End-user perspective on small office tools & technology

Back To Basics: A Telephone Handset Should Just Feel Good

Cisco-Handset.pngI recently found myself trying yet another new desk phone. I’ve tried may different makes and models over the years, literally from Aastra to Zultys, and many in between. They’ve addressed all different price points, from Polycom’s VVX-1500 Business Media Phone to an entry-level Yealink.

In every case I could find some fine qualities worth reporting. Also, in each case I could find some questionable attributes worth discussing. To be plain, even in something as mature as the business class desk phone, there are no perfect products. Every product involves some kind of compromise.

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A Strategy For Debugging My Home Office

Gwen-200pxNot all of my home office technology is “high technology.” Nonetheless, some of the low-tech is critically important. On this particular occasion I offer some insight into how we go about debugging. That is, how we eliminate bugs…more specifically, flying insects.

The factual information that I have to share is slight, but the story of how I come by it a personal one. When I was teenager my family lived in the small, Northern Ontario town of Atikokan. At the time the family business included a building supply adjoined by a Laundromat.

The Laundromat was open long hours and during much of the year the doors left open. In the summer it had the most unfortunate way of gathering flies. Our reaction to this was to deploy a pair of small battery operated appliances that dispensed an aerosol spray on a timed basis. The spray was known as KONK and it was tremendously effective.

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Auphonic: A Free Online Tool For Automatic Audio Post-Production

auphonic-logoOpen source guru Randal Schwartz of FLOSS Weekly recently interviewed Georg Holzmann of Auphonic.com about their new online service for post-processing audio files for podcasts. Auphonic.com sounds very interesting indeed.

In the past the routine production of the VUC podcasts involved the use of The Levalator from The Conversations Network. That program, while a potent tool, is run locally and limited to processing uncompressed WAV files. This places a certain burden on the user to know how to create the appropriate source files, and later on to encode the processed files for publication online.

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Arm Yourself & Reclaim Your Desktop!

Mitsu-CRT-Monitor-InsetMeasuring in at 57 x 30 inches my desk is not small, but it’s not massive either. It hails from a shop called Storehouse Furniture that has sadly gone out-of-business. Nonetheless, this desk has served me well, and will continue to do so for along while to come.

This desk has seen its fair share of computer monitors over the years. There was a time when a 21” Mitsubishi CRT dominated the desktop. What a beast that was. It was heavy as well as physically large.

More recently I’ve been using one or two ASUS VE248H 24-Inch Monitors. These are very nice LED backlit monitors. Resolving 1920 x 1080 pixels, they’re native HD displays with DVI & HDMI connectivity. Better yet, they were pretty affordable.

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New Gear: Mocet Communicator For iPad

Mocet-Communicator-White-facing-left-300pxIt has become something of a habit to announce when new gear arrives in my office, especially if that gear is destined for review. A couple of weeks ago I received a review sample of the Mocet Communicator. Communicator is essentially an audio dock for an iPad that turns it into an executive desk phone.

As you may know, I don’t generally use Apple products. However, occasionally there comes a product that is sufficiently interesting to get me to move in that direction. In the past case of the Invoxia NVX-610 I purchased an iPod Touch in order to provide a suitable host for the device under review.

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