VoicePulse SIP Service Now Available In Raleigh

I got this email today from VoicePulse, announcing the availability of 919 numbers for their SIP service. For $8/month, I can get a 919 phone number that rings my SIP devices (like Asterisk or Sipura) and get long distance for 2.9 cents per minute.

I think I’ll try it.

Hello,

Recently, you signed up to be notified when VoicePulse was available in your area. This one-time email notification is to let you know that we are now available in the area codes and cities listed below. Remember, if your exact city isn’t listed below, you can still pick a phone number from the closest city.

Area Code (919):
CHAPEL HILL (CHAPELHILL)
DURHAM (DURHAM)
RALEIGH (CARY)
RALEIGH (RALEIGH)

Regards,
VoicePulse
http://www.voicepulse.com/

Running Linux Under Windows

Well, I finally got around to configuring CoLinux (cooperative Linux) that I mentioned earlier and I am quite impressed. I can now run Linux sessions in a window on my Win2K machine. It’s like VMWare, but free.

I’ve booted the sample Debian image and also the Fedora Linux partition I’ve got on the other side of the dual-boot machine. Neither one is perfect for this setup, however (the fstab must be tweaked to point to virtual colinux devices, rather than physical ones), so I’m going to create a fresh Fedora image to use for testing.

Now all I need is an X client for Windoze and I can run graphical Linux apps straight from Windows. Pretty cool stuff.

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Talk Like Sean Connery

The office has turned into a Talk Like Sean Connery zone. People converse using a Sean Connery accent. It’s a bit bizarre, even by my standards.

It all started with our conferencing software, WebEx. I’ve long thought their voice prompt guy sounds like Sean Connery. So, every time I logged in to Webex, I would do it in a Sean Connery voice. Well, the voice has escaped my cubicle and spread. Now half of the office is talking like Sean Connery. It’s gotten out of control.

The appeal is simple: if you want to make anything sound funny, just say it as Sean Connery. Try it. I’ll wait.

Bumper Snicker

Every day I drive by a pickup truck with a sticker that says “My Other Car Is A Jet.” Which is pretty impressive, if you think about it: driving a jet. Not bad, right? Except I once saw one that had that one beat.

Back in the early 90’s, my ship was visiting Alameda, CA for some repairs. At an adjacent pier was the USS Abraham Lincoln, a massive, floating steel city. In the commanding officer’s parking space was a tiny Honda Civic with a sticker that read (wait for it): “My Other Car Is An Aircraft Carrier.”

It don’t get much bigger than that.
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TV Kills Attention Span

Research indicates that TV permanently affects the attention span of kids. Seems the fast-paced images are to blame, permanently altering how the brain develops.

“The newborn brain develops very rapidly during the first two to three years of life. It’s really being wired” during that time, Christakis said.

“We know from studies of newborn rats that if you expose them to different levels of visual stimuli … the architecture of the brain looks very different” depending on the amount of stimulation, he said.

Overstimulation during this critical period “can create habits of the mind that are ultimately deleterious,” Christakis said. If this theory holds true, the brain changes likely are permanent, but children with attention problems can be taught to compensate, he said.

I find the whole topic fascinating because … hey, have you seen penguin baseball?
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Line Of Sight

I was on the roof today cleaning out gutters. At least, that was the official reason. I also wanted to adjust my weather instruments because I was afraid I’d mounted them too low. As I sat on top of my chimney and moved the wind vane a foot higher on my mast, I looked around and realized I could easily see about 30 houses around me. It got me thinking how easy it would be to mount an access point up on my mast and share the Wi-Fi love with my neighborhood.

I need to build a Power Over Ethernet cable, buy a plastic container to mount to the mast, and firewall the whole thing off of my home network before I can distribute the bits. By the time I actually want to do anything, though, we’ll probably be close to selling the house.

Maybe I should add ‘elevation’ to the list of things we need in our new house.

Daylight Evil Time

There’s something evil about Daylight Savings Time. I’m not sure if it’s the mucking with the time that ticks me off (so to speak), or the fact that time is so rigid the rest of the year.

Once upon a time, we humans got up when the sun came up, we did our thing during the day, and when nightfall came we slept. This is just how the other 99.9999 % of Earth’s life forms perceive time. Why mess with a good thing?

I think we should either pick a time and stick with it, or ignore the clock all together and go with the sundial. This semi-annual flip-flopping has got to go.