Game changer Moto G

I thought I missed something when I saw the Moto G.  But no.  Google only put that out in Jan.  I got a Jiayu G4 last Christmas.  I didn't saw it coming.

It's a game changer in many ways.  First, people have been buying phones (and other things) direct from China for years now.  The US product lines are too bad, too expensive, or didn't fill the gap.  So you have to pay a markup price for middlemen.  But once crossing national border, guarantees don't hold any more.  You have to pay more for some respectable middlemen.

For the Moto G, there is no 4G, single-band wifi, otherwise it's state-of-the-art - quad-core, 720p HD.  I never want 4G.  But to get a decent 4.5" phone without putting up a few hundred dollars up front, the carriers forced people to pay for 4G data, so they can complete the 4G network.  I'm not a travelling salesman.  When I'm commuting, 10Mbps is good enough for me, good enough for streaming a movie.  Otherwise I have wifi.  If you signup for AT&T internet, you can have all their wifi around the country for free.  (The catch is that they aren't as good as cable yet.)  I don't even want to get a smart phone for my wife but then texting will difficult for her.

For me it's a palm sized tablet, personal communicator, smart organizer, whatever.

For my boy, $179 for a handheld game device is a bargain.  It's comparable to a nintendo but the graphics is a lot better on the Moto G and games are free or cost little.  For my girl, she wanted a 3.5" phone to fit her pocket, but must be a smart phone for her to text.  She settled for a cheap 4" phone because I told her any smaller screen will look bad.

Google don't want or need to compete with carriers and phone manufacturers for dollars.  They are not strong armed by carriers.  They can also make what they want themselves.  One more Android sold means one more gmail and hangout user.  And one more user of the many Play store apps serving ads.

Google don't want or need to compete with game hardware or software manufacturers.  It's an open game platform.

Struggling with Cancer Research

......, the fund raiser for it.  They are relentless. I surrendered before but they start that every year as I'm on their list.

First I agreeded to donate some stamps.  Then I looked up their calling history for the 1st time.  It's not good.  I'll keep my promise when they mail me something but I blocked their calls.  But they keep calling everyday with different numbers.

Times like this I am grateful that I cut the phoneline at last and used the internet and Android.  I can look at the caller id at any or all smartphones to see if I pickup the phone.  I think I can block all their numbers on the phone but it's easier at my SIP provider's website to block them so no phone will even ring.

Landline providers are providing similar service but mine is much cheaper and more features.

I'll miss the voice / talking caller id of my antique answering machine.  There are apps for that but they all don't work for VOIP.  It's not a great loss as I can see who's calling with my mobile phone not far from me, even when I'm not at home or far from the answering machine.

However, since you can assign individual ringtone to a number, I can just use a sound file reading that number.  It's a bit of hassle to generate a file for each, but you can make a file for each group, with ringtone like "family calling", "company calling".  And for kids, "dady calling... dady calling".

Then they are estate agents.  They all want to see how I'm doing in this new year.  But I don't want to hear from them for the next 30 years.

Two OS, dual screen, one Chromebook

The alternative title is Crouton vs Chrubuntu (vs Chrome OS)

Crouton allows you to run Ubuntu at the "same" time as Chrome OS without the need to reboot.  You can switch by ctrl-alt-forward and ctrl-alt-backward.  Very exciting.

Crouton/Ubuntu works well on the C720, and a lot faster than on the AO722 of course.  The trackpad is fully functional as in Chrome OS, and then some.  The "some" is the half double tap that replaces mouse drag without left mouse button.  (it's a double tap without lifting the finger on the last tap, and then move to drag)  I'm elated.  I prefer half double tap (single-handed) to drag but it doesn't always work on Ubuntu.  Now the whole trackpad of the chromebook is the left button so I have that for backup up without looking for the left mouse button!

Chrome OS supports dual screen about the same way as Ubuntu, but chromeos may be a little more intuitive.  You don't want to mirror the two screens because that will cripple the higher resolution one.  BTW, the C720 screen is of course not as good looking as my 1080p HDTV.  Well, if you want that good and squeeze a big TV into 11" or so, it have to be over a grand.

With Crouton you can run a different OS on each screen!  At least the illusion of it.  When you switch OS with the hot keys combination, the screen doesn't refresh in all cases.  I don't remember exactly.  But the key thing is that Chrome OS is multitasking (of course).  You have to drag a browser tab out of the window to get another window.  Then you can move the window to another screen.  It's not clear because if you start an app anywhere, it will always default to use the first opened window.

That's the good of Crouton.  Switch with hot key.

The not so good.  Crouton is just a process in Linux.  It is under a shell under a terminal in the browser.  It seems that you can run the crouton process in the terminal background.  So you have to keep the terminal tab.  If you kill it you have to start again, get a terminal, get a shell and start crouton. I'm not sure if sound works on the other screen, the TV.

The fatal.  Crouton is using the same Chrome OS kernel, which is a version of Linux, not fully compatible with the Ubuntu kernel.  So some apps on Ubuntu will not work on the C720.  How to I know?  Trying to be clever, in chromeos I got a terminal and try to run openvpn and eryptfs as if I'm in Ubuntu.  I hope they will work as they are already part of chromeos so I don't need to install anything.  Both doesn't work.

In crouton, I got exactly the same error message as I was in a chromeos terminal.  Specifically, chromeos crippled ecryptfs so it won't work the way in Linux does.  May be so you can't possibly hack the encryption with stolen key, etc.  You can't install anything in the normal mode.  Chromeos probably use a more secure mode in openvpn for handling keys and certificates so most current vpn providers do not support chromebook's openvpn.  It's the same story for the command line execution.

For vpn I can work around it, paying more for a vpn provider who support chromebook, or run vpn at the router level with a vpn access point.  But no way I can work around the usb drive encryption.  The other encfs also doesn't work on crouton.

That drove me to Chrubuntu.  It was there earlier and there were some problems.  But for the C720 it's straight sailing.  I install with all default options and it worked fine.  It just takes a long time.  > one hour?

Everything works, video, sound, trackpad + half double click.  Ecryptfs and openvpn works.  It's about 5Gb.  I left some for Chrome OS.  So there's no much left on the hard drive.  But the usb 3 is capble of over 100 MB/s near peak.  For my old USB 2 drive it's more like 10!

I love chromeos.  The security fits me.  You can add a secret google account and delete it on the chromebook after use, all with ease.  Now that google encrypt the browser data (links + stored password), it will be easier than me currently using ecryptfs to encrypt all firefox data on the fly.  You can totally lost the book without exposing any data.  Even more secure than hardware encrypted disk drive.  The data just isn't there.

Crouton turns out to be not useful for me.  How do you know if your app is compatible with the Chromeos kernel?  If you prefer the Unity interface, may be.  But the chromeos UI isn't bad at all.  And google sync is pretty good and across android too.  If you need skype (and it works on crouton), and you can't Hangout with your friends yet, may be.  But if you don't replace the kernel, you can't be fully compatible.  And if you replace, you need bios reboot.

Chrubuntu turns out to be superior.  On intel chips, it's fully compatible I suppose.  It's also easier to dual boot.  ctrl-d to chromeos and ctrl-l to ubuntu.  You can't switch after boot, but well, you have to make some decisions.  And since booting doesn't take that long, it's not a big deal if you need to boot to another one for some work.

As for chromebook itself, it's a very good linux machine.  It's much faster than the AO722.  Everything works because the chromeos drivers should work for linux.  There's only 10Gb hard disk.  But in a way you don't carry a big hard disk with you all the time - the principle of portables.  It's absolute quiet and fast.  You can have file servers, streaming and all that.  And that it is $50 cheaper than the AO722.

Now I really doubt if the chromebook killed the chromebox.  Well, a quad core android stick computer cost $80 and more.  That's about the same if you plug the chromebook into a big monitor.  It cost $120 more but you get a portable as an extra.  The C720 is probably fast enough to run virtualbox, and run some Windows in it so you have all the os's just in case.

The chromebook screen gets in the way if you plug it into a desktop monitor.  You can use bluetooth keyboard/mouse/trackpad.  But you can also plug it into your HDTV in your home theatre.  You can have a big background screen and a close working screen.  The chromebook screen won't get in the way if you have a big screen.  Believe me, it's like working as Citizen Kane.

OK, if you installed Chrubuntu on the SSD, you can safely exit and reenter developer mode without affecting you Chrubuntu partition. But you cannot boot into Chrubuntu by cntrl-l. It wouldn't work. You have to reset the boot options. The following isn't all necessary, but sure it will work:

• get into developer mode (probably not needed)
• boot into chromos (what else?)
• get terminal by ctrl-alt-forward (not t, probably better)
• login as chronos, no password needed
• at the command line do this: (from reddit)

$sudo su
$crossystem dev_boot_usb=1 dev_boot_legacy=1

The boot legacy option obviously let you boot into chrubuntu by ctrl-L instead of ctrl-D into Chrome OS. The usb option will boot from usb if you attach a drive to it.

Surprisingly good Acer Chromebook C720

Who said netbooks are dead?

I have the Acer AO722 Windows 7 netbook.  It ran Ubuntu ever since.  Everybody in the family was happy with it except me.  I thought it would play full HD video on Linux.  But in Linux you don't have drivers for hardware acceleration.  Updates never came, not that I'm aware of.  Everything else works.

The C720 is a no brainer at $200.  My wife and kids don't know anything Linux even when they are using it daily.  To them the AO722 it's really a net book and then some like word processing.  For school work or writing letters they can fire up Libre Office or anything that matters.  The C720 can't have a weaker CPU than the AO722.  The screen resolution is OK.  It should boot much faster and should fire up the native Chrome browser in no time.  That's all I needed to know.

I have reservations if they all can move into the cloud.  I doubt if dual boot Ubuntu runs smoothly and how much the dual boot annoys them.  But if the C720 can only solve some problems, I can have one more or something else for other purposes.

If you open the Chromebook, it looks like the AO722 at first.  But the screen is soft like TV and monitors.  That I call a surprise.  The AO722 is harder plastic like tablets.  But if the resolution is the same I have no complains.  Some writers complained about the narrower viewing angle.  Though he told the truth that there will be difficulties for a collaborating group in front of the computer together.  For a $200 computer?  The side to side viewing angle is pretty good, unless you are at the same time doing some weird yoga moves with your head positions.  The vertical angle is narrower, but you can tilt the screen for optimum viewing.  That's what netbooks are for.

The C720 actually has a touch screen!  You touch it, it wakes up.  A surprise.

The keyboard area is surprisingly spacious.  The C720 is a tiny bit wider and longer than the AO722, with a crowded keyboard.  Getting rid of one or two windows key can't make that much difference, can it?  The keyboard is a true redesign without worrying about windows compatibility.  Google can afford that.  It even doesn't run on Windows.  The DOS F keys are gone.  In place of them are brightness, loudness and some browser keys like back/forward, refresh and full screen.  There are no more multiplexing blue functions keys.  With the full screen key browsing is much more enjoying.  Never use full screen much if I have to use ctrl-F11.

The touch pad is another surprise.  There are no buttons, no left and right mouse buttons.  It's an obstacle to ask my family to switch.  Kids should be easy but I don't know about my wife.  For me when I got the AO722 I brought a wireless mouse at the same time just as I do with laptops before.  Never use mouse for portables much.  When I got use to the AO722's multi-gesture pad, I got rid of the mouse on my desktop instead.  The AO722's pad has less functions under Linux than Windows.  But still I never need to use the mouse buttons for good.  My lower cost keyboard + pad for the desktop has even less functions, but still I rarely use the mouse keys.  It's not some poor men's compromising.  It's superior that way than using any mouse.

In the Chrome pad, all the usual pad functions work and then some for being netbook.  Two finger tap for right click and two finger scrolling works for both horizontal and vertical.  Dragging doesn't work with half double tap as on Linux.  Surprisingly, the whole pad is a left mouse button that clicks.  In a way it's easier for people used to the left click buttons.

Pinching doesn't work, at least on the browser.  But it's easier to do it on the menu.  Pinching is also replaced by scrolling in some Linux applications and Chrome OS.  In Google Maps, you drag the map to scroll; you scroll to enlarge or shrink.

On the browser, horizontal scrolling becomes the back and forward buttons.  Three finger scrolling moves around tabs.  Four fingers ...... you must be weird to use more than that.

So I doubt very much if the touch screen version is worth it at $100 more.  For the same functions, the trackpad can do it better.  Selecting a folder on the screen takes more effort than selecting that on the trackpad.  If the touch screen is more Android like it will be confusing.

It is surprisingly easy to move into the cloud.  They all have Android so I don't even need to setup accounts for them in the chromebook.  To port their data, I just need to run the Chrome browser in the old computer and upload whole directory trees into Drive.  For Libre office files, you need to turn on the convert option when you upload.  You do not need to do that for other formats that Google Drive supports directly.

Another surprise is that you can't print directly on a printer.  As if some USB drivers will ruin it's cloud only reputation.  You need another computer to install it's own drivers and receive printing materials from the cloud.  I'm not surprised if you signed off your rights so Google can look at what you print without collecting personal information.  Not even a Wifi printer I think.  It have to be a cloud ready printer if you don't have any other computers.  But if you have another, it's trivial, because it's just the routing.

It's a big surprise without an Ethernet port.  Not that I use it.  I have to disable it for wifi to live in AO722.  Being Linux, you can still connect to Ethernet with a USB adaptor.  But you really use an Ethernet port when you backup your drive or download big media files.  But you don't do these on the C720.  You have only 10G anyway.  However, you have dual-band wifi built-in.  I would think you can get away with single band, and that the high frequency band cost a lot more to implement.

The C720 and other Chromebooks are Fort Knox's.  A big surprise.  They are using the same latest encryption system I'm using on Ubuntu, and on selected directories in my external drives.  Chromebooks use it for the whole internal disk, which is more secure than part of the file system.  Your Google password is also your encryption key so it is transparent.  If you change your password and forget the old one, your things in your local drive cannot be recovered.  It is designed for you not to put things on the drive and it's not a problem for most.  I have my machine generated Google password doubly encrypted and remembered on a PC browser.  I need to change it to one that is easier to remember and type.  Once the password is updated on Firefox, the old one is overwritten.  That's how I lost everything on the chromebook drive.  But I think I never put any user data in there yet.

You can't encrypt your external drive yet.  But if you get into a terminal, you mostly can.  It's just Linux with the Linux file system encryption.  But you need to mange your key carefully. [you can't]

You can use a Chromebook as a guest and no trace will be left whatsoever once you exit guest mode.  It's like a telephone extension on the corridor for anybody to use it.

Chromebook is more multi-user than traditional computers with the cloud in the equation.  Your disk area is separately encrypted.  Your data are mostly stored in your Google cloud account, encrypted.  I don't think any superuser can even log into the chromebook while you are using it.  I mean not even from the local network.  There's no superuser on a normal Chromebook.  You can't do anything if you are not in the developer mode.  And if you are in the normal mode, there's nothing you can install other than approved by Google.

Your bookmarks and browsing history are all at the cloud.  It's just not on the chromebook for someone else to hack.  Google has your encryption key but you have the option to keep it locally.  Also, encryption keys are easier to handle securely than private raw user data.

The video player on the chromebook is awesome.  It plays HD video on the usb drive with no problems whatsoever.  The awesomeness is on the fast forward and backward keys, < and >, which is standard on any keyboard.  It's like setting good alarm clocks.  If you don't release the buttons, time will travel faster and faster.  Perhaps not.  Because the cpu and usb 3 is fast enough, the keys are responsive.  You just need two keys for each direction to skip secs or mins.  Backward is as good as forward even in HD.  In Linux you have 3 different sets of keys to program different skip time like 10s, 30s, 5min etc.  Some players have the option of changing playing speed with a slider.  The chrome player makes them all obsolete.

Now there are nasty surprises on the video side of things.  WMV is not supported.  AVI is, but you know there may be all sorts of codecs within.  DLNA is not supported it seems, so you can't stream your movies into the C720.  There is a DLNA app but doesn't work for the unix server rygel.  There is a total solution with PLEX.  There is an app for that in Chrome OS.  It works because that's just an URL into your PLEX server.  You can stream movies.  If the format is not supported in chrome os, Plex will transcode the stream in real time, changing the format as you watch.  But that is CPU intensive and needs a decent PC for the server.  PLEX works for PS3, XBOX, WII U, and comcast.  So it's worth it.  But however you stream, the awesomeness of the chrome player will be lost.  Really, it's not bad carrying around a 1TB usb drive the weight of an android phone one or two years old model.

A silly way to get around streaming and unsupported format is the remote monitor.  It is as easy to setup as Netflix and you can control a remote computer in front of the chromebook as if you are sitting in front of the remote computer.  You can play and watch anything on the remote computer as if you are using the computer.  Movies playing on the remote computer is watchable on the chromebook, but not as good.

How about docking?  Nobody talks about that for sometime now.  Your data is always in sync as there is only one copy in the cloud.  Your main storage and backup storage is on the cloud.  Another desktop is what you want instead of docking.  But the C720 is not bad for even a desktop, or call it a nettop.  You need a bigger monitor.  No problem, just plug in the HDMI.  You don't need another keyboard and mouse.  Those on the C720 is better than the one I'm using on the desktop right now.   The only problem is that the chromebook screen getting in the way of a bigger monitor.  But it can be done depending on the size of your monitor.  The screen of the C720 at the lowest incline angle may go behind your monitor from under it, with the keyboard right in a good position.  But you can always use a bluetooth keyboard instead.

Chrome OS supports VPN natively but I think in a more secure mode of exchanging keys and certificates.  So, only if a VPN provide explicitly says it support openvpn or L2TP/IPsec FOR the chromebook, don't go for it.  Few supports it.  I tried and it just doesn't work if the servers are not setup for chrome OS.  But if you go into developer mode, it may be easy with or without another Linux. [doesn't work in dev mode either]

To get VPN it's may be cheaper to get an extra wifi router that supports VPN to be a repeater of your main browser.  Then you have a dedicated access point to connect for vpn while all other traffic are not encrypted with your IP from ISP.  I would also use this "channel" for guest access without a password.  The traffic is encrypted and your IP is protected.  I don't know if that's such a think but you can probably do it in dd-wrt installed routers.  Just to setup VPN for everybody in dd-wrt isn't easy.  Instead of using the UI, the one that works use scripts to generate config files, run steps with a few secs in between to make sure that something did ran.  You can also setup only one access point (SSID) with VPN, or only to a subnet.  But there's no simple cookbook scripts for everybody to do it.

So far I'm quite happy and enjoying my chromebook, not keen on installing Ubuntu on it yet.

I can see schools and corporates can make good use of chromebooks.  There's no maintenance.   There's even no need to setup on the chromebook.  No virus to worry.  No updates.  It's more than no maintenance because it is secure.  You are strictly limited to the apps on the chrome store.  It is secure enough to Google's standard, unless your standard is higher and you don't trust Google.

Christmas light fault finding II using binary search

Warning: the following instructions include exposure of hot wire at full voltage of electrical outlets.  The modifications to equipments are non-standard that could expose personals to high voltage who do not know of any modifications. The equipments should be supervised by the installer at all times.

Christmas light fault finding apply mostly to 2.5V incandescent lights bulbs, with 50 bulbs in serious in one strand.  Newer LED's don't blow up easily; they just fade away very gradually.  But in a "few" more years, my lights can be collectables!  Otherwise the nostalgic value is there - your childhood, your child were born, their childhood.

There are non-contact voltage detectors for fault finding.  But their range should be an inch or more for detecting wires behind walls.  Imagine icicles lights when the original neat formation is gone, and strands are hanged over each other to increase the brightness and light density.  Even for one strand, the wires with and without voltage due to faulty bulbs are twisted together.

The faulty bulb finder is an old fashioned high voltage probe, a long single piece of wire, and a plug without polarity so you can swap hot and neutral.

The bending of the probe is incidental and have no relation with the project.  A probe is just a bulb plus a high resistance.  You touch the red end, using human as the electrical return path. It is safe because the current is very small.

DO not touch the red end because it can now be at 120 V.  It is easy to attach a wire to the red end with the screw and spring inside.  You should take off the metal clip too as it is dangerous.  You should not touch any metal part except for the tip part of the probe - the opposite when using a normal probe.  You can tape the end with electrical tapes but after Christmas you can just take the wire out and use the probe again, until next year.

There are probes that looks the same for low voltage as in hobby electronics.  You will burn the bulb if 120 V is applied to it.

I actually keep the pair of wire which can be reused.  But make sure that only one of the wire is used, and insulate any bare wire of the other unused wire.

A full chain of Christmas lights may have several strands of about 50 bulbs each.  For a fully working light, if you take off any one bulb, a section of the light will be off.  That's a strand.

Now assume there is only one faulty strand. Procedure:

1. plug in the fault finder in any convenient voltage outlet.  Don't touch any bare metal or wire (except for the tip of the probe).
2. take out about the middle bulb in the strand.
3. short the two contacts in the bulb housing with the tip of the probe (this is safe)
4.  if the strand light up, this bulb is the faulty one.
5. Otherwise, probe the two contacts in the bulb housing in turn and note if the probe lights up in each of the two cases.
6. Let the state of the probe light be ON (or brighter) and OFF (dimmer).  If the state of the probe is OFF-OFF, you need to change the orientation of the plug, swapping the hot and neutral position.  Then you should get one ON and one OFF.
7. If you can't get an ON state, there are multiple faulty light bulbs.  You should pick any one side as the faulty side.
8. The faulty bulb is on the OFF side of the strand.  The wiring into the housing should clearly indicate which is the OFF side.  If not, you can pick one side at random and assume it is the OFF side.  Then see later if your assumption is right.
9. Put the bulb back.
10. On the faulty (OFF) side, take off the bulb which is mid-way between the last test bulbs or the end of the strand.
11. Repeat from 3 until 4 happens, or in case of multiple faults, you will approach the faulty bulb on both sides.

If there are multiple faulty strands, just do one strand at a time if you know the boundary (by looking at the wiring).  The 1st or last bulb at the strand has 3 wires attached to the housing; others has two.  Or do a less aggressive binary search by assuming a short strand.  One strand is usually 50 bulbs.  If your assumptions are wrong, there will be contradictions later.

Happy New Year!

Android VOIP Landline updates

My totally free VOIP solution worked for a short while until PBX kicked me out of their service.  Sipdroid exists to sell PBX services.  If I pay, I would not be going through so much trouble to use Google Voice for free.

I upgraded to a Wifi firewall router in the hope that I can install Asterisk myself as a server to connect to GV and be independent on anybody else.  But the support is in disarray, in contrast to the impression one gets.  Firstly, they can't keep up with new chipsets and won't work with some.  Then I discovered that my router will probably not support the newer (and lower production cost) USB drives that do not need a power supply.  And they need FAT partition.  So I never tried to install anything to day.

As you know, instead of charging for the calls, they dropped the open x??p protocol and integrate GV into hangout.  I come to understand and predict their strategy.  If you charge the calls mobile users are not going to pay twice by using GV.  They never and still aren't interested in landlines.  They are only interested in their own bread and butter.  If you have been using GV, you are very motivated to use Android and Hangout when you consider switching.  The support of x??p protocol is to initially attract compatible standard users to start using and switch.  Now it became a distraction when people using it as free Voip calls, and supporting companies such as OBI.  

SIP VOIP is here to stay.  The service and equipments are there for many years.  It does not need great investment to run a service.  Great phones are very cheap compared to a smartphone, standalone skype phone and in the future, a standalone hangout phone.  Even the main cost for a great sip phone is on the screen and software.  Google and Microsoft will not be interested to go into carrier business, which will be on the mercy of cable and telecom infrastructure companies.

Skype's turns are interesting.  It came on at a time no servers can support that many phone calls, only p2p.  Now you have the clouds.  MS has it's offerings.  Google of course want to move everybody into the clouds. It's good if you don't need to pay extra, using the bandwidth you already brought, a smartphone or the computer.

I can see that Google can take over the whole of telephone and video phone business.  Android phones are already doing that, only needing to integrate with your phone number.  For a dedicated desktop phone? There is already the chrome book selling for $200 dollars, cheaper than the price of top end sip video phones.

I do have a chrome book.  Until then I use Callcentric.  It's great for people who don't use that much of their landline.  If you don't call, you can be just paying the 911 tax and may be some other tax.  I doubt even that you need a 911.  Now when you activate a cell phone you can enter a default address for emergency.  You are probably always closer to a cell phone than to your home phone at any time.  And old cell phones with old sim cards can still cal 911.  Now if you used 3 carriers before you have a lot of redundancy.  You just need to keep all of the antique phone charged.

I never had internet outage or cell phone outage.  So I won't hesitate to switch instead of believing that some old fashioned reliable wire connects me to the local telephone company.

However, Sandy wiped out Callcentric.  To provide the low cost service, they don't have geo redundancy.  If you are serious, you should port to Google so people can always reach your number if your connection to the internet is OK.  You can change SIP provider at an instant.  There's a lot more coming out of Sandy in case you are interested in emergency planning.  BTW Callcentric offers free porting.  You can save $25 and try the service for no investment.  Port cost $20 for google and a sim card + activation for porting to wireless first.  T-mobile has free sim activation kit on a day to day basis.

I was burnt by Sunrocket and so I'm not interested in Oma or Obi.  The Oma business model is doubtful.  Now it's clear that you can still call for free but will be stuck in equipments many years old.  Any the Oma is not for low volume callers and nowadays people are mostly on the cell, except for office.  With GV, the Obi is just an dumb telephone adaptor.  Why you still want to stick with your old analogue telephone?  (Fax?)  If you are locked into a service, you are not getting new techs.  Now the non-HD voice IP phones are dirt cheap.  It doesn't help your business image, and there's no other major reason to go into SIP.

I got hooked on HD voice when I tried once.  As they say, "you sound better than yourself".  Hearing yourself when speaking is different than hearing yourself from the other side of the phone (echo test service or HD voice mail).  It sounds so much better with HD.

My thinking has been correct, just I thought too much, both ways.  First I brought a Gigaset IP phone with DECT, which got me hooked up on HD voice.  The remembrance of a once tech giant adds to it.  The "basestation" need to plug in to the router (or modem) and you can put the handset anywhere.  DECT has a good range, and in no way can be worse than my super analogue cordless.  DECT was developed years ago but HD voice came out of it for sure.  May be they have enough bandwidth or they have updates.

I probably got the last one of the last lot.  It was a huge discount.  I can't anything like it for that price even now.  But sorry that I returned it.  The software is so crappy compared to any smartphone.  They can't be compared as a smartphone cost some $500.  Maybe it's a mistake.  I should have look into ways to integrate with the android phone book.  You can use a smartphone as an extension but do not use it to call. The one reason to keep it is that you don't need wifi for it to work.

I didn't know what I was thinking.  I brought a cordless DECT phone.  May be I was going to get an ATA and use the DECT for a start, and then as a backup without the need for wifi.  The selling point is that you can pair cell phones with it and use it at home, which is much more comfortable.  It's a Panasonic, same as my super analogue cordless, which like Siemens, is winding down it's gadget consumer electronics division.  I could have kept it but I didn't.  It was a special straight from factory.  If I return it I have to pay a heavy restocking charge.  But I managed to sell it at Amazon at zero lost because my phone is discounted.  However, the postage Amazon asked for is a bag, I upgraded for a box big enough to put the phone in.

Now my solution to Android SIP VOIP WIFI is almost completed when I had some time.  First you have to the check the wifi coverage and signal strength in your house and yard.  There are Android apps for that.

I upgraded my wifi router.  If you need a reason to upgrade, this is it.  While the spectrum congestion of cell phone and analogue cordless never came to me, the wifi spectrum is very congested.  You can beat your neighbours easily by upgrading to a dual band one.  But your phone have to support that.  The iWhatever's do.  I also turned the old router into a repeater for the far away rooms.  Wifi is a totally different animal from cell and DECT signals, which are not sensitive to the number of walls and what materials are in them.  It is only then I understand why the HDX transmission from VDU isn't always successful even though the test is fine.

It turns out to be well known that wifi is tricky for voice and the android audio latency is also well known.  But I think these may be non-matters.  But it doesn't hurt to do the best and the obvious.  You don't want to lose calls when all your kids are playing online games or streaming HDX movies.

First you need to activate quality of service (QoS) on your router to give priority to the SIP protocol.  And give priority to the phones you are using via MAC, which you can find it on info on your phone along with IMEI, etc.  Failing all that, put your phone on the DMZ zone, straight through the firewall without checking and processing.  If it depends on IP and port range, you may be limited to one phone.  But you can use other phones for caller ID, ring tones, etc.

I don't think it matters much but you can create a virtual AP without security encryption.  You should isolate it from other AP's so any hacking is limited to the phones and there's no much to loose in them.

For Csipsimple the SIP app, you can enter expert mode to improve the latency.  But I think it didn't work or there's no more margin to improve that way.  There's another app known to tackle the latency aggressively but they don't have the option anymore as I see it.

The critical issue is the echo at the dumb phone end.  Since my telephone company is still charging $30 for all the modern conveniences such as caller ID, call waiting, etc, I am sure there's still millions and millions of dumb phone around.

All mobile phones have good echo cancellation, they have to be, so that's a non-issue.  But the issue is created by the smart phone end.  The sensitive mic will pickup from the ear piece.  So the caller's voice come out from the earpiece, went into the mic, and back to the caller's earpiece.  If you are lucky, you can reduce the echo by reducing the volume on the earpiece and the sensitivity of the mic.  For Csipsimple you can adjust those during a call.  Some phones it can't be done unless you have trouble hearing the caller or the caller can't hear you properly.

The complete solution is really a ear plug.  Completely no echo.  You have your ear and head to absorb all the sound wave and there's nothing hard to carry the wave from the earpiece to the mic - just a flexible wire.

I also think that the echo is also the culprit for a large latency.  Echo cancellation is software.  And if the software is trying to cancel a long echo, the buffer has to be larger, hence more delay.

Now an earplug is really inconvenient.  How to get kids who are not old enough to use a cell phone to get use it it?  You just can't pick up the dam phone.

I was thinking to get the cheapest ATA at $15 so all my lovely analogue equipment are still usable as a backup.  No learning curve.  And that I can keep my talking caller ID answering machine.  To date no talking caller ID works for SIP in Android.  If I like to sound HD I would go to the Android or my computer.

While talking caller ID can't be replaced, because you don't need to get up to see who is calling, you can achieve the same with assigned ring tones.  You just need any numbers of Android phones to attach as extension to assign ring tones.  Android can also read the name from your phone book.  The phone you actually talk on can be dumb.

And for a little more, you have have a very good new non-HD IP phone.  They can be plugin before the router so one less failure point.  It's really just "pickup the phone".  There will be no echo issue, a totally different animal from a squar rigid glass and metal frame good for conducting sound wave.   However, they are huge and totally unsuitable for home.

And for some $40 you can get an HD phone.  But the screen may be too poor from an Android and that some are big.  I spotted one that is suitable and did a "best offer" on ebay.  The listing ended before the offer was considered.

I was thinking that a bluetooth headset will ease the inconvenience.  There's no wire so you just pick up the headset instead of the phone.  You can put the phone in some convenient place attached to the charger all the time.  You can even hide it if you have a cracked screen.

A bluetooth headset may or may not have the same echo problem.  The usual ones are tiny that hangs on your ear.  There are some with a stick to put the mic closer to your mouth.  I would think a conventional headphone with a stick mic will have absolutely no echo problem.  But, how can a kid answer the phone or make a call?

It dawned on me that I needed a handset (as opposed to a headset).   I remembered handsets that looked like my dad's phone's handset.  Dad will be happy to use it.  I found a low cost handset that doesn't resemble my dad's phone.  But the design is basically the same, with earpiece on the ear, the mic by the mouth and something soud absorbing in the middle.

Bluetooth or not isn't the point.  One more piece of wire isn't critical and BT isn't espensive.  But usually nowadays you can do voice command on the handset (or headset for that matter).  How about "call dady" ?   Or "momy called".  The handset has only about one 4 way rocker switch to work with.  Can't be simpler than that.

I should have found one that docks and charges.  Now this one charges with USB.  But that's not a problem.  Even the smallest kid have a USB charger by her bed.  She use it for playing games on ipad, android and whatever.  She knows to keep all her electronics fully charged or she cannot play.

I don't know if BT can carry HD voice.  There are BT that certified for that.  In any case the cheap handset will be useful for many things, if only as a backup.

Now I don't have anything specific for SIP only.  If they doesn't work as intended I have nothing to return.  Let see how it goes.

VPN service updates

I have been using paid VPN service for over a year now.  Now it's about $6/7 a month so that's not bad compared to some dedicated service.  VPN is flexible that meet my several needs.

I tried Kryptotel for a month, then three, then a year.  It's that good.  But recently the service was unreliable.  The server may becomes slow, that's when I switch to another random server.  It usually works great but it seems that all the servers are busy.

When my subscription ended, I was surprised that they don't sell openvpn anymore!  The company's business is all about encryption, and I have been taking it seriously because it is an offshore company setup for that purpose.

Maybe they are pressured not to sell something that is not crackable?  They still sell other VPN's.  May be openvpn is too difficult to support?  Their local techs do seem not to know what they are doing, but very responsive.  Maybe they can't compete with Openvpn itself, selling VPN by bandwidth.  That's a very good deal if you just want to protect you IP and privacy from coffee shops.

I changed to Mullvad and so far so good.  The servers are not as fast as when I used Kryptotel a year ago.  But much better than the last days of Kryptotel Openvpn.  Their advantage is that for random servers they have some in Eastern Europe.  That seemed to be popular for some p2p applications.  But your bank and facebook will be very suspicious.   You can also use servers only from some countries if you change the server address.  I have a script for that to switch servers developed for Kryptotel.

They have the same "bug" or feature that couldn't make it work out of the box for linux.  It's the pushed option from the server:

redirect gateway def1 bypass-dhcp

They have to bypass dhcp for Windows but it's an illegal option in Linux.  So the whole option is discarded.  So in your client config file you need to add:

redirect gateway def1

And my lesson learned - never pay for the whole year.

Openvpn works on a lot of my platforms now.  Ubuntu insists on separate certificate files.  Ipad works if you email the single config file to yourself and open it.  Android works if you just drop the separate files to the phone.  But it doesn't work for some stick computers because they don't include a kernel module.  But you can root and upgrade.  DD-wrt accept separate files pasted into dialog boxes.  Chrome OS the same.  But I didn't try the latter two.  I will be surprised if they don't work.