Living with The SoftPhones

The last week I worked out of the office all five days. That meant I got to play with a lot of softclients and apps that I don't normally get to try when I'm in meeting mode as I have been the last few weeks. Those meetings, with clients and team members sometimes despite how much I love and use SightSpeed just have to be done face to face.

So in the office what did I use and play around with (in no order)?

1) Truphone on my E61 via its kick butt speaker and in the words of my fiance, "it rocked"

2) SightSpeed to see clients and colleagues

3) Gizmo for my inbound calls via GrandCentral and outbound calls from my GrandCentral contact book and when returning voicemail calls

4) Skype to record the daily news with Ken on KenRadio

5) Yahoo Messenger with Voice and I experimented more with the Linksys phone but since that has to be tethered to the PC that is using Y! Messenger it's rather limited as the PC is in one place and the Mac is usually wherever I am. The same applies to AIM PhoneLine..PC Only, but at least I can have dual logins, something Yahoo doesn't permit (YET)

6) Fring-I like the fact that I can get IM and calls from Gizmo and Skype on this. They have really figured out the multi-headed IM and Voice

6) JaJah-yup I'm trying out minute stealing when I'm on the go. I actually see more use for this in the International market than domestically, and at the same time see the carriers getting into blocking and tackling these types of things soon

7) VoipUser-I pointed a free VoIPUser number to my GrandCentral number. I did the same with another provider's number in France to make it easy for my French colleagues and friends to reach me when they are mobile. When I'm in the office GrandCentral rings GizmoProject, when I'm out it rings my mobile. When I'm traveling it rings Truphone on the E61 or Gizmo on the N80-I on my Nokia Internet Tablet, the N800.

8) I also experimented with GoogleTalk and while I like what its promise holds, not too many people I know are on it (YET) and what's more the voice isn't interoperable with AIM which I use as my Jabber client on the Mac. Google needs a Mac client, beyond the module that does chat on the Mac.

9) Pal Thomas Hale (inventor of Wired Planet which is now Rhapsody) suggested a mic for me to use. Its called Blue Snowball and it's amazing. I now use the Mac as a speaker phone and that mic and the sound is amazing with VoiP. Zero feedback.

Anyway, its been a week of experimentation,,,now I'm off to VON to see What's NEXT!

Comments

[Andy Abramson]

I do it the same way Pat.

As for Plunkman, Cingular sells only an E62 which lacks WiFi and that just won't do what you want (YET)...Maybe one day, but Cingular ripped the heart out of the E61..

Andy

[Craig Plunkett]

Truphone didn't recognize my cingular E61 as a supported phone when I tried to download it. Perhaps the media net browser didn't allow the phone to be identified properly?

[Pat Phelan]

Receive all your calls via Grandcentral to Sip on a dual mode Gsm/wifi would be my suggestion Andy.Thats how I do it when I am in Ireland