b.cognosco
Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
Most Popular
- Historical Yearly Average Gasoline Prices
- Outlook 2003 Message-ID Insanity
- Real-time Sand Animations
- Adobe Acrobat 7
- Adobe Announces Name Change and New Product
- Largest Technology Boondoggle in Public Education History
- Yahoo! Buys del.icio.us
- Skype - Disruptive, Not Compelling
- Aluminum Christmas Tree Museum
- Network Printing Hell and windoze XP
Book Reviews
Recently
Theme Design
IT Support
Hosting
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Rethinking Skype Conference Call Scenario
Skype Journal has me rethinking my opinion on Skype conference calls. As usual, I was thinking inside-the-box and viewing conference calls as requiring individual endpoint origination (participants should call into the conference.) Of course, with SkypeOut I can originate the conference and connect all parties. I had some initial resistance to the idea of having to pay for calls here in the states, having gotten used to calling anywhere in the US from my cell phone without additional fees. But SkypeOut's $.02/minute rate is less than half the lowest conference calling service I've seen, and the hassle factor is lower. Not requiring participants to remember a special number and passcode is a good thing.I'm still having lots of trouble with the 1.2.0.41 client, and Skype have not bothered to answer my support request. But once I get that cleared up I'll be adding some SkypeOut minutes and trying the conference calling feature. I'll still be adding the VoIP line for my main business number, but the Skype scenario is promising.
Posted by: 
Terry Frazier at 12:25 AM
| Permanent Link
| Trackback URL |
Categories: Business & Finance, Collaboration, Technology
Terry Frazier at 12:25 AM
| Permanent Link
| Trackback URL | Categories: Business & Finance, Collaboration, Technology
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Alternative Voice Options
For the past several months I've been experimenting with using my Treo 600 as my sole business phone. This just doesn't work - partly due to hardware problems on the Treo, and partly due to the realities of SprintPCS cellular service, I've grown increasingly dissatisfied.
I like having my cellphone, calendar, and address book in the same device and being able to sync it with Outlook. But I've had two Treos with defective headphone jacks (making the phone unusable with headsets) and the speakerphone facility sucks. SprintPCS offers no way to permanently turn off call waiting, which means that anytime a client calls me we're subject to being interrupted by a second call. And the thing rings, beeps, buzzes, or makes some kind of noise at every event and these beeps and buzzes are audible to whoever is on the other end of the line.
I need alternatives and I'm not going back to the telco.
The latest news on SkypeIn looks promising, and the $30/year price is low enough to make experimentation attractive. Reading about Steve's Skype and Treo combination started me thinking, so today I bought a SkypeIn number
- 678-608-1406 SkypeIn
VoIP looks like the best option. I have a great ISP - Speakeasy - that offers dry copper (no dial tone) DSL up to 6Mbit. I got a dedicated DSL link installed in my office some time ago. Today I ordered Speakeasy VoIP service that gives me unlimited calling in the US and Canada for $24/month. It will take a week or so to get my new number and the adapter, but I should soon be back in business - literally. And all without a single call to or bill from a telco. Now we're talking!
The cell phone experiment wasn't a total failure. I learned that running a business from a tiny, portable device isn't a strategy for heavy or long-term usage. It's great as a backup, temporary, or failover option but not reliable enough for everyday use. And I still like my Treo - I just need to get it replaced (again) under warranty.
Posted by: Terry Frazier at 1:07 PM
| Permanent Link
| Trackback URL |
Categories: Productivity, Technology
Terry Frazier at 1:07 PM
| Permanent Link
| Trackback URL | Categories: Productivity, Technology
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Firefox to Support SVG
Nice tip courtesy of Tiffany B. Brown. SVG has been slow to take off but it holds a lot of promise for business and information graphics that need to be used in different mediums. One of the problems today is a lack of tools – no one wants to shell out $500 for Adobe Illustrator or $350 for CorelDraw just to play with SVG. We need are plug-ins and import/export filters for Visio, Mindmanager, ConceptMapper, and all the other apps we use to create our business graphics. The article indicates Opera is supporting SVG in their latest browser. This is progress, but until IE has support you can’t call it mainstream.
I’m going to try out Inkscape.
Firefox 1.1 to support Scalable Vector Graphics
And this makes me smile. Read the story. You can get started with SVG in a number of ways, including by hand, with Adobe Illustrator 10 and CorelDraw, or by downloading the open source SVG editor Inkscape. Previously: Fun with Scalable Vector Graphics.
Syndication
Contact
Presence
This Page was last updated: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:06:57 GMT
License: Unless otherwise expressly stated all original material, of whatever nature, created by Terry W. Frazier and included in this website, its related pages and archives, is licensed under a Creative Commons License, some rights reserved.
Disclaimer: This is a personal website. The views expressed here are those of the author and no one else. This is also an experiment in thinking out loud, so there are no warranties as to the reliability or accuracy of anything presented here. Source material -- references, citations, quotes, photos, and other elements -- are gathered from publicly available materials and some of it may be restricted. Any trademarks used are the property of their respective creators or owners. All are reproduced under the principle of Fair Use.