Nov
Time to Change Hosts
I made the decision today to pack up the Spadewerk site, and all the little bits and pieces that go with it, and move it over to Media Temple. I would like to tell you that I was swayed by their fancy website and dreamy UI but it’s their scalable service that finally won me over.
Other stuff I have written
Dec, 2007
Small Business Communication
Those who have had to work with me over the last 5 or 6 years know that I have used every communication method under the sun. Not satisfied with the traditional phone system, I was an early adopter of Voip. I have toyed with every email client available to me, for both Mac and PC. I have tinkered with with just about every chat and IRC client available, all with their own pros and cons, but I was never 100% satisfied with any of them.
The voice solution I have arrived at, after a decade of experimentation, is a phone system that allows me to make and receive calls through a landline, or through Skype, using the same handset. It has the added bonus of being wireless which allows me to have it anywhere in the house. This is especially cool on the Skype side of things where before I would have been tethered to my computer via headset. Think of it as a cordless phone system with Skype built into it.
There are a number of phone systems that offer this technology but the one I chose was the Netgear SPH200D dual-mode cordless phone system with Skype. This system operates as a traditional phone, allowing me to receive calls through my regular land line but combined with Skype Pro at $3/month it also lets me make all my long distance calls anywhere in North America, through Skype. The call quality through Skype is excellent with just a hint of the lag you generally expect when using a bandwidth based phone system. The added benefit to using Skype for me is that I receive half my calls through Skype anyway, and have voicemail attached to my Skype account so the people who are used to communicating with me this way can continue to do so.
Now, I just need to tackle my email …
