Not Geeky!

Lately I have been using both Skype and Voipstunt. I do have to Skype’s version 4.0 is a lot better than the old one. In some areas Voipstunt does win, but not in all!

For your convenience I came up with several. This should make it easier for a voip caller to make a decision on what to use or even better, what to use when.

1. PC to PC
When you’re making calls from your PC to another PC Skype is the better option. It is possible using Voipstunt, however it seems to take too much of your computer resources. To be honest: for this I prefer Google Talk. Google Talk is a small application and the sound quality is excellent.

2. Phone to Phone
In some countries Skype offers phone to phone calls. In most it doesn’t. And if it does it still requires you to have a monthly subscription, which is not needed with Voipstunt. In addition Voipstunt offers various ways to initiate a phone to phone call.

3. Dropping Calls
Skype is way more prone to drop calls,which I found really annoying. In this area I hardly have any issues with Voipstunt.

4. Firewall Issues
Skype manages to get through Firewalls a lot better than Voipstunt. So if you are in a particular area where you can’t make voipstunt work, you probably can make your call using Skype.

5. Mobile to Phone
See also item 2. With Voipstunt, If you do it the smart way you can program your phone in such a way it dials the number for you. In addition there are all sorts of mobile client tools that can help you reducing the costs. In the UK you have the 3 network that offers similar functionality on your mobile, however this is only in the UK.

6. Echo Cancellation
Skype has better Echo cancellation overall. In some cases Voipstunt echoes a lot, to the point where it becomes really annoying. This can  depend on your configuration, destination and time of day.

7. Costs to Landlines
Voipstunt is way cheaper than Skype, both to landlines and mobiles. Voipstunt is often, not always, free, Skype just isn’t. With Skype you can reduce the costs by having a subscription, but only if you make phonecalls for hours and hours per day this will be cheaper than Voipstunt. (2.95GBP to one country a month, only landlines)

8. Voicemail
Voipstunt doesn’t offer Voicemail facilities. You can forward calls when you are not on line. Skype does offer Voicemail. Voicemail is included with the purchase of any of their subscriptions or $20 for a full year.

9. Video
Skype has video calling build in, Voipstunt doesn’t. If you use X-lite combined Voipstunt it is apparently possible. Still Skype remains the easiest option.

10. Caller ID
Recently Skype started offering Caller ID services (free). More and more people first look on their phone to see who is calling. Some don’t even answer the phone if there is no caller ID (like me). With Skype you can set it up and upon verification and aproval it is attached to your account. With Voipstunt you can quite easily set a whole bunch of phone numbers (verification is required) or switch it (temporarily) off. With phone 2 phone calls you cannot always switch it off. In some cases it doesn’t work (Nokia N810) at all with Voipstunt. Funily enough Skype Caller ID does work on my Nokia N810.

11. Sending Text Messages
Voipstunt has very low priced text messaging service Skype offers it as well, but it is more expensive. With Voipstunt you can also send your text messages from their website or by using one of the many third party tools.

12. Inbound phonenumber
Both Skype and Voipstunt offer inbound phonenumbers. However, it really depends on the country. In some countries I would say Skype is the better choice, in others Voipstunt is. In the UK you can get an inbound number, which isn’t recognizable as such. In Holland for instance Skype doesn’t offer an inbound number whereas Voipstunt does. The downside is that the number looks a bit awkward, because it begins with 0857.

13. Games
Skype offers some games that you can play with your kids online when you are abroad. Nice feature.

Hope you found this info useful.

Cheers,

Edwin

Just to let you know: Lot’s of Voipstunt users have been waiting for this for ages. I just found out Voipstunt is offering inbound numbers again, 085 numbers that is. Price 1 euro, that’s almost for free! Get there while the offer lasts!

FYI: Phoning a Dutch 085 number is just as expensive as phoning a Dutch landline…

Edwin

(this article has been published before by me in a slightly different form on Squidoo)

When I discovered this a couple of years ago I thought this was simply too good to be true. Using VOIP, even without my PC, I can make free phone calls or send text messages for 5 cents. OK, I’ll be honest sometimes a call costs me just a bit more. The weird thing is though I can hardly find any info on it on the internet. So I thought I might as well share this knowledge here….

I love VOIP. It saves me a lot of money, is convenient and allows me to make phone calls I wouldn’t make if it didn’t exist merely because of the costs. I make a lot of international phone calls. I live in country A and some of my clients in country B and so does a major part of my family.

How do I VOIP? I’m not using Skype, Fring, Vonage, BT or what have you. Nope, I make use of Voipstunt. And no, I’m not using a headset, computer microphone or Voipbox but just a regular phone, or in VOIP lingo: Phone2phone calls.

This has 2 major advantages: You do not need to have access to a PC and, even more importantly, the sound quality is really good. This is often not the case when you use a headset attached to the computer.

When I’m in my car I use an Access number and when I’m home I sometimes use a PC. I can make calls, using my mobile, often completely free of charge. (It depends on how many minutes I’ve used in the last 7 days). When I’m at home I often make use of the VOIPStunt application running on my PC and I can make phonecalls for 5 Eurocents per hour. Another major advantage is you can use VOIPStunt without a subscription.

It’s all very simple:
1. Download Voipstunt. It’s a small application for windows (only) and can be found here
2. Create a user (first screen) and buy credits. You can start with a tiny amount, depending on which country you live in. I usually credit buy for 10 Euro’s.
3. Fill out your personal details. Most important is your landline- and mobile number. You’ll get a textmessage (SMS) or talking computer call for verification purposes.

After you’ve completed your registration you can start calling. Basically, Phone2phone call wise, you’ve got 2 options:

• Use an Access number, best used from mobile to landline
• Use your computer, best used from landline to landline

Note: You have to type in the complete phonenumber including the country code, so 0044 or +44 for the UK, 0032 or +32 for Belgium etc.

Use an Access number
First you need to lookup the Access number in your area. Go to your VOIPStunt application and click on here to go to your account page. Click in your webbrowser on Make VOIP Calls from your fixed/mobile phone. The nearest Access number can be looked up now.

• Dial the Access number
• Dial the phonenumber you wish to call and finish with the # sign.
• A computer voice will tell you about the calling costs. Phoning a landline abroad is, in my case, usually 0 cents.

Use your Computer
Go to your VOIPStunt application

• Click on the Phone2Phone tab
• Select the phonenumber you want to call from (Landline or mobile)
• Type in the number you wish to call
• Click on the Call button
• Pick up the phone
• On your screen the calling costs will appear. Phoning a landline abroad is, in my case, usually 5 cents.
• You can call now for one 1 hour for a small amount, in my case 5 cents.

Edwin

Once every now and then I’m called by a client to tart up an old Ms Access Database up. Quite often it needs to be normalised and almost even so often it becomes a lot smaller after a repair and compact.

One other thing that bugged me was that the Unicode Compression was often not set for the field and therefore the data was taking up a lot more space than strictly neccessary. If you try to alter this by hand you get an error message saying it can’t change the datatype due to lack of memory or diskspace.

If you try it using VBA however there is no problem whatsoever….

————————————————————————-
Option Compare Database

Public Sub SetTableField(ByVal strTableName As String, _
ByVal strFieldName As String, _
ByVal strProperty As String, _
ByVal vntState As Variant, _
Optional ByVal vntDatabasePathAndName As Variant)

Dim tdfTableDef As DAO.TableDef
Dim dbsThisDatabase As DAO.Database

On Error GoTo ErrorHandler

‘If the Database Path/Name was NOT passed…
If IsMissing(vntDatabasePathAndName) Then
‘Get a pointer to the local Database.
Set dbsThisDatabase = CurrentDb()
Else
‘Get a pointer to the linked Database.
Set dbsThisDatabase = DBEngine.Workspaces(0).OpenDatabase(vntDatabasePathAndName)
End If

‘Set a pointer to that Table’s definitions in that Database.
Set tdfTableDef = dbsThisDatabase.TableDefs(strTableName)

‘Operate on the Property of that Table in that Database.
tdfTableDef.Fields(strFieldName).Properties(strProperty) = vntState

ExitProcedure:
‘Set error handling off, we can’t afford another error here.
On Error Resume Next
Set tdfTableDef = Nothing
Set dbsThisDatabase = Nothing
Exit Sub

ErrorHandler:
MsgBox “Error in Sub SetTableField” & vbNewLine & “Module mdlGlobal” & vbNewLine & vbNewLine & _
“Error number : ” & Err.Number & vbNewLine & _
“Error description : ” & Err.Description

Resume ExitProcedure

End Sub
————————————-

Use :

SetTableField “Table”, “FieldName”, “UnicodeCompression”, True

and presto!

Moreover you can use this code also for removing/applying some restrictions on the fields:

eg

SetTableField “Table”, “FieldName”, “AllowZeroLength”, True

and

SetTableField “Table”, “FieldName”, “Required”, True

(Replace “Table” with your own table and “FieldName” with your own field)

So if you want to apply this to all the textfields in a table, you can use this:

Sub SetUnicodeTrueForAll(StrTable As String)

Dim Rs As Recordset

On Error GoTo Err

Set Rs = CurrentDb.OpenRecordset(StrTable)

With Rs
For IntI = 0 To .Fields.Count - 1
If .Fields(IntI).Type = dbText Then
SetTableField StrTable, .Fields(IntI).Name, “UnicodeCompression”, True
End If
Next
End With

Sub_Exit:
Rs.Close
Exit Sub

Err:
MsgBox Error$
Resume Next

End Sub

Not even that long ago, in the summer of 2007, the BBC started distributing their beta version of IPlayer . I subscribed, and was ‘invited’ to download their iPlayer. These days however it is a lot easier, to just browse to the BBC website and watch the program from there. No need to download, unless you prefer higher quality or want to watch it from a portable player.

Not only the BBC but also ITV has an archive of broadcasted programs. On top of that you can watch live programs. My favorite is Channel 4 though. You can catch-up on one of their programs in their 30-day archive. On top of that they have another huge archive, which requires to download their player. On top of a lot of programs (whole seasons from popular series!!) from the past it also allows you to watch recent movies for a small fee.

However, if you just want to watch live television TV Catchup is great. The name is a bit misleading, because all they offer is live television. It’s 18 different channels though!

Now, if you’re abroad, or you don’t live in the UK at all and you want to watch a program from one of these websites you’ll find that you can’t, because of your foreign IP address. However if you make use of a UK based Proxy Server this is very well possible. There are lot’s of free ones, quite often lousy quality, and paid ones such as VPNGates. For a small monthly fee, this allows you to watch your fav program live. Rumour has it that this works perfectly except for when a new Top Gear Episode is aired.

Enjoy!

Edwin