Considering VOIP For Your Home, Home Office, or Business needs?

IF you are considering VOIP for voice I found an interesting tool to test your DSL or cable line. It is offered by VoIP Review. Link to the tool is: http://www.voipreview.org/voipspeedtester.aspx

This tool will test your DSL or cable line for speed, “Jitter”, and “packet loss”. Speed will indicate how many VoIP lines your current connection will support. Jitter is a measure if the steadiness of the line transmissions. Packet loss is the accuracy of the data transmissions. Below are the results from my home office:
The upload speed is 285 kbs which is within the spec for a VoIP line. Jitteriness and packet loss are not issues for my line. This result is no surprise as I enjoy; a DSL line that rarely is “down” and good voice quality using Vonage.

I doubt that I could support 4 VoIP lines effectively with a 285kbs download speed as indicated in the above "advanced results" (I have 1 Vonage and 1 analog in the office).
“DSL reports” http://www.dslreports.com/ is the gold standard for broadband Internet connectivity information. Among many information assets they have a comprehensive set of tools to test your Internet connection. They also have very good info on broadband line providers.

VoIP is a real effective and cost saving choice provided you find the right vendor that meets your expectations and specific line conditions. I use Vonage and was lucky that I have had only a few minor glitches in the last 4 years. The set-up for my office network is:
Note: I don’t use the routers capability to prioritize voice traffic over data traffic. To use this feature I would have to connect the Linksys router to the DSL modem, let the Linksys manage the PPOE authentication, and connect the Microsoft router to allow for wireless connectivity. When I got the Vonage service I already had the MN-700 hooked up and it was working well. I did not have the confidence that the Linksys would be trouble free providing the PPOE logons. If I am on a Vonage call, doing some sort of download, and get some voice distortion I just pause the network traffic this solves the issue. This is not a perfect solution, just a practical one! If I have more frequent voice quality issues I would bit the bullet and make the Linksys work as the gateway router.

So if you want to save some money, take advantage of VoIP features (many more than an analog phone line), don't want to install a PBX, and most of this post was "techno babble" contact me (stuart@911computer-rescue.com, or click on the toll free "call me!" box on my home page 911computer-rescue.com.

e-mail attachments in outlook cannot be opened

My client e-mailed me that the fix described in the last post fixed the problem!

Yea!

What is your list of the top computer irritants? “Forwarded email as attachment will not open”

When we use our computers it seems that we are often abused by bad computer behavior that is frustrating, reduces productivity, and or eliminates fun!

Often when on house or business calls for 911computer-rescue.com, I am presented with the original problem that caused the call to 911computer-rescue.com and then several other additional items that fit the description of computer irritants.

Just recently I was called to a business that needed file sharing activated between a Vista machine and a Windows XP laptop. While making the changes to the Vista machine and the XP laptop for the file sharing, I was presented with the business owner’s computer irritant, “e-mail attachments in outlook that cannot be opened”.

All of the attachments which could not be opened, have a yellow envelope as a icon, but will not open on click or “save as” in a readable manner.

First step was to determine if there was “content in the attachment”. I saved the attachment to a folder but it would not open in a readable manner. (Yup, you can use your Hex editor but the content is still unreadable! (LOL).

Then I forwarded the email to my Google account, and much to my pleasure the attachment was readable in Google as a txt file and clearly was a forwarded e-mail message with important information for my client. I now realize that ALL of the attachments were forwarded e-mails!

I was pleased that I had created a “work around” but it was not a real solution!

It is now early Saturday morning (O’Dawn O’clock) Instead of sleeping I am doing what any true Geek would do, Googling for the solution. The best search seems to be, “Forwarded email as attachment will not open”

My best guess is the following described in this Link, according to the Green Magician:

“Try the following and let me know if it worked:

Tools -> Options -> Other -> Advanced
Remove Google Toolbar Tick in Both Ad-In Manager and Com Ad-Ins. Once you are done, all should work fine again. “

My next step is to call the client (one of my favorite folks and see if this is the cause. If not back to more research for the cure! (I will update this post with the results!)

If you are tired of your “computer irritants” and want to remove them send e an e-mail Stuart@911computer-Rescue.com ! (I provide computer services for home, home office, or businesses.)

Blog Vacation!

I regret that I have not posted recently.

I really got pressed for time (several large projects for 911computer-rescue.com) and did not want to dilute the quality of the writing or the focus of the Blog.

I am back!

My last post was about the San Diego Chargers. Since then the Padres have taken over causing San Diego sports fans much unneeded aggravation.

“Trevor we love you, but - is it time for Trevor?”

More technology related posts in the works.

Maybe Next Year!

Go Chargers!

In preparation for watching the game you may want to visit one of many football oriented Web sites. My favorite is NFL.com . This Link will take you to the highlights of our victory over the Colts. For a very comprehensive listing of football related links is the Football Links directory Blog. No work all play on Sunday!

Microsoft VISTA For San Diego Businesses

One of the most import things for a business is its' information, customer, product, financial, etc... Vista (Ultimate and Business Edition) has the feature to create and save a complete disk image so you can use in case of a disk of other major failure.

It is an easy to use feature! The only hardware requirement is another hard disk (in your PC, external drive are OK but LESS reliable, or a networked drive is best) or enough DVD's to complete the backup.

The DVD alternative is not practicable! Do the math, if you have 100 gigabytes of data and each DVD holds 4.3 gig, it would take approximately 24 DVD's to do a backup. With the hard disk alternative it is fast and easy (a rarity in today's world!)

I just installed a RAID card in my prime PC. It is an I/O FLEX PSA150 (Dual channel SATA). (I will blog my opionion on the product in 2-4 weeks as it is a lower cost product versus other brands).

I have a Western Digital drive (My boot drive) that was reporting “drive errors” and I needed to make sure that I could keep this PC functioning with little hassle. I had already received an RMA from WDC for the failing drive and was awaiting the replacement. Much to my surprised a Vista window popped up saying that a disk drive failure was imminent and asked if I wanted to start a backup! You BET! I did the backup, and removed the failing drive from the mirrored set.
I felt that I was well prepared and had avoided a major hassle because I had the raid drives installed and a current backup.

If you would like a review of your backup procedures please contact me for a no obligation consultation (San Diego County businesses only).

A computer without your data is worthless!