Cheap, almost free, Long Distance

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:22:00 -0700

Recently while reviewing services and prices from various cell phone providers T-Mobile caught my attention with the significant savings they could provide when traveling internationally. They explained the ability to use a T-Mobile cell phone over WiFi without using up day or evening minutes. Therefore while traveling outside of the United States you could make calls to the states without the roaming per minute charges you would normally incur. Also while in the states you can use WiFi in order to not use up your day time minutes. The downside to this is that you have to be near a WiFi and your phone has to have WiFi built in, T-Mobile refers to the phones as “HotSpot-enable” phones. T-Mobile has a few phones with WiFi built in.

I then started doing more research and found out that Skype now offers unlimited calling to the United States and Canada for under $3 a month, or for about $30 a year. This is cheaper than Vonage or getting an Internet phone from your cable company. Most importantly, I wouldn’t have to switch cell phone providers to take advantage of T Mobile’s WiFi cell phone service. And if the other person you are talking to signs up for a free Skype account then the two of you can talk for free.

Here’s a demo of T-Mobiles Unlimited HotSpot Calling: www.theonlyphoneyouneed.com

Also with Skype you are not limited to making calls through your computer. Manufacturers have made hardware which you can connect to your network either wired with an ethernet cable or via WiFi. And the phones look like regular cordless phones you would use in your home or cell phones.

I recently decided to sign up for the subscription service to test it out and so far I have been pleased. Currently I am testing Netgear’s SPH2000W WiFi phone. It’s almost like having a cell phone with the limitation of only being able to use it in a hotspot or area with WiFi which doesn’t require authentication over a browser. The phone works great so far with a few minor bugs after I upgraded the firmware. Now I won’t have to worry about using my computer and setting up times in which my family and I can meet on iChat or Skype to talk while I am out of the country. I can simply call their landline or cell phone from an Internet cafe or my hotel while abroad.

Anti-Virus for Macs

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 15:32:10 -0700

Since Mac’s have become much more popular these days, and sales on Apple’s products have increased I figured that viruses will start to appear on Mac’s. After some research I found a virus scanner that would not cost me any money, and that uses an engine which I am familiar with and use in many places. That virus scanner is ClamXav and it uses the ClamAV engine (www.clamav.net). The installation is very simple. To download the software go to www.clamxav.com

Once downloaded double click on the file and go through your normal Mac software install process. Then go to your Macintosh hard drive->Applications->ClamXav double click. You will be prompted on whether to manually install the ClamAV engine or to have ClamXav install it for you. Please note that as of today ClamXav comes with the 0.95.1 ClamAV engine. I went a head and installed it from ClamXav to test it but then I uninstalled it and manually installed ClamAV 0.95.2.

Tech Blog

Cheap, almost free, Long Distance

Anti-Virus for Macs