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.

 

 

Luca Filigheddu just posted some interesting comments on testing the N95 the last few months. It reminded me to add a comment of my own.  The cord for the ear buds is two short when the handset is carried at the waist. You’ve got to bend over or tilt your head sideways (looks dorky). The ear piece jack is not a standard size (3.5 mm instead of 2.5 mm) so you may have to hunt around to find something else with a longer cord and mic.

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.

This week thevoipgirl.com went down in flames for the first time. I think it was out for a couple of days after I upgraded my WordPress template and then managed to hose my site. After the initial shock, depression set in since I have absolutely NO idea how PHP works. Thankfully the WP template I’m using is superbly supported by its creator and other code wizards. It turned out to be something wonky with the permissions in my index.php and nothing to do with upgrading (greek to me). So, the reason for this post, in a nutshell, is to recommend this highly customizable and well supported template. Check out Semiologic Pro by Denis de Bernardy. Cheers!

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.

I’m not offering up answers here, I’m asking! 

I’ve been rereading the May 9th press release from Jajah announcing their investment funding from Intel. No doubt this is a huge affirmation for the Mountainview CA/Luxembourg company. About a year ago, I remember messing around with their beta and the free five-minute call anywhere deal. But now I need help drilling through the finance-speak to get to what Intel really means for Jajah current and future customers.

Jajah will now have “access to [Intel’s] extensive community of product dealers, OEM customers and developers, to further their reach into global development communities. As an Intel Capital portfolio company, Jajah will also be able to participate in Intel Capital’s IP Access Program, which will give Jajah access to Intel’s extensive VoIP patent portfolio.” And Trevor Healy, Jajah CEO says “JAJAH can be embedded into Intel solutions”.

So, what will embedded Jajah do for me as a consumer? In the future, will I be buying a laptop powered by Intel with Jajah on board?

Let me know your thoughts please!

(BTW, does anyone else have trouble typing “Jajah”, or is it just me? I get jajaj, Jahjaj…)

On Monday, Gizmo Project intro’d Gizmo Call, a super easy way to make calls from your browser. They say no traditional software download and installation is required, but you do have to install a Flash plugin (that’s kind of software isn’t it?) But, to get people using it, they’re offering five FREE minutes of calling anywhere. If you register with Gizmo, you get 10 minutes free. After your 10 minutes are up, you switch over to CallOut credits (roughly 2 cents/minute within North America). Pretty darn cheap.

See these other reviews from:

Andy Abramson, VoipWatch

Garrett Smith, Smith on VOIP

GigaOm, Om Malik

Luca Filigheddu

Russell Shaw

Here’s some other tips I dug up about using GizmoCall.

- If you are calling another Gizmo user, which is technically a free call anyway, the “timer” will count down and the reset itself to the original value after the call so you won’t be using free minutes for free calls.

- Two-number Caller ID costs $4 per year. Once you’ve paid for this service, make sure you are still logged in and click the Caller ID tab. The page should reload after a few seconds to show the Mobile and Home fields. Enter the numbers (either one or both) you want to use for caller ID.

- To have a call history, you must register with GizmoCall. Registration is free and you receive 10 minutes free when logged in (only 5 minutes when not logged in).

More info about Gizmo Call can be found here.

 

Initially, I thought that the online support systems for VOIP softphones Skype and Gizmo Project were pretty decent. Using them to answer burning questions is another matter. 

Online Help belongs with the application. When I click Help > Online Help, please DON’T send me to the Knowledge Base or FAQs. Please DON’T open up another browser window and make me wait while the generic Help home page appears. Please DON’T make me use the Search feature. High level user guides or getting started tutorials are great, but make sure they’ve got some meat in them.

A Knowledge Base gives you little gulps of info with no breadcrumb trail to follow and no sense of context. To really aid and educate users, build Help right into the interface. Take the time to explain fields and buttons before I use them. To provide more information, use a fly-out Help pane (part of the interface that’s only visible when needed) and pull the content from an online server.

I want online Help that is specific to what I’m looking at on the screen. I want to browse Help by drilling down to the level of detail I need without losing my place in the story.

The End.

Okay, I like Skype. While I set up my account ages ago without any problems, I decided to use Vonage as a work line because I wanted a “regular” phone. Well, now that Vonage is behind me, I’m using Skype more.

Initially, I didn’t want to like Skype because like Vonage, it has become a category unto itself. What I mean is, people can now say that they are using free Internet phone software that works (or doesn’t work) ”like Skype” and you know what they’re talking about. The same can be said for phone service that is ”like Vonage”.

And because Vonage didn’t work out for me, I tried hard not to be sold on Skype Hype.

Well I have to say that so far, Skype works perfectly for a computer-bound person like me, and here’s why: 

• I am self-employed. I work out of my home office, I spend most of my time at my desk, and my laptop is always on.
• The Skype window is big enough to see what you’re doing, including the task icons along the top. Bigger is better especially when you are learning a new piece of software, or if you’re not a computer wiz.
• Adding contacts (one click) and importing contacts from your email address book (about three clicks) is easy and intuitive. Someone with limited computer experience can do it.
• Dialing by double-clicking the contact name is what saves me time. Of course this isn’t unique to Skype (all softphones, or computer phones do this). As a new user though, I made a few calls by accident because I double-clicked when I didn’t mean to. A single click expands the contact info so you can see the details. Another single click collapses the details. A few times I was too quick on the mouse.
• Until the end of the year you can make FREE calls within North America to any regular phone. This means you can really test drive Skype in all kinds of calling scenarios–long distance, local calls, conference calls. Make the most of the freebie and put Skype through its paces.
• If your contact permits it, Skype shows you that person’s timezone and a mood message. For example, “I’m here but in and out of meetings all day”.
• Skype online help information is approachable, fully searchable, and tailored to all levels of user.  If you are a rank beginner the Skype User Guides or Troubleshooter are the places to visit. For all my questions, I’ve been successfull using the Knowledgebase.

Of course, devoted Skype users know there are tons more features and wiz-bang stuff that Skype can do. But I think that unless you’re happy with the basics, the rest of it won’t matter. You just won’t use the product. 

In the next few weeks, I’ll be comparing how I like using Skype versus another popular softphone, Gizmo Project. Should be interesting.