Technology Bytes

After reading some snippets from the iPhone 4 press conference, doesn’t look like Apple will recall the product. Jobs ranting on about how the smartphones aren’t perfect and naming a few other makers of smartphones including HTC Droid Eris, Blackberry Bold 9700, and Samsung Omnia all having the same antenna problems.

It’s official, Apple is giving out free bumper cases and if users are still not happy, then they can return the phone for a full refund.  He says no restocking fee either.  I can see the media is going to have a field day with this seeing how Jobs didn’t outright admit that there is a problem with the antenna.  I think Jobs puts out the fire but you know the media will want to keep the flame burning.  :)


You can follow the press conference live here:

iPhone 4 Press Conference Live

Timing is everything, as is the case for the launch of Droid X today.  With Consumer Reports not recommending users to buy the iPhone 4 to the HTC EVO and HTC Incredible remaining out of stock, Droid X should get a boost in sales even though Verizon did very little to market the highly touted next generation Motorola “Droid Does” smartphone.  I passed by a Verizon Wireless store this morning on Lexington Ave between 54th and 55th Street and saw a sign on the window stating “Droid X in stock”.

I am happy with my Nexus One but who knows what will happen when my AT&T contract ends a year from now.  By then, I’m sure there will be a plethora of smartphones and the pain will be in deciding which one to go with.  Until then…

Check out the Droid X…

Droid X Review…

I had a dream last night where everytime I pick up my N1 to make a call, the signal would drop.  When the alarm went off this morning on my N1, this is what I woke up to.  Is this a coincidence or Google is seeing your dream??  Either way, I’m a happy camper with Froyo!!

The update took about 10 minutes to install.  Froyo is indeed a lot faster.  Opening appllications is quite speedy.  More to come on the benchmarking and speedtest.

I am patiently waiting for the OTA Froyo update from Google. I have the AT&T unlocked phone with build number EPE54B. Not sure the over-the-air update is being rolled out to which phones. Some are saying it’s for the T-Mobile ones with FRF50 and FRF72 builds. If that is the case, then I should expect a version for the EPE54B build any day now. At least I’m hoping. Let me know if any of you have the OTA updates already.

Android 2.2 Hits Nexus One…

Now that Google has gone public with their Google voice service, I wonder what will be on deck for Google voice. One thing for sure, Google screws all the sellers of Google voice invites over at Ebay.

I think Google will wait to see how the public responds (how many more signups added to the existing user base of over one million) to the Google voice offering before making any announcements about its integration with Gizmo5.

Google Voice open to the public

Why does my internet works when I connect my cable modem to my PC but does not work when I connect the cable modem to my wireless router?

I see this question asked time and time again on pc support forums and blogs. Some of the answers suggested are :

1. Reboot your cable modem
2. Update your wireless router firmware to the latest version
3. Clone your MAC address

The first two suggestions do not solve your connection problem while the third suggestion, cloning your MAC address, works most of the time. What does work is to either call up your provider and have them release the MAC address binding on their system or power off your cable modem for at least 30 minutes. Then connect your cable modem to your wireless router and power up your cable modem.

I will show you how to make free calls using Google Voice, Gizmo5, Sipsorcery and ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) device. If you do not have a Gizmo5 account, then save this blog in your favorites until you do. Since Google acquired Gizmo5 back in November, signup has been suspended until further notice. You will also need a Google Voice number. If you don’t have one, request an invite here. Or request one here as I have a few left to give out. You will also need to signup for an account at Sipsorcery. Here I will use the Cisco ATA 186 adapter. You can, of course, use other SIP devices like the more popular Linksys PAP2T-NA which is cheaper.

From here on, I will assume you have all four requirements above.

1. Adding your Gizmo number to Google Voice account

Before adding your Gizmo number to Google Voice, you need to install the Gizmo softphone. You will need this softphone to verify your number.

Log on to your Google Voice account, go to “Settings” and click on “Add another phone”.

Name : Give it anything you like
Number: Your Gizmo number
Phone Type: Make sure you select Gizmo
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Once you click on “Save”, you will see a popup window with the verification code.

With your Gizmo softphone running, click “Connect” on the popup window and it will call your Gizmo number. Answer the call on your Gizmo softphone and enter in the verification code when prompt.

2. Configure SIP Sorcery account

Log on to your SIP Sorcery account

Click on the “SIP Providers” link at the top left corner, then click on “Add” under the SIP Providers section

Provider Name: Anything you want
Username: Your Gizmo number
Password: Your Gizmo account password
Server: SIP:proxy01.sipphone.com
Register: Checked
Register Contact: SIP:sipsorcery username@sipsorcery.com
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Click on “Update” will add/save your SIP provider info.

Click on the “Dial Plans” link and then either edit the “Default” plan or add a new dial plan. Here, I selected the default plan and pasted in the dial plan I copied from Norske & EasternPA. Here they also show you how to set this up with the Linksys PAP2T-NA ATA to work with Sipgate and Gizmo5.

Dial Plan Name: name it anything you like
Script Type: Ruby
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Copy and paste the dial plan script from Norske.
Change the “Area=” to your area code and the “Tz=” to your timezone.
The other things you need to edit from the script are the line under “GoogleVoice” section: sys.GoogleVoiceCall(‘GV username@gmail.com’,'GV password’,’1747#######’,@num,’.*’,7)

GV username: Your Google Voice account name
GV password: Your password
#######: The rest of your Gizmo number
————————————————————————————

In the script, you can add speed dial numbers among other things but I will not go into details here, refer to the article link above. Click on “Update” to save your dial plans.

**Notice that your Google Voice account password is in plain text and if you think you’ll lose sleep over this, then I suggest you create a new Gmail account and request Google to transfer your GV number over to it. This way your main email account is not exposed to hackers. Here is the link to request the number transfer. It took Google one day to transfer my number. Yes, I was losing sleep over this.

Request to allow Google Voice account transfer

After creating your dial plans, click on “SIP Accounts” link and then click on “Add” and enter in your SIP Sorcery account info.

Username: Your SIP Sorcery username
Password: Your password
Out Dial Plan: Click the drop down box and select the plan you created
In Dial Plan: Leave it blank
Keep Alives: Checked
Network ID: Leave it blank
IP Address ACL: Leave it blank
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3. Configure your Cisco ATA device to make and receive calls on cordless phone

If you are connecting your ATA to the network for the first time, follow the instructions below. The instructions is taken from the Cisco ATA administrator guides.

Using the Voice Configuration Menu

To manually configure the Cisco ATA by using the voice configuration menu and the telephone keypad, perform the following steps:

Procedure

Step 1. Connect an analog touch-tone phone to the port labeled Phone 1 on the back of the Cisco ATA.

Step 2. Lift the handset and press the function button located on the top of the Cisco ATA. You should receive the initial voice configuration menu voice prompt.

Step 3. Using the telephone keypad, enter the voice menu code for the parameter that you want to configure or the command that you want to execute, then press #. For a list of voice menu codes, see Appendix B, “Voice Menu Codes” in the administrator guides.

Table 3-6 lists the menu options that you need to configure basic IP connectivity for the Cisco ATA, after which you can use the Cisco ATA web configuration page to configure additional parameters.

Note If you are using the voice configuration menu to statically configure the Cisco ATA IP address, you must disable DHCP by setting its value to 0

Table 3.6
———————————————————————————–
Cisco ATA Voice Menu Number Features
1 StaticIP—IP address of the Cisco ATA.
2 StaticRoute—Default gateway for the Cisco ATA to use.
10 StaticNetMask—Subnet mask of the Cisco ATA.
20 DHCP—Set value to 0 to disable the use of a DHCP server; set value to 1 to
enable DHCP.
21 Review the IP address of the Cisco ATA.
22 Review the default router for the Cisco ATA to use.
23 Review subnet mask of the Cisco ATA
———————————————————————————–

Step 4. Follow the voice prompts and enter the appropriate values, then press the # key.
Note Use the * key to indicate a delimiter (dot). For example, to enter an IP address of 192.168.3.1, you would enter 192*168*3*1 on your telephone keypad.

If you have one sitting on the shelf collecting dust and don’t remember the password, you can reset your Cisco ATA to factory default values. To perform a factory reset, you must use the voice configuration menu and follow these steps:

Procedure
——————————————————————————–
Step 1 Press the function button on the Cisco ATA.

Step 2 Press the digits 322873738 (FACTRESET) then press # on your telephone keypad.

Step 3 Press * on your telephone keypad to confirm that you want to reset the Cisco ATA, then hang up the phone.
——————————————————————————–

Once you have your network values set, you can access the configuration menu through your web browser. The IP address of my ATA is 192.168.1.103. I type in the browser URL, http://192.168.1.103/dev to access the ATA configuration menu.

The parameters you need to enter are:

UID0: SIP Sorcery Username
PWD0: SIP Sorcery Password
GkOrProxy: sipsorcery.com
SIPRegOn: 1
SIPPort: 5060 (**Need to open this port)
OutBoundProxy: sipsorcery.com
MediaPort: 16384 (**Need to open this port)
NatServer: stun01.sipphone.com:3478
————————————————————————————

Click on “Apply” at the bottom and then click on “[Click here to reload]” link at the top.

Log on to your SIP Sorcery account and check to make sure your SIP account binds to your Cisco ATA device and your SIP provider binds to Gizmo successfully. If they are, pick up your phone and you should hear dial tone.

To dial out, you can either dial 1-(area code)-number-# or just (area code)-number-#.

If you have problems dialing (fast busy or one way audio), make sure you have ports 5060 and 16384 open to your ATA device. Instructions on how to forward ports can be found here.

Happy Dialing!!!

Procedure to reset the Cisco IP phone Cisco 7970G
to factory default settings. The phone must be on a network that supports DHCP.

Step 1 – Unplug the power cable from the phone and then plug it back in.

The phone begins its power up cycle.

Step 2 – While the phone is powering up, and before the Speaker button flashes on and off, press #.

Each line button flashes on and off in sequence.

Step 3 – Press 123456789*0#.

You can press a key twice in a row, but if you press the keys out of sequence, the factory reset will not take place.

After you press these keys, the phone will go through the factory reset process.

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To reboot the phone, press: **#**
To unlock the network configuration on the phone, press: **#

Sources at Tech Crunch are reporting that Google has acquired Gizmo5. It looks like talks between Skype and Gizmo5 went to a dead end last month due to Skype litigation issues. Google saw the opportunity and snatched up (though unconfirmed at the moment) the peer-to-peer VoIP startup company for $30 million. Gizmo5 is based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and can interoperate with other SIP-based networks directly, including the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Gizmo5 has the service features, CallOut/CallIn, available at a fee. Maybe, when Google integrates Google Voice with Gizmo5, these features will be free. But we all know there is no such thing as free lunch. Google will serve up their ad network in your so-called voice portal like they do with Gmail. Should Skype be worried? I would think so.

Google and Gizmo5 have yet to go public on this news. The news have also brought Gizmo5 website to a crawl as curious internet users wanted to know what Gizmo5 is all about. I’m sure there will be a vast amount of Google Voice users signing up with a Gizmo5 account as well.

Google Acquired Gizmo5