telephony
Communicate
1:27PM Angus Kidman | Internode has added a standard telephony service to its range. The prices are cheaper than conventional landlines, but the question remains: why? More »
Internode NodeLine Is Cheap But Strange
1:27PM Angus Kidman | Internode has added a standard telephony service to its range. The prices are cheaper than conventional landlines, but the question remains: why? More » 
Work
Skype Call Recorder Creates MP3s Of Your Skype Conversations
4:30AM Adam Pash | Windows only: Free application Skype Call Recorder creates MP3s of any Skype conversation with a couple of simple clicks. More »
Communicate
Voice Dialer Brings Fast, Impressive Voice Dialing To Your iPhone
7:00AM Adam Pash | iPhone only: As its name suggests, free iPhone application Voice Dialer adds voice dialing to your iPhone. More accurately, though, Voice Dialer is a contact search-by-voice app that also does autodialing. The difference: You can easily autodial any contact by saying “Call John Smith at home”—and Voice Dialer is great at recognising matches—but if you don’t say “Call” before the contact’s name, Voice Dialer will simply pull up matches. From there, you can also check out a contact’s full contact card to quickly compose an email, send a text message, or launch Google Maps at your contact’s address (the video demo illustrates these features nicely). More »
Communicate
Build Your Own PBX with Asterisk
12:30AM Lifehacker US Edition | If you’ve ever wanted more control over incoming phone calls at home or at the office, setting up a PBX system could be the solution, and Geek.com’s John Rogers has a tutorial for you. He explains what a PBX is: A PBX or “Private Branch Exchange” is like a miniature phone company/switch in your own office/house. The PBX is responsible for making sure calls are routed properly. Situation: when Joe wants to dial Suzy in the office down the hall or downstairs in the TV room, he just picks up the phone in his room/office and dials a local extension just a few digits long. [...] Also, if Joe has four teenaged kids, instead of answering their calls and acting as the house receptionist, he can just set up a menu that allows callers to dial the person they want and then needs not be disturbed. More »
Communicate
Get Me Out of Here Schedules Phone Calls, Excuses
12:00AM Adam Pash | Schedule phone calls to any phone with web site getmooh (get me out of here). The idea behind this webapp, as the name suggests, is that you can schedule a call to give yourself an excuse to get out of an awkward situation or mind-numbing meeting. You can choose from one of dozens of pre-recorded messages to play when you answer, from an angry Alec Baldwin to an absurd but probably effective instructional message that feeds you your excuse line by line. (”Repeat after me: ‘Hey, how’s it going? Oh no, where are you now? I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. My flatmate has lost his keys.’”) Don’t plan on using the site for pranks, though—it reads your number back at the end of each message it sends. For more phone call scheduling fun, check out previously mentioned Popularity Dialer or SorryGottaGo. Get Me Out of Here More »
Find Your Lost Cell Phone with PhoneMyPhone
9:00AM Adam Pash | US-centric: Misplaced your cell phone around the house and don’t have another phone on hand to call it up to locate it? Give your number to web site PhoneMyPhone and they’ll instantly ring you up. Aside from instant calling to locate your phone, PhoneMyPhone will also schedule phone calls at specific times, similar to previously mentioned Popularity Dialer, to get you out of that boring meeting or awful date if you need it. As for sounding off the ring when you misplace your phone—it may not get a pizza to your door like Google Maps used to, but the easy-to-remember PhoneMyPhone should ensure a quick recovery from the recesses of your couch cushions. Thanks David! PhoneMyPhone More »
Skype Launches Unlimited International Calling
4:00AM Adam Pash | Popular VoIP application Skype has introduced a new unlimited international calling plan for a measly $9.95/month [AU - that seems to translate to $12.95 in Aussie dollars, if I read the Skype site correctly]]. That means unlimited calls to any land-line phone in 34 supported countries, including the majority of Europe, Canada, China, and Japan. Additionally, Skype’s $3/month unlimited calling plan for the US and Canada is still in play, along with a $5/month Unlimited Mexico plan. The Unlimited World plan does not cover cell phones in all areas, so you may want to verify that your international calling location of choice is covered. As always, Skype-to-Skype calls remain free. Skype Subscriptions [via AP] More »
Make Skype Calls from Your PSP
6:00AM Adam Pash | If you liked the idea of making VoIP calls on your iPod touch or iPhone, but all you’ve got in your go-bag is a Sony PSP, DIY web site Instructables steps through how to run the popular VoIP application Skype on your PSP. This PSP hack feature isn’t new by any means, but the Instructable is detailed and easy to follow along with. We don’t have a PSP to test this at Lifehacker HQ, so if you’ve setup Skype calling on your PSP, share your experience in the comments. How to use Skype to make PSP as PSP phone [Instructables] More »
Turn Your iPod Touch into an iPhone
2:00AM Adam Pash | The iPhone and iPod touch are almost indistinguishable devices except for one major difference—you can make calls from your iPhone, and you can’t from your iPod touch. For the privilege of making phone calls with your iPhone, you have to pay $100 more upfront to Apple for the device itself, plus a minimum of $60/month to AT&T for the next two years (and that’s only if you’re in the US – AU editor) Let’s say you didn’t need that kind of firepower from your iPod touch, but that you would like to use it make a phone call every now and then. You can, and today I’m going to show you how to make VoIP phone calls from your iPod touch or iPhone using a freeware application called SIP-VoIP. More »
