Alec Saunders SquawkBox

It’s a “trimming the inbox” Sunday around here.  I’ve just blasted through some 500 odd emails that have been languishing in my inbox.  In the better late than never category… amongst those mails was a note from my pal Brandon Watson about the Windows Vista support he and his team have built into their IMSafer product.  In addition, they built a wizard to make it easier to configure Vista’s parental controls.  If you’re a parent, and own a Windows Vista PC, go check it out. 

WorxBox is …

The Asterisk Server with the Worx®! The goal of the Worxbox® project is to provide a production quality Open-Source Unified Communications Server that’s easy to build, configure and manage. WorxBox® installs all the software needed to deploy a fully functional Asterisk® based PBX and creates a basic configuration which can then be easily optimized to meet the requirements of almost any business.

WorxBox® is a no-compromise, next-generation phone system that can scale to support several hundred users, but it doesn’t stop there. Worxbox® also integrates Asterisk® with a comprehensive suite of supporting and complementary web, messaging, networking and business productivity modules. In fact, for many small businesses Worxbox® may be the only server they need!

Learn more here.  And if you’re so inclined, make a contribution.  I am sure Jeremy would welcome the support.

You hafta love Ted Wallingford.  Smart guy, insightful commentary, and occasionally he just “hits one out of the park” with some particularly good observations.  In this case, his call for Steve Jobs to turn iTunes into the YouTube of music is brilliant.  In fact, it may be the smartest thing that Jobs could do, given that YouTube is already becoming… the YouTube of music.  Every day you find more and more clips from up and comers and musical wannabe’s finding their way onto YouTube.  How long before the labels, and hence iTunes, become irrelevant?

Ted’s proposal is just the sort of inspired lunacy, the zig to Microsoft’s DRM zag, that Apple ought to embrace.  Let people upload their own music and share the profits from downloads with them.  iTunes has more market power than you think, Steve.  What would happen if iTunes became the indy “label” of choice?