End-user perspective on small office tools & technology

Gigasets: Comparing Handset Output Volume

A few times I’ve seen people complaining about unacceptably low volume being provided by one of the Gigaset handsets. Most recently this was being said about the S67H handset, but I can recall a similar complaint about the A58H as well. We don’t feel that the handsets we’ve used have a problem in this area.

However, when the complaint occurs more than once it makes me think that perhaps a little investigation is worthwhile. Could this be production variance in the handsets? Is there a difference between the various models of handsets? How do they compare to the output of some respected desktop phones?

So the past two weekends I set about a little informal testing.

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HDVoice Making Progress In The UK

It appears that HDVoice is making considerable strides in the UK. Orange recently launched HDVoice calling for their mobile users, offering a selection of three HD-capable (AMR-WB) handsets from Nokia. The HDVoice section of their web site highlights the difference…

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A Big Round Of Thanks!

...and the award for most tireless, knowledgeable and patient technical support goes to.... Over the past month or so the effort to find and move to new hosting was considerable. It was certainly much more involved than I had anticipated.…

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Blogging In Transition: A Host Of Issues – Act Three

There’s nothing like your site going down routinely to lend a sense of urgency to the search for an alternative hosting solution. While my circumstance was not quite as dire as that pictured right, it certainly felt similar.

The newly live server at VPS.NET was crashing at least once every day or two, but it remained live while I poked around the TKL web site investigating the other hosting providers that had partnered with the project. The biggest was Amazon’s EC2, but recent events lead me to shy away from Amazon for my own purposes.

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The iPhone In My Office

I’ve said many times that I would never buy and iPhone. Well, true to my word…I didn’t….yet one graces my desk anyway. A co-worker gave me his older 3G after he upgraded his family to a set of shiny new iPhone 4s. Call it an effort at recycling.

In truth I have no interest in the iPhone as a cell phone, but I look forward to having an iOS platform on which to try some of the more interesting apps that have been offered. With its built-in microphone the iPhone 3G is, for me, a better option than an iPod touch.

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Blogging In Transition: A Host Of Issues – Act Two

Welcome to act two of our little saga, whereupon our protagonist, having found that his existing shared blog host is now unreliable, has set out in search of a new host. A private host. Very possibly a virtual host. In fact, the situation has become very cloudy indeed.

In some regards the growth of a blog such as this, and the related hosting issues, is a little like being a teenager. Living at your parents home is very cheap, but you’re limited in what you can do, and the sort of traffic that they will allow. Ultimately your desire for freedom will force you to find your own place to live, where you have greater control of what goes on, even if that means you always have to clean up after yourself.

The decision to seek a more private host is only one step in this migratory process. The next question that arises is, “what kind of host?” Windows? Linux? If Linux, what distribution? Which supporting applications? How much CPU, memory, storage, etc?

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