The PhoneBoy Blog

More Inbox Cruft

22 Oct 2008

My inbox is growing! Bad email practices are obviously taking over. Here’s a few things:

Jaxtr Goes 2.0, Adds Subscription Model: On September 30th, the folks at Jaxtr launched their new subscription-level services, making it easier (and cheaper) for members to make cheap calls through their mobile phone. While I’m sure there are people willing to do this, the fundamental problem I have with all toll bypass solutions is they involve changing your calling patterns. Clearly without using software on the mobile handset–which is a positive for Jaxtr–some changes in calling patterns have to occur. I’m not quite as cold as I once was on Jaxtr’s business model. Cautiously optimistic is the word I’d use.

Palringo Pushing IM Over Texting, Adding Location Information: Clearly with the mobile operators in North America charging us an arm and a leg to text, IM is a way around the SMS tax. Palringo provides a nice multi-IM experience on the mobile handset, and now will begin offering location-based information alongside your status messages. The location based stuff will start on Windows Mobile, but will roll out to other supported phones by the end of the year. Looking forward to trying the Nokia S60 version when it becomes available.

A Good Discount on WalkingHotSpot Available: WalkingHotSpot is a way to turn your Nokia S60 or Windows Mobile device into a hotspot! It’s similar to JoikuSpot, with many of the same limitations. A 7-day trial is available, but you can pay either $6.95 a month or $24.99 a year. However, I can get you the program for $9.99 for the lifetime of the phone! Send an email to dwelch AT phoneboy.com with the subject WalkingHotSpot Discount and I’ll set at least two of you up–more if the folks at WalkingHotSpot allow it.

Fring on iPhone: Yet another multi-IM client for your mobile phone, except it also does voice. And now, it does it on the iPhone, complete with calling over WiFi and availability in Apple’s App Store. I don’t have an iPhone, but the reports from my friends on Twitter have been generally positive.

IVONA Has A New Voice: IVONA has a text-to-speech program that sounds pretty good. They even recently announced a new voice was available, this guy “Eric” from the west coast of the United States. Regardless, the inflection on these text-to-speech systems are all wrong. They are improving, but still all wrong.