I got thrown into VoIP in a sink or swim situation — and thankfully, I’m a strong swimmer. I’ve talked previously about my love of phones. Growing up in New York City, my family would purposely avoid walking on certain blocks to avoid me seeing pay-phones. As a child, I loved phones. I still love phones.
My love of phones made me what I am today. I am a Kamailian.
Ok, if you use Asterisk (or a Do It Yourself type VoIP service), you sometimes do not receive the CNAM (think Caller ID with Name data) from your carrier. Well, since geeks like information and anything “free,” there’s a simple way to use the internet to do a reverse number lookup query. So, if you’re a technical type, keep reading… otherwise, non-geek posts will return very soon.
I have a new phone on my desk (or as Yeni calls it, the mesk). Why mesk? Combines messy and desk… but I digress (as usual).
As I was saying, I recently purchased a Polycom Soundpoint IP 450 phone. The phone is great — small foot print, clean, great speakerphone, and enables HD Voice. HD Voice is going to change the way we think of how phone calls sound. I admit, I was reluctant at first, but then I got to know Michael Graves; and after listening to him praise the benefits of HD Voice for many, many months, I decided it was time to embrace the technology.
Let me say this — HD Voice is amazing. I won’t say too much more, because I’m planning to write about it big time on VoIP Tech Chat and Team Forrest; but bottom line: HD Voice = amazing.
So the other nice thing about the phone? It has a little micro-mini browser. Which means what you ask? It means that know whenever Yeni asks me the weather… I can answer. A nice little Perl script checks the local Ann Arbor weather and gives me the temp (in F and C), current condition, and quick day’s forecast. The phone reads the website every 5 minutes and constantly displays the results. It’s nice. 🙂