Graves on SOHO Technology

This addition to this series is not like those that have come previously. All of the prior companies profiled are VoIP service providers that provide a degree of connectivity to the legacy public switched telephone network (PSTN), often as paid aspect of their service.

SIP Sorcery is very different. SIP Sorcery started out known as “My SIP Switch.” It’s an open source project created by Aaron Clauson, who describes it as a “SIP service aggregator.”

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I just stumbled across this today. It’s a video clip of Michael White from E4 Technologies using the “Magic Button” feature on a PBXact system to voice dial the VoIP Users Conference from an Aastra 6757i CT. That’s pretty cute!

Last week longstanding VoIP blogger and fellow Canuck Alec Saunders penned a nice post on the Calliflower Blog offering a collection of guidance for podcasters called “10 Podcaster Tips!” It’s a good read…not long…you should go read it now…then come back here. I’ll wait.

Over the past few years I’ve listened to a number of Alec’s Squawkbox podcasts, even attended a handful live & in-person. I respect and admire the man.

Taken in the context of the Calliflower conference service Alec’s post provides some sound, well-considered advice. Even so, I find there to be merit recasting it in a broader context and revisiting some of his points.

By “broader context” I mean specifically considering how someone could record a better sounding podcast by bypassing the legacy public switched telephone network (PSTN).

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Gigaset Communications reintroduced their line of SIP/DECT cordless phones into the North American market at CES in January of 2009. It wasn’t until a few months later that I received a couple of sample systems; the A580IP and S675IP. After actually using it for several months I reviewed the entry level A580IP system in July, and we have since been using it as our primary home phone.

One of the great things about the Gigaset phones is the way you can mix a variety of handsets against a single DECT base. The basic systems are complete systems, meaning that each includes one DECT base and one cordless handset. Beyond that you can add up to five more handsets, and they don’t need to be the same model.

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On the VUC call of May14th we were fortunate to be joined by Tony Lewis, CEO of Schmooze Communications, the creators of PBXact. Tony was, to the best of my knowledge, the very first person to join the call using Aastra’s latest uber-desk-phone, the 6739i.

Tony was able to fill us in on some of more details about Aastra’s product line, and specifically their implementation of wideband voice…or as they call it “Hi-Q.”

It was just over a year ago that there was a hint that Aastra has released some firmware for their existing 57 series phones that implemented G.722 wideband capability. However, like snom before them, they were adding wideband voice support to a hardware platform that was not from the outset designed around such capability.

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If you were keeping an eye on the realm of open source PBX offerings you might be lulled into thinking that there is Digium with Asterisk and Switchvox, then everyone else. Where “everyone else” was basically hobbyists and Freeswitch fanatics. Well, that’s easy to understand, but you’d be wrong. I know that I was.

TMC recently posted an interview with Tony Lewis of Schmooze Communications. I know, I know…how do you take a company with a name like that seriously? It’s just one step above Goober Networks..oh,wait…they’re a real player, too! Well, what’s in a name?

Until today Schmooze Communications didn’t mean anything to me. However, I was enlightened by Michael White from E4 Technologies who is distributing  Schmooze Communications‘ product….PBXact.

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The HP mini 5102 has only been shipping for a few months. I’ve only had mine for about a month. Even so deals are starting to show up.

These corporate class netbooks are head & shoulders better than the consumer offerings you’ll see at retailers. Today’s email list of overstock and refurbished systems from the HP SMB Outlet includes 20 different configurations of the 5101 & 5102…starting from only $297!

The SMB Outlet even have a number of systems that are not the Smart Buy configurations.The Smart Buy configs are kinda bland, but faster to ship. To get the more interesting options you had to order a custom configuration and have it made to order. This is why it took three weeks to get delivery of mine…and it cost just shy of $800.

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Here are some simple words of wisdom from one who has for decades made use of all sorts of portable magnetic media. Don’t trust it!

This simple message, a public service of sorts, was brought to mind when my wife recently came to me with a small portable USB hard drive in her hands. She had just plugged it into her PC which had responded by asking if she wanted the drive to be formatted? The implication being that it was not already formatted!

Of course, the unhappy little drive in question is a 320 GB 2.5″ USB drive that she had been using to shuttle all manner of valuable bytes from here-to-there.

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Not long ago In-Store Solutions launched the Freetalk Everyman HD Webcam for Skype. I’ve had a number of webcams before, even one capable of real “HD.” I bought the Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 last summer when I was trying the LifeSize Desktop video conference client. HD in this application means 1280 x 720 pixels.

So initially I thought that the Freetalk Everyman HD Webcam for Skype was less than exciting. Upon further investigation I find it very interesting for one specific reason; hardware acceleration of H.264 encoding.

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Not long ago I got word that Gigaset was working to add more ITSPs to the presets in the configuration tool in their SIP/DECT cordless phones. The Gigaset DECT base can update its list of ITSPs in much the same manner that it checks for firmware updates.

This afternoon IdeaSIP confirmed that they are now listed as one of the ITSPs for which there is a preset configuration. They have also posted a page on their web site walking you through the setup process.

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