Hey, here’s a semi-geeky gift that they’re sure to get a charge out of…a high-current USB charger built into a common household receptacle. You may recall that I installed a couple of the FastMac USockets some time ago. There’s one…
Ok, you’re here, so that makes you something of a geek. Perhaps you have another telephony geek in your life, or your family are asking for a Christmas list. Whatever the case, a good USB speakerphone is really handy and makes nice present.
I’ve used a number of these things over the years. For the past few months I’ve had a Jabra SPEAK 410 on the corner of my desk.
Little round-and-loud has proven to be a solid performer. I’ve used it to participate in Google Hangouts, with Skype and GotoMeeting as well as various SIP soft phones. You might have seen me show it in a recent VUC call with Logitech. Whatever the client software, in every case it worked well. It sounds great to my ear and conveys my voice clearly to the far end.
The microphone is omni-directional, effective to about one yard. That makes the SPEAK 410 ideal for desk use, even if you have a person on either side of the desk.
This past week I’ve been travelling with a new Plantronics Voyager Legend Bluetooth headset. This is the fourth headset in the Voyager range that I’ve used. You may recall that not so long ago I bought a Voyager Pro HD. That headset has been completely satisfactory. I was not intending to purchase a replacement. So it is that I’ll start by describing how I came to have this little beasty, which is a bit of a curious story and the tale of my first Tweet-Up, aka Twitter Party.
Back in October my wife took a business trip to Anaheim CA for a few days. This was something of a turning of the tables for I am the frequent business traveller in the family. She rarely travels on business.
It was decided (i.e. I was told) that since she had to be away I would need to be taking care of things at home that week. I found myself tending the homestead without some of the normal distractions of our daily life. I had some extra time to tinker for a few evenings.
Not long ago I read a post by a blogger who had made the effort to give up his laptop for the day. While attending a conference he left his laptop in his hotel room intent upon using only his Nexus 7
The tale of his day highlighted a few worthy accessories for the Nexus 7 tablet. He pointed to a premium stylus and a Bluetooth wireless keyboard as key to his productivity. I was impressed by his logic and the tale of his experience that day. So much so that I ordered those same items so that I might try them for myself.
At this very moment I’m typing on the Logitech Keyboard for Android
Around the house and office we use Logitech’s recently defunct Squeezebox music players. We have several of these, a mix of the Squeezebox 3
There’s an Android app that provides remote control of these little players. I’ve had it loaded for as long as I’ve had an Android phone. However, it’s never worked for me. At least it didn’t until the past weekend.
Being something of a traditionalist I have historically fed the Squeezebox herd from a small media server or NAS on my network. Only occasionally would I point them to online sources like Radio Paradise, KPFT or KUHF.
This past weekend I started to play with Pandora. The Squeezeboxes can access a Pandora account and thereby stream decent quality music from an online source. Pandora’s paid service provides 192 kbps streams without advertising. That makes the $36/yr paid service seem quite attractive.
Millions of people already use Pandora. I accept that I’m late to that party.
WebRTC is certainly a hot topic in some circles and definitely something to watch. Recently Erik Lagerway of Hookflash interviewed Alan Johnston of Avaya on the matter. They both share a lot of enthusiasm for WebRTC and the potential that…