I like Ted Wallingford’s top 10 for holiday gift giving. Any particular order Ted? The rule at our house is that you gotta have something under the tree that you can open and play with like right away. No surpise then that the Nintendo Wii is at Number 1. Hmmm.

I’ve had a Skype account for awhile, but haven’t used it much because I’d decided to go with Vonage. Now that I’ve cancelled my Vonage service, I’m ready to really put Skype through its paces.

At the time of writing, Skype is up to release 2.5.0.137 so I’ve had to upgrade my Skype software. NOt a problem. Their websit and download instructions are clear enough.

You are prompted to close the existing Skype version if it is running, click the Download button and then the Run button when prompted, and follow the rest of the installation prompts. That’s it.

I recently upgraded my desktop to a Dell laptop, and I had a  headset kicking around. A huge Plantronics thing (a) that must have been originally for my husband’s gaming, but works OK for my purposes. Another way to go is to get just  a microphone (b) and use the speakers on the computer for sound, like a speakerphone. The third nifty piece of hardware I’d like to show you is a “dongle” (c)that allows you to switch between headset mode (in which all sound is piped through your headset), and regular speaker mode. Since I don’t plan on having my headset on all the time, it’s convenient to toggle between the two modes at the push of a button. This gizmo costs less than $15. Go see your local Radio Shack.

(a) (b)  (c)

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. 

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!

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.

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!

Bloggers like Andy and Phoneboy have made mention of Gizmo Project growing pains and bugs. Sometimes timing is everything because I was just thinking that. Well, maybe I’m feeling a little cranky today. I haven’t seen the problems Andy and Phoneboy have, but I do see other Gizmo-related errors and general “not responding” messages regularly, and it’s getting me down.

I’ve also never been able to get GizmoCall to work for me at all despite numerous pleas to tech support and the forums. I reported on it’s launch but was waiting to give a user opinion. Never happened. I really think that Gizmo is going in the right direction with the additional services like SMS, web calling, integration with other IM networks. I recently decided to use Gizmo as my primary chat interface since I can integrate with MSN,Yahoo, Google, and others. A new features lets you import your MSN contact list into Gizmo at one shot instead of laboriously one by one. And Gizmo is SO easy to set up with the Nokia N95 which means I can use it to make mobile internet calls.  I also use Gizmo to handle all my incoming calls through GrandCentral. Another big plus.

When the sun is shining you can overlook application not responding and other weirdness. But you can also get tired of making excuses. Sigh. I feel it’s kind of like a great outfit, love the color, the style, looks good on me, perfect for the occasion, but it doesn’t quite fit right.

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. 

Laptop magazine has a review of Fring, Talkster, Nimbuzz and Barablu. These four apps turn your good old cell phone into an internet phone and more. Of the four, Nimbuzz is new to me and Barablu I haven’t tried yet. Fring and Talkster I’ve used and quite like, although I think having a great handset makes all the difference. I wouldn’t bother with any of these if I didn’t have the Nokia N80i to test with.

The review does a good job of capturing the typical setup process for all applications, and gives both the pros and cons of usability, call quality and the like. Author Joanna Stern points out that “regardless of which mobile VoIP service you use, you’re going to need an unlimited data plan, which costs anywhere from $5.99 per month (T-Mobile) to $24.99 (Cingular)”.

Edited May 17, 2007:

James Wanless of Talkster clarified for me that their service in fact does not require a data plan:

Thanks James