Phones and VoIP

[ciphergoth]

Two questions:

1) By any chance, does anyone have a spare tri- or quad-band phone I can use while I'm in SF? My SIM card has arrived and I have a phone I can use in this country, but it would be nice to have a phone while I'm away.

2) What's the best way to get a voice conversation between a Linux and a Windows machine? I have Ekiga installed under Linux and it seems to work, and I've got myself a SIP address, so one way would be to find a good SIP client for Windows. But perhaps I should be using something else altogether? I've Googled, of course, but one recommendation from someone who's been there is worth a thousand searches.

Comments

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Does the Motorola V3 do tri-band? I still have my old one.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

You mean one of these? It seems they're quad-band - so that would be fantastic! I wonder how best to get it from you - should I try and meet up with you somewhere in Docklandsland? Or do our paths cross somewhere more convenient? I live in Streatham and work in Shoreditch.

Mucho gratitude!

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's the V3 RAZR, in black. I won't be home to fetch it for tomorrow, but I'm free on Wednesday evening for central or Southwark-ish pubbage, or could do lunch in Docklands.

*Ping!*

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Where would you suggest meeting up? I have a free Wednesday evening this week, unless the BSFA are up to something.

[just-becky.livejournal.com]

I've used Ventrilo with windows but in the context of a server based multi channel conferencing setup.
(Ok I admit its just for chatting to other people in my guild in World of Warcraft :-D)

The software itself seems pretty functional but no idea whether it will do exactly what you need. But here is a link to download which also has feature list for you to peruse:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Fax-Telephony/Ventrilo.shtml

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

What do you use on the Linux end of the link?

[just-becky.livejournal.com]

Ah sorry I was being dense, the thought that these apps might not be simply interchangable client apps that can comunicate via a common protocol didn't cross my mind.

However a bit of digging around alledges that you can install Ventrilo on Linux as per:
http://slinux.net/how-to-install-ventrilo-2-3-on-linux

The following has a Linux Ventrilo Script under 3rd party dowloads if thats any use:
http://www.ventrilo.com/download.php

Don't know if any of that makes any sense as I only have a passing knowledge of redhat linux from days gone by.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I don't think that running a proprietary, closed-source Windows-based protocol under Wine is going to be the best solution. As I said, I can Google like anyone else, what I need is a recommendation from someone who's been there. Thanks for trying to help though!

[adjectivegail]

If you can't find anything else before you go, and depending on when/how long you're away for, I might lend you my Treo and borrow your UK-bound one for the duration. I would, however, enjoy saying "you owe me one" for quite a long time afterwards :-)

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Skype? Works on Windows and Linux in Redhat, Suse and Debian flavours.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Ah, Skype runs on Linux? That may end up being the right solution, much as a don't like having to use closed source and a closed protocol - it seems to really work for people.

[olethros.livejournal.com]

X-lite is a good free (as in beer) VoIP client. I use it regularly on Mac OS X and have used it successfully on Windows. (I've even gotten it working under Wine on Ubuntu, but that was a bit scary.)

I think you're already well aware of the details of the SIP vs. Skype argument. :-)

[olethros.livejournal.com]

Two things:

- sorry for being unclear. X-Lite is of course a SIP client. The ubuntu thing was because I couldn't find a decent SIP client for Linux at the time...

- It's some time since I've installed it under Windows, and what's there for download seems to be one or two major versions removed from what I tried. I can't speak for what they've done to it, but if the basic features remain the same then it should be at least ok, perhaps even very good.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

ooooh! Will try this tonight. Thanks!

[olethros.livejournal.com]

Out of interest, any lucl?

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Seems best suggestion so far but acid test is tonight - will let you know.

Gizmo.

[ioerror.livejournal.com]

You might try Gizmo for a cross platform client that allows you to use SIP (including logging into your own asterisk server). Beats Skype in a few areas though it still have some drawbacks...

[babysimon]

I know nothing. I'd be interested to know how you get on.

[skibbley.livejournal.com]

Likewise. Considering a skype over WiFi handheld phone.

[nikolasco.livejournal.com]

Gizmo (http://www.gizmoproject.com/index.html) actually uses SIP. You can call Gizmo users using anything that takes SIP URLs via sip:user@proxy01.sipphone.com . Wengo (http://openwengo.com/) also uses SIP. It's users can be reached at sip:user@voip.wengo.fr . They're also open to letting you use clients besides theirs (thread (http://forum.wengo.com/viewtopic.php?t=1577)), which is open source anyway.

Skype is not SIP-based; it's very proprietary.

OT, but...

[omnifarious.livejournal.com]

As a random thing unrelated to this post...

Advogato (http://www.advogato.org/) has implement the ability to generate your Advogato diary from an RSS or Atom feed. As you're probably aware, Livejournal can generate RSS or Atom feeds via http://ciphergoth.livejournal.com/data/atom (http://ciphergoth.livejournal.com/data/atom) and you can even make it generate a feed of just posts that have a particular tag by putting ?tag=whatever at the end of the URL.

It would be nice to read your blog syndicated via Advogato, because when I want to read programming related stuff instead of just random ramblings of friends, Advogato is a much better place to go.