myprofessorvoip blog

Voice over IP is typical networking with a twist. People who don’t know networking or don’t understand networking in it’s entirety usually become intimidated by VOIP. It is so frustrating for me as a VOIP professional and a Networking Architect the feed on the ignorance that alot of people have about VOIP.

As easy as it is to run a website one could start a VOIP phone service such as what Skype and Jajah have and completely generate capitol. Having this knowledge makes me feel powerful. Not able to capitalize makes me feel lazy. I can be lazy, I have a full time job and full time hobbies like these websites. Still, operating a service is twice as easy as you would think.

1) download Asterisk PBX and install it on a public webserver

2) Purchase DID’s. Very cheap. IP trunk to a provider.

3) Advertise.

Softphones are a dime a dozen. But if you want a free one use X-lite. It is the cheap version of Ibeam. And there you have it, you are now a VOIP provider.

I guess one could write hacks on any subject all day and if you read my previous postings on Jajah, you could think of this one on your own. As stated previously before Jajah could be used to connect two calling parties at local costs. This posting from a friendly voip blog states free, but in essence you use AT&T minutes as well as minutes on Jajah because it isn’t free after your first couple of calls. Here is the link for Voip hacking on the IPhone.Jajah + Iphone hack

Sorry for the lack of posting the last week or so, I have been on vacation and even the professor needs R&R. Okay now that that is over I bet you knew I would be one of those idiots standing in line on June 29th for an Iphone. Well I almost stood in line. That’s why God gave me sons. Okay. God didn’t didnt actually do the work for me, that may have been a figure of speech. Now back to the phone.

I am impressed. I am usually let down when I am in anticipation mode, but I am actually impressed. All of the bad reviews out there are from people who stood in line and didn’t make the cut. (I was number 47 and the cut was number 50 in a Delaware Cingular store). So i bet you number 51 was pissed. I didn’t see that loser I was playing with my phone all the way to the car.

Anyways, all of the hype was well worth it. Internet browsing, man i felt like Tom Cruise on that move, you know the one where he plays with his hands to save the 3 dead women in water. No, not Days of Thunder it was Minority Report. In that aspect, the Iphone is very fun to navigate with. I can tell you that after 48 hours the only thing I did not like about the Iphone is that it’s Bluetooth is incompatible with most of my Bluetooth 2.0 gadgets and that the email set up does not like any ports outside of SMTP and POP ports. Which means any secure ports other than 443 it does not like. So again I have to reprogram my life around a gadget.

But other than that I am waiting to see where this gadget takes me. I have yet to work with syncing features of OSX address book on mac, and I havent figured out how to make a Ringtone with Itunes, but i have time. Hell in 12 months i will be standing in line again because Cell phones only last a year now-a-days.

The iphone is delicate so buy a protective cover. I have to give it a five star rating for being different.

Okay. You know I am the biggest advocate for VOIP there is. But the one thing you give up w/ VOIP is privacy. Most internet connectivity goes over shared media at some point and time. Dial-up connections push you out into a shared pool of pppoe packets waiting to get sniffed, High speed internet connections over HFC (cable modems) spit you out into a shared pool of everyones traffic. And with that, I to remind you that in every network engineer’s toolbag is a sniffer. A tool which captures data, which now VOICE is data, so that the engineer can analyze. Voice traffic is transmitted in a protocol called RTP.

Well now after you have captured the traffic, the question is how do I hear the actual voice. Well here is a tool that is cheap and affordable and can be used to find out what your boss is saying about you with. The tool is called “HotRecorder” and can turn almost anything into a mp3 format. Now it may be easier just to change the file extention over to MP3, however you may lose the ability to make the speach audible so using this tool is safer. Try it out and let me know what you think about it. It could save you money if you are planning on finding a divorce lawyer.

http://www.hotrecorder.com/

Okay so you may or may not have heard about this new feature. But as my first post i have to post a new voice feature i am excited about. First and foremost, we all know that Skype is the leading VOIP provider in the world. If you don’t know that you are living in a bubble. Well mcePHONE gives residential customers the ability to see caller id on their TV when the phone rings. Just picture watching the game on a Sunday afternoon and all of a sudden the phone rings, now if your like me i let it ring because i know i wont be able to find the cordless in time. However, what if it is the hot wings delivery guy? I think it is brilliant that I can see who is calling while seeing Peyton Manning get sacked.

Check it out: http://www.scendix.com/mcephone/