Voipally

One of the cool things about Jabber is that it allows you to host your own server, which gives you an IM address like name@host.com.
The webhosting company Dreamhost has taken advantage of this and now offers to host your own Jabber server in any of their hosting plans. I haven’t tried the Jabber hosting, but it seems like a pretty good deal - plans start at $7.95 per month for unlimited domain name hosting, SSH, etc as well as your own Jabber server.

UPDATE: During April, the code 30OFFER will get you a $30 discount on any plan from Dreamhost. Just enter it as a promo code during the sign-up process and the discount will be applied.

Google has just done a new release of the GTalk client, adding the much-requested file transfer feature. The new version also includes voicemail and “music status”, which will show what song you are listening in iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player and (interestingly) Yahoo Music Engine.

This is a significant release, because the lack of file transfer was a real negative which meant that a lot of people who would otherwise use GTalk couldn’t.

Update: It’s also mentioned on the Google Talk Blog.

Skype have just relased their Office Toolbar which allows you to:

Place calls and send the file you are currently working on via Skype. The toolbar recognizes phone numbers within your document and lets you call them using SkypeOut or send SMS messages.

I’m a little surprised that Skype developed this themselves and didn’t leave it for one of their developer partners to create. Microsoft has a history of “stealing oxygen” from their partners by moving things that would have been add-ons into the operating system. Is Skype going the same way?

Live Journal is integrating a white-label version of Gizmo in order to offer IM & Voice communications between Live Journal users. Presumably this will integrate the Gizmo contact list with the fairly sophisticated social networking features which already exist in Live Journal.

The press releases seem to indicate this will be the case:

Using the free Gizmo Project for LJ Talk voice and IM software, LiveJournal users will be able to make calls and instant message contacts from their LiveJournal Friends list, making it easier to stay in contact. Their existing Friends list will be automatically available to users when they log in to the software using standard LiveJournal account information, and new contacts can be added easily. All calls between LiveJournal users using the software will be free and LiveJournal users will be able to take advantage of the same promotional calling plans that Gizmo Project users enjoy.

It looks like LiveJournal have written their own Jabber server for the IM compnent, which they are opensourcing:

The introduction of the Jabber server continues LiveJournal’s tradition of contributing significant technologies to the open source community…..Any company or service provider wishing to use the LJ Jabber server can go to http://code.sixapart.com for more information.

Hat tip to GigaOM & VoIP Watch.

Vitamin, the producers of the Web2.0 podcast have an excellent how-to on using Skype in a podcast.

So you want to be a podcast superstar? Well, while this article might not make you a superstar, the aim is to help you record quality audio using Skype. Skype recording can be a tricky, but the benefits far outweigh the time investment it takes to learn. We use it on the Web 2.0 Show podcast to capture our interview audio and it has allowed us to interview some very big names without being in our interviewee’s location. Or running up large phone bills. This article will cover both Mac and Windows based recording techniques, and we will post follow-up articles covering post-production of the audio and how to upload and track your podcast.

Interestingly, on Windows they use HotRecorder instead of the more commonly used Skylook.

The GTalk2VoIP blog has details on how to call a GTalk user from a landline (or any PSTN phone including mobiles). It uses a gateway number provided by Sipbroker.com - with local number available in a wide range of countries. The instructions for use sound kind of complicated, but I suspect they in practice it isn’t as complex as it sounds:

1. Obtain your own SIPBroker ID from your personal page on GTalk2VoIP (follow the link displayed by MYPAGE command).
2. Choose one of the available PSTN gateway numbers. Complete list is at http://www.sipbroker.com/sipbroker/action/pstnNumbers
3. Dial the PSTN gateway number from your mobile or any other phone.
4. Punch in your SIPBroker ID using tones (DTMF) at voice prompt and wait incoming call to your Google Talk.

I haven’t tried this yet, but I’d be interested to hear from any readers who get it working with GTalk, or any other SIP based software. For instance, in theory this should work fine with Gizmo.

Updated: It is very easy to do this with Gizmo - go to the SipBroker.com list of access numbers, dial one, then enter your Gizmo SIP number (found by going File->My Profile and looking in the “SIP number” field). That’s it! I’ve yet to have the same success with GTalk, though.

WiFi phones for use with Skype or SIP based VoIP providers (such as Gizmo) are slowly becoming available. For instance, the following phones are already available on Amazon:

• Belkin Wi-Fi Phone for Skype ( F1PP000GN-SK )
• NETGEAR WiFi Phone for Skype (SPH101)
• Linksys WIP330 - Wireless VoIP phone (SIP based)

The Skype phones are also available in the Skype Store

However, note that most of these phones don’t include a webbrowser, so there is no way to authenticate yourself at public WiFi hotspots that require browser-based authentication. This is quite a big problem, IMO.

I would hope that the second generation of these phones overcomes this limitation. Another possibility is that hotspot vendors could provide better support for non-computer based devices. However, since many hotspots are provided by telco owned companies I would imagine they will delay this for as long as possible.

Skype has released a new version for the Mac, this time including video.

Skype for Mac with Video is currently a preview version. ‘Preview’ means that we’re still working on it and have only tested it under specific conditions, therefore we can’t guarantee the quality users on different hardware or operating systems will experience.

There are a number of posts on the Skype Mac blog covering this release:

• Video has arrived – If you’re brave!
• Skype for Mac 1.5 is here
• New face of Skype for Mac

Note that downloading the new version 1.5 won’t give you video - for that you need the video preview version.

The slides from Brian Capouch’s talk at OSCON “Asterisk Inside and Out” are now available. The slides are available here.

Some readers of this blog might not be aware of the wonderful service VOIPBuster offers on their webpage. Simply enter the number of the phone you would like to call, and the number of the phone you want to call from and Voipbuster will call them both. This works for international calls to landlines in over 30 countries, and mobiles in the US. Some of my friends have reported that the calls used to have a time limit of 15 minutes, but this no longer appears to be the case.

As far as I am aware this is the easiest way to make free calls between two landlines. (I’m not actually aware of any service that does anything similar. Please let me know if I’m missing one).