Jay Talbot’s Ramblings

The people at SIPphone came up with this neat, standards based, FREE VoIP softphone called the Gizmo Project. It’s really a nice piece of software. One annoying thing though, you can only use it with their service. *shrugs* I guess it’s ok though, since they also offer it for FREE. What’s more is that their software and service has the functionality to rival Skype, a softphone based on a proprietary and closed technology and system. You should really look into it, as I have. As a matter of fact you can call me at sip:177460500226@proxy01.sipphone.com through your current VoIP softphone, if you have one already installed.

Tags: Technology, VoIP by Jay
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Ok, you know that old arguement about what’s better Java or PHP? Well, I’m not answering that. Why? Because each has it’s place in this world. What’s more, hands down I’d choose PHP over Java for developing web apps, because PHP was made for it. Java, on the other hand, makes much more useful local utilities, and it’s much easier to port than most compiled languages, thuse very cross-platform. Not to mention you can find a JVM (Java Virtual Machine) on just about every personal computer in the world (except for the oldest ones that run really old versions of Windows and DOS). PHP is more of a server/client and is not as easy to setup alone, where Java can be either server/client or local with ease. Anyway, I also know I can make more money if I learn it, so that’s my motivation for the most part. lol! I’ll keep you informed.

Tags: Java, Programming by Jay
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Monday was my birthday. I’m 31 years old now…. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that. I was kind of not expecting to make it this far I guess. I never expected to come this far in life and really had no plans. Oh well, guess it’s time to move on and go with what’s going on in my life.

Tags: Life by Jay
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I have been playing with some secure stuff lately. Things like WASTE and other odds and ends. Well, I came across a nice program to secure and authenticate your email. It’s called Enigmail. The nice thing about this plugin for Thunderbird, Mozilla Suite and Netscape is that it not only can encrypt and sign your emails for you, it’ll also decrypt messages and check GnuPG signatures for you. I’ve played with signed, fully encrypted, and signed/encrypted emails and it works like a dream. I highly suggest anyone who is interested try it. Security is a very cool thing.

Tags: Security by Jay
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I just got finished reading an article where a reporter writes his opinion on the possibility of US States taxing Internet businesses. Man, the day that happens, we’ll probably see a sharp decline of new businesses starting and an incline of businesses taking their business offline. How can you tax interstate sales? Much less inter-country sales? If I bought something from some place based in California, and no known presence in Texas, through a mail order catalog, they wouldn’t charge me taxes. Why? Because there is no taxation on good leaving the state where that vendor has no physical location. Now granted, I’ve read where Michigan is charging people back taxes on cigarettes bought online. WTF? The Federal Gov just let’em do that without even a dirty look. I don’t blame people for looking for a better deal. After all, if I could save a few thousand bucks on a bad habit, why not? Anyway, I think that an Internet Tax by any US State will hurt more than help. Besides, it’d be a giant headache for them to get around the established tax laws prohibiting this type of taxation. How would they collect anyway?

Tags: Life by Jay
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