Where did the name PhoneBoy come from?
The name PhoneBoy was given to me by one of the hosts of Radionet Talk Radio, a radio show I used to work on in 1996. I used to screen calls for the show. The host forgot my name one day and called me PhoneBoy just to call me something. The thought I had at the time was “[The host] is never going to let this name go, so I might as well embrace it.” And embrace it I have.
As I’ve evolved my web presence over the years, the name PhoneBoy became very closely tied to FireWall-1. In fact, if you Google for FireWall-1, you’ll see that phoneboy.com comes up right after Check Point, the company that makes FireWall-1 (now marketed as VPN-1).
Over the years, I have also collected a number of mobile phones from Nokia. My current collection includes:
- Nokia 6800 (my main phone these days on AT&T Wireless)
- Nokia 3650 (Camera phone, will occasionally use on either AT&T Wireless or T-Mobile)
- Nokia 6610 (my “small” backup phone on T-Mobile)
- Nokia 8890 (On-loan to my mother-in-law)
- Nokia 9290 (The Communcator, a.k.a. “The Brick”)
- Nokia 6190 (Old reliable)
- Nokia 8260 (yet another older AT&T TDMA phone)
- Nokia 6360 (AT&D TDMA phone)
- Nokia 6160 (2 of them, older AT&T TDMA phones)
- Nokia 6185 (Old Sprint CDMA phone — my son uses it as a toy)</ul>
And the phone I currently want: The Nokia 6820. Aside from handsets, I am interested in the mobile phone providers in the US, especially now that Cingular is planning on purchasing AT&T Wireless. Probably not going to affect anything for a while, and it most definately won’t improve my coverage in my area, since Cingular coverage is generally less extensive than AT&T Wireless is in my area.
My current interest in Voice over IP has netted me three different VoIP adapters: Two Sipura SPA-2000s–one with Broadvox Direct, the other with Free World Dialup, and a Cisco ATA-186 (currently unused). It’s also possible more may be in my future.
I guess you could say that I am putting some “phone” in PhoneBoy.
