this subject. I’m curious to see if my perspective will be any different.

I want to write about how consumers (that’s you and me) are doing using VOIP.  I don’t necessarily care about IPOs, who’s buying who, and all that insider industry stuff. There are tons of blogs out there talking about all that. In fact I would say that is mostly what you’ll find when you look for VOIP commentary in the blogosphere. It’s great stuff, but really I’m interested in how ordinary folks are using Vonage, Skype, Gizmo, etc., and how is the free stuff stacking up against heavy hitter paid services.

Thanks for stopping by.

Leanne Tremblay
VOIPGirl

Hi and welcome to my blog about VOIP, voice over IP, Internet phone, broadband telephone, or whatever you feel inclined to call it. This is NOT a blog about women, or even necessarily about women who use VOIP services–I mean how boring is that. I called it The VOIP Girl because well I’m a gal. And I want to write about this industry. That’s about it. What really prompted me to get going however, is the fact that there are no women commentators on this subject. I’m curious to see if my perspective will be any different.

I want to write about how consumers (that’s you and me) are doing using VOIP.  I don’t necessarily care about IPOs, who’s buying who, and all that insider industry stuff. There are tons of blogs out there talking about all that. In fact I would say that is mostly what you’ll find when you look for VOIP commentary in the blogosphere. It’s great stuff, but really I’m interested in how ordinary folks are using Vonage, Skype, Gizmo, etc., and how is the free stuff stacking up against heavy hitter paid services.

I’ve been fiddling for the last few days with my Nokia N80i. I know I should be homing in on the on-board mobile VOIP capabilities, but I’m too distracted by all the other things this device can do. You have to understand that I’m a basic cell phone person. I’ve never held too much with phones that try to manage your life. I use my mobile to make calls. That’s pretty much it. (C’mon Leanne, get with the program here). So now that I’ve tried the N80i, I realize how boring I’ve been all this time. 

So far, I’m delightfully dazzled by the camera, the video recorder and the music player. These three things I never thought would have interested me and now I can see using them daily…oh yeah, and making calls…that’s four things.

However, I had a few bumps installing the software (GizmoVoIP), for Internet calling, and the phone drivers on my laptop. Tell ya about that later.

One of the things I try to do on this blog is try things–new consumer VOIP products, downloads, etc. You can get commentary on industry news like who’s buying who, or who just closed shop, in places like GigaOm.

Admittedly, I don’t get to try a lot of hardware, just software mostly, but if you’re looking for that kind of thing, VOIP and Gadgets or Smith on VOIP are good bets.

But this week Andy Abramson, in Living with Softphones, posted a neat-and-tidy roundup of some VOIP tools he’s been using, and I like it because he lists only what he’s used (or experimented with), and explains how he uses them. I think this kind of post is really useful. Don’t you really wanna know just how you’re supposed to use all this stuff in the real world? I know I do. Thanks A. Alec Saunders also posts quite often on VOIP adventures with his Blackberry, and Phoneboy writes about handsets he’s using (because all other hardware is just too boring). Check them both out too.

For my part, I use on a regular basis:

Skype: for chat and calls to Skype buddies
Gizmo: for general softphone calling
PhoneGnome: for long distance calling to reg phones
SightSpeed: for video calls
GrandCentral: for simplifying inbound calling. I’m using it to funnel calls through my Gizmo account.
Fring: for mobile calls to Skype buddies (still experimenting mostly)

Since I cancelled Vonage in August, I haven’t signed on with another subscriber service. However, I’ll be trying one soon.

By now the VOIP world knows of Truphone’s victory in court over mobile giant T-Mobile. Yesterday, UK Truphone won an injunction against T-Mobile blocking calls to Truphone users: For the last month, anyone calling a Truphone number on T-Mobile network would hear a "Number not in service" message. By Monday, July 23, T-Mobile has been instructed to start routing these calls.

There’s plenty of cheering on the Truphone website, http://truphone.blogspot.com/2007/07/truphone-wins-court-injunction-against.html but I have yet to find T-Mobile’s official or unofficial response. I couldn’t find anything on their website. In the spirit of gathering the whole picture, let me know if you find a company statement or interview anywhere.