I was just thinking about Hictu the other day and I went to have a look at it again. Next thing you know, Luca tells me that they’ve released a new version. Read more here.

I haven’t been using Hictu. There’s been just so many new tools to try. And that’s exactly the issue. In a nutshell, Hictu allows you to see the online presence of contacts on Skype, Gizmo, Abbeyphone, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN, Sitophono, GTalk, AIM, Jabber. They call it a presence dashboard.

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 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!

Gizmo Project announced today an new update to their popular softphone. Read reviews by Om Malik, Luca, and Tom Keating. The biggest addition is the ability to now call Windows Live and Yahoo Messenger contacts in addition to Google Talk, Jabber and other Gizmo users.

Today, if you’re already a Gizmo Project user you get the download and install the new version from the web site, click here. Sometime tomorrow or Thursday, the Gizmo folks will add an automatic install feature that prompts you to install the new version the next time Gizmo starts up. I like that.

As for using it, I’ve made a few test calls to Windows Live Messenger. Just enter the MSN ID in the  call field, pretty easy. However the only way I can see to save a MSN or Yahoo contact to the contact list, is to select GoogleTalk in the Contact Type box. I don’t know if this is the intended use but….users don’t always do what they’re supposed to do…

On the receiving end, the incoming call didn’t look like me. It looked like GTalkToVoip was calling (who in the world is that?). Answering the call and hanging up seem fine, but after that, the whole process seemed to crash Windows Live (receiving end). I don’t use Windows Live for voice at all so I’m not an expert. In my opinion, you’re better off just inviting your friends to join Gizmo.

 

 

Truphone is quick to point out that they support all of the new E-series Nokia handsets unveiled today in 3GSM Barcelona. Luca has a quick look at some of them. Truphone also makes it easier for subscribers to use their service through a new roaming agreement with free-hotspot.com. You’re looking at 700 additional Wi-Fi hotspots in 14 countries.

As a special launch offer, access to free-hotspot.com’s Wi-Fi network will be 100% free to Truphone users, with calls charged at Truphone’s low VoIP call rates. “This agreement makes Truphone mobile VoIP more accessible than ever,” said Chris Isaacs, business development director at Truphone. “We’ve made it very simple for users and the project was quick to implement technically.” 

Iristel is the first to bring HD VOIP to Canada.

Whoa…I don’t think I can handle this. We just recently enduring a long and arduous process of researching and purchasing our first “big” screen TV with…heaven help me…HD-high definition. You see in Canada it’s important to actually see the puck when the Canucks are playing. Apparently this is impossible on a 21″ tube TV with a pink stripe across the top of the screen. (Who knew?)

Maybe fellow bloggers can help me out here, but is HD VOIP something that consumers should consider when choosing a VOIP service, or is it more marketing lingo to work through? As I understand it, HD, high definition, or wideband VOIP refers to voice sampling at 16 kHz rather than at the measley 8 kHz supported by the PSTN and just about everyone else. If you capture voice with a wider spectrum of frequencies, the quality is better. They say it’s like comparing the quality of AM and FM radio. (See this article from voip-info.org).

Sounds good to me, but the catch is you have to have HD end to end in a VOIP call. It’s no good having 16 kHz at one end and 8 kHz at the other. In fact, 16 kHz downsampled to 8 kHz (which happens if you are calling a landline) may sound worse than 8 kHz from start to finish.

So I guess you can make the argument that HD or wideband VOIP is wasted on the masses when most calls travel partially over the PSTN or use VOIP networks using an 8 kHz voice capture process.

You may already know that I’m a relatively new PhoneGnome user, but so far I’ve been quite impressed with what this playing card-sized box gives me. When I spoke with David Beckenmeyer a few weeks ago he hinted that some great updates were in the pipe designed to really expand the PhoneGnome community. Ta-da…introducing PhoneGnome 2.0.

Today PhoneGnome 2.0 is available and I encourage you to read all about it on the PhoneGnome Blog page. Here, David works through what he and his team found were the biggest objections to PhoneGnome and how the company overcomes them.

Here’s a summary of what PhoneGnome 2.0 offers:

-Web activated calling: PhoneGnome uses your web browser to set up calls between two phones so there’s no software, microphones, headsets or other devices required. To use web activated calling, you must be a registered PhoneGnome user. Reigistration on the PG site is free and calls to other registered users are also free.

-Free PhoneGnome software: Download free software to use your PC or laptop as a fully-functioning telephone. Headset/speakers and microphone required.

-Original PhoneGnome box now a new lower price: a great deal at $59.00.

 

After Tom Keating’s neatly packaged intro to Skype 2.6 Beta, I thought I’d give it a try. There’s a feature that turns phone numbers on web pages into buttons. Just click the grey button to dial the number on Skype. So cool! Works too!

Here’s what the contact number for a local movie theater looks like:

The Skype number highlighting icon in your browser toolbar (Explorer or Firefox) lets you turn this feature on or off, or uninstall it completely.

 

 

Peter Csathy’s post on how SightSpeed runs things in the office is a great testament to how things CAN work if a company has the will. I started working exclusuively from home in 2003, but even before that point I remember having to negotiate hard to work even a few days out of the office–and that was as a contract tech writer. I mean if a contractor has trouble convincing management, an employee doesn’t have a hope. Since then, I’ve learned that it takes a certain kind of discipline to work effectively from home, and not everyone can do it well. However, with commute times for people edging up into the 4 hour range, companies have to start taking work-at-home scenarios more seriously. The impact of commuters on the environment is staggering as well. We need “to commute less and collaborate more — and more effectively — online”, as Peter puts it.

With tools like SightSpeed that are inexpensive and easy to deploy, there’s really no excuse for not entertaining a work-at-home policy. However, based on my experience, it hasn’t been the tools so much as the mindset. The biggest obstacle I see is a lack of skills or expertise in managing remote workers. It’s not the same as managing employees in the office. But there’s no training and no support, so managers operate the way they always have. It’s up to the remote worker to adapt and fit into the system. And guess what, there’s no support or training for employees to be fantasitc home-based workers either. In my view, you need both.

The good news is that hovering your mouse over just about anything in the Skype window will display a tool tip (a little one-sentence definition or status report).

However, I found that almost right away I needed a cheat sheet for the online status icons, those green or gray clouds beside each contact. If you have anything to add or change, please do.

 Online: the person can receive calls or chats. If you set your status to , you can receive calls/chats from other Skypers. Depending on your privacy settings, you can receive calls from anyone, from people in your contact list, or from people who you’ve authorized to see your online details. To set privacy settings, go to Tools ->Options->Privacy.

 SkypeMe: the person is in SkypeMe mode, which means that everyone on Skype knows he/she is available and interested in talking or chatting, including contacts they don’t know. If you set your status to SkypeMe, you are allowing calls and chats with other Skypers who can find you by searching the Skype directory. To turn SkypeMe mode ON or OFF, go to File –> Change Online Status (Windows) or Account -> Change Status (Mac OS X).

 Invisible: the person appears to you as  offline, which means you can’t call or chat with them. If you set your status to invisible, you will appear as  to everyone else. Use invisible if you want to be able to make your own calls or chats, but don’t want to receive them. You’ll also be able to see the online status of everyone else in your contact list, even though you’ll appear to them to be offline.

 Away: the person temporarily can’t be reached–out to lunch, away from computer, in a meeting or whatever. If you set your status to Away, you are still notified of incoming calls or chats. Skype automatically switches your online status to Away if you have been inactive for a certain number of minutes. Go to Tools ->Options ->General to change this setting.

 Not available: the person can’t be reached. Sounds a bit more long term than Away. If you set your status to Not Available, you are still notified of incoming calls or chats. Skype automatically switches your online status to Not Available if you have been inactive for a certain number of minutes. Go to Tools ->Options ->General to change this setting.

 Do not disturb: the person doesn’t want to be bugged. Calls or messages are queued for you to check later. If you set your status to Do Not Disturb, you won’t be notified of incoming calls or chats (no pop-ups or ringtones).

 Not sharing: the person does not give you permission to see if he/she is online, offline, away, and so on. It’s probably nothing personal. When adding the contact you may have decided not to request their details, or they may have dismissed your request. To ask again if they’d like to share details, right-click the contact name and select Request Contact Details.

 Offline: the person is not available through Skype. They may have set their status to offline or invisible, or they may have logged off. If you set your status to Offline, you can’t make or receive calls/chats with other Skypers. But, if you have a voicemail account, people can leave you messages. You can also call forward your calls when offline to another number (either a regular number or Skype name), and you can still make SkypeOut calls (calls to regular numbers). 

 Skypeout contact: a person with a regular landline/mobile number. Not a Skype number.