"Dude! They're not for my wife after all. They're for me! Someone sent me flowers for my birthday!!!" Imagine this for a guy who programs stuff for t1 lines and T-1 connections all day with ShopforT1.

"Lady, you must have the wrong address. I didn't order any flowers for my wife."

"Who sent my wife flowers?"

Since Aaron moved from sunny Florida to snowy Utah to work with us, I figured he shouldn't be left out of the party. So here he sports a brand new package of knee-high tube socks!

Patrick received all our notes and a magnetic dart board... which will hopefully help with forecasting T1 sales.

Hurray! UPS arrived w/ a special gift for Patrick for his birthday from the t1 team.

Birthday...

Well, yesterday (Friday) was Davoice's birthday. He ain't saying which one. But thanks to everyone who wished him a happy day!

Davoice.net 3.0 Launched

It just launched! And if you want a sneak peak of the press release that got picked up by the wire services about Anyion Group, you'll want to go visit the new site *right now*.

Our condolences go out to the family a Sarah Lane, a host on G4 TechTV's "The Screen Savers". As posted by Kevin Rose, "I'm saddened to post that late Monday September 20th 2004, Bill Lane, Sarah's Dad, passed away. Bill had been battling cancer for the last two years and is now at peace. Bill was a school teacher, loving father, and devoted husband. To see Sarah's Mom and Dad together was to witness true love."

Our thoughts and prayers are with Sarah and her family.

Davoice.net 3.0 about to launch

OOOO! We're so excited that we just had to tell someone. Davoice.net 3.0 is about to launch. Check back for another posting when it goes live. (Or just try visiting davoice.net and you might be sneak up on the soft launch!)

Clearinghouse for Small Business Resources

If you're looking for tools for your small business, growing business, or ministry, check out davoice.net for lots of neat programs and special offers. Right now the coolest thing they're doing right now is hosting an archive of the Anyion Services T1 price site. Quite nice of them!

Looking for new blogs? Popdex is where to find them!

Search Popdex:

T1 price quote site archive

Well, if you want T1 pricing in 2 seconds instead of 2 days, you need GeoQuote. And if you've ever wanted to see an archive of highly advanced T1 and internet pricing website, here's your chance. I've indexed the entire Anyion Services website and put it all in one place. And major props to the web guru who made it possible - thanks Patrick!

T1 price quote site archive:
http://www.anyion.com/t1-service-archive/

So why shouldn't I get "unlimited" long distance

Ok, so by now if you haven't heard about unlimited long distance plans - like those offered by the phone company and by startups like Broadvox Direct. But there's something the marketing people aren't mentioning that you need to know about in order to make an informed decision about whether you can actually save money with the service.

First, calculate the cost. On average, if you compare unlimited plans to a good long distance package, you will need to talk around 600 minutes before you even break even. Yep, 10 hours. If you spend more than that on long distance calls then, yes, an unlimited plan might be a good choice for you.

But what if you don't talk on the phone that much? Well, simply put, unlimited plans are a rip-off for you. Instead, you will want to use our long distance plan comparison engine to see which long distance plan is the best for you.

You can use our long distance comparison engine online at: http://billzilla.com/dvc.

Happy Calling!

Ubiqitous T1 Coverage Across Texas

For those of you who have never lived in or at least been to the state of Texas, it's hard to beleieve just how big this state really is. Imagine taking most of Europe and squishing it into a single state! (Well, except Texas is very sparsely populated.)

The problem with all that land mass is that most carriers don't cover it very well. If you're outside of the Dallas-Forth Worth Metrol area (DFW), Austin or Houston, you can often be SOL when it comes to finding a broadband carrier.

We have good news though! One of our T1 carriers offers complete, blanket T1 coverage across the entire state of Texas. If you can get dialtone - i.e. a phone line - we can put a T1 in your location. And then if you have any neighbors (even if they're in the next ranch) you can hit them w/ a wireless or WiFi shot and share the connection with them to reduce your costs.

Find out about T1 service in Texas at: http://www.anyionservices.com/tx/index.cfm

Real T1s in Dallas for as little as $380

Just got word of a terrific promotion going on in Dallas from one of the carriers at Anyion Services. For $380 w/ no install fee and a free router, you can get a real, legitimate T1. This isn't from some mom and pop, rinky dink ISP either. Confidentiality dictates that we can't post the carrier's name here... but they're no small fry.

Submit a T1 quote request online here: http://www.anyionservices.com

Someone will call you back. The T1 promotion won't show up in the real-time pricing that you see. Since it's a promo, a human will have to handle the order.

Get an iPod (virtually) for Free

Marketing at it's best... participate in a free trial or other promotion, refer a couple friends and get a free iPod, iPod Mini or $250 gift certificate to the Apple iTunes music store. How cool is that!

http://www.anyion.com/ipod/

Sarah Lane's iTunes Plugin list

If you're in iTuner, Sarah Lane from TechTV's The Screen Savers (yes, I refuse to acknowledge G4) has the hook up for 3 of the best plug-ins for iTunes that I've tried lately.

http://sarahlane.typepad.com/sarahword/2004/09/itunes_plugins.html

$30 for unlimited T-Mobile wireless internet on laptops

Ok, first, this isn't referring to Hot Spot coverage - a la T-Mobile at Starbucks. This is referring to the ubiquitous GPRS coverage that's everywhere you can get T-Mobile phone coverage.

http://www.anyion.com/aircard

For $30 per month you get unlimited wireless usage on their GPRS network. And they've just released the new Sony Ericsson wireless card that does both GPRS and WiFi. So that means with one card and $60/mo you can get unlimited GPRS *AND* Hot Spot access.

WOW! We've been paying $80/mo for our Sprint wireless cards for over a year now. This is a *major* cost savings. I'm nearly dumbfounded... and that doesn't happen often!

VOIP Service for home, SOHO and small business

Ok, we've joined the VOIP parade. Anyion Group is now offering Broadvox Direct VOIP service. We get asked all the time about VOIP for use at home and we've tried pretty much all of the major services (and most of the smaller ones too).

You can order, get more info, etc. here:
http://www.anyion.com/voip/

We choose to go with Broadvox Direct for a couple reasons:

• Enterprise roots - Broadvox has been offering enterprise services for a couple years and as such had the experience in house to handle the systems architecture for good service. They also provide a natural - and relatively painless - upgrade path to full out enterprise wide VOIP trunking and VOIP centrex deployments.
  
  
• Price - They offer 3 main plans for residential and 2 for business. Calls between Broadvox subscribers are free. Basic residential service w/ 500 minutes for use anywhere in the US is just $12.95. Unlimited residential calling is $29.95 On the small busines side, $44.95 gets you 2 phone lines - 1 unlimited for calling on and 1 w/ 500 minutes for faxing - and a yellow pages listing.
  
  
• First T.38 support - Broadvox is the only VOIP carrier in the mass market at the moment that supports T.38. For those who don't know what that is, simply put it's *the* best protocol for sending faxes or modem traffic over IP connections. W/ T.38 a fax or modem connection only requires the bandwidth of the modem plus a smigon of overhead (i.e. 9.6 or 14.4K for the typical fax machine or 33.6/56K for modem traffic). Without T.38, the fax/modem tones have to be converted into audio, re-compressed, packetized and re-decoded at the other end. That means for a 9.6K fax transmission you'd be using 90-120K to transmit the call using G.711 voice codecs (which is what all the other carriers are using at the moment).
  
  With T.38 the tones are simply directly transmitted from your VOIP gateway to a T.38 gateway at the provider side - which acts like a faux modem - and the gateway communicates directly w/ the fax/modem at the receiving end. (That's right, your fax/modem doesn't talk directly to the actual fax machine or modem at the remote end. You're just talking to a gateway.) B/c of that, irregularities of IP transmission can be masked. If your IP connection burps somewhere along the way the gateway can hold the connection w/ the remote fax/modem until your IP connection catches up. By contrast, if you were using a carrier that only supported G.711 voice, the call would drop and you'd have to start all over again.
  
  
• Follow-me - Broadvox lets you have your phone number ring both your VOIP phone AND up to 3 other phones. If you don't answer your VOIP phone, you can configure the service to try you at 3 other locations. Or you can even have your VOIP phone ring simultaneously w/ another phone like your cell phone.
  
  
• Call transfer - Just like you'd have on a big office PBX system, calls that come in to your Broadvox phone can be transferred to any other phone, anywhere in the world. Just hit flash, dial the number to where you want to transfer the call and hang up.
  
  
• Selectable bandwith and ports - You can choose how much compression you want on your calls - and thus how much bandwidth will be used. They support codecs from 30K to 90K (total bandwidth used per second in a call). (FYI... 30K sounds slightly better than a good GSM cell phone w/ 5 bars of service. 60K is equvilent to traditional POTS service. 90K sounds like full rate 1B ISDN voice.) You can also change the port being used for the traffic. So if you're on an ISP somewhere in the world that blocks the normal port 6065 used by most VOIP traffic, you can switch to another port number so you calls still come in and go out like normal.
  

Try it, we think you'll be thoroughly impressed!
http://www.anyion.com/voip/

We us it ourselves. :-}

Looking for T1 pricing or a price on a new DS3?

Get real-time prices on T1 lines, DSL, DS3 and cable modems in your area. It's the best place to find the price of a T1 in your area since 99% of the US is covered.

http://www.anyionservices.com

Block flash and rich media ads

NoFlash is it! Install it to block those pesky rich media ads and those intrusive flash animation ads. Get it NOW!

http://www.geocities.jp/baryonlee/noflash/

Free Color Laser Printer Promo

The company from whom we buy all our Xerox and Tektronix inks and toners from is offering special deal where they'll give you a free Phaser 8400 just for agreeing a monthly supply shipments.

If your business could use a free color laser printer, now's the time to get one! You can't beat their price - FREE! And their prices on supplies were already some of the best.

http://www.anyion.com/freeprinter/

Launch of Nationwide Broadband Search Tool

If you're looking for DSL, cable modem or satellite internet, we just launched a new tool that will let you compare prices and order online pretty much anywhere in the US. We now cover all the major telephone companies, cable companies and satellite options. Plus those options are presented with the latest promotions and discounts offered by the carriers so you can price compare too!

http://www.anyion.com/broadband/

I want one of these for my front yard!!!

Finally! The real reason AOL was a spam haven.

Yahoo! News - US Charges AOL Worker Sold Customer List for Spam

I guess we now know why and how new AOL accounts would begin receiving spam within days - even hours - of being created. Figures!

}Davoice

Grow the coffee decaffeinate

Grow a decaffeinated cuppa: Brazilians discover bushes without the buzz.

Why decaffeinate it when you can grow it decaffeinated?!? I still don't think I'll start drinking coffee anytime soon. Seems utterly superfluous to me.

}Davoice

Amazing... I guess everyone really does love a good scandal

Clinton book mania explodes on the Web | CNET News.com

Ok, ok. I admit that I enjoyed reading Hilary's book. I think I'll wait for ole Billy Bob to come out in paperback though. He's definately a good story teller. He's certianly had a lot of practice!

}Davoice

Steve Sizemore's Weblog

Steve Sizemore's Weblog

Props go out to Steve for helping me finally take the plunge into a Gmail account from Google.

Hey and he's a fan of Firefox and Thunderbird. Just further proof he's a cool guy.

}Davoice

The air cleaners I have in my home

The Oreck Super Air 8 Professional Air purifiers permanent filter quietly cleans the air in your home of allergens, dust and dirt.

A couple folks who visited my house have asked what air cleaners I use in the house to tackle the Texas rag-weed problem. All of them are from Oreck. Back in Mississippi I had ones from Sunbeam that are now discontinued.

The big unit I have from Oreck at the top of the stairs has been discontinued and they replaced it in their product line-up with their new Super Air 8 units. But it does take 2 of the Air 8 units to equal 1 of the older style whole house units. That said, the Super Air units are wall mountable whereas the big unit is relegated to the floor.

I also have 2 Super Air 8 units - 1 in my bedroom and 1 in my home office.

On average I have to clean the filter plates every 3 weeks. I found that Sprayway window cleaner is the most effective at getting the plates clean. After taking a look at Oreck's proprietary "Assail-a-Cell" I think it's probably very close to the same thing. And Sprayway is much cheaper... just a couple bucks for a big can at Wal-Mart.

}Davoice

Thieves becoming even more brazen

Blaggers lift 60 CCTV cameras | The Register

Ok, now the article I linked to earlier this week about the PCs being stolen from the Asia Securitex show was funny b/c of it's shear irony. But this one is almost scarey in the crooks brazeness. Stealing 60 closed circuit cameras while being told to leave the premises via loudspeakers and knowing you're bring watched is just... well... brazen.

}Davoice

Who knew! Maybe I can go back home to our farming community and get an IT job.

CNN.com - Wi-Fi farming expected to catch on - Jun 18, 2004

Wonder if there are any farmers out there who are looking for IT Directors for their farms?

Yahoo! News - Texas to Set Up Wi-Fi Access at Rest Stops

Texas to Set Up Wi-Fi Access at Rest Stops

Of all the places I expected to find internet access at a rest stop, Texas wouldn't be it. But coming soon to a Texas rest stop near you, Wi-Fi. Hopefully many states will follow suit. Hello North Carolina can you hear me?!?

}Davoice

Thieves lift PCs from security show

Thieves lift PCs from security show | The Register

Ok, now anyone with a bit of sense of humor has to appreciate the shear irony of this. And I have a suspicion that the culprits probably have quite a wit about them.

}Davoice

How much is that hoax in the window?

Apparently there are still a few gullible people on the internet. (Ha!)

Today I received a new version of the "Bill Gates is giving away his fortune" email. Ugh. Do you really think that rich boy is going to share any of his loot with us normal folk? Please.

So before you forward that next email, check to see if it's legit.
http://urbanlegends.about.com

Until next time!

- Davoice