32 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981
Previous Issue (Only one)
Add this Digest to your personal
or 
The Telecom Digest for May 3, 2014
Volume 33 : Issue 72 : "text" Format
====== 32 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======
|
Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the
Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Bill Horne and
the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other
journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are
included in the fair use quote. By using any name or email address
included herein for any reason other than responding to an article
herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to that person, or email address
owner.
Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be
sold or given away without the explicit written consent of the owner of
that address. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk
are definitely unwelcome.
We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we
are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because
we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands
against crime. - Geoffrey Welsh
See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details
and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest.
|
Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 08:24:15 -0400
From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Teletypes and computers--50th anniversary of BASIC language
Message-ID: <lk02pj$ucj$1@dont-email.me>
On 5/1/2014 9:31 PM, tonypo wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Apr 2014 11:26:56 -0700, HAncock4 wrote:
>
>> Dartmouth is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the development of the
>> BASIC computer language in 1964.
...
>> A terminal room photo:
>>
>> https://www.flickr.com/photos/dartmouthflickr/13566198805/in/
>>
> set-72157643275728555/
>>
>> (I believe the units pictured are the heavy duty model 35; along with
>> the built-in dial-up modem.)
I think those are Model 33 TWX machines.
...
> But then my next years courses had me taking PL/I and that was batch mode
> on punch cards. How I hated that.
Ah, but think of how much you learned!
Quick, what happens when you overpunch a digit in row 11?
Bill "Kids these days, they have it easy ..." Horne
--
Bill Horne
(Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Date: Thu, 01 May 2014 22:10:16 -0700
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Two months of Ooma VoIP service and I'm still astounded
Message-ID: <536328B8.1080705@thadlabs.com>
Two months of Ooma VoIP service and I'm still astounded
Over the years here in comp.dcom.telecom many VoIP providers have been
discussed and some were dissed. Believe it or not, I've been tracking
the progress of Ooma for almost 7 years now after I abandoned all my
landlines (PacBell, now AT&T) in 2002 due to constant price increases.
Now retired, I find myself needing to contact government agencies every
now and then and it's frustrating to be placed on hold and having the
cellphone drop the signal and/or having the battery deplete and losing
my place in the telephone queue. Calling multiple vendors for service
such as a water heater replacement is also tedious for many of the same
reasons.
Two months ago in the ba.internet group one person wrote he recently
subscribed to Ooma's service and it was a no-brainer and the quality
is excellent and service is free with only a monthly cost of $3.91
(in Silicon Valley) for federal and state taxes and E911 service.
Note that one must buy the Ooma Telo -- it's a one-time expense and
it's available at numerous retailers in the USA such as Amazon, Best
Buy, Costco, Frys, Newegg, and many more and also from Ooma itself.
That was the clincher for me noting I've setup and operated PBX and
Asterisk-based VoIP service for clients over the years in addition to
all the IT tasks I'd also perform for the same clients -- I wanted
something simple, reliable, and plug'n'play for my home system.
As the person wrote in ba.internet, setup was literally a no-brainer.
Plugging the Ooma Telo device into a switch on my LAN was plug'n'play
with the Telo acquiring everything it needed to function via DHCP, and
all I had to do next was choose a phone number, establish auto-billing,
enter the E911 information, and finally Voice Mail setup (the greeting,
etc.).
I initially plugged a 2500 deskset into the back of the Ooma to run
tests, and everything was perfect. The next step was to disconnect
all the old PacBell service connects at the house demarcs so I could
operate all the house phone wiring directly from the Ooma which, by
the way, can supply 5.0 REN current, and I'm presently using < 2.0
with these instruments presently connected:
- Plantronics SP-04 headset phone inline with a CIDCO (NOT Cisco)
SA-99A-22 caller ID box with 99 number memory and backlight
in my home office for handsfree use at the computer keyboard,
- PacBell wallphone with Caller ID in my kitchen, and
- Western Electric 2500 with backlit keys in my bedroom.
I'm still researching reviews of other phones because I want one more
for another room in the house. It's critical to be sure a new landline
phone doesn't use expensive exotic batteries, does have a backlit LCD
display, and does have a Caller ID Memory along with indication there
are voice mail messages waiting.
FWIW, I'll be migrating this month to Ooma's Premier service at $9.95
per month for several features I find essential after using them free
with "Get Acquainted" during the initial two month's "basic" service.
As someone somewhere once commented: "A luxury, once sampled, becomes
a necessity." :-)
Ooma is a Silicon Valley company based in Palo Alto CA per:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ooma
Ooma is only 8 miles from me so I can bang on their door if there's
ever any service problems.
Oome's home page is here:
http://www.ooma.com/
and their PureVoice(tm) HD technology is not a joke -- the call quality
is excellent. Samples can be heard here:
http://www.ooma.com/products
Note the Ooma device ("Telo") is a stand-alone Linux-based appliance
that operates 24/7/365 and only requires access to the Internet -- no
other equipment is needed. The Internet connection should be broadband
and there is a speed test page on Ooma's site. There are several ways
to connect the Telo (and more combinations might be possible if one
plays with hairpin routing or other exotica but I'm a firm believer in
the KISS principle):
- between one's broadband modem and one's router,
- on one's security router's DMZ port, or
- on one's LAN as I did.
As the poster to ba.internet wrote:
The only "setup" was via the OOMA website to create my account.
Other than connecting the box, I did nothing to it or my router
OOMA uses its own protocols. The box connects to the OOMA cloud
via its own VPN. That is for control traffic and it stays
connected. I only see UDP traffic when making a call.
The OOMA server I am connecting to is in the Bay Area. Ping time
to their server is 9ms.
As far as my setup, I ignored the router function and the inside
port. I just plugged its "To Internet" port into my LAN.
I use the OOMA to feed into my legacy phone wiring. All the
phones in the house work as before. I disconnected the landline
at the box on the side of the house. That was a simple unplug of
a standard modular connector. I have three conventional phones
and a cordless system.
I, too, setup as he wrote above. For the curious, here's my network:
http://thadlabs.com/PIX/ThadLABS_network_demarc.jpg
297kB
http://thadlabs.com/FILES/ThadLABS_network_demarc.txt
2kB
I later used the Telo's web interface to establish a fixed LAN IP and
I also added that IP to my DHCP server's database "just in case":
host oomavoip {
hardware ethernet 00:18:61:14:50:11;
fixed-address 172.20.20.83;
}
Feel welcome to ask any questions about the Ooma service; I'm looking
towards a l-o-n-g relationship with Ooma and saving a lot of money.
Thad
Date: Thu, 1 May 2014 20:31:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: Mark Smith <marklsmith@yahoo.com.INVALID>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Re: Teletypes and computers--50th anniversary of BASIC language
Message-ID: <1399001479.60938.YahooMailIosMobile@web122303.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
I started in Watfor fortran in 1966. Punch cards doing a Physics coefficient of friction problem with two masses. Basic came in college over the phone to Rome Air Force Base with the TTY and punch tape. The last time with TTY was APL language and instead of single Greek letters commands were in the form of $RO. They still made less noise than pin printers. <br/><br/>Mark<a href="
https://overview.mail.yahoo.com?.src=iOS"
;><br/><br/>Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone</a>
Date: Fri, 02 May 2014 00:21:13 -0700
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Usenet history and trivia, and Duke's Usenet feed now gone
Message-ID: <53634769.80406@thadlabs.com>
In another group there was a thread recently about Usenet and folks
were unaware that Duke University is where Usenet began:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
I've always browsed numerous news and university sites to keep current
with events and in 2010 Duke University shut down its Usenet service
and I caught this news item the day it appeared on May 17, 2010:
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html
I was going to post that URL in the other group's Usenet thread but
either the article is no longer available or Duke's server's are down
for either a Spring or Summer break.
Fortunately I've learned to NEVER trust the longevity of URL links
so I always PDF articles that interest me for my archives creating as
many as 100 PDFs a day. Good news for all, I did PDF that Duke URL
and the article is available here at 351kB and 4 pages with pictures:
http://thadlabs.com/FILES/DUKE_20100517_Duke_to_shut_Usenet_server.pdf
Feel welcome to read or download the PDF. There's Usenet trivia and a
quiz at the end of the article. Don't scroll past question 4 to avoid
seeing the answers until you've answered all 4 questions. :-)
Thad
Date: Thu, 01 May 2014 22:12:42 -0700
From: Thad Floryan <thad@thadlabs.com>
To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org.
Subject: Cellphone use and texting while driving -- a wakeup call
Message-ID: <5363294A.1040609@thadlabs.com>
One of the daughters of my best friend was recently rear-ended by a
texting driver while she was stopped at a traffic light. Though both
cars were totalled per the insurance companies, incredibly no one was
injured.
A 31-second video produced as a Public Service Announcement by the
National Highway Traffic Safety group is sobering and highlights what
frequenctly happens when using a cellphone while driving and it was
recently cited in Gary Richards' ROAD KILL, er, SHOW column in Silicon
Valley's San Jose Mercury News on April 13, 2014 in this article:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mr-roadshow/ci_25539737/
and here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_-6EoNhitg
While doing some sleuthing on the 'Net, I encountered this article
from the New England Journal of Medicine dated June 10, 2010:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0910137
which is referenced by this article:
http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Mental_Health_Letter/2010/September/why-cell-phone-conversations-distract-drivers
aka:
http://tinyurl.com/2c4heja
which in turn is referenced by this article:
http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/why-talking-on-a-cell-phone-distracts-drivers
aka:
http://tinyurl.com/7ox4xod
As a reminder of how so-called smartphones have captured and ensnared
so many people, I refer you to my December 6, 2013 comp.dcom.telecom
article entitled "12 reasons why society is crumbling -- smartphones"
to which Bill Horne commented "The language may not be fit for young
children, but the pictures are worth 12,000 words, so I'm allowing
this post."
I just now checked again and additional comments appear that are Not
Safe For Work, so just scroll down viewing pictures and stop after
viewing the 12th picture of the lady holding an iPad -- this photo
essay is a very sad commentary of our times:
http://dbagging.com/12-smartphone-douchebags/
Thad
TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom-
munications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in
addition to Usenet, where it appears as the moderated newsgroup
'comp.dcom.telecom'.
TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational
service offered to the Internet by Bill Horne. All the contents
of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in
some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work
and that of the original author.
The Telecom Digest is moderated by Bill Horne.
This Digest is the oldest continuing e-journal about telecomm-
unications on the Internet, having been founded in August, 1981 and
published continuously since then. Our archives are available for
your review/research. We believe we are the oldest e-zine/mailing list
on the internet in any category!
URL information: http://telecom-digest.org
Copyright (C) 2014 TELECOM Digest. All rights reserved.
Our attorney is Bill Levant, of Blue Bell, PA.
Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as
yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help
is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of fifty dollars
per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above.
Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing
your name to the mailing list.
All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the
author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only
and messages should not be considered any official expression by the
organization.
End of The Telecom Digest (5 messages)
Return to Archives ** Older Issues