Skip to Content

Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

Ted Wallingford

-

Ted Wallingford is the author of Switching to VoIP and the co-author of "VoIP Hacks", published by OReilly Media. As a trusted Voice over IP authority, Ted has done private systems architecture work. Several startup VoIP ventures have called on Teds networking experience and marketing insights to build and distribute new telecommunications services. Currently, Ted is a systems engineer with LCG Technologies in Elyria, Ohio, and blogs at http://www.voipfan.com. Aside from technology and writing Ted is an active pro musician and has served as a member of the board of directors at an international adoption agency in suburban Cleveland, where he lives with his wife and two children.

Filed under: Video, Windows, Freeware, VoIP

New Gizmo Project beta adds N810 support

If desktop VoIP calling program Gizmo Project previously had a reputation as a Skype Killer, it's now official: Skype is dead. Gizmo has always done things Skype couldn't--like custom on-hold music, SIP compatibility, meta-IM with support for Yahoo, MSN, and Google Talk, and a slew (that means dozens) of other things. Indeed, some of us here at Download Squad haven't had Skype in our startup items for a year or more.

Gizmo Project 4.0 beta just hit the wild. New in this edition are a reworked avatar system, tabbed text chatting, a totally redesigned user interface, and video calling, a feature that we got a first look at with an earlier beta release last month.

Ordinarily, Gizmo Project's creator, SIPPhone Inc., does a good job of getting features to their Mac and Linux editions in a hurry (though 4.0 beta isn't yet available for Mac). In this case, however, the Nokia N800/N810 version is also ready to rock, which really excites us, since Nokia's Internet Tablets have built-in cameras that are ideal for video calling.

As with previous versions of the Project, you can still make outgoing (and receive incoming) telephone calls, and make yourself reachable via a sipphone.com URI. So, with the last nail in Skype's coffin being hammered in by the good folks at SIPPhone, we're asking ourselves if we'll ever need to run Skype again. After all, with services like GrandCentral supporting Gizmo Project, and with the availability of a native Gizmo Project client for mobile phones, it looks like Gizmo Project is ready to bury eBay's redheaded stepchild.

Filed under: Photo, Utilities, Macintosh

Quick photo editing (through Dashboard?)

Sometimes you need to process, crop, clip, or otherwise edit an image file in a hurry--and Photoshop takes longer to launch than most folks are willing to wait when a simple image modification is all that's needed. That's why we were pretty excited to find out about Photo Drop, a Mac Dashboard widget that really seems to speed up quicky image edits.

Since Photo Drop is a widget, you can drag files to it from other widgets or even from your desktop (drag the file to a hotcorner to activate Dashboard and then drop it on the Photo Drop widget). When you're done with your edits, drag it back out to the Finder and off you go.

Photo Drop provides several handy manipulations including cropping, resizing, borders, and some tasty eye candy like "1-bit", which will convert your photo into a strictly black and white image. We're digging it.

Filed under: VoIP, Social Software

Voxcall enables VoIP on Facebook


Facebook is attracting more and more developers due to its exploding user population and the relative ease of creating Facebook applications--snapins which provide narrowly-focused functionality on a Facebook user's profile page. So it's no surprise that the venerable Voxalot service has brought their VoIP calling solution to Facebook.

Voxcall lets you click to call Facebook buddies, as well as field calls from them, as long as you both have a SIP URI (that's a VoIP address that acts like a phone number and looks like an e-mail address). Of course, if you don't have a SIP URI, you can enroll in the Voxcall Premium service, which supports placing calls to ordinary telephone numbers. And if you're worried about abuse or phone spam, as many click-to-call users are, Voxcall has implemented a PIN code verification which will stop malicious users from registering your SIP URI without your permission. The way it works, once you register, Voxcall places a VoIP call to your URI--and then you enter your PIN code.

What Google would do with Skype that eBay won't

Skype for sale?Yeah, we know this is just a rumor, but it has quickly bubbled to the top of the VoIP blogosphere, and the ramifications are looming large. Skype may be on eBay's auction block (no pun intended). Among the potential buyers for such a property are the usual suspects--Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and even Facebook if they could afford it. But the excitement about Google seems to be the most fervent. Here's why.

Google is a platform company. Their platform is all about monetizing other people's content. They do it by providing self-service solutions that capture revenue generated on the backs of other content producers. One of their clarion calls has always been--increase use to increase revenue. And nobody does this better than Google.

It was for this reason--increasing use--that eBay invested in Skype. But post-merger politics ruined the exciting possibilities. We never got widespread adoption of Skype on eBay because in order to promote Skype, eBay must also have allowed Skype's competitors (or at least refrain from blocking their use on the site). That was never going to work. The 1.0 mentality at eBay was just too pervasive, even with such a future-bright asset like Skype.

Google, on the other hand, opens just about everything up. So Google's idea of competing is to show the competition exactly what they're holding, source code and all. And that's the crux of it--if Google does get its hands on Skype, count on getting access to Skype you previously never dreamed of: full-blown APIs, web service models, the specs for the Skype signaling protocol, and yes, almost certainly, source code.

Filed under: VoIP

Packet8 joins the mobile minute stealers


The long-time VoIP phone service provider Packet8 just threw its hat into the cellular minute-stealing arena with its new service, MobileTalk. But before we can share about MobileTalk, it would be helpful to know what minute-stealing is. The idea is simple: use your phone's IP data service to transport costly long distance calls using Voice over IP instead of the traditional way--through the cell carrier's grossly expensive long distance interconnects.

MobileTalk is a software download that runs on a variety of phones. Like its contemporaries TalkPlus, Gizmo for Mobile, and Jajah, MobileTalk can be sent directly to your phone via a media message when you sign up for the service. Packet8 gets ten bucks when you sign up, ten bucks every month you stay signed up, and 2 - 6 cents per minute for every call you place. If you make a lot of calls across the pond, that *should* save you a fair amount of dough.

Of course, there's no value-add for existing Packet8 customers (like, say, a discount), and Packet8 still hasn't fixed the original set of problems with its service--for example, their soft phone (a PC program to let you make phone calls) still can't share a phone number with another Packet8 phone line. But if you make a ton of international calls on your wireless and you want the benefit of a single bill from your phone provider, MobileTalk is the way to go.

LouderVoice lets you tell the world how good stuff is

What do you get when you mix a Digg-esque ranking scale, a Twitter-like SMS roll, and a focus on amplifying the public opinion? You get LouderVoice, a review-anything web site that seems to have caught on. Opinions aplenty abound here, so whether you're looking for more XBox fanboy ammo or just a recommendation on a skateboard to get to work (hey, I ride my skateboard to work--don't you?), ...

When MySpace isn't black enough: BlackPlanet.com

There's no denying the appeal of demographically focused media outlets like BET, Lifetime, and SpikeTV to potential advertisers. So whether you're selling products for black people (BET) , women (Lifetime), or gangly teenage boys (SpikeTV), you can exploit a specific vertical media outlet that will expose your product to more of the people you are concerned with selling to. As we enter the age ...

GameBoy Advance emulator for your hacked iPhone

gpSPhone is a GameBoy Advance emulator for the iPhone and iPod Touch. To use it, of course, you'll need an iPhone that's been hacked to use third-party apps, but that's a small price to pay for quality time with such memorable Nintendo classics as Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga and Mega Man Battle Network. The emulator was co-developed by the guy that made gpSPhone's cousin, a classic NES ...

UK iPhone reactions mixed, loud

digg_url = 'http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/11/14/uk-iphone-reactions-mixed-loud/'; With UK-based Carphone Warehouse estimating first-day sales of Apple's iPhone at 10,000 or more, observers in England are beginning to gripe about the same things American iPhone consumers have been griping about since last spring. Where to begin? The servers used to activate the phones can't handle the massive ...

Do-It 1.0: Major iCal time-saver

iCal is a great calendaring app, but if you're a heavy user, you'll sympathize with us when we say it drives us nuts. Really, the most troublesome part of using iCal is adding events. Lots of unnecessary clicks and options that you can hide and show combine to slow you down when you're creating an event. Something that should take ten seconds takes forty. So we went in search of something to ...

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio