End-user perspective on small office tools & technology

My First Telepresence Experience…kinda

The paradox of my demo this past week was funny, and kind of sad. It was a presentation to a sports network in LA. I was in an uplink facility in Atlanta with some HD graphics gear and a couple of people from the network. The rest of the audience was the creative team in LA. They took the 1080i HD output of my device and a camera (also 1080) pointed at me, running both over a fiber link to the group in LA.

The theory was simple enough; the group in LA had some specific concerns. I could demonstrate conclusively our approach to their issues. They see me operating the equipment as well as the output in real-time, in glorious full-resolution HD. The fact that the uplink facility was involved made the fiber link available. This was a first in my long history in this business.

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Comparing Hotel Wifi, 3G & 4G Net Access in Marietta GA

This week I find myself in the Atlanta area for a couple of days. To be specific, tonight I’m at the Crowne Plaza in Marietta GA. This hotel was booked by a co-worker on the basis of its proximity to my work site. He booked it at a discount through Priceline.com. It was good choice. It’s a nice hotel.

Like most of the upper-end hotel brands this facility was wired for internet access in the days when wifi was not ubiquitous. As such, there remains a wired internet connection in the rooms.

Reflecting more current trends there’s pervasive wifi as well. In a remarkable twist, both are offered free of charge. It has been my experience that many of the more up-market hotel brands still charge a nightly fee for internet access.

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Life In The Time Of FireSheep

A couple of weeks ago at Toorcon security researcher Eric Butler released a curious new plug-in for the the popular Firefox web browser. Known as FireSheep this plug-in allows even an unskilled person to monitor traffic on an open wifi network. It further allows its users to capture the login data exposed as web browsers of other people on that WLAN perform logins to sites like Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, etc.

I won’t go into how it works since others had done a nice job of that already. Suffice it to say that this is scary stuff given how common it is for people to use open wifi networks at public places, usually without giving it a second thought..

FireSheep was not intended as a tool for criminal or malicious activity. It’s release was intended to expose a security issue in the way web browsers handle cookies arising from login. While the login process itself is secure, the handling of the resulting cookies usually is not.

Whatever the intent, it’s certain that some less scrupulous people will use it or the lessons learned from it for illicit purposes such as identity theft.

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Cage Match: Cloud vs Virtual vs Hosted

To me the term “cloud computing” itself is so vague as be just about meaningless, yet it carries with it all kinds of connotations.

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow,
It’s cloud illusions I recall,
I really don’t know clouds, at all.
– Joni Mitchell

I have so many questions.

  • Does “cloud” imply virtualised?
  • What’s the difference between a cloud host and a virtual host?
  • What advantages are offered by cloud hosts vs physical hosts?
  • Or a cloud host vs a VPS?
  • How do cloud architectures differ?
  • How does cloud hosting differ as applications scale up to very large?
  • Or down to very small?
  • Are there applications that should not be run on cloud services? Why?
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Introducing The Freetalk Connect PBX With Skype Integration

Today marks the launch of the Freetalk Connect PBX from In-Store Solutions. Freetalk Connect is a small business PBX appliance that includes close integration with Skype.

Freetalk Connect was initially announced in January at ITEXPO East. Thomas Howe, CTO of In-Store Solutions, made a guest appearance on a VUC call on August 13th to discuss the device. At that time we learned that Freetalk Connect is based upon Asterisk and Skype-For-Asterisk.

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Making Use of Wideband Voice Right Now!: Blink & SIP2SIP.INFO

Not yet making use of wideband voice? That’s outrageous! It’s so easy, and I’ve given you so many ways to give it a try. Here’s yet another way to try wideband voice…and it’s absolutely free.

Blink is a relative newcomer to the realm of soft phones. Offered by AG Projects Blink was initially released in December 2009 for the Mac platform. Since it’s based upon the Qt framework they were eventually able to offer Linux and Windows releases as well.

VUC founder & host Zeeek has on several occasions expounded on how well Blink behaves on his Mac. Further, Blink supports wideband audio via the G.722 and SPEEX codecs.

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