What a day.. what a week.. heck, what a month!

Anyways, I couldn't stop myself from sharing this blast from the past the work brought upon me today. Remember when Windows 98 was innovative? Only 46 “Microsoft Minutes“ until I can start using those “cutting edge technologies“. (What is up with Microsoft time anyways? How many seconds are in a MS Minute?)

It is fun to look back though. Thanks for sharing that moment.

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Primus, the US subsidiary of Primus Telecommunications Group announced that they have expanded their Lingo Voice Over IP (VoIP) to 46 states and the District of Columbia. Primus is currently offering “service free for the first 3-months to encourage users to try an alternative to their conventional telephone company”

Similar to other VoIP service providers, Lingo allows you to connect your regular telephones through an analog telephone adapter (ATA) to your high speed broadband internet connection.

According to Primus, the benefits are VoIP are not just the price. but additional features. According to their recent news release ”Besides the savings, even more compelling for many Lingo customers is the access to a group of features not typically offered by the traditional telephone company -- like voicemail to e-mail delivery, call forwarding, and distinctive ring tones. Customers like the easy Web-based portal we provide which allows them to tailor these features to their lifestyle, and they love the fact that they do not pay additional charges and fees for these features. "

For more information on Lingo, visit the Primus Lingo site here.

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On the morning of July 16, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins left our planet on a brave voyage that would forever change the world. It was from this launch control center that all of the hard work and sacrifices came together in success.

NASA has great look back on this 35th Aniversary. Check it out:

http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/apollo11/index.html

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Just because I can, blogging from the Durham Bulls ballpark and their free wifi.

UPDATE: Nothing like sending in a blog post from a wireless PDA at a ball park! I think the idea of wireless access at sporting events is a great idea. No, I'm not likely going to be willing to lug my Tablet PC or laptop out to a game, but I'll certainly take my Pocket PC PDA. It's great to have access to event related information online as well as other applications like email.

The Durham Bulls recently announced wifi capabilities at their ball park in Durham. According to their announcment “Wireless access is the latest and greatest development in Internet technology, enhancing the fans’ experience by allowing them to get real time game stats, player information and much more by accessing durhambulls.com through their wireless devices such as laptops, cell phones, pagers and PDAs. “

It's all about enhancing the experience!

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Ken Spencer will be presenting at the Triangle .Net Usergroup meeting on July 14th. If you are anywhere near the Raleigh-Durham area this is a must see event! Ken is one of the finest speakers around is always an entertaining and informative show! For more info in the meeting, or the group please drop me a note, or check out the TRINUG web site including our new .Net Developer Forums area.

07/14/04 Reflection with .NET Framework
This session will dive into the power of Reflection with the .NET Framework. You will learn not only how powerful it is but see several examples of why Reflection is so powerful and useful in your day to day lives as developers and administrators.

Bio
Ken has been developing and managing application development with VB since the days of VB 1.0 Ken spends his time these days providing input into our clients' development projects as a senior architect, and working with various types of technology. He spends time with clients helping them design the architecture for new applications using Microsoft technology. He also specializes in migrating applications of various types to the .NET Framework. Ken also has experience with roughly 20 other languages on a variety of operating systems.

He is a cofounder and Vice President of 2nd Genesis Software, a producer of software to migrate Access applications to .NET. He is also cofounder of 32X Corp, a provider of software development services.

Ken has experience developing applications with Visual Basic, Visual InterDev, Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework, and BizTalk Server. Ken was the team leader on producing the .NET Readiness training for Microsoft to roll out the .NET Framework. Ken served on the Software Development Roundtable for .NET and has thus been involved in the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET for over 2 years.

Ken has authored and co-authored numerous technical books and magazine articles. Ken also a column for MSDN Magazine from 1996 until mid 2004.

Ken also worked with Microsoft in 2000 to create several guides for creating and hosting applications. These guides involved a wide range of Microsoft technology and resulted in a set of guides for both developers and hosting companies.

Ken is also a frequent speaker. He has spoken at TechEd (US and Europe), Dev Days, PDC, Microsoft internal events, User Groups, VB Connections  

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This holiday weekend - install anti-spyware software on your relative's machines!

Great holiday activity suggestion from Scott Hanselman

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AT&T is expanding it's Callvantage(tm) voice over internet protocol (VOIP) services to more markets across the United States. The service is currently available in over 70 markets, including Raleigh-Durham, NC and expanding to 100 by October.

As with many other VOIP services, AT&T provides a hardware device known as a terminal adapter that connects your regular telephone into your high speed broadband internet service. A 6 month promotional rate of $19.95 per month is currently being offered.

While the Callvantage(tm) service appears targeted primarily at residential customers, AT&T also offers a variety of VOIP services for all sizes of businesses. More information is available through their VOIP web site.

Posted in Telephony  | Comments [1] 

Shaw Communications Inc, Canada's second-largest cable-TV provider recently announced a deal with telecommunications giant Bell Canada to offer voice over internet protocol telephone services. Bell will be providing wholesales services including access to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and long distance facilities.

Canadian consumers are being offered a variety of services in this technology area as more companies begin offering service. Vonage recently expanded it's service offering from the US into Canada and Primus currently offers their TalkBroadband product. Calgary based Shift Networks offers services targeted at small to mid size businesses providing telephone lines and related services over high speed internet lines.

These new services mean both increased competition for telephone companies such as Telus and Bell Canada, but also represent a variety of exciting features and flexibility for consumers and businesses.

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