Alec Saunders SquawkBox

It’s really remarkable the complete and utter tripe that some "news" organizations will publish.  The object of my disdain today is the Vancouver Sun.  Writer Gillian Shaw has published one of the silliest, and most hysterical pieces on phone spam that one could imagine.  Titled "Phone spam a security risk", it purports to be about the risk of unwanted cellular calls, but then does a sharp right turn onto the bogeyman of Spam on Internet Telephony (SPIT).  Take this excerpt for instance…

"You could get calls with the wrong number, calls to sell sex toys, you may even get calls in the middle of the night because someone can hit the Send button and put out 50,000 calls."

Even more disturbing, videophones can deliver a virtual version of the intruder right into your home.

"If they’re calling your daughter and there is a naked man out there coming up on the screen, one call is one too many," said Pais.

You might see a naked man on your video phone… and how many people own video phones, again, George Jetson?

In Oh SPIT! Security Woes Hit VoIP Too, MSNBC provides a more balanced approach.  Essentially, they argue that VoIP security issues are just like the web security issues of today.  And yes, they go off the deepend again on SPIT.  SPIT is going to be an issue, no doubt.  And there will be a technical solution to that problem as well, no doubt. 

I had a great experience this evening, using Gizmo.  I hadn’t tried it before (who needs another softphone, sez me!), but Andy Abramson was giving it pretty high marks, so we had a call.  Then I called my business partner Howard on his cell phone with it.  This thing rocks!  It’s the softphone I would build if I had the opportunity.

What did I like? 

• Great sound quality.  I mean, really great!  No drop outs, no clipping.  I used to think Skype was great, but this was better-than-PSTN-by-a-country-mile sound quality. 
• Nice user interface.  No dial-pad.  Thank goodness!  To dial Andy, I just typed his name in, and Gizmo found him and dialed him.
• Brain-dead simply setup.  Literally, I downloaded it and it ran.
• Fun features.  Blasts (remember the radio dingbats - screeching tires, and so on), hold music and more.
• It’s SIP.  That means it can peer with any other SIP carrier out there (novel thought!).

It needs to be able to import my outlook address book, and I found a few UI gotcha’s, but gosh… this is a nice softphone!

Plaxo is a great little utility.  It generates all kinds of side effects.  For instance, I make it a habit of sending people those Plaxo e-cards on their birthday.  One of the toughest things to do in business is to simply stay in touch with your friends, and contacts.  Plaxo makes it a little easier.

Today is my friend Brandon Watson’s Birthday. He’s complaining that he didn’t get enough birthday wishes.   Head to his blog and wish him a Happy Birthday, if you wouldn’t mind.  I haven’t spoken to Brandon in months, but Plaxo reminded me that I should, so I did.  And I learned a whole bunch of interesting stuff. He’s started a consulting business - Desmogroup.  He’s a dad now.  He’s an ironman triathlete. 

Oh, and, because his new daughter is just six weeks old, they decided to stay in Houston during Hurricane Rita… and he blogged it.

I just love the way that Plaxo (and the web) makes it so easy to reconnect.

Happy Birthday Brandon!

I’ve been swapping mail with Kristin Peterson about Inveneo.  I mentioned that it would be very cool to see some photos of people using their system, and she pointed me to the pages on their Uganda deployment.  Without further ado, click here to see the Inveneo system in action. 

Berry411 is a great little utility for anyone who owns a RIM Blackberry. 

Berry 411 gives you instant access to yellow pages, white pages, Google, movie times, weather, encyclopedia, and Froogle results. You can dial any phone number directly from the display or add it to your phone book. The results are formatted to fit the Blackberry screen.

Free.