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Shortly before the Christmas Session it arrived infront of my door, the FREETALK Wireless Headset.

Now you say we have seen this before? In fact the one tested by Skype Gear 2 years ago was a different model.

The new model (which is also called “iss-talk-5192-freetalk”) has the following technical data:

“*AvneraAudioTM radio chip for highest quality wireless audio clarity.



*Super wideband audio.



*Neodymium speakers for rich full range stereo sound 20Hz-20KHz.



*At least 5.5 hours of continuous use per charge.



*Charge and Talk.



*Innovative, light fold-flat design.



*Up to 15 metres effective range.



*Plug and Play instant use USB.



*Adjustable headband and microphone.



*Optimised for Skype – excellent for all internet calls.



*2m charging cable.



*PC and Mac compatible.



*Weighs 142g.”

Similarities to other headsets

The following features it has together with other wireless heasets:

-Charging cable

It’s just a normal mini USB cable, so you can extend it or replace it by a new one that is pretty neat.

-Plug and Play instant use USB

That’s what it has together with the others I have seen, so no biggie here.

-Adjustable headband and microphone.

Can be found on others too.

-You hear yourself when speaking

This is according to In Store, who sell it in the Skype Store a feature because on thick headsets you tend to have a problem hearing yourself.

The differences

-charging from the USB stick.

As mentioned above it’s using a mini-USB cable and that is connected between the stick and the headset itself for charging.

The battery life of 5.5 hours were met and even surpassed by a bit.

-fold it

You can fold it exactly like you know it from your beloved plane headphones which is pretty cool as it makes it less breakable if you sit on it by accident.

It comes with a bag to carry, even!

-super wideband audio. 20Hz-20KHz.

No other wireless headset sounded any better. there is no disturbance , distance is matched too and there is no sound difference between the wired ones.

-answer call button functions

According to the manual it can happen that this doesn’t work even if you enable key controls within skype which is unfortunately also the case for me. No solutions provided. That’s something I can just hope to see fixed some day by anybody.

(Probably not by Freetalk as this headset doesn’t come with extra drivers, it uses the ones shipped with Windows).

Summary:

Pros:

-light, foldable, you can carry around

-comes with a nice carry bag

-Audio quality surpasses the one of ANY other corded or cordless headset (it matches to the corded variant: the FREETALK Everyman headset)

-Uses normal mini usb for charging and this can be done while speaking!

Cons:

-Skype button functionality doesn’t work for everybody even if settings in Skype as in the manual.

-You could have to get used hearing yourself.

If I was a designer, I would make this optional by a button on a headset but nobody asked me.

All in all, it’s the best wireless USB headset I have ever owned and that is why I will sell my other which I used up today.

Thanks Freetalk for releasing another kicker and to In Store for fast shipping.

Technorati Tags: Skype, headset

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Fixing Skype DualPhone Philips VOIP8411B /01 issues when using multiple instances of Skype on a computer and other Skype phones (e.g. Ipevo phones):

I’ve waited a bit because I wanted to give Philips a chance for a worthy solution. So far nothing that would really help the issues of your Philips VOIP8411 crashing/losing network connection or losing Skype contacts.

So learn how to fix most issues step-by-step:

Learning that you have a problem:

You are having a problem, if:

-Your contacts on your Skype phones vanish and on Skype for computers, the contacts that got automagically deleted on the SKype phones are still there but in the computer clients, they lost authorization

-Your Philips VOIP8411 displays the “S!” warning icon (which means “network issues”, no further info gathered when asking Philips and the manual is thin). If you got that icon, you most likely have a contact list sync error then you will lose contacts in consequence. (Skype confirmed this can happen when asked)

-Your Philips VOIP8411 tells you “no network” or “unavailable” every 2nd day and you have to remove it and replug it into the power outlet.

Here is how to resolve the issues:

STEP 1: Applying Firmware update

On the English support pages of the phone you can find a document mentioning some important points that you have take care of, or otherwise the process will fail (it’s not so easy to brick the phone or make it dead so don’t be so afraid).

This document hasn’t been translated into other languages so you might not find it on the localized download pages if you are unlucky.

a) If you are using a network of cascading router/switches, do yourself a favor and connect it to the main router

b) Keep the phone on DHCP, you may set a static IP for the MAC address of your phone in your router if you want to, it could come into handy.

c) For your own sake disconnect any other Skype phone and shut down any other skype client!

d) Disable any security software including nasty firewalls or threat detection software.

e) Use Internet Explorer! Either IE6 or IE8 in page compatibility mode!!! don’t use any other!
If you cannot find it on your PC, be sure it is there! START –> RUN… > iexplore

f) Detach the PSTN phone network cable! Despite the phone is in a firmware upgrading procedure, the phone won’t care and still rings on incoming phone calls!

Now download the correct firmware files be sure to download the one fitting to your release version of the phoone! and select it and if you see that it’s upgrading now in the browser window then everything is fine. the procedure is taking 15-30 mins.

If it fails, the handset will still be blocked for 15 minutes saying “Updating software…. please wait”

If this doesn’t change after 45 mins, replug and try again and check you didn’t miss a point above.

In the worst case scenario press the reset button on the base unit for 15 seconds, remove the batteries from the handset for 10 minutes and try again.

Stabilizing the VOIP8411 phone

Unfortunately it’s very picky on settings, if you don’t do it EXACTLY the way as suggested it here, it will crash/lose network connection constantly.

Here is the proof that I got it right:

Getting the settings right:

– DHCP . Keep it there. The phone loves to be set to DHCP. You don’t want to have a mess in your network? Set a static IP for the phone in your router’s static IP settings.

-Admin login: Keep the default password!

-Link Speed : 10 MBit

-Keep the default Skype port settings and the default “alernative ports: Yes”

Setting ports for your other Skype phones/Skype windows/mac/linux/ect clients

Skype ports: Disable alternative ports and check the port used in the Philips phone and set a different one for any other Skype phone/client so none of them have the same Skype port and set all on “alternative ports: No”.

I REPEAT: Keep the alternative ports on the PHILIPS phone on YES or else you will have a Skype Network warning and lose contacts
(Your contacts on your Skype phones vanish and on Skype for computers, the contacts that got automagically deleted on the SKype phones are still there but in the computer clients, they lost authorization )

IMPORTANT: Unfortunately the IPEVO S0-20 cannot be used yet as this is (to my knowledge) one of the rare phones if not even the only NOT allowing to set Skype ports!

I asked them to offer this ability in the near future, eespecially since this is required in many enviroments to work correctly (like university networks, etc)

Conclision: The phone is rock solid if you know exactly how to setup it correctly. The best would be if Philips was addressing the problems by supplying some new firmware update as this is a no hardware defect . Anyway, I seriously urge Ipevo to fix the S0-20 as well.

Once the Philips VOIP8411 is setupped correctly, it perfoms awesomely as described in my earlier review of this phone – here.

Technorati Tags: Philips, Skype
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As discovered by my friend macxylo, the ICQ Team seems to be working on copying AIM’s Lifestream service to ICQ now. The settings page is already there and Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, ICQ, Twitter and YouTube integration already works as it can be seen on my Facebook Wall, too me on Facebook.

I believe Yahoo was the first hear offering something that seems to be exactly the same!

Technorati Tags: ICQ, Lifestream
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Jaanus Kaase, ex-member of the Skype Team speaks in his blog about how Google Wave works, is designed and how Skype desidgned multi-user chats and what problems they came across.

Jaanus Kaase is reasoning this way:

“I was intrigued because it was a déjà vu from five years ago to me. It was the time when I was challenged with leading the effort to design Skype chat to support multiple people. I now thought a five year anniversary is fitting to document this part of Internet history. And furthermore, enough time has gone by to make sure that this doesn’t contain any proprietary info or doesn’t hurt anybody. A lot has changed with Skype chat and conversations, and I mostly wasn’t a part of the later changes. I can’t really explain the more recent work. I can only discuss how it came to be.”

Be sure to read on!

In a later post, Jaanus also explains why Google Wave is still broken and how you can get teh following error screen and your data is lost:

Technorati Tags: Skype, Google Wave
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Remember my free gmail invites campaign?, now I am back, this time with free Google Wave invites!

Why buying them from eBay when you can get one from me for free?

To get your free Google Wave invite (as long as I still have some remaining), email me at nafcom[at}c64.org

Please mention in your email your name and the email you want your invitation be sent to.

Google Invites take at the moment about 2 days to arrive.

Technorati Tags: Google, Wave
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There are News about “Skype on Mobile”:

For once the funny new advertisement video:

There is even one more I just discovered:

http://www.skype.com/magic/#panelPreset1

Read more about it at http://skype.com/magic (Source and more info at Share Skype Blog)

And fitting to that Skype announced the Nokia N900 which has Skype integrated rather than downloading:

According to a comment in Skype’s Facebook group it implies that Video calling was promised but not included.

A reply by Skype to this question in the facebook group is still missing to date. Unfortunately it does not show an example about the audio quality but I guess they use their SILK codec there too as they recently did the same with the iPhone version of the Skype software.

According to the comments of a Skype poster, they even have a Blackberry now in beta test.

What did Skype support do prior to Skype for iPhone? They suggested using fring.

Technorati Tags: Skype, mobile
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Support me by spreading the word, please. Thank you!

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Yes, I have learned my lesson. Never be a honest customer if it could turn out negative to you eventhough you didn’t do anything wrong.

I was seeking a micro SD card with Mini SD adapter for my handheld device and so I have ordered it online (never had an issue with that, done that for years).

Unfortunately the mail trader sent me the wrong adapter so it was useless for me. I was calling them and they told me “just put it in an envelope and send it back” to which I replied: “I better use an alternative that tracks letters so it won’t get lost”. Said & done, so I put it in an envelope and sent it off.

Returning home 10 mins later I received an email “as told on phone please send it as a parcel and write the following RMA number on it.”

I was thinking “are you kidding me????” and emailed them back I was told on phone otherwise.

That’s how the nightmare started… 10 days later still no refund so I sent an email to them and they told me it hadn’t arrived. No problem, asking the private mail company telling them the stamp number they checked it out and told me when it was delivered and to where, I sent that to the mail trader (along with a copy of the report of delivered items by the postman I was sent). Their reply was it is wrong.

So since the card was from Nokia I sent them an email explaining the case and that I can proof everything and I am ready to forward that all to them.

Their reply was they will send me a replacment. They asked me what I use it for, I replied for a game handheld and that was the wrong answer. They replied me back they have changed their mind since I don’t have a Nokia phone.

Being sad about this, I decided to call their hotline, they told me they will call me back I said “no problem, I am on holidays”.

They of course didn’t call me back until my holidays were over and I had to go to work again. They left me a message on my voicemail that they cannot send me a replacement.

A few days later I received an email from Nokia with a customer satisfaction poll.

I replied back I won’t answer it to raise a protest.

Sad, very sad.

What do we learn from this? Never be too honest.

Technorati Tags: Nokia, support
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Today, I have decided to add my Twitter updates to my blog.

I found a hint of possible ways to include Twitter to your blog but none of them were what I wanted. Today while researching the Facebook blocked in Vietnam issue I noticed that MikeInTaiwan did it in the way I wanted. I just changed some CSS and HTML code here and there and ta-da! It’s done! It has been tested to work in:

Latest IE8
Latest Opera
Latest Firefox
Latest Chrome
Latest Safari

If you are interested to make something similar to your blog, the core code can be here

Technorati Tags: Blog, Twitter
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Update2: Since I received feedback from some people on this including Dan, it seems to be unclear whether it is indeed a hoax and some ISP server troubles or not a hoax and a real block.
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Update (old)
The issue which started back in August is a hoax! check it out! Interesting that even CNN fell for it and it’s even not April yet!

The Vietnamnese government blocked the access of Facebook now. (According to MikeInVietnam – here.

This is truly a sad day since I knew people in Vietnam, now the chance to find them on Facebook will be zero 🙁
I was able to get back in touch with people that appeared to be appearing nowhere.

My friend Dan Offer (known for offering the pretty cool Facebook chat client named Chit Chat for Facebook) decided to open a dedicated Facebook Group – Unblock Facebook in Vietnam to get Vietnam to think twice!

According to CNN’s iReport blog, those are the reasons:

“For security reasons and to fight against propagative activities that oppose the Party and the government, Department of Professional Technology – Office of Security Administration – Ministry of Public Security suggests that the addressed companies to apply technical methods to block thoroughly these following websites.”

This act of political censorship clearly manifest the government’s recognition of the threat posed by Facebook, specifically its power to communicate and publicize. Although Vietnamese internet users have already found back doors to access Facebook by changing DNS information from browser or using another proxy, nevertheless, the Vietnamese government still achieves its ultimate goal: to arrest the spread of “malicious” information.”

This is a very big social threat for us Facebook users, for all Vietnamese and globalism!

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Vietnam
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The German Postal Service’s letter tracking system is down again.

Didn’t we have that with DHL already and also shortly before Christmas?

Yes, indeed we did:

Christmas 2006.

The track & trace systems are supposed to work more than just sometimes? Especially for people from abroad or people who work in shifts like me and sometimes cannot call when their call center is open!

Technorati Tags: Post, DHL
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