So where have I been? Somewhere between snowball fights, Christmas shopping, and my other job I missed the fact that there’s another VOIPGirl in town. But thanks to some blogger friends, I’m up to speed.

Did you ever play nicky-nicky-nine-door as a kid? You know, like run up and ring a doorbell and then take off, hide behind a bush, and wait for something to happen? Kind of like Andy Abramson, Phoneyboy and Ted Wallingford. Ding, Dong VOIPGirl!

But hey, that’s all right. I think the more of us (gals) there are writing about this geeky stuff (VOIP), the better off you (guys) are. Why, between Carolyn Schuk over at Voxilla, Cate O’Malley and myself (and I consider myself honored to be in such company), we’re kind of like the women of web dialing, a trio of VOIP trialers, the chicks of click-to-call, the ladies of lose-your-landline …Well you get the idea.

So welcome Cate. The posts are flying over there at VOIP News so check her out!

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.

Vonage users can now receive local traffic reports from their Vonage phone by dialing 511. The coverage is something like 30 511 systems in 26 states. Vonage now also provides local weather the same way. Dial 700-WEATHER and then enter a 5-digit zip code. Kind of cool. Andy Abramson has some thoughts on it, and Don Rosenbaum of FierceVOIP suggests that Vonage may be casting an eye towards a future mobile Vonage customer “People tend to need traffic and weather information when they’re in their cars; unless there’s a hotspot or mobile data connection” Hmmm.

Dan Rosenbaum of FierceVOIP has posted his choices for best of breed for 2006, the “Fierce 15″. He casts a wide net, including infrastructure, enterprise and consumer VOIP solutions in his list. A few companies I recognize, many I don’t. Folks with important end-user applications or services of note include: iotum, Jajah, GrandCentral, SunRocket, SIPPhone (GizmoProject). To be considered “fierce”, he says companies have to explain themselves and their products clearly, without geekspeak. In many cases it was difficult looking past the sizzle to find the meat. I couldn’t agree more. Have a read. Agree or disagree!

This caught my eye today. AvantiMobile in the UK is marketing something called Least Cost Routing for mobile phones. When you make a call, the Avantimobile application in your phone checks to see if it can be routed cheaply through their VOIP network. If it can’t, the call goes through the regular cell network. You don’t have to do a thing except dial. It sounds simple and I like that.

Trying to absorb all my choices when it comes to new VOIP handsets, services and applications makes me feel like I need a flow chart just to make a call. Just look at Andy’s list of what he uses day to day!

Yes, I just bought a new headset. So when I read about Jajah’s new No Headset movement, I thought, ‘forget it Leanne, you can’t win’. They even have a web site:  http://www.noheadset.com. You can check out flicks of people trashing their headsets. (I’m not going to slapshot my shiny new $100 headset thanks.)

However, my take on this campaign can be summarized by their new tag line "If You Liked Skype, You’ll Love JAJAH". It’s a way to put themselves in the same league as Skype but also to differentiate in a way that says we do what Skype does and we do it better. Unlike Skype, JAJAH lets you make internet calls using your regular desktop phone, which is great. But, don’t some people choose headsets because they want to be "handsfree"? If that’s the case, blowing up your headset would be BAD. Whatever.

I’ve had my Nokia N95 for a few weeks now and my husband and I have been fighting over it. I don’t consider myself a picky person, so I was surprised that some small external differences on the handset from the N80i made such a huge difference. I like this phone better. It’s thinner, has a comfortable feel in the hand, and the button ergonomics work better. On the N80 I frequently make mistakes using the center scroll/selection button. Not the case on the N95. Other reveiws of this phone also point to the larger screen. First, I thought, “come on, it’s a screen on a PHONE. A few pixels either way isn’t going to make a difference”. Well, wrong again.

  N80i (left), N95 (right)

  N95 (left), N80i (right)

As for what’s going on inside the N95, a big improvement from my point of view is the ease of setting up a Wi-Fi connection. It took me just a few minutes this time to get connected through my home network.

That’s it for my initial thoughts, more later on calling with GizmoProject and EQO. But if you need more, check out this podcast with three Nokia reviewers here.

 

 

On Wednesday Jangl announced a new service called “Call Anyone” that allows you to get a phone number for someone just by entering their email address. With “Call Anyone” you enter someone’s email address on Jangl’s homepage www.jangl.com.  You are then given a local phone number to call them (even if they’re long distance, you get a number local to you).  During the first call, you leave a voicemail, which Jangl then delivers via email.  Once they receive that message, the person gets instructions to get a number – local to them – to call you back.  This service still keeps your personal number safe, enables text messaging via SMS and the easy exchange of voicemails, too. 

The service is free but the calls are placed and received on “real” phones so you pay the appropriate carrier or mobile airtime  fees.

I tried it and it seems to work just fine.  The email that Jangl sends to notify the person you’re calling looks a bit suspicious so I suggest customizing the subject and text of the message (you can do this in the first screen before sending).  Embedded in the email is a link to listen to the message. Once the person listens to the message, they can click another link to get the private number for calling you back.

I also noticed that Jangl updated their look and feel and it works much better for me. The control panel doesn’t seem as confusing as it was before. I have a problem displaying the Flash widgets however. They don’t appear in the preview area. 

I found this post on the blog over at Voip.com about SoliCall. It’s software that works with popular VOIP applications to block out distracting background noise when you’re on a call. Just think, you don’t have to lock yourself in the bathroom when you’re on the phone with a client (I’ve done this…). When kids know you’re on the phone, they affectionately launch into what Voip.com calls making “As Much Noise As Possible” (AMNAP). I think it’s part of their genetic programming.

I’ve downloaded Solicall but haven’t done the VOIPGirl test drive yet. If anyone else has, please let me know what you think.

I recently mentioned Jangl in Battle of the Js. On first look, I wasn’t overly enthused–the home page promise didn’t mesh with the user interface/support once logged in. But since then I’ve had chance to talk with the folks at Jangl to learn more about their service. They agree the user experience is something they need to improve, and are working hard to get there as we speak.

Jangl’s Tim Johnson was able to walked me through all this, so now I get it. However, he knows you can’t personally explain the concept and use to everyone. Improving the overall package to make the service clear and easy to use is part of Jangl’s planned enhancements over the next month and a half, starting with the announcement last week of a new Jangl widget for Tagged, a social networking site. Today, Jangl announced a new TypePad widget which will give TypePad bloggers and their readers anonymous phone numbers for talking, texting and exchanging voicemail on their mobile phones.

Here’s what I learned about Jangl:

It is all about connecting two people without sharing phone numbers. The two people can be bloggers, social networking junkies, or they can be “off Net” contacts.  Why would you want to keep your phone number private? Well, let’s say you’re selling something on Ebay or Craigslist you don’t want to share a personal phone number. Or you have a personal profile on a social networking site and you want to connect with your fans without sharing a personal number. Or how about you are using an online dating site like Match.com and want to keep your contact number private.

There are two ways people can get an exclusive number for you. As a Jangl user, you can give out your Jangl ID or you can post a Jangl widget on a website or email. If you give your Jangl ID out at a party, for example, the person goes to Jangl.com and follows the instructions to generate a number for you. If someone clicks your Jangl widget online, the widget generates the number. Either way, people can call you on a regular landline or cell phone. You answer the call on whichever phone is attached to your Jangl account. It could be a mobile phone or an office phone, for example. You can choose to answer based on the caller’s introduction, or you can send the call to your existing voicemail system.

Because Jangl relies on the use a regular phone to make the actual calls, not a computer platform, you can receive calls from fellow bloggers visiting your Typepad site while out and about on your mobile phone. YOU don’t have to be sitting at your computer. And once the other party has generated a number for you AND specified their mobile as the phone they’ll be calling from, then they can call you from anywhere as well. That’s a pretty cool way to take your online profile with you.

The only required online part of the process is generating the phone number. Once that’s done, the computer is completely out of the picture. You can maintain a list of Jangl contacts online in your account, but that’s up to you.

Who pays? To get a Jangl ID and create an online widget of your own is free, but because the calls you make and receive are on regular mobile phone or landline networks, you pay the appropriate fees to the service provider.

Hope this helps!