I just saved $320 by cancelling an extra phone line and signing up with magicJack. It works as advertised; I like it; and it’s a keeper. I also have tips to make magicJack better, and if you’re intrigued, hack into it. (Fair warning: My magicJack review is long, way more than I usually allocate for one newsletter.)

Making the Switch to magicJack

I used to have three phone lines, and for years I needed all of them. But with almost all of my communication through e-mail, I decided to dump one and replace it with a magicJack. And save myself about $320 a year.

You plug the magicJack into a free USB port, then plug your phone line into the gizmo. Now you can make free calls with VoIP — they’re routed through the Internet. (The magicJack comes with a 6-inch USB extension cable in case it interferes with other devices plugged into your USB ports.)

Plug one end into a USB port and connect the other end to your standard phone.

Hey, I’m Connected

To see how easy it was to get started, I connected the magicJack to a USB port on my PC. (If you use a hub it has to be powered; if it’s not, or underpowered, the magicJack might not work.) Then I plugged a phone into the magicJack using a standard phone cable. Cordless phones also work; just plug in the base unit.

The computer recognized the magicJack like any Flash drive, then it took about 5 minutes to download software updates. I picked up the phone, heard a dial tone, dialed as I normally would, and made my first magicJack call. Cousin Judy in New York said I sounded unusually good, a backhanded compliment if I ever heard one. It took another few minutes to create a 911 location and set up voicemail.

You can call by dialing your phone or do it from your PC.

Once I saw that the magicJack worked, I connected it to my ancient Nortel Venture three-line phone, the one that I rigged up to use a Plantronics wireless headset. If you prefer, you can use your PC’s speakers and a microphone, or a headset, just as you would with Skype.

What’s the magicJack Catch?

There really isn’t any. There are a few inconveniences, and one not-so-minor hassle, and I’ll get to them. But first I want to cover the basics.

One thing to consider is that you need broadband: magicJack requires speeds of at least 100KB. And if you have DSL service, magicJack will work just fine, but don’t call the phone company to shut off your regular phone line as it’s needed for the DSL connection

The magicJack service costs $40 for the first year, which includes the USB dongle. The cost for subsequent service is $20 per year, but chances are good the fee will increase. So the company pushes a 5-year service plan for $60. You get unlimited calling to anywhere in the United States, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and Canada. International calls are 2 cents a minute.

If you make a magicJack call to a friend’s magicJack number — anywhere in the world — the call’s free. Calling the United States or Canada from another country with your magicJack is also free. Yep, that’s right: You can carry the magicJack while you’re traveling, connect it to your notebook, and all your calls are free.

You can call as much as you’d like, but magicJack’s Terms of Service obliquely says, “If magicJack sees excessive use, including but not limited to, a customer whose usage is twenty (20) times more than the average magicJack’s customers usage” they’ll cut off service and won’t give you a refund. Swell.

All your 411 calls are free, but you need to listen to a 20-second commercial first. I prefer Google’s free Goog-411 (800-466-4411).

Other features? You have access to 3-way calling and call forwarding. What’s missing is caller ID blocking.

Of course you’re worried about voice quality, and so was I. Most of the time it ranges from very good to great. I talked with my TechBite partner, Mike, in Denver, for about 2 hours and it was a perfect connection. Yet when I tried magicJack’s 411, and then checked voicemail, the connection cut in and out; I also experienced a disconnect when I called my mother (really, Mom, I didn’t hang up!). I got better quality if I stuck the magicJack in a port on my PC instead of using the USB hub.

Is MagicJack For You?

Maybe.

Some forums say that magicJack is good only to use as a second phone line, maybe for a teenager, or just for saving money on long-distance calls. I agree; I wouldn’t advise you to drop your only landline or cell phone for magicJack for a couple of reasons.

First, I wouldn’t depend on the magicJack for emergency 911 calls. Say there’s an emergency and you lose power. Access to the Internet is gone, and magicJack is useless.

Second, you have to keep the PC on. When your PC isn’t running, incoming calls to the magicJack phone number are routed to voicemail. (Here’s a neat option: If someone leaves a voicemail, magicJack sends you an e-mail with a sound file of the message.)

I thought I’d get smart and try a work-around. I attached the magicJack to the USB port of my server, an always-on Seagate Network Attached Storage device. The magicJack had a hearty laugh and refused to be recognized. The designer of the magicJack said it couldn’t be done.

BTW, magicJack includes a local number as part of the service; most metropolitan areas are covered, but you might not be in one of those spots.

Try magicJack for 30 days. If you don’t like it, all you pay for is shipping. The trial starts when you order the device, and you have to get it back to them within the 30 days. (I know you have more concerns, you always do. So read the FAQ for all your picayune questions.)

Two Not-So-Magic Quibbles

One thing I didn’t like: I had to click the Minimize icon to get the magicJack program into the system tray. I’d prefer it automatically minimize when magicJack loads. I haven’t been able to find a way to do it, and no, I don’t want to use an extra software tool to do it. The designer said, “… anything is possible, but this is not on the drawing board; the magicJack is built for the people who need to see it loading.” Whatever.

The company includes an Outlook add-in that lets you dial directly from Outlook’s contacts. That’s handy, but I’d also like a way to import directly into magicJack’s contacts from an Excel or CVS file.

You’ll also have to remember to add an area code no matter where you’re calling, even if it’s a local call.

MagicJack Tricks and Hacks

There are lots of ways you can play with the magicJack. Here are a few:

• I don’t need to see magicJack’s splash screen, so I disabled it.
• If you want run the magicJack from your hard drive rather than the USB dongle, here’s the trick. It doesn’t seem like it’s worth the bother, though, because you still need the dongle in order to connect to a phone line.
• When I connect an external USB drive, I expect it to be drive letter “G.” Without asking, magicJack grabs the first two available drive letters — “G” and “H” — for its USB dongle. It’s easy to fix that.
• You can run magicJack as a Service, spoof its caller ID, reveal more magicJack features by changing the skin, and maybe get your Chevy to get more miles per gallon. It’s all in the magicJack hack site. The Unofficial magicJack forum has more ordinary fixes, hacks, and advice.
• If you have a PBX system, and a nimble mind, you might be able to hack the magicJack to act like a trunk in any Asterisk-based IP PBX. If that’s not Greek, get the details at VoIP Insider and INTJ Geek.

Disney joins Hulu video site

By Paul Thomasch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Walt Disney Co will buy a 30 percent stake in Hulu.com, bringing popular TV shows such as “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy” to the video website founded by NBC Universal and News Corp.

Disney’s entrance, which comes after months of negotiations, means that three of the four major U.S. broadcast networks now have stakes in Hulu: NBC, News Corp’s Fox and Disney’s ABC. Only CBS Corp is absent.

Hulu officials declined to provide financial details on the deal on Thursday. A source directly involved in the deal, who did not want to be identified because all sides in the deal decided that the terms would be confidential, put Disney’s stake at 30 percent, the same as the other networks.

Disney will get three seats on the 12-member board, the same as News Corp and NBC Universal.

Hulu has emerged as one of the most popular online video destinations since its launch in 2007. Though it still lags Google Inc’s YouTube, some 380 million videos were viewed on Hulu last month, up 14.3 percent from February, according to market research firm comScore. It is now among the top three online video sites in the United States.

Conversations with CBS are continuing, said Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar. “We’d love to have them be a part of Hulu … ultimately it’s their decision,” he told Reuters in an interview.

In a statement, CBS did not directly address its future plans regarding Hulu. The company said it believes in “controlling our own rights” for content across media.

“CBS has long employed open, non-exclusive content partnerships that allow fans across the Internet to engage with our programing in such a way that we control our distribution, sales and profit,” it said.

When asked if CBS could join Hulu as an investor, News Corp Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin told Reuters, “I’m not sure there’s room, legally or economically, for another partner, but I think Hulu has consistently said they’d like to license CBS content.”

Other media companies, including Viacom Inc, provide movies or TV shows to the website, but in deals that involve advertising revenue sharing and not ownership stakes.

The only other ownership stakes are held by Providence Equity Partners, which has two seats on the board, and employees of Hulu, whose chief executive has one seat.

Disney has previously sought to expand viewership of ABC shows offered on its website and its local affiliates’ sites, on AOL.com and on Comcast Corp’s Fancast site.

HULU EYES MUSIC, WORLD

To grow further, Hulu is studying adding music videos, sports and news, while it is also looking at expanding the service outside the United States.

“We would like to continue to have as much premium content as possible,” said NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker in an interview. NBC is a unit of General Electric Co

“Then expand Hulu internationally — that should be the goal for 2010,” Zucker added, declining to say what markets the partnership is considering.

Elsewhere, big cable network owners are working on plans to move more of their shows online but are trying to devise strategies that do not undermine the lucrative cable-network-affiliate-fee business model.

Time Warner Inc Chief Executive Jeffrey Bewkes is championing “TV Everywhere,” a plan that will allow subscribers to watch cable TV shows online that they’ve already paid for with their package. Comcast is working on a similar plan called Online On Demand.

Disney shares rose 4.2 percent to $21.90 on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Additional reporting by Yinka Adegoke and Robert MacMillan; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Brian Moss and Brian Moss)

magicJack working with magicFCC and magicCarriers on magicFemtocell

by Chris Ziegler, posted Apr 22nd 2009 at 3:48PM

Three longtime media executives are building an automated system to allow newspapers and magazines to charge for online access, including an “all you can read” subscription that would allow access to multiple publications, the executives said on Tuesday.

Their company, Journalism Online L.L.C., aims to supply publishers with ready-made tools to charge Internet fees, an idea that has gained currency as advertising revenue plummets, but whose prospects of success are doubted by many media analysts. The company, which says it may have a product ready by the fall, says the advantages are that publishers would not have to develop their own systems and readers could use a single system for many different publications.

Their plan might not draw much attention save for the stature of the people involved. The founders and investors are Steven Brill, creator of Court TV and American Lawyer magazine, among other ventures; L. Gordon Crovitz, a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, one of the few newspapers to charge online; and Leo Hindery Jr., who has headed communications companies like Tele-Communications Inc., Global Crossing and the YES Network, and now runs InterMedia Partners, a private equity firm that specializes in media.

The company has a board of advisers that includes two of the nation’s most prominent lawyers, David Boies and Theodore B. Olson, a former solicitor general of the United States.

No publishers have signed on as yet as clients, but several major newspaper and magazine publishers have been in active talks with Journalism Online about how such a system should work.

As the company envisions the system, a nonpaying reader on a magazine or newspaper site would reach a certain point and see a page asking for payment — the Journalism Online system, operating within the publication’s Web site. But a reader who wanted a subscription to multiple sites would go directly to the new company’s own site.

“The most important thing is it’s simple to use,” Mr. Brill said in an interview. “Much of the barrier to charging online is the transaction friction, as opposed to the actual cost. With this system, you’d have a single password, give your credit card number just once.”

He said that for the unlimited subscriptions, “we’re playing with a figure of $15 a month.”

Building an online payment and billing system “is complex and costly,” said Mr. Crovitz, who has experience in that. He said publishers would also need a lot of trial and error to decide what material to charge for, “and we will gather best practices and data to help them make those decisions.”

Each publisher would be free to set its own policies, like determining which items are free and which are not, setting its own prices, and deciding whether to use a pay-per-click system or a daily, weekly or monthly subscription rate.

“There are all these religious debates going on about how to do this, and it’s too early for anyone to be making those decisions,” Mr. Brill said. “No one knows which approach is going to work. So we’re offering all of them.”

The company also plans to negotiate licensing and royalty fees with search engines and news aggregators for the use of the publications’ work, and has retained Mr. Boies’s law firm, Boies Schiller & Flexner, for that work.

In White Men Can’t Jump, Sidney Dean (Wesley Snipes) famously told Billy Hoyle (Woody Harrelson), “Look man, you can listen to Jimi (Hendrix), but you can’t hear him. There’s a difference, man. Just because you’re listening to him doesn’t mean you’re hearing him.” Sidney and Billy clearly weren’t balling on a court with Spalding’s new iHoop. If they had been, Jimi would’ve been loud enough for Billy to listen and hear.

The most obvious response to the introduction of the iHoop is: what took so long? According to Spalding, the iHoop is the first basketball hoop ever to feature built-in speakers capable of blaring Jimi for all to hear. With an old-school boom box sitting against the fence of every urban basketball court in America, you’d think someone would’ve thought of this earlier. At a suggested retail price of $1,299, we’re not expecting this to grace the asphalt of most inner city courts, but Country Clubs’ bricklayers wanting some James Taylor to jam to might make the investment.

The iHoop, available June 1st, has a specialized suspension cradle that connects an iPod or MP3 while protecting it from any hard fouls. A pouch literally hangs from a series of cables within a cavity in the base of the hoop to ensure it won’t bump into anything or get scratched up. A fully integrated 30-watt 2.1 stereo system pumps the sound through two 3″ full range speakers and a 5″ subwoofer. All of the components are marine grade, to ensure a light drizzle won’t stop the music.

Hey kids! Have you heard of the cool new program for Windows PCs that lets you boot your system in a jiffy and gives you instant-on access to e-mail, IM, and the Web? Yeah, it’s called Linux.

Huh?

That’s the basic sales pitch for a new software package called Presto — though the official verbiage doesn’t dare go anywhere near that dirty “Linux” word. On its web site and in its documentation, Presto is positioned simply as a program for Windows. You download it as an .exe file and install it like you would any other application. To remove it, run the uninstaller or go to Add/Remove Programs in your control panel. The spiel reads:

“Presto is an easy to install program that works with Windows XP and Vista PCs. Next time you turn on your computer, you’ll have the choice of running Windows or Presto… Start up your computer in seconds – like magic. You will be able to instantly start to email, Skype, instant message, listen to music, surf the internet or download apps — before Windows XP or Vista even boots — and you will automatically be connected to the best available network.”

You guessed it: Presto isn’t actual “magic,” but rather a Linux installation. In fact, it’s a very stripped-down and highly customized distro from Xandros, the same company that makes a similarly sanitized flavor of Linux that powers the Eee PC. The categorical lack of the word “Linux” anywhere on the Presto site or within Presto itself is kind of shocking. Coupled with the way you’re required to install it, it’s clear that this total avoidance of the L-word is a very calculated move to hide it from the public. Why, I wonder? If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because Xandros figures the average person wets himself with fear a little bit any time he hears the word “Linux.” If that’s the case, then is Presto any less scary? I installed it to find out.

The short answer is that, as promised, Presto is blissfully simple to use. It’s also fast. On my HP Compaq laptop, I have to wait two minutes and six seconds from pressing the power button until Windows XP is ready to use. Presto shortens that time to 36 seconds — not exactly instant-on, but a lot faster than Windows.

The installation painlessly takes care of everything: my monitor functions, the sound works and I’m connected to the Internet. And once I’m in, it’s easy to figure out where to go next. The taskbar — docked to the left by default — gives me four giant icons to choose from. They’re so big, they remind me of the old person phone my Grandma has with the comically oversized number buttons. The icons are for Firefox, IM, Skype, File Manager and the Application Store (more on that soon). At the bottom the taskbar, there are some slightly smaller icons for turning the computer off, controlling the volume, seeing all of the programs I have open, adjusting my screen resolution and informing me of my network status. Basic stuff. Visiting my favorite web sites, checking e-mail and IMing with friends is a cinch. OpenOffice is also installed by default for creating and editing Microsoft Office documents (as well as non-Microsoft Office docs, of course).

But what if I want to do more? I pop into the Application Store and simply download new programs ala the iPhone. Within minutes of installing Presto, I’m streaming my music collection from Last.fm and drawing mustaches on friends in the Gimp photo manipulation program (think Photoshop, except 100-percent free). The app store is loaded with tons of games, utilities and productivity software, most of which is free. Otherwise, I can download a free trial.

Fast? Check. Simple? Check. Perhaps a little too simple? Hmm….check. As I said, Presto is a watered-down version of Linux in disguise. But what about folks who want its instant-on advantages with a little less handholding? No dice. Take for example, the icons in the taskbar. I can resize them to more sensible proportions if I so choose, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to remove them. Worse, I can’t figure out how to put new ones on there for the programs I download from the application store. The same goes for desktop shortcuts. In fact, right clicking on the desktop seems to have been completely disabled. I also can’t find a control panel of any kind to customize the look of Presto, which means I’m stuck with the default background image and color scheme. Simplicity, it seems, has come at the expense of functionality and customizability.

From pcmag.com

BOTTOM LINE:
So simple it’s almost perfect, the magicJack is the best home voice-over-IP gadget I’ve seen to date. Excellent call quality, a workable set of calling features, and an amazing price make this little box the VoIP wonder to beat.

PROS:
Nice price. Good set of calling features. Softphone capability included. Simple enough to be idiot-proof.

CONS:
Only one line (and phone number) per magicJack for now. No Linux drivers.

COMPANY:
Ymax Corp.

Editor’s Note (2/05/09): New firmware and hardware have been released (and many readers wrote in to tell us about tech support and billing problems) since this piece was published, so we’ve published a new review of magicJack for winter 2009.

Those commercials advertising cheap voice-over-IP (VoIP) phone rates look appealing, but there’s always some fine print: You have to switch cable-TV providers, install a VoIP-smart Internet router, or something. And you end up ticked once a month when the bill from MCI, Verizon, or some other telecom robber baron dips into your wallet. If this sounds like your bio, the YMax magicJack is for you: 2 minutes of setup, voice quality that’s almost indistinguishable from a straight analog POTS line, and a cost of just under $20 a year for unlimited nationwide service. When I was testing it in December 2007, the service offered phone numbers in about 90 percent of the country. International calling wasn’t available at test time, though it should be in the next few months. Pricing will be determined based upon phone rates at that time, though YMax says its mandate is to make international calling cheaper than any rate you can get with either Skype or Vonage.

The magicJack device, about the size of a box of Tic Tacs, has a USB plug on one end and an RJ-11 phone jack on the other. I had to connect mine to a Windows PC, but Mac OS X drivers should be ready soon. After USB plug meets USB port, you’ll wait a minute or so while the magicJack software gets automatically loaded. Those who already have magicJack will be happy to know that the company says a firmware rev released while I was testing makes the hardware more resilient to problems caused by fluctuating electrical levels in foreign countries. It also installs hardware echo control, which taxes your CPU about 50 percent less than before.

If this is your first time using the device, you’ll have to run through a registration process. You either request a new number or ask to have your existing number ported (porting availability depends on where you are, takes up to 60 days, and has a $10 surcharge attached); then you input the information necessary to make e911 work (so that emergency services know where you’re calling from). The process should force you off the couch for 60 seconds or so, but that’s it: no phone configuration, no Internet router tweaks. Low-tech folks who just want a cheap phone can just plug a regular analog phone into the magicJack’s RJ-11 port and start dialing.

Those who want a little more will find a fairly impressive array of features in the magicJack software, including caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, and voice mail that will respond even if you’re not online. The software supplies a softphone that works through a headset and microphone connected to your PC. Compared with business VoIP, this might be a light feature set, but for home users it’s plenty.

Your PC plays a significant part in the service—as in no calls without one. That made me balk at first, thinking that a PC had to be on constantly to make this work. But while technically that’s true, the magicJack’s ability to pick up voice mail even while you’re offline means that your PC can be off while you’re at work or away, since you wouldn’t be there to answer phone calls anyway. And, as with any VoIP service, magicJack doesn’t care where you’re connecting to the Internet as long as the service is broadband. So if your software is installed on a notebook, you can take your home phone with you. And YMax says that in the near future a firmware upgrade will use remote wake-up (a feature that most motherboards support these days) to power up your PC when a call comes in.

MagicJack’s call quality is amazing—almost too good to be true. YMax reps say they can deliver such great sound because they built the operation as a straight phone company rather than an Internet voice provider. YMax worked to become the only such company certified in all 50 states, which, its reps claim, allows it more gateways linking the Internet and the telcos than any other voice provider has. That means it maintains control of calls much longer than a regular VoIP provider, which in turn translates into high call quality. I have no way of verifying the company’s infrastructure claims, but the voice quality speaks for itself.

What worried me is that this network sounds expensive, yet YMax is charging so little. That’s how SunRocket got killed. Then again, magicJack customer base was growing at 30 percent a week while the product was still in beta, according to the company, so maybe I’m worried about nothing. And after all, should the service go belly up, you still have alternatives: It’s not as if the telecom robber barons will disappear. Bottom line: The magicJack is the coolest little home VoIP gadget I’ve seen to date, and for less than $40, everybody should try it.

From Computerworld.com

By Robert L. Mitchell

I’m trying to save money by shopping around my telephone, television and Internet service in two locations. Currently I pay $118 for those services at one location and $60 at the other. To my family that’s a lot of money. We’d like to cut back.

This week I’m looking at VoIP alternatives for my land line telephone service.

The Phone Company

Sticking with what works is the easiest option for most people. It may also be the least expensive if you don’t have or want broadband Internet service, which is needed to support competing voice over IP (VoIP) options. But if you already have broadband, you’ve got other options to think about. My plain old telephone services includes unlimited local dialing for about $23 per month, excluding taxes and fees. Packages with extra features and long distance calling are much more expensive, however, so I get my long distance from Pioneer Telephone.

One nice thing about Pioneer: It doesn’t charge a monthly base fee for the service if you pay electronically (otherwise it’s $.99 per month – much better than the $5 per month most telephone companies charge). I pay 2.7 cents per minute for long distance out of state. In-state calls are 7.5 cents per minute. Of course, we could also use calling cards for about 1 cent per minute, but they’re inconvenient. We have them but don’t always use them.

Magic Jack

Magic Jack is the cheapest VoIP alternative I looked at. At $20 per year it appears that users are getting something for almost nothing. So what’s the catch? There’s no free lunch.

---

Magic Jack’s VoIP service gives users unlimited local and long distance calling in the U.S. for $20 per year. To get started you must buy special hardware: a small device, available online or from retailers such as Radio Shack, that attaches to a USB port on any computer. Total up front cost: $40. You then plug a single telephone into the device. Once you’ve signed up for service, Magic Jack assigns you a telephone number and activates your account. From there you supposedly just plug the device in to get dial tone.

Magic Jack offers a few basic features, including call waiting, voice mail online, caller ID and three-way calling. It also offers free directory assistance – something other services charge for to the tune of $1 or more per call.

The device has the advantage of portability. You can bring your phone anywhere where there’s a computer with broadband connectivity and make and receive calls. On the downside, your phone is tethered to your computer, which must be on at all times. And if you have power saving standby or sleep mode configured you’ll have to disable them to receive incoming calls. That’s a hidden cost. Not using power saving mode increases your computer’s electricity consumption to the tune of $14 to $45 per year.

With other services, such as Vonage or Comcast’s Digital Voice, you get a box that can power all of the phones in your house. You (or a technician if you use Comcast) disconnect the twisted pair feed coming in from the telephone company at the termination point (a plastic box mounted on the side of your home of office). Then you connect the VoIP-enabled device to any telephone wall jack to energize your telephone wiring. Voila! All of your existing telephone extensions will work. Magic Jack doesn’t do that. You can still have multiple phones, but with only one jack in the house you’ll need one of those cordless units with multiple hand sets.

Another consideration, as I learned after an ice storm last winter, is that VoIP products don’t work when there’s no electricity. While Comcast’s VoIP service includes a backup battery that keeps you going for a few hours, Magic Jack has no such backup.

While other services can “port” or transfer over your existing telephone number, Magic Jack cannot. And in some areas of the country, such as New Hampshire, the company can’t even assign the user a local telephone number.

Perhaps the biggest drawback is Magic Jack’s support, which is limited to online chat through its Web site. Ironically, Magic Jack, which offers telephone service to its customers, has no public phone numbers you can call. Is that level of support adequate for your telephone? Judging by the number of complaints about Magic Jack from frustrated customers, including this Boston Globe reporter, this is a problem.

Magic Jack is cheap, but I can’t rely on it as a land line replacement. As a product it seems to fall more into the toy or novelty category — and it’s marketed in that way. Its Web site is a bit cheesy, with gimmicky come-ons and no e-mail, business address or telephone numbers you can call. It could save me money as a supplemental service for long distance calling if I made a lot of long distance calls from my land line. But I don’t, and the service, tied to one phone on an always-on computer — isn’t exactly convenient.

From voip2u.org

Magic Jack has now released a beta trial for use with Intel Mac computers. However, according to the official magicJack website, neither customer nor technical support is yet available for mac installations, so proceed at your own risk. This MAC beta version is only compatible with Intel based Macs with OS (operating systems) higher than 10.4.11 and higher. You can have a 10.4.10 OS, but it must have kernal 8.10.3 or higher. To find which OS and Kernal version you have, follow this path on your Mac computer:

Apple Icon > About This Mac > More Info > Software

It boggles the mind why magicJack would release new software to use their product without providing any support for it at all. But, if you’re the adventurous type and don’t mind blowing 40 bucks, give it a try! They will probably build their support and FAQ around solving the real problems customers have with the Mac beta. Maybe they’ll have a special web page for feedback on this release? You will need to have your Magic Jack device plugged into a Windows PC to download the Mac upgrade. Once that is downloaded, then you can plug your MagicJack into your Mac computer. To download the Magic Jack Mac Beta from the offical website, go here:

http://www.magicjack.com/4/mac.asp

As with a PC, you will need to leave your computer on to make and receive phone calls through your magicJack. Give it a good try-out, at least a few months before dumping your regular land line phone service. You do need to keep another phone service to make sure you always have a viable 911 service in case of emergencies.

If you have used the Magic Jack Mac Beta successfully or even unsuccessfully, please give us some idea of your experience with it in the Comments below.

From WKWC.com

MANSFIELD — A recent funeral service for Betty Jane Garver in Mansfield had a much wider audience than the just the people in the Trinity United Methodist Church. Betty’s friends and family members around the world had the chance to watch her funeral live on the web.

The Wappner Funeral Homes in Mansfield now offer families the opportunity to include a webcast and internet viewing of all funeral services, including the wake, memorial service and burial.

Funeral Director Thomas Wappner told Channel 3’s Mike O’Mara, “We’ve done a couple of web access funerals so far and everybody seems to be positive about it. Being able to view the service for those that can’t attend is a great thing.”

A growing number of funeral homes like Wappner’s are using small high def cameras and special software from a company called “Event By Wire.” The technology allows funeral directors to stream their memorial services live through the internet.

However, the funeral homes want to emphasize that this web service is not like YouTube, where anyone can tune in. This is a private web connection available by invitation only.

Wappner Funeral Home General Manager Jerry Inebnit said, “This is completely private. We ask for a list of family members who can not be at the service. The family decides who can view the memorial.”

Back in 1872, Phillip Wappner Sr. started the family funeral business back in Mansfield. Today, five generations later, Amy Wappner Bose is helping to push the technology envelope at the family’s three funeral homes. They even offer clients a DVD of the memorial services.

Reaction in Mansfield to the new service is mixed. Attorney John Spon said, “I think that a person’s passing should not be demeaned by the use of video tapes.”

Alesha Lee disagreed. “I know that some people might think it’s morbid. But in my opinion web cam viewing of the funeral is appropriate.

“I feel it’s fine because it let’s people who can’t afford to travel or who are too sick to travel a chance to be part of the final goodbye.”

Inebnit said, “I think the emotion is there in our webcasts. Many people are overwhelmed by the fact that they have a permanent memory of the important memorial service.”

For those that can’t watch the webcast live, the company archives the funeral video for one year.

From voip2u.org

I’ve had emails from visitors wanting to know how to use the Softphone Screen that appears when you install Magic Jack so I thought I would write an explanation of how it works. The red numbers you see on the Screen below designate the different areas of the Softphone Screen that we are going to discuss, these numbers do not appear on the Softphone Screen on your computer.

1. This is the area on the left of the Softphone where you will see rotating messages from Magic Jack about their services. Any updates will also show here, such as when new area codes are added to the service. If the area code that you want is not available when you first get your Magic Jack, you’re allowed to change your area code free once that area code becomes available.

2. The center top of the Softphone Screen displays your Magic Jack phone number that has been assigned to you just under “Ready to call”. There are also three buttons for Yahoo, AOL and Weather, which if clicked, will open up your browser to Yahoo.com, AOL.com and Weather.com.

3. The Magic Jack Phonebook will store your contacts that you enter and also the calls that you have made or received with your Magic Jack. By clicking on Contacts, a menu appears where you can edit or delete your contacts. Clicking on calls displays your recent calls and Favorites will display the sites you have saved in Favorites in Internet Explorer.

4. Buttons for Redial which calls the last number dialed; Voice Mail, which will dial your number and then prompt you for your password to access your Voice Mail. When setting up your Voice Mail, use the password 1234, and then change it immediately to another 4-digit number. The 411 button will open your web browser to this website: free411.com which is a free telephone lookup directory. Clicking on the Google button will open up your web browser to Google.com.

5. When installing your Magic Jack, you will be prompted to enter your physical address for their 911 service. You may add more than one address if you will be using your Magic Jack in different locations. If you will be using the Magic Jack 911 service, be sure to have your correct physical location selected at all times. Also have a back-up way to call 911 in case your internet service goes down, as your Magic Jack phone will not work during these times.

6. Phone key pad on the Magic Jack SoftScreen. You may use your phone to dial a number or the Softphone Screen can be used by clicking the buttons with your mouse.

7. If using the Softphone Screen to dial a phone number, you click “Send” to call the number, and “End” to hang up when you are finished with your call. The number you have dialed, whether using your telephone or the Softphone Screen will show in the white area.

8. Change the size of the Softphone Screen by clicking on “Big” or “Small” in the upper right corner. The Softphone Screen can be minimized by clicking on the button with the “-” located to the right of the “Big” or “Small” button. The Menu button lets you access different features for your phone, such as “Do Not Disturb” which will send all calls directly to Voice Mail for you.

Now you know all about your Magic Jack Softphone Screen so you can use your new service to its greatest capacity.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions from people saying that the phone they are using with Magic Jack does not ring when a call is coming in. The first thing you should check is the menu on your softphone screen to make sure that “Do Not Disturb” has not been enabled. To do this click on the Menu button on your softphone screen. A drop-down menu will then appear, with different options . Look to see if there is a check mark by the Do Not Disturb option. If there is, then click it again to make the check mark go away and then your phone should ring.

If you don’t have Do Not Disturb enabled and have tried the above, then try a different phone to see if perhaps the phone you were using won’t ring with Magic Jack. Any regular landline phone should work, you don’t need to buy a special phone. Also, make sure that your phone cord that is plugged into your MJ device is not more than six feet long.

Also, you do need to disconnect your magicJack once a month. All you have to do is unplug the device, reboot your computer and then plug the device back into the USB port on your computer. This keeps your magic jack working well. The other day I had a problem with my MJ turning off and on. It did this several times before I realized that I hadn’t done my “maintenance” by unplugging the device. I did that, and it’s been working perfectly ever since. I’m going to put a reminder for the first of every month to do this so I don’t have to stop and unplug and reboot when I need to make a phone call.

If none of the above suggestions work and your phone still does not ring when you have incoming calls, then talk to a customer care person at the Magic Jack website:

http://www.magicjack.com/9/customercare.asp

By Charlene Collins

From Associatedcontent.com

Recently I did an interview with my friend, Edith. She and her husband got the Magic Jack phone and they are very happy with it. On her recommendations I got the Magic Jack for myself; well, actually it was a gift from my son-in-law. He bought two Magic Jacks; one for my computer and one for his own.

The day we got the Magic Jack we were thrilled and excited to get them installed. We picked out the area codes we wanted and Magic Jack gave us our numbers. In our house I have an Atlanta number, while my son-in-law and daughter have an Athens number, both have different area codes, which I thought was kind of fun.

After the installation (plugging the unit into a USB port and uploading it to the company) we couldn’t make a call. Sean, my son-in-law, tried and tried to get our phones to make a connection and they wouldn’t. I knew there had to be something minor wrong, because my friend loves her Magic Jack phone. Sean talked to a representative through the chat line provided by Magic Jack, and she looked inside our computer through remote access and said that our Internet provider did not support Magic Jack.

I thought all would be lost, but not so! The technicians went inside our router and re-wrote something in there that allowed for us to use the Magic Jack phone. Now I am happy as a clam and I’ve made calls to friends all over the United States. The calls are free within the United States and Canada, and there is a nominal charge to call overseas.

I have a friend in Germany that I would love to talk to, so I plan to buy some minutes for that purpose. You just purchase a package of however many minutes you want to pay for and then you can call England, Germany, India and anywhere else in the world for just a few cents a minute.

In a way, the Magic Jack phone behaves something like a cell phone. It’s an Internet phone, so the connection may not be perfect all the time, like it is with a landline phone. I called my brother twice today. The first time he said he couldn’t hear me well. He said the call was full of static and my voice sounded far away. I hung up and called right back and the connection on his end was clear as a bell. On the first call I could hear my brother, Ralph, clearly, but he couldn’t hear me so well, but when I hung up both sides of the connection were clear without any interference.

I’ve called my friend in Jefferson, GA, which is just about 30 miles from here, the call sometimes breaks up like a cell phone does. The connection has also dropped once during our conversation, just like a cell phone will do sometimes. I called her right back though and we talked for a long time and both sides of the connection were clear.

I really do love this phone, even though there might be a few bugs in it. What can you complain about for free? The first year is free service, and the next year is $19.99. I like the way the phone system operates. When you pick up the phone to dial a page comes up on the monitor with a dial pad that you can dial with your mouse. You can dial from your list by just clicking on it and click send, or you can just dial your phone. You can also use a headset with it, instead of using a telephone. I tried that, but couldn’t get it to work. I might have the wrong kind of headset for it. My headset is designed for talking back and forth through a chat like on Yahoo, so that might have been the wrong kind of headset; I just don’t know about why I couldn’t get the headphones/mic to work.

It was easy to set up my voice mail. I just had to dial my number, then press * 1234 and follow the prompts to set up my voicemail. The downside of the Magic Jack is that when the computer is off your phone won’t work. Likewise, if you have a power outage your phone won’t work. The plan was to cut off our landline phone and just keep the Internet through our phone company, but I think we are going to keep it for awhile for backup, in case there is a power outage and if the cell towers aren’t working.

One thing I do like about the Magic Jack phone system is that I have my own number. I can call anywhere I want to for no charge. I share minutes with my family on my cell phone, so I am limited on how much I can use the cell phone, so my Magic Jack phone is perfect fit into my life.

I do think the Magic Jack is worth the price we paid for it. It’s just under $40. If you have a credit card they won’t bill you until your month trial is over; however, if you pay by debit card they will take the money out immediately. After Sean bought these two Magic Jacks online, he discovered they were for sale at Walmart for the same price, so if you don’t want to order over the phone, or online you can purchase one at Walmart and upload it into your computer.

In conclusion, I would have to say that outside of the few little bugs the system has, I really enjoy using the Magic Jack phone system. I have already saved enough money through long distance charges to pay for Magic Jack.

---

Instead of hitting “reply” to an e-mail, we accidentally push “reply all,” sending a potentially embarrassing or insulting message to those we didn’t intend to see it.

Most of us have done it.

To address this problem, Google Inc.’s Gmail Labs has launched an experimental feature called “Undo Send” that gives users a chance to rewrite their message, correct settings or simply fix typos.

When a Gmail user who enables this feature sends an e-mail, a button that says “Undo” will pop up on their screen for five seconds. If the user hits the button within that time, the service will retrieve the e-mail in draft form — allowing the user to make changes or cancel the message altogether.

“Sometimes … I send a message and then immediately notice a mistake,” said Michael Leggett, a Gmail Labs designer and the creator of the “Undo Send” feature, in the Gmail blog. “I forget to attach a file, or e-mail the birthday girl that I can’t make her surprise party. I can rush to close my browser or unplug the Internet — but Gmail almost always wins that race.”

Leggett added that he’s had “Undo Send” turned on for a while “and it’s saved me several times.”

This may be good news to Gmail’s tens of millions of users as people in the digital era look to connect with others over the Web in a more efficient manner. “Undo Send” is also just the latest example of the dozens of creative — and sometimes downright wacky — online features developed at Gmail Labs to address common e-mail problems.

Launched in June, Gmail Labs is an optional program. It offers an assortment of tools, ranging from a service that stores e-mails onto a user’s desktop so the user can access mail offline to a feature that prevents users from firing away drunken e-mails during late-night hours.

Gmail users can enable the Gmail Labs settings by going to their settings tab. Then they can customize their account by turning on features of their choosing.

Since the Gmail Labs program began, the features have grown in popularity among users, Google officials said. The number of lab features has more than tripled, to more than 36, as Gmail celebrates its fifth birthday next week.

Google’s Gmail Labs also typifies the Mountain View, California-based company’s reputation for innovation and brainstorming. At Google, Gmail engineers can allocate 20 percent of their workweek to their own projects, which can include creating Gmail Labs features.

Google hopes the labs create an environment that will find out what Gmail users like and dislike. “There is no screening process,” said Todd Jackson, a Google product manager. “It’s up to whatever people want to build internally.”

Jon Perlow, a Gmail engineer, introduced the practical idea of “Mail Goggles” to help users, including himself, stop sending “mail you later regret.” Perlow created the function last fall when he found himself sending messages to an ex-girlfriend — late at night — asking to get back together.

With Perlow’s Mail Goggles, users can specify which hours they would like to enable the feature. If a user tries to send an e-mail during the self-selected time — say, midnight to 3 a.m. — a screen pops up forcing the user to solve a series of simple math problems before the message can be sent. Theoretically, this gives time for the intoxicated or emotional e-mailer to reconsider.

Gmail Labs also recently developed a feature that helps users who forget to add photo or document attachments to their e-mails. Users can turn on a “forgotten attachment detector”; if the program finds the word “attachment” in the e-mail text, a box pops up reminding the user to add an attachment.

Gmail engineer Michael Davidson was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day last year at a bar when he came up with a feature to help e-mail addicts. Davidson realized he was wasting valuable work time checking e-mails.

“Someone joked that it would be a great feature of Gmail to keep you from checking e-mail,” Davidson said.

So he created a program that locks people out of their Gmail accounts for a set period of time. After spending two afternoons coding it, Davidson launched the “E-mail Addict” feature, which forces users to take a break from e-mailing by blocking Gmail for 15 minutes.

Company officials say the best lab ideas will eventually become standard features in Gmail. For example, the idea of Google Maps started as a lab concept.

“The best thing you can do is to put your product and team in a position where you can move fast and get feedback from users to find out what sticks in the marketplace,” Jackson said.

Gmail is the third most popular e-mail site, following Yahoo! Mail and Windows Live Hotmail, according to Experian’s Hitwise.com, a site that tracks Web traffic. Google declined to comment on Gmail user growth.

Other e-mail services also are trying to enhance the electronic messaging experience. Windows Live Hotmail added a “What’s New” feed in February that allows users to see what their friends and family are up to as well as pictures or posts they may have added.

In 2006, Google added a chat feature. Last fall the company added a video function allowing users to see each other when they e-mail. Google officials hope to continue adding features regularly.

That’ll be good news to Doug Baruchin of Plainview, New York, who uses Gmail at least 16 hours a day between work and personal communication to family and friends.

Baruchin runs the Web company MyWorkster.com, a professional development portal for colleges and universities, where his 15 employees are required to use Gmail. The video and chat functions also help workers stay connected when they are traveling, he said.

In March, Ford will release a fully functional, dashboard computer — complete with keyboard — geared to contractors and other business folks who want to access the Web, review documents and log inventory while on the go. In the spring, AT&T will launch an in-car entertainment service with 22 satellite TV channels.

Industry executives hope the new technological bells and whistles will put some sizzle back into stagnant vehicle sales.

“Consumers want a vehicle that’s always on and always connected,” said Kieran O’Sullivan, vice president at Continental Automotive Systems, which supplies parts and technology to automakers. In the near future, he said, “consumers and carmakers will be able to customize the [dashboard] instrument panel to their individual tastes the same way that people customize their mobile phones.”

O’Sullivan spoke Thursday at a panel discussion at the International Consumer Electronics Show subtitled, “The Automobile’s Convergence with Consumer Electronics.” Panelists, including executives from Microsoft, Nokia and GM’s OnStar service, agreed the industry is just beginning to tap the potential of in-car computing.

“We’ll someday use this information technology in ways we can’t even predict today,” said Tom Phillips, general manager of Microsoft’s automotive unit. “To me, we’re in the infancy in terms of the amount of evolution that’s going to occur.”

Half of the new vehicles sold in the United States are now compatible with MP3 players and 80 percent can connect with wireless Bluetooth headsets, said automotive technology expert John Waraniak, who served as the panel’s moderator.

General Motors’ OnStar service, which can remotely unlock car doors, reduce gas flow to a stolen vehicle or dial 911 if a car is involved in a crash, now has almost 6 million subscribers. Toyota said this week it plans to launch a similar driver-assist program on certain models beginning this summer.

Not to be outdone, Ford’s similar Sync system, which now comes standard on many vehicles, is adding voice-activated, on-demand traffic, sports and weather reports, plus GPS-assisted navigation. In a keynote speech Thursday at CES, Ford CEO Alan Mulally said the automaker is learning to think more like an electronics company.

Ford will begin installing its Works Solutions package on its full-size pickups and E-series vans this spring. The dashboard computing system costs $1,195 plus a monthly Web access fee, has a 6-inch touch screen and runs on Windows. It will allow electricians and other contractors to create Excel spreadsheets, print invoices and even access other computers.

“Ford is truly making the office mobile,” said Ford product development manager Bill Frykman while demonstrating the system Thursday to reporters in an F-150 parked in a large tent outside the Las Vegas Convention Center. “This bridges the gap between the full laptop and a smart phone.”

Meanwhile, an entire hall at CES is devoted to the latest in automotive technology, from portable navigation units to rear-mounted cameras which, with the help of a dashboard screen, allow the driver to see what’s immediately behind his vehicle while backing up.

Here’s a quick peek at some other automotive technology on display at CES this week:

– FLIR Systems, Inc. makes a thermal-imaging camera, an option on BMW’s 6-series sedans, with a new pedestrian-detection feature. When the camera detects a heat source in the shape of a human being, the on-board computer alerts the driver by highlighting the pedestrian in yellow on the dashboard screen.

– AT&T’s CruiseCast service brings 22 satellite TV channels to your vehicle with the help of a small rooftop antenna, augmented by video-buffering technology that supposedly maintains the signal underneath overpasses and trees.

It will cost $1,299 plus a $28 monthly fee and is being pitched to parents with kids and pre-game tailgaters. “It’s an extension of your living room,” said Jackie Lapin, a spokeswoman for AT&T.

– Nervous about handing the car keys to your 16-year-old? The CarChip ($119) plugs into any post-1995 model vehicle and records 300 hours of how the car has been driven, including mileage, speed, braking and acceleration.

Parents can remove the chip, download its data to a computer and use the information to verify driving agreements with their teens. Newer features even let parents set restrictions on their kids’ driving.

“If you want to set it at a certain speed — say, ‘I don’t want my kid going over 65 mph’ — it’ll beep at them until they slow down,” said Michael Copeland, sales manager for manufacturer Davis Instruments.

– Hyundai’s latest vehicles can be outfitted with a system that detects when a car is drifting across lanes, then sounds a buzzer or vibrates the wheel to alert the driver. Some Hyundai vehicles also contain ultrasonic sensors that help drivers to park by measuring the distance between a car and other objects.

In fact, the next generation of automotive technology may employ automatic steering and braking systems that relieve drivers of much of the responsibility for, well, driving.

“Maybe 15 years from now, cars will drive themselves. That’s certainly a goal some companies have,” said Jay James of FLIR Systems. “It’s not just ‘Jetsons’ stuff now. It’s really starting to happen.”

The 2009 North American International Auto Show follows next week in Detroit, Michigan.

Farewell to Fast Forward

As your tech columnist takes his leave, he looks back over six-and-a-half years, forward to a Facebook book, and beyond.

The tech column began in the depths of the industry slump following the dotcom bust. But I always took the view – and still do – that tech’s greatest glories lie ahead. (For archives of the column since January 2000, go here.)

Things really do change! One of my first columns described a new competitor in enterprise software, and explained why Salesforce.com’s (CRM) CEO was declaring “the end of software.” Marc Benioff’s notion of software delivered as a service over the Internet rather than on costly customer-managed infrastructure was radical then.

I’m writing this while flying home from an Aspen Institute seminar on “cloud computing.” The seminar’s diverse and eminent group of industry experts agreed that we are moving towards a day when essentially all computing will be delivered as a Net service.

From the beginning Fast Forward has held that tech’s greatest unfulfilled promise was as a tool to help the world’s poor emerge from deprivation. I’m pleased to be taking my leave just as Fortune launches the Legatum Fortune Technology Prize, which will award $1 million annually to business pioneers of tech for the poor.

During my years writing the column we’ve seen the world embrace the cellphone as a sort of universal tool for empowerment. Today 70% of Africa’s population is within the reach of a cellphone signal. Soon I’m sure it will be close to 100%. And more purposeful efforts to empower the poor continue, like the One Laptop Per Child initiative’s amazing XO laptop for children, much chronicled here.

Speaking of cellphones, Fast Forward’s swan song must do justice to the iPhone revolution. I know it’s been widely covered, but not only is the Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone the first truly portable multi-function consumer computer, its new applications store is also ground-breaking. It makes creating and profiting from software development uniquely easy. Customers can readily find, install and start using new micro-apps. I am as enamored with the iPhone as anyone, and feel certain it is the beginning of a new era in portable technology.

So I’m leaving to write a book. Why, you may ask, have I chosen to devote it to Facebook? I believe the social network is likely to have a significant impact on the way we live. There are good reasons why it is the biggest and fastest-growing service of the Web 2.0 era.

The story of Facebook is fascinating, beginning with its creation by then 19-year-old Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg. By sticking to his vision, this innovator is creating a new type of social tool and a form of communication that may alter not only social life, but also politics, business, marketing, and other spheres.

I welcome your help. Send me stories of things that wouldn’t have happened without Facebook, a good story from its history, or even feel free to tell me you think I’m completely nuts to be so excited about it. Readers have certainly never hesitated to express views like that. Write me at David_Kirkpatrick@Fortunemail.com.

Once I finish the book I doubt if I will resume a weekly column in this form. So this really is my last Fast Forward. I hope you’ll read The Facebook Effect. And eventually you’ll see me again in the pages of Fortune and on Fortune.com.

Thanks for your attention over the last six-and-a-half years.

From telephoneyonline.com

MagicJack attacks
May 2, 2008 4:16 PM, By Sarah Reedy

Six months into business, MagicJack is poised to take over the VoIP market

MagicJack founder, and inventor of its technology, Dan Borislow, doesn’t like the term voice-over IP (VoIP). He thinks it has a negative connotation in an industry prone to struggles. Why not call it what it is – really, really cheap phone service? With the largest network in the United States and growth on track to surpass market leaders Comcast and Vonage, MagicJack has arguably earned the right to call the service whatever it wants.

MagicJack came onto the scene last September, launching a $19.95 per year VoIP USB device that plugs directly into the PC or Mac and provides unlimited service over a broadband connection. Upon launch, the company sold about 50 a day. Today that number rests comfortably around 8,000 – a sales rate increase surpassing 25% week-over-week. Between January and March, the company exceeded the amount of phones sold in the entire four years of business for SunRocket, the now-defunct VoIP provider. MagicJack sold more than 200,000 units in March. Still, most sales have come in the last six weeks, since MagicJack launched an improved version of the device.

“How many people don’t want to pay $800 a year for a cell phone they don’t use very much in their house anymore? To me, that is 100%,” Borislow said. “How many people are willing to spend $20 a year to have the comfort of having a telephone in their house where half the time the cell phone doesn’t work? That may be 95% of the people. So 100% of people don’t want the phone anymore, and 95% of people might want us.”

The venture, funded entirely by Borislow and CEO Don Burns, owns its own next-generation voice network, including media gateways and session border controllers. The network, which took three and a half years to construct and acquire CLEC certifications for, now spans all 50 states. The company has interconnect agreements with all the Bell companies and 44 gateways along the edge of its network.

“As a VoIP company, we don’t have to pay for access charges,” he said. “Telephone companies do have to pay access charges to terminate calls to our customers. That took us three and a half years to build. The network is very important, and it makes everything work for us.”

The technology also works anywhere in the world, allowing international travelers to call home for free. Weighing in at less than an ounce, the USB port is suited for MagicJack’s travel-prone consumers. It is powered by a propriety Samsung memory chip, including 1.7 million lines of software code, what Borislow calls MagicJack’s “secret sauce.” It is the ease of use and price that get people interested, he said, and the quality of service that will keep them renewing year after year. “[With] Vonage and others, you have to take a box and hook it up to your Ethernet connection and a router and hope everything comes out okay after a 20-minute process,” he said. “With Magic Jack, you just plug it in, and within a minute’s time, you can pick any area code in the country, and you’re good to go.”

A scan of blogs will indicate that MagicJack did have several kinks to work out, a fact that Borislow willingly admits. Customer complaints centered on reliability issues and latency in the networks, complaints that have all but gone away, he said. “Every day that we are into this is 1% more as far as the life of the company,” Borislow added. “Everyday is a day to get experience for customer service reps. We are going to improve every day.”

Customer service starts with a list of frequently asked questions that Borislow said has eliminated 30% of customer concerns. The next step is a Web chat with service representatives. Right now there are no plans for a customer service number or call centers for technical issues. After all, the first question is always if the Internet connection is working. If the consumer is on a live chat session, that step can automatically be skipped, Borislow said.

Magic Jack is focusing on starting small, not only in size and service, but also in functionality. Considering they are selling everything they make, Borislow doesn’t feel pressure to innovate right now. As sales volumes continue to increase, however, he plans to expand the device’s capabilities into number porting and 911 services in which the device will take the form of a cell phone. Further down the product roadmap, MagicJack will evolve into a base station for a handset and a station for a femtocell.

“AT&T just announced that they are spending a half billion on [femtocells]. Little do they know what this little company has,” Borislow said, adding that the timeline for the femtocell is the first quarter of next year, while the 911 services will be ready to go by the summer.

Borislow said that the production and marketing of MagicJack costs the company less than what they sell the product for, making this the first time a telephone company has made rather than lost money acquiring customers.

“Fortunately, Don and I both made a lot of money before,” Borislow said. “This is six different patents, and we have five more pending. To me it is a matter of this being our second time around and proving we weren’t a fluke the first time. Making money is the other motivation. For me, it is putting my signature on something I can be proud of for the next couple of years.”

Here is what their website says about faxing:

Q: Can I send and receive faxes using magicJack?

A: Sometimes.

We do not officially support using faxing with magicJack.

Please try the following steps to use magicJack with your fax (contact your fax vendor for details):

1. turn off error correction on your fax machine or program
2. set the fax machine or program to use the slowest speed available
3. increase the speed, checking at each speed that faxes work

From slickdeals.net

Yes, but that doesn’t mean it will work well, or well all the time.

The reason using a fax w/ the Internet is problematic is that a fax is analog and designed for a low latency network w/ dedicated circuits (POTS). In contrast, the Internet is digital and uses a *potentially* high latency packet switched network. And there’s the rub.

A fax machine was never designed to tolerate the latencies we see w/ the Internet. Once the fax communications is converted from analog to digital and routed over the Internet, the likelihood of “traffic delays” increases dramatically (at least compared to POTS), and thus it’s very possible one or the other fax machine will simply not tolerate that latency and drop out.

None of this is the fault of the VOIP provider, POTS, or the Internet. It’s simply an artifact of trying to make two completely different technologies interoperate. One REQUIRES low latency (fax), the other TOLERATES high latency (Internet). The extent to which Internet latency remains within the tolerance levels of the fax (which isn’t much) will determine your success rate. Thus, why it works sometimes, maybe much of the time (if you’re lucky), but not ALL the time.

That’s why VOIP providers are typically so vague about their support for fax — they don’t have much control over the situation. Same holds true for a modem, or anything that requires a conversion between analog and digital and does not tolerate the increased latencies inherent to the Internet. A voice call, in contrast, works much better because even if the sound quality is less than ideal or parts of a message are dropped/lost due to congestion, as humans, we can tolerate that latency to some degree (we’re not machines after all). Even so, if it gets too bad, even voice communications will suffer, to the point ppl will reject VOIP (in a sense, *we* similarly drop the connection too!). Early VOIP services often failed for this reason.

So in the end, faxing will ALWAYS be problematic. The only thing you can due is find ways to minimize the likelihood of latency, such as using a QoS router and/or ISP service. The latter gets into the issue of net-neutrality and whether one type of communication should have precedence over another, and perhaps at additional cost. But regardless, latency will always be an issue for faxing, and problematic w/ the Internet, because toleration for high latency is simply a fundamental construct of the Internet.

How to Fix MagicJack

By skinzo89, eHow Member

Tuesday is here again that means it is time for another man on the street review. Once a week I pick a reviewer and present him to you, the viewing public. Positive or negative, it matters not, as long as the reviewer gives an intelligent, thoughtful, summary of the product in question. Feel free to submit your own review for our new feature. All are welcome except for cheap, bitter, unintelligent consumers such as this one.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJW0bh3hvGA[/youtube]

Actually, now that I think about it, I should encourage morons like this to submit, as my self esteem skyrockets after watching his inept attempts at intelligence.

Now on to a more thoughtful and insightful review.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEODgnqmvm4[/youtube]

Magic Jack FAQ

Posted On Wednesday, March 19 at by JoCoWash @Whtsnews.com