Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece

This album takes you to a place you haven’t been in years, it is truly timeless and has something for everyone.  This masterpiece bears some of the most touching romantic and deeply moving melodies and lyrics I have ever heard – it is guaranteed to induce immense nostalgia.  Pour a sifter of Cognac, lay back in your leather recliner and drift away.

I bought a copy for my mom as a surprise - lets hope she doesn’t read this post.

Read previous article here.

The guys at Cisco are good for one thing: making administration a nightmare.  A friend left me his Cisco 7940 last year and I was finally able to track down a cheap power adapter for it ($17 CDN w/shipping from Hong Kong).  So I get super excited to play with my now usable toy and it turns out the SIP IOS for this device does not include a web interface!

I have a some experience with TFTP from my Grandstream GXP2000 and Trixbox makes it easy with its endpoint manager however I prefer PiaF for faxing so I decided to configure TFTP on my NAS box.  I tried a few different TFTP daemons including tftpd-hpa and tftpd via xinetd though the easiest to use was atftpd.  The reason for this is (in Debian) you can just run dpkg-reconfigure atftpd and it gives you a nice “wizard” to configure the daemon, so no file editing.

Once I hunted down the latest IOS (no thanks to Cisco) I got the phone booted up with P0S3-08-8-00 and I was happy.  Next was configuring an extension, this part sucked ass.  I am not going to explain how to do it, if you can’t figure it out yourself just use the Trixbox Endpoint Manager, though I will give you a hint : disable nat for the extension in the FreePBX extension configuration.

On to the review

The phone is huge, nice big screen and the tilt is awesome.  The handset feels solid and rests on the shoulder quite nicely, by far my favourite handset.  Audio quality is no better than my Grandstream however surpasses my SPA2102 hands down.  The buttons are quite satisfying to the touch though the navigation button (up / down) feels cheap (it is a rocker type).  I absolutely love the Message / Ringing lamp built right into the handset and the extension selection is simple to use.

Geekery – Customization

Though the provisioning is stupid to set up, once it is done configuration is a breeze.  This phone supports XML menus using the little globe button, these services are super awesome to play with.  With a bit of PHP / XML knowledge it is easy to write a simple RSS feed reader (useless but fun) as well as email reader (using php-imap) and phone directory services.

There are a ton of good ringtones for this thing, I am currently using the infamous “24″ ringtone (the one mocked in South Park) and I smile every time I get a call.  The background is also customizable, I cureently am using the one below and I love it (supports BMP).

Overall I give this phone an 8 / 10, only because for the price I would expect either an LCD screen or at least better font selection.  If you are looking for a good enterprise ready IP Phone the Cisco 7940 is a great choice.

Here are your promised Links (I may mirror these, this stuff is precious)

Wicked firmware mirror – no stupid Cisco registration or $$$

Where I found my 24 ringtone (other great ringtones too!)

It makes a lot of sense to me, adding high def audio support on 3/4″ *tin sounding* speakers, so I searched for the drivers everywhere – no support.  Then I remembered that the last time I got the audio working was from Windows Update.  Now this Super Awesome CORPORATE mother-of-all-xp-installation discs just happened to check on line for the audio driver and to my surprise I get a WGA validation fault, and even better – it can’t find the god damn driver.

I got pissed – I don’t need a hassle to be hassled with bad software, I just want to play Diablo II & Final Fantasy 9 in peace.  So I picked up the phone and with my handy dandy Asterisk server recorded a call (*1) with Windows Genuine Advantage to see what the problem was.

Listen to Windows Genuine Advantage Call

I have realized that every single time I use Windows I run into some kind of hassle.. So I have officially made the decision to boycott all Windows products and as many non-mandatory protocols as possible to eliminate the additional stress from my life.

I am not trying to start an OS flame war here, I just can not stand this garbage and thought the world should know….. again.

We took the camera out today to break it in properly at Bronte Harbor, vigorously testing the different DSP settings and zoom capabilities.  After about 45 minutes and about 100 photos, we couldn’t wait to bring it home and compare to our older model DSLR.

Once again. I was not surprised – the new SD 1100 iS was ridiculously awesome and here’s why :

• This camera is ready to take another photo milliseconds after a photo is taken (Thanks to Digic III + HD SD Card – 8GB).
• Image stabilization works like a dream, I can now snap a great shot even after a few beers.
• The color accent DSP is incredible and so easy to use (Great effect!).
• Video quality is incomparable to my older S1 IS.
• Robust manual settings, though not really necessary with the great automatic configuration.

Cons :

• 3X Optical Zoom (though I already have a great 10X optical DSLR).

That’s it for cons.  There is really nothing bad about this camera. In total I spent roughly 400 dollars however that includes an 8GB HD SD card and an additional Battery + case.  The camera before tax at Best buy sold for 329 and Staples (Canada) was 279.  In my opinion, this is probably the best digital investment for anyone interested in taking beautiful pictures on an easy to use device – at a very competitive price.

I took a picture with both cameras and put this image together using Photoshop however I did not modify the image whatsoever (except a crop)

The Phone

$164.99

Remember, this is only my opinion…

So we will start with the Cons

• Horrible wireless range, 60 feet indoor max!
• Outdoor quality suffers greatly, I have yet to be able to terminate a clear enough connection outdoors to even check my voicemails.
• Battery life is puss, 4 hours maximum talk time, 60 hour standby (without roaming)
• Wireless roaming takes FOREVER and usually fails to connect to AP… in TORONTO!
• GUI looks like the first full colour Nokia back in 1988…
• Intermittent restart, maybe new firmware fix soon?
• No Radius (web authentication) support == no Cogeco WIFI, this is a bad thing!

Enough negative stuff, here are the Pros

• When you actually can connect to a solid AP, voice quality is PERFECT.
• Integrates beautifully with any asterisk powered appliance / server.
• Great call features support including three transfer modes and voicemail notification.
• Great PDF documentation and very easy to configure.
• Web interface for simplified configuration and TFTP provisioning!
• Decent Email and Asterisk command texting, emails are somewhat difficult to read on that little screen.
• Save $$$ monthly on telecommunications.

The Verdict

Great for any geek who is generally stationary for several hours at a time and doesn’t mind configuring a new AP everywhere he / she goes. Also OK in big cities where AP’s and Starbucks are a plenty. Also fun to show off to your friends when you call a California number from New York on your “cell phone”.

This device is not for the non-tech-savvy, it’s just not yet polished enough. Grandma wouldn’t know whether to bury it in the garden or feed it to the squirrels. But that doesn’t mean people can’t learn to use it, simply put : most people are just too lazy to learn something new.