Apparently because it has Facebook and Twitter integration, and may not have a VPN client built in (but who really knows at this stage Seth?), this new generation Windows Mobile is going to cause IT directors the world over to start losing their hair.

The problems that CIOs are facing today far outweigh the fact that their constituents won’t be able to get into some non-standard .Net application or crappy old Sharepoint site. Windows Mobile use is severely on the downturn in the Enterprise or otherwise because employees are shunning them in favour of Nokia, Blackberry or iPhone mobiles. The IT departments’ choice of desktop or mobile platform that a user is given to access a resource is becoming increasingly irrelevant with Web 2.0 and cloud services.

Seriously Seth, who do you know plucks around on a current gen Windows Mobile device to VPN into their corporate network to access something? They simply don’t. They’ll hold out until they’re back at their laptop to do their work if they have to rely on something as counter-intuitive as Windows Mobile 6.5. I’ve seen colleagues and peers time and time again carry around Windows Mobile 6.5 devices and use them as nothing more than complex, clumsy cellphones. Hell, I’ld rather a $30 Nokia prepay to do that. (Actually, my work gave me an option of a crappy Nokia smartphone or a Nokia 3120 Classic; I chose the classic and bought an iPhone out of my own wallet)

Regardless of whether Windows Phone 7 has a VPN client in it, regardless of whatever SDK Microsoft release to enable application authors to port their specialist software over to Windows Phone 7, Seth, the users are going to vote with their fingers and it isn’t going to matter one iota if the IT department port their apps over or not.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t port their apps over by any means. What I’m saying is that they should be sensible about it. Use a Service Oriented Architecture. Make applications and data available, securely, without the need for VPN connectivity, without specific software running on specific platforms. Any device, anywhere, anytime.  This is the future of networking and the future of smart mobility.

As for the Facebook and Twitter users of the world.. IT departments are starting to realise the power of peer support. My employer has set up a range of internal wikis and forums where people are encouraged to go to ask about their problems, whether they’re alpha/beta release software or an iPhone or Mac user needing assistance. And if it’s written into policy that Facebook and Twitter are not supported and are to be used only in an appropriate manner then it’s up to the users to support each other.

So, you’ve used your Mac in some way in recent times to communicate with someone using one of those VOIP/video apps there are out there, like Skype and iChat..

Not to mention all those cool video apps out there (okay, I’ll give you Skype, and iChat again) that let you use your iSight to be seen by the dude on the other end. Just like the videophone on the spaceship in 2001: A Space Oddysey. That’s great for talking with that dude you met on the Mactalk forums about XCode or (if you’re a pimply teenager) having a 6-way audio conversation where you talk shit for 5 hours straight, but not so useful when you want to call mum and have a chat, or call a client about a proposal you want to put forward, or even call the bank to ask why you can’t log into their damn website.   iChat and Skype make it kinda difficult to call mum on her good ol’ Telstra line in such fashion suggested  by Telstra in their ads. The problem is that your mum doesn’t have a Mac, nor knows or cares to know what Skype is (I know this for a fact because she told me last night) Yes, OK, you can use SkypeOut and get charged 2c/minute, if you’re fine with this then go right ahead buddy.

Oddly enough, even if you haven’t used anything like iChat or Skype, chances are you’ve used VOIP and haven’t even realised you were using it. Many businesses now use IP telephony infrastructure to increase productivity and reduce costs by unifying their PBX infrastructure with their IP networking infrastructure.  And you might have seen the ads on TV for iiNet’s “BoB”, for instance, which uses VOIP technology over Naked DSL (where your dialtone goes bye bye). I want a BoB but iiNet don’t have capacity in my exchange yet. How very dare they!

So the type of VOIP I’m talking about today is where you’re interconnecting with the PSTN (or Public Switched Telephone Network).  iiNets’ BoB is a physical cordless phone (amongst other things). There are a lot of IP phones out there on the market from various manufacturers – Cisco, Linksys, Siemens, Belkin, Polycom and Snom just to name a few good ones.

In lieu of buying one of these, because IP phones are still kind of expensive, you can use a softphone.  As it implies, a softphone is a telephone emulator of sorts. And you thought a C=64 emulator was cool! Their advantage is you can get going with null capital investment and they have an added advantage that they’re built into your laptop, so they’re great for road warriors who travel heaps.. You use these in conjunction with a VSP or VOIP Service Provider. Two I recommend that are cheap (since it’s all about lowering costs) and work really well are Pennytel and Maxo.  You will then be able to call Mum with a headset attached to your computer.

By the way: I’m a VOIP snob, and an audio snob, so I’ld thoroughly recommend investing in a half decent headset because you really don’t want to make mother repeat herself, do you?  So go somewhere and buy either a USB headset, or a pair that go into your headphone sockets. Even your iPhone ones are perfect and much, much better than the mic/speakers in your Mac. A massive problem arises when you have low input volume and lots of background noise pushed through a PSTN “narrowband” connection – people on the other end can’t hear you! Also, you could probably try a Bluetooth headset and it’ld probably work but from my experience, pairing it with my Mac just to make a phone call is akin to gouging my eyes out with a steak knife.

Also, I talk about “codecs”  in this review. They’re pretty much the telephony equivalent of MP3 for music CDs. I wrote a page about the differences and pros and cons of each codec as an appendix for this review but deleted it because you probably don’t care. Codecs aren’t too important when you’re using the PSTN. Look them up on Wikipedia and learn about them and their bandwidth usage if you’re interested.

Telephone 0.14.3

Telephone is an obnoxiously easy to use SIP client that is pretty easy to set up too (note to self: Enable “Use DNS SRV Record” in Network preferences) and conveniently, supports Russian and German as well as good old Queens’ English. When you’ve set up your account details (your name, the SIP server, your username and password) it appears as a teeny tiny little window that lets you enter a phone number. It also lets you search your OSX Address Book and dial contacts from there too, as well as SIP URIs, all from the same text field. Each call established appears as a seperate little window which can get annoying if you’re like me and have 80 applications open at once on a 13” Macbook screen.

From within a call you can dial numbers for IVRs by just typing them on the keyboard with the call in progress window in focus, hit H to put them on hold and M for mute. And that’s about it really. It’s pretty simple and there are next to no business-esque features, just hold and mute.  No 3-way, conference, transfer call or anything flash like that.

Telephone works fine in Snow Leopard. Another very cool thing about Telephone is that it supports Growl notifications. I couldn’t get it to display any, though perhaps it can send you a growl notification when your phone rings. It supports the usual group of audio codecs, namely G.711, iLBC, and GSM, but notably G.729 is missing most likely because of licensing restrictions (big royalty money here). It also supports Speex. My favorite codec, ever, in the whole whole world, G.722, is also present, although there is a current bug in the pgsip stack that the author is fixing by adding a workaround in the next release. The bug causes lots of distortion when using G.722, which makes me cry.

Pros: Extra easy to set up and simple to use, wideband support, integration to OSX Address Book

Cons: Darn G.722 bug to be fixed in next release, no transfer/conference features

Blink beta 2

And with the blink of an eye it’s on to Blink.  Blink is a “fully featured and easy to use SIP client.” Unfortunately, the initial feeling I got from Blink is that it attempts to be much more than just a SIP client. The reason appears to be due to its attempt at being much more than a SIP client. It’s got IM and file transfer and desktop share and rich presence (SIMPLE). But I don’t want that, I just want to make phone calls.

That said, Blink is otherwise pretty similar to Telephone in functionality. It has an iChat-like interface that lets you make phone calls by either entering a number into a text field at the top or by double clicking on entries in a contact list. It also shows items from your address book and it also lets you search both data sources with the text box at the top. Each in-progress call appears in an expanded window list box where you can select between them (and the other call(s) go on hold).  There’s a conference button at the bottom of this expanded view, but I couldn’t for the life of me get it working so for all I know it’s a never-implemented feature.  Apart from that, Blink is another nice contender.

Codec wise, it supports GSM, iLBC, G.711, speex, and G.722, so it’s pretty identical to Telephone.

Pros: Easy to set up, reasonably straightforward to use. Awesome sound effects stolen from a hollywood movie!

Cons: Not the best UI. Tries to be some kind of open source Unified Communications client, and fails.

Zoiper Communicator 1.10.5624

This latecomer to my arsenal of reviewed apps has been around for a while now on Windows but I only realised recently it is available now for OSX.  I downloaded and played with the free version because I’m cheap.

To be honest, there’s no real advantage I can see running Zoiper over the above two apps. Unfortunately it’s got its own skin and look’n’feel, probably to try to remain consistent with the Linux/Windows versions. So it sticks out like a traffic accident in OSX. When you first install, it coaxes you into signing up for a Zoiper account. Why? I don’t know. You can bypass it and set up your VSP provider settings manually, which is what I did.  Also, I noticed that you can’t search for contacts using your Address Book – it has a contact list somehow integrated to your online Zoiper account, but who the hell wants to manage a second contact list?

When I started up a call I saw several buttons for hold, transfer, conference, and recording.   All but the first require the ‘biz’ version of Zoiper, so clicking on them redirects you to their website so you can fork over the cash. I didn’t.

Zoiper Communicator supports GSM, speex, G.711 and iLBC. The speex codec is probably wideband, but maybe not, I can’t tell.

Pros: Umm. Pass. It works?

Cons: No G.722. Dirty un-OSX-like interface that makes Steve Jobs cry. No address book integration.

And the winner (for me at least)… Telephone!

This reviewer felt that for the majority of use at this point in time Telephone was the clear winner because of its clean UI and completeness of features. The only thing letting it down was the G.722 bug which the author advises me will be fixed in the next release.

First impressions

The M5390 is a very elegant headset. It is lightweight and has a feel of a good build quality about it.  It has a combined answer/power/control button and a combo up/down/mute button. It’s a lot longer than your “usual” Bluetooth headset, with the mic extending right down to an inch or so away from your mouth. You would look like a bit of a dick wearing it on the subway but it’s absolutely perfect in the office environment.

It comes with two ways to attach it to your head. You can attach it over your ear, which I’ve done for about 2 hours and found it to be mildly irritating, although this is not unusual for me. The other method is using an over-the-head metal band with ear cushion which is comfortable and probably the method I would use if I were to use the headset all day long.

The M5390 is a  “dual Bluetooth” headset which is capable of connecting via Bluetooth to your mobile and a softphone at the same time. It comes in two flavours, one with a just a travel charger and the A335w USB Bluetooth dongle, or with the dongle plus a base station/charger that plugs into your desk phone and lets you switch between them.

I’m not ungrateful, but they only sent us the USB pack, which means my colleagues and I need to use our softphones in order to take advantage of these headsets. (To not include the desk phone base station is a poor decision in my opinion when you consider I work for Cisco which now holds the lions’ share of the enterprise IP telephony market).

While I can’t fault IP Communicator in particular, it shares a common trait with all softphones including Skype and Microsoft Office Communicator: it runs on Windows, meaning it relies on all the cumbersome idiosyncracies that Windows has to offer and is about 10,000 times more likely than a deskphone to crash as a result (but I digress, softphones have advantages too – lower costs, a travelling phone).

The multi-use version with the base station has been heavily criticized recently because it doesn’t come with a handset lifter for the phone. This means that the answer/hangup button on the headset doesn’t actually perform the task it’s supposed to do when used with the deskphone. My major gripe is that the base station, from reports, doesn’t appear to support wideband. Only the USB dongle, despite many deskphones these days supporting it.

Software

At least there’s the PC Suite. The headset comes with a piece of software which, when installed on your Windows machine, lets you manage the headset and determine what softphone the headset buttons control via a DLL hook into that software. The nice thing about this is that you can answer and hang up calls on the softphone with the button on the headset and not have to rely on interacting with the softphone UI itself. PC Suite also lets you toggle streaming of audio from the PC, so you could listen to music in iTunes too for instance (in glorious monaural)

Well, that’s’ the theory and it’s all well and good – once you’ve familiarized yourself with the intricacies of using a Bluetooth headset for your standard desk job that is.  Now, I’m familiar with PABXs, VOIP systems, Bluetooth, softphones and Unified Communications…and I had problems feeling comfortable about using the headset as my primary method of voice communications throughout the day. Trying to memorise the meaning of random sequences of coloured lights, varying behaviour everytime the headset was turned on or the dongle inserted, and the PC Suite software even crashing a couple of times was awkward.  I attempted to download and run the Firmware updater for the A335w on multiple machines and got an “ERROR” everytime I ran the executable. Nice touch, and their support site is pretty non-existant too.

Off on a tangent: It’s a shame, but Windows-based Unified Communications hardware is in its infancy in my opinion, and I can’t see user adoption being an easy process when using Bluetooth and/or the Windows sound device controls as they are today. Lets’ face it, the average layman is used to a normal, everyday phone sitting on their desk and at most a wired headset hanging off the side of it; with travelling notebook users being the prime target of the M5390 (it’s bundled with only a USB travel charger) nobody is going to have it ALWAYS connected, so if their softphone starts on Windows startup they can probably kiss their audio settings goodbye!

Back on track. You’re also SOL if you’re on a Mac.  Thankfully OSX reecognises the USB dongle as an audio device but you’re on your own to select it as an input/output device  in softphones, and there is no OSX software I know of that recognizes the buttons on the headset and lets you take advantage of them.

Sound Quality

So on to the wideband support.  The A335w / M5390 combo is listed as having 6.8Khz of bandwidth which is okay but just a tad under G.722’s 7khz spectrum.  The interesting thing is that the two devices speak Bluetooth to each other, not DECT or some proprietary system. I can’t tell what codec it uses in hardware, but here is a short recording taken from the M5390 and recorded on a Windows machine with Audacity.  It sounds compressed and probably is.

Wideband

The next one is recorded straight over the PSTN, so, G.711.

G.711 PSTN quality

And finally heres what the headset sounds like paired to my iPhone and recorded via the PSTN.

Over the iPhone

Out of interest, I took a cheap Jabra Bluetooth headset that I usually use on my mobile phone and was astonished to find it supported a frequency range far greater than the PSTN – not quite as good as the M5390 but wow!

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a nice wideband headset for some kind of Unified Communications app, or Counterpath Eyebeam, or whatever, you probably can’t go past this baby.  In my opinion it’s pretty limited without the multi-use deskphone adapter, and by its nature it can be complex to use.  However it has great sound quality and is pretty comfortable to wear!

Will I use it? Probably not, since I already have a Plantronics headset for the PSTN, a teeny tiny Bluetooth headset for my mobile phone, and a wired USB headset for VOIP, but it might come in handy time to time!

Here’s a bit of background first  about me, my intended shooting style, and what I’ve already educated myself on, so you can get some context.

• I’m interested in photography as a hobby at this stage plus family portraiture and that kind of thing. I’m also interested in taking “artistic” style shots, including night shots, motion shots at night, macro photos with crazy aperture (for lots of blurry background). That kind of thing.
• I’m getting married in October and we’re going to the US for our honeymoon.  This gives me the option of puchasing some/all of my kit abroad to save bucks.  And the Australian dollar bought USD0.81 yesterday which is great news – I’m pretty sure it’ll keep rising too.
• Also aware that kit bought here in Australia can be taken with us on honeymoon, shown on the way out and be refunded 10% (for GST).  Plus, if I buy a D90 there is a $200 rebate from Nikon Australia til the end of September, so if I buy it then it’ll still be eligible (30 days) before departure.
• Concerned that if I buy a body overseas or a parellel imported body I will have warranty issues, plus in the case of a D90 a parallel imported model is probably not eligible for the $200 rebate above.
• Did I mention I *NEVER* pay full retail on these kinds of things? You’d be stupid to.
• I’m stuck in the Nikon vs Canon war.  The cameras I have my eyes on are the 500D/T1i and the D90.  Both seem really good cameras and have a loyal fan base and raving reviews.  I’m only partially aware of their incompatibilities, ie lens for one camera only fit another, that kind of thing.  It feels a bit like peripherals for the old IBM mainframes in the 1960s.
• I’m also interested in experimenting with older lens designed for film cameras picked up second hand. Does the Nikon or the Canon suit better for this?
• I’m also aware that the kit lenses that come bundled with the cameras tend to be on the, well, crap side. So I’m prepared to buy the kit and a lens or two seperately, as long as it doesn’t really blow my budget. Which at this stage, is approximately AUD1500 give or take.   If I bought lenses seperately, should I buy Canon/Nikkor or are there just-as-good drop in replacements eg Tamron?
• Since I’m a newbie I’ve been told to invest in a 50mm f/1.8 fixed lens which sounds pretty reasonable to build skills framing and preparing a photo before I snap it.
• I’m not interested in video. OK, so 720p might come in handy for spontaneous video recording bu that’s about it.

So that’s about all.  Would love to hear your thoughts/comments! Especially from those who have experience first hand with the 500D and the D90, or even better with other types of cameras they think would suit better! (please?) TY!

New features:

• Access online information via your handset (go to menu “Info Center”*) such as:
  - News: Stay informed with current RSS news feeds.
  - Weather: Find out the weather in up to 250,000 locations around the globe.
  - My eBay: Monitor the items of your personal eBay account.
  - Encyclopedia: Get quick access to Wikipedia.
  - Translator: Look up instant translations.
  - Unit Converter: Convert a required amount.
  - Horoscope: Access your zodiac sign report.
  - Biorhythm: Monitor the state of your biological cycles.
  - My Applications: Add info services you developed yourself.
• The phone’s connection assistant first asks for an auto-configuration code. If your IP provider supports “automatic configuration”, you will receive the auto-configuration code from your provider. This code enables the automatic configuration of your VoIP account.

Improvements:

• Web Configurator: Support of Internet Explorer 8.0 und Firefox improved.
• Infoscreensaver: German umlauts are now displayed correctly.
• DNS Name for AVM SIP registrar (“fritz.box”) will be resolved from now on.
• The preconfigured area code is no longer dialled for VoIP network mailbox and fixed line calls.
• Incoming VoIP calls stored in the AM list are no longer stored in the missed calls list.

• The hole for the headphone socket on the outer shell doesn’t provide enough clearance for the plug footprint of my headphones..  This can be easily remedied with a Dremel and a 953 Aluminium Oxide grinding stone on a low speed so it wouldn’t melt the plastic.
• The inner shell has a deformity right underneath the docking connector (green arrow in photo) so it kinda lifts up a little around that point letting dust in. Sigh.  Since I’ve lost the receipt, and everytime I’ve been in Optus they only have gay colours in stock to replace it with, well I just gotta live with it – life’s too short I guess

Finally…

• The bridge of the inner connector (red arrow) that sits above the dock connector has started scratching the metal band on the iPhone. I’m not sure why but I presume dust gets in and rubs against the metal – scratching up the iPhone which is why I bought the case in the case in the first place!

The way I fixed it was…PVA glue.  PVA is safe, dries translucent, and is easy to remove (you just rub it off with your finger) and is pretty easy to apply.  In the garage, from other projects, I had a bottle of PVA from Bunnings and the smallest paintbrush I could find (1/8″) which is about the same width as a nailpolish brush. Just brush a layer or two of that shit onto the metal band of your iPhone – you could go the whole way around, or do what I did and just do the bottom side since it was the only part being scratched up.   Be careful not to get PVA into the seam between the band and the glass, I think it will be hard to remove.

Give it 10 minutes to dry, touch test it and whack that case back on!  Job done, back to drinking beer.

I am an aspiring filmographer (in my dreams) with no money for equipment, nor clue what I am doing for that matter. As a result, instead of owning thousands of dollars worth of cameras, lighting, sound and other equipment, I am the proud owner of a Flip UltraHD camera at a princely value of US$199.

While filming my latest blockbuster hit I found myself in a situation.  With the Flip cameras, mobile phone cameras, and practically any other cheap video camera, gone are the days of using your forearm for stablisation, since you’re holding the camera with two fngers usually instead of your entire hand. And with this class of device, theres no image stablisation (thankfully software like iMovie has functionality to improve stability but it’s always better to try to eliminate the shakes before you record, not after!)

So I saw this article on Lifehacker (yeah I know) which linked me to the original $14 steadicam, and this seemed to be an easier option of the two.  Also, the one with the gimbal looks like it would do a better job but it looked uncomfortable and not really the sort of thing I would look cool using in public.

Since I’m in Australia, it was a little harder to find everything exactly that the recipe called for, mostly because we are with the rest of the world and use metric, but I did a pretty good job. I went to Bunnings, Australia’s answer to Home Depot, and walked out with the following:

• 3 pieces of galvanised pipe – 15mm x 250mm – $8.49 each (yeah, WTF?)
• Hobby vice grip, about the same size Johnny used – $5.53
• A pack of washers that are about 1 1/2″ circumference – $3.32
• Three end caps – $1.74 each
• Tee joint – $2.78

I happened to have some 1/4″ bolts, nuts, lock nuts and wing nuts lying around as well so that saved a few bucks. Total cost so far, $42.32, which is about 3 times more than the original $14 budget – even taking into account foreign exchange! Oh well. I will probably return the washers because they are far too flanged for the Flip – I had a couple of those around here already as well. I missed closing time at the Rebel sports store across the road from Bunnings so I couldnt get the weight and I’ll have to get that tommorow but as you can see using the steadicam without the weight already makes a difference, at least with the light weight Flip camera!

Here’s a quick video of the difference before and after attaching the Flip to the Steadicam going up the stairs. Definitly well worth the time!

Video

My main motivation for writing about wideband telephony is that I truly believe it is a game changer. I’ve experienced it myself and while it’s not always perfect it’s still much much better than a normal telephone call! The benefits and practical uses both in personal and business senses are plentiful but the ones that stand out immediately are that less concentration is required listening to the other party, and female voices sound much more richer and natural (at least, to me). I will write in further detail in future postings about the benefits and practical uses but first I want to start with an introduction to wideband and how the PSTN is dead, baby.

You’ve been using the ringy dingy for a long time, baby! Even before you started talking, it’s almost certain your ma or pa got you on the phone to ‘talk’ to a relative or friend. Since then, you’ve been using the same device – the telephone. They come in all sorts of colours and form factors, and some are even mobile or cordless, but they all essentially consist of a headset and a dialpad (or maybe even a rotary dialler when you were young!) and were your gateway to the world.

The problem you probably never really knew you had? It probably never actually crossed your mind how bad the person on the other end of the phone sounds. If you actually sit back and think about it, the comparison is astounding. Fifty years ago, scratchy LP vinyl recordings of music were commonplace. At the same time, the boffins at Bell Labs put together the rulebook which dictate how phones turn people’s voices into 1’s and 0’s to be sent across their new digital phone networks. These rules seemed like a good idea; marginally improve the sound quality of the carrier phone network that was the norm at the time and keep the last bit of the link between your house or business and the exchange analogue.

But that was 50 years or so ago. Using the same metaphor as above, LPs have gone the way of the dodo. So has the cassette, the portable walkman, CDs and minidisc! AM radio is only used by boring taxi drivers and sports nerds and FM radio is about to be replaced with “digital radio. Dare me to start on TV? That’s gone from a fuzzy black and white  image to glorious technicolor and up to digital TV with hi-definition plasmas. Betamax and VHS and DVDs have all succumbed to Bluray. Yet your phone still has the same scratchy, fuzzy sound it always has!!

Why you should throw your phone away: The reason why your phone sounds crappy over the phone is because of that 50 year old phone network, which I’m going to refer to as the PSTN (standing for Public Switched Telephone Network) from now on. This is the important bit: As you talk, your voicebox and mouth generate sounds as low as 30 and right up to 18,000 Hz. Although the lower frequencies are where most of the speech energy and voice richness is concentrated, much of the intelligibility of human speech occurs in the higher frequencies. When the Bell boffins originally designed the phone network, they determined that a listener did not need to hear all the frequencies that make up the human voice to determine the words being spoken, so determined that the phone network only needed to carry signals from 300Hz to 3400Hz. So, have you ever said ‘fifteen’ over the phone and had the person on the other end ask if you said ‘fifty’? It’s because those harmonics above 3.4Khz aren’t picked up and sent through the phone network.  It’s also why words like “fifth” and “sift” sound very similar to each other over the phone.

How does Wideband fix this? Well, here’s another name for the PSTN: Narrowband. The names come from the ‘band’ of sound that can get sent across the medium.  With the PSTN, it’s 300-3400Hz. With wideband, depending on the flavour, you’re looking at glorious technicolor – anything from 150Hz to 7100Hz right up to 14000Hz!!!

How VoIP is a real game-changer: The dawn of ubiquitous broadband internet access everywhere you go and the increased power of computers has given rise to “VoIP”. You might have heard of this and there are many different flavours of it. If you plug headphones into your computer, you can use a whole myriad of software to communicate for free or otherwise; either to people using normal telephones or their computers. A good example is Skype, which can call both. Many businesses these days have “IP Phones” or “VoIP Phones”, which are fantastic and offer many benefits over standard PBX systems. These IP Phones are really miniature computers themselves with dedicated headsets. Whatever the computer, it’s got the potential to bypass that pesky PSTN – which is what we need in order to free ourselves from this scratchy, squawky existance of the telephone we’ve grown up to love and hate.

More to come soon!

Back in the mid-nineties I had an Ericsson GH688. As with most Ericssons at the time there were two unique things that I really loved about it..

• The “heartbeat” LED at the top that flashed every few seconds
• The “tri-tone” ringtone that was really common at the time because it was the default ringtone on most Ericsson models.

Anyhows, I got bored with the iPhone “ad” ringtone (from the original iPhone ads that made its way into Garageband and then somebody converted it to an m4r file).  So I made my iPhone sound like the little guy to the right. You can too! Just download the file below, double click and load it into iTunes, then sync. Yay!

Ericsson Ringtone

(nb: you may have to shift/cmd click this file to save to disk)

So what’s so great about this vege soup anyway?? Well, it’s hearty and full of lots of nutritious stuff to help you keep healthy through winter. It’s cheap to make, easy to make, and fun too. Best of all it tastes pretty good (especially with fresh, buttered crusty bread) and you can throw all the leftovers in containers and put them in the fridge or freezer just fine!

OK, let’s get started. First hard and fast rule; there IS NO hard and fast rules!  This is kind of like ‘real’ Indian cooking – you can substitute, you can be adventurous! We make this soup different everytime.  No matter what it always seems to taste the same, and if there’s something you don’t like, that’s fine just don’t put it in the pot!

What you will need:

• Hardware: The biggest pot in your kitchen!  A ladle, chopping board, potato peeler, and a good, sharp knife. And a strainer.

And ingredients…go with a couple of everything you plan on throwing in. Aim to fill the big pot because it evaporates down a little. Dont worry if you need to add more of something later!

• These items are mandatory. No excuses. A couple of bacon bones.  You find bacon bones at the deli at Coles or Safeway. I think they only exist for the sole reason of making soup.  I also recommend some chicken or vegetable stock. Really doesn’t matter which. You will also need some soup mix. This is made out of stuff like barley, lentils and split peas. I actually have a stash of each of these items in the cupboard for some reason so whittle that away each time I make soup by throwing a really small handful from each of the 4-5 little containers into the pot. This stuff is great because it helps thicken the soup (less important if you have lots of well cooked starchy vegetables) and is really good for you too.

• Heres some vegetables you should try.  For the most part, chopping up or cubing is the order of the day. Don’t go for presentation points. In fact, Gordon Ramsey would have a hernia if he saw this stuff because it looks like watered down cat vomit. But tastes, oh so much better! Carrots, celery, potatoes, pumpkin, turnip, parsnip, leeks, onions.

• Other non-essentials you could try for fun: Small pasta elbows, spirals or shells instead of or as well as the soup mix. Maybe some herbs, particularly  parsely, maybe a little garlic. YMMV. Be careful with the herbs/spices. Go with salt and pepper, I say.

• Things to avoid: Things like silverbeet, spinach, capsicum, eggplants, zucchinis, mushrooms etc. Because youre going to be boiling the snot out of this soup you don’t want half the vegetation dissolving.

The method is pretty simple. Throw the bacon bones in the pot and cover with water. Heat on high until boiling and let it boil for a little while. Then add the soup mix, wait a little while longer, and start adding your veges. Hardest ones like turnip and carrot first. Bring the heat down a little bit and let it bubble away. Check on it regularly to stir and make sure there’s plenty of water. As it cooks, taste and add vegetable or chicken stock if required, and/or some salt and pepper.

It should be cooked if it’s been hanging around on the stove for about an hour or so and if you pick up a bacon bone and it starts to come apart in the tongs.  Do some taste tests to see if the veges are cooked and the soup mix barley is soft. Next collect up the bacon bones and put them on a plate to cool for a few minutes.

Grab a knife and fork and use these to pry every little speck of that OH GOD SO DELICIOUS bacon goodness from the bones.  Seperate out the fat and gristle too (if any).  Throw the bacon back in the soup and throw the bones out. Don’t mix this up.

Finally, after a few minutes, use a strainer (a big spoon, with lots of holes in it) to strain off any congealed rendered pig fat from the top of the soup. (YUM!)

If all goes well, it should look like this. Bon apetit!