If Stomp came to your home

Move over X-Lite here comes LoudHush

I've recently decided to setup an asterisk server, get softphones and hardphones to reduce dependence on cell phones and more importantly on the myriad of overpriced auto-attendents. I used Angel.com for about 2 months and while the script builder is very friendly, they are way too proud of their product. It's between .10 and .15 per minute with no fractional minutes.....not to mention, they have no provision for a lesser rate for a local exchange.

I decided to host my asterisk server at GoDaddy. I purchased a shared server solution for $30 per month and went with voicepulse for a phone number with 4 channels (effectively 4 lines for a single $11 per month on the inbound and 1-2.4 cents per minute on the outbound. I'll cut my phone costs to under $50 per month to run my entire business with a slick automated attendent that is infinitely flexible.

Another major consideration is QoS at the office. I had a really kick ass Linksys RV082 which does everything apparently except for respecting the QoS or priority bit. Can you believe that? So I pulled it out of the mix and am letting my WRT54GX which has wireless QoS 802.11e do the dirty work.

I was using X-LITE with this and was thinking that QoS was the problem. After fumbling with codec order, I became frustrated and decided to do a search for OS X soft phones...again. I found a Gem called LoudHush. It's $18 and it's rock solid. It is an IAX client not a SIP client so I dropped the same config I had for X-lite in sip.conf into iax.conf instead and it works like a champ! No jitter. It sounds like a perfect toll call and this is over my Mac laptop wirelessly connected.

I never could stand X-LITE's non-standard preferences panel etc. Now I can ditch it!

To recap:

Godaddy shared server
Asterisk
Linksys WRT54GX
LoudHush Sip client
Plantronics GameCom Pro 1 USB headset

Blackberry 8700 Wish List

I'm going to try and keep this wish list updated as my dreams come true. We'll see how it goes. I really would like to see Apple and Blackberry get Googlecentric when it comes to calendar and even contacts. Sure Apple has .Mac, but it's not open to PC users or other devices like the blackberry and this lack of openness adds unnecessary steps to the synchronization. Why should I sync from Google to my Mac to my phone when my phone should sync to Google directly?

1) The folks at Blackberry need to get with http://www.taniwha.org.uk and clue him in on what is required for Mac OS X to send scripted commands to the modem interface so we can use the Blackberry as an EDGE passthrough device. If they do nothing else, this should happen without fail. It's just a matter of passing knowledge to the right individual. He's got scripts for every phone on the planet except for the Blackberry.

2) Blackberry needs to adapt their Calendar so it can sync over the air with Google's Calendar. This needs to support publish capability also, but subscribe only would be great as a start.

2a) Sync with Google Contacts at Gmail

2b) Sync with Google Gmail (this would be POP, I haven't tested the POP implementation from gmail yet.)

3) Blackberry needs to fix their crappy IMAP implementation. As stated in my previous post, when I delete messages from my desktop, it's not reflected in my Blackberry INBOX. Very bad.

I've commited Blackberry to maybe 300 man hours with the above points. At $40 per hour, that's $12k. A drop in the bucket at twice the price.

4) Apple and Google need to collaborate for allowing publish capability from iCal to gCal.

5) Publish/sync capability for Mac Address Book to gMail contacts

Calendar/Contacts/Email - Googlecentric and sitting in the middle. What a beautiful world. Can anyone hear me?

Skype getting mass conferencing

Link Here

Some common sense

What kind of idiot is Bill Frist, supporting a measure to give people a $100 credit for rising gas prices? The government cannot solve high prices with subsidies. Thankfully it seems that consumers are smarter than our politicians and think it's a stupid idea as well.

Link to NY Times article

Here's an idea....ramp up the tax on fossil fuel gas over time and create a fund for Grants or R&D Loans for alternative energy such as ethanol. The higher prices discourage consumers from buying fossil fuels and provide encouragement for consumers to buy lesser taxed Ethanol. With less tax, the producers (a) produce domestically (b) enjoy greater margins from reduced tax (c) consumers are motivated to buy ethanol cars because of attractive lower prices of gas.

Brazil has recently achieved their economic freedom completely from sugar cane (converted to ethanol) and 1 offfshore rig. Granted, their needs are less but we need to take the proper steps to remove our dependency on foreign energy.

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