India Phone cards

I’ve often wondered if the autodialer companies have a way of tracking just how fast I can hang up as soon as I detect that I’m getting an automated call — it’s lightning-fast, and I imagine that they’re analyzing printouts of data which tells them: “Wow – THIS gal only got through SIX syllables of the recording before she hung up! What reaction time! Amazing!” Yes, I hate getting those dreadful automated marketing calls as much as you do — otherwise known as “Robocalls” — and I manage to shut the calls down with ever-increasing speed, long before the option to “opt out” comes at the end of the recording. The fact that I’ve *voiced* a fair number of them in my career so far makes it even more comical and ironic that I have such a low tolerance for them, but I — along with most of the general population — view them as an interruption; practically an invasion of my day. They disrupt work, and the most unctious aspect of them is the interruption of dinner or the preparation thereof.

Read more:
Don’t Mess With Robodialer

There’s been a lot of talk this week about internet security and crime, and with that talk of course comes discussion of hackers and their exploits. But hacking as an activity and hackers subculture predates the personal computer, and even the internet, first becoming popular right around the time that ARPANET was being built.  Of course, computers at that time were exclusively large mainframes in the hands of government agencies, universities and large corporations, so the earliest hackers concerned themselves with the phone system.  The activity at the time was referred to as “ phreaking ” (phone+freaking) and it’s practioners as “phreaks.” At that time the phone system was operated by automatic switches introduced in the 1950s, which Wikipedia notes as being when “the general population began, for the first time, to interact with computing power on a large scale.” This system was operated by tone dial, meaning that certain sound frequencies communicated information to the computerized switches.  People later found out that by making a certain sound , they could trick AT&T into giving them free calls.  It was later discovered by one phreak named John Draper that a toy whistle given away with Cap’n Crunch cereal made that particular tone, giving him his phreak pseudonym.  Draper went on to develop the blue box , which was capable of reproducing that tone as well as others, and whole subculture developed around not only making free calls, but seeing how much they could manipulate the telephone network. A Blue Box constructed and used by Steve Wozniak After an expose in Esquire magazine in 1971 , phreaking became much more widespread, and telephone companies did their best to bring charges against phreaks, with some success.  Many phreaks went own to become involved in the homebrew movement which birthed the PC, including John Draper, who became a mentor and inspiration to Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.  Nowadays, phreaking is largely a thing of the past thanks to the internet, cellular telephony, and an all-digital switching interface.  This Discovery Channel documentary on phreaking and hacking is a fascinatig look at this subculture and its ancestors

Link:
You Know I Hate Stupid Phones

Phone OS 4 introduces new features that make iPhone even better for business. Multitasking, enhanced security, new device management capabilities, and improved enterprise integration give you more power and flexibility to bring iPhone into your company.   OS 4.0 will be available on all iPhone versions but Note.

View original post here:
iPhone OS4

“The capital cost of implementing the proposed solution [from Xorcom] was half the price of purchasing a traditional solution yet by using IP telephony all the functionality is still provided. While the cost savings are impressive, what is really great about this solution is the flexibility ; it does everything and much more than the competitors – with no hidden costs .” So states David Merson, JD-Law. He also notes: “It was a pleasure to work with Phones Correct which provides an excellent product, stands behind it and commits to our satisfaction.

Read this article:
Law Office in UK Impressed with Xorcom IP-PBX and Reseller "Phones Correct"

After sending an MP3 of my audio demo to a sound production house in Scotland, I was pleased when the talent coordinator e-mailed right back. His cryptic message made me scramble a bit, however: he wrote: “Now here’s a Brill demo!” “Cool!” thinks I: “He has a demo he wants me to record! For a product named ‘Brill’! Is that like ‘Brillo’? We have that here.

Follow this link:
A Voice Heard Round The World

It has been a few months since we first mentioned Mitel’s Live Content Suite application, and we are thrilled that the product has finally been released for Mitel 5360 IP phones. Developed by the InGenius Telephony Software team, this application is truly innovative and forward thinking in the way it embraces personalization and leverages live content.

Continued here:
One Sweet Suite! Mitel Releases Live Content Suite for 5360 IP Phones

You are sitting in a meeting and you have your phone on vibrate or silent so as not to disrupt the speaker and get “the eye ?” Then that important call comes through.

Read the original:
Voice Mail to Text – It’s Here! (A Better way to Voice Mail!)

There would hardly be anyone who doesn’t blink twice after looking at their monthly telephony bill. You open the bill praying for the billing amount to decrease somehow miraculously but alas! For all our hopes are dashed to ground as soon as that white envelope is opened. Month after month the process remains the same

See more here:
The Best Way To Save Money On Long Distance Calling

A 20% chance of blindness? I like those odds…. You’ve probably seen the magazine ads and television commercials, advertising various medications available to the consumer — they have been on the rise since the FDA relaxed the guidelines for direct-to-consumer advertising of drugs in 2005

Continue reading here:
The Voice of Big Pharma

Many people and services treat CallerID as an indisputable, authoritative source of who’s calling. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. Even from the very early days of CallerID, spoofing was possible using an expensive PRI (Primary Rate Interface) telephone lines provided by local telephone carriers.

Originally posted here:
The Fallacy of CallerID

This Wednesday, April 7, the IT360 Conference & Expo will be help at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.  Vendors representing all sectors of the ICT industry provide you with an unprecedented opportunity to compare, test, and evaluate products and services; leveraging what you learn to enhance the effectiveness of your organization and those that it services. The Asterisk Open Telephony Conference is co-located with IT360°and Cloud Computing an IT Paradigm Shift making it the number one opportunity for you to dialogue directly with the leading technology product and service providers. Ask provocative questions about features and deployment and find out exactly what your company needs to grow its bottom line.

Original post:
IT360 Conference & Expo – Metro Toronto Convention Centre

She’s my competition on a sound studio’s talent database, and for every job I land through them, Jane gets hired for about three. It used to aggravate me slightly, but I always reminded myself that Jane’s paychecks end up in my bank account. “Jane” is actually me — the British-accented version of me, and it was the studio’s sound engineer’s idea — in addition to creating my profile on his website for when clients are shopping for a voice — to also create this mythical “Jane” character for clients who are looking for a British accent

Read the original:
Accents — They’re Magically Delicious!

When Tom Howe asked me if I’d like to write something on “Cloud Communications” was both flattered and confused. I’m confused by the term “cloud communications”. At first I did a little research on Tropospheric Scatter, which involves bouncing radio waves off the lower atmosphere

Go here to read the rest:
The way to communicate via clouds.

A few years ago, I voiced an interesting project for Kodak: a self-serve photo development kiosk where photographers could process their own film by simply walking up to a kiosk, installing their film, and controlling the processing of their photos in a very turnkey way. I was actually hired by a sound studio in Australia do voice the “North American-Sounding Female” version — the idea (especially in retrospect) became antiquated pretty fast with the advent of digital picture-taken making direct-to-film photography all but obsolete to all but a few hobbyists. Nevertheless, the project went forward, and with the studio being happy with the sound files and the invoice paid, I didn’t think too much about the project — the product hit the stores, and it promised to be a huge time-saving (and more private) way of having photos developed — however short-lived

Read more:
I’m (Apparently) Too Sexy for This IVR

After just releasing InGenius Connector for General Availability on Asterisk Exchange and unpacking from ITExpo , the InGenius team is packing their bags again to head West to attend the TEAM Polycom event next week in San Diego, CA. Located in the Applications Beyond Voice Pavilion, booth 504, InGenius will be revealing the InGenius Application Server for Spectralink Wireless Handsets .

Read more:
InGenius Application Server for SpectraLink Handsets

http://www.meebo.com Connect to all your favorite chat services from any pc, anywhere in the world (internet connection required) and all in a single browser window. Meebo lets users gather their friends on a single buddy list where they can talk and share content in real-time across different IM platforms, communities, and traditional social networks

See original here:
meebo

When I first started out as a voice talent, (OK, I’ll admit it: pre-internet) the extent of “savvy” marketing was mining the Yellow Pages, searching for local sound studios, talent agents, audio production houses and film production companies  to which to send your demo. Once those leads were pursued, that was pretty much the extent of your opportunities

More here:
The Schmooze of The Voicegal

Ifbyphone , a Chicago-area startup that offers cloud-based telephony services, has announced the acquisition of Cloudvox , part of the company’s move to build on its open-source software business. Financial details were not disclosed.

Original post:
Ifbyphone, VoIP Apps Provider Buys Cloudvox

Heres something cool we started with a few years ago, IP phones. This may seem familiar to a lot of people but can I explain a scenario I came across frequently

Read more:
VOIP (Internet Telephones) – Dont lose potential Patients!

Don't Worry — Your Fingers Still Do The Walking When I first started voicing the prompts for Asterisk, I must confess to having absolutely no knowledge about VoIP whatsoever. I only knew that VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) — of which Asterisk was a shining example – is a technology which enables voice communications over IP networks, such as the internet or other packet-switched networks, rather than the traditional Public Switched Telphone Network (PSTN), typically used by the old, pioneer telcos.

Follow this link:
The Basics of VoIP