evolution creations

Who’s got the best international calling rates?

Sep 4th

In my line of work, I have to make quite a few calls to the UK. As part of our standard business practice, we make use of services like Skype to help reduce the costs of international calling that you would incur if you use traditional telephone providers. It occurred to me recently after a plethora of issues in getting the call quality of Skype to be what I needed it to in order for the person on the other to understand me, that I needed another solution.

So my options were:

Skype (Skype to Landline or Skype to Mobile)
Ooma (VOIP to Landline or VOIP to Mobile)
Google Voice (VOIP to Landline or VOIP to Mobile)

Some of the requirements that I had going into this were:

The call quality was essential. I need to be able to use a traditional phone line that will give me more call quality than using an interface off the computer (such as a bluetooth device connected to a laptop connected through Skype to VOIP).
Ease of use, the solution has to be easy to use.
Maintain list of contacts, I can’t have contacts in Outlook, and in whatever I use, and maintain them separately. I either have to use one exclusively or have a link between Outlook and it.
Ability to seamlessly charge, most solutions require the use of payment, so that payment option has to be a one-click solution. I can’t be reaching for my credit card each time I run out of minutes.
Ability to receipt. This one seems kind of obvious, but in reality it’s not. But the solution has to be able to generate a receipt that indicates I was the one that purchased it, so that I can then claim that expense on my expense report.
Must maintain a call history or call log so I can see when I make calls.
Cheap international rates. I’m a cheapskate let’s get over that! Also it makes good business sense that you want a solution that is going to save you money instead of what you are currently paying.

With all of these requirements to go after lets look at each solution. So to start with you have Skype. Some of the benefits here are:

There is a seemless link between your contacts in Outlook and the contacts in Skype. This makes maintaining contacts very easy.
Call history is there, so I know when the last time I contacted the person, etc.
Each time I refill it’s a push of a button and I get an email generated that I can print to PDF and expense.
Easy to use, Skype is a no-brainer

The only real downside with Skype has been the call quality. Most of the times I’m at home the calls are pretty good, and I attribute that to the firewall configurations I made and the fact that I have a fairly good speed with Comcast (15Mbps down/8Mbps up).

Now just this week I started to look at Ooma. They do have a function where you can add funds to your Ooma account and then be able to make international calls. The upside to Ooma is:

Call quality is amazing.
I can use my home telephone equipment
Easy to recharge

The immediate downsides were:

There isn’t a good way to maintain contact addresses and they are separate from Outlook.
While recharging the minutes is easy, getting a receipt is non-existent. I contacted Ooma billing and they sent me a screenshot that was in all ways useless. I have more benefit getting my credit card statement and redacting the other bits and sending that in to expense.

Then I tried Google Voice. This was a surprise to me as I have been using Google Voice since they were GrandCentral and primarily use it for US business calls. The functions of Google Voice are amazing, and I’m surprised it took me this long to use it internationally.

The upsides are:

While you do maintain the addresses separately, Google Voice provides a better platform for maintaining your contacts and grouping them together in meaningful ways.
Easy to use
You can select which phone you want to take the call on and you get all the GV features such as call recording, voice mail transcription, call transferring etc.
Recharging is one-click.
Great receipt feature to be able to expense off of.

At the present moment, I can’t see any downsides of Google Voice. This has been definitely a diamond in the rough and I’m kicking myself that I didn’t use this earlier!

Now comes the last bit which is cost. Is Google Voice a better option functionally but not so on the cost side of things. Let’s look at a comparison of rates that I have put together. Let’s start with Comcast Digital Voice as I had them before moving to Ooma, just to see what the “other” guy can do for you:

Comcast Digital Voice
United Kingdom $0.08
United Kingdom – Mobile $0.30

Clearly there isn’t a whole lot of savings here, but this is what you would expect from your traditionaly phone company.

Ooma
United Kingdom $0.028
United Kingdom – London $0.019
United Kingdom – London $0.019
United Kingdom – NTS $0.33
United Kingdom – NTS $0.33
United Kingdom – NTS $0.33
United Kingdom – NTS $0.33
United Kingdom – NTS $0.33
United Kingdom – NTS $0.33
United Kingdom – NTS $0.33
United Kingdom – Mobile $0.33

The prices from Ooma are much more competitive than from your Comcast Digital Voice solution for land-lines, but not so much for mobile as their calls are actually more expensive. This was definitely surprising for me as I would have assumed that from a VOIP provider their pricing would be much more competitive. Let’s look at Skype.

Skype
United Kingdom $ 0.024
United Kingdom-London $ 0.024
United Kingdom – Mobile – Hutchison3G $ 0.291
United Kingdom – Mobile – O2 $ 0.291
United Kingdom – Mobile – Orange $ 0.291
United Kingdom – Mobile – Others $ 0.291
United Kingdom – Mobile – Tmobile $ 0.291
United Kingdom – Mobile – Vodafone $ 0.291
United Kingdom – Premium Rate – Band 1 $ 0.559
United Kingdom – Premium Rate – Band 2 $ 1.117
United Kingdom – Premium Rate – Band 3 $ 1.676
United Kingdom – Premium Rate – Band 4 $ 2.792
United Kingdom – Premium Rate – Band 5 $ 3.351
United Kingdom-Shared Cost-0844 $ 0.136
United Kingdom-Shared Cost-0845 $ 0.147
United Kingdom-Shared Cost-0870 $ 0.208
United Kingdom-Shared Cost-0871 $ 0.261
United Kingdom-Toll Free $ 0.000

As we would expect, Skype’s costs are just slightly better than either Comcast or Ooma. Their landline costs are about the same, and their mobile calling is just slightly better. Still any savings is a savings! Now to Google Voice.

Google Voice
United Kingdom $0.02
United Kingdom, Mobile $0.19

Well as you can see, Google Voice comes in right at the bottom of all of the above providers. Their cost for landlines is a flat $0.02 so some savings there, and their mobile is a few pennies less than all the previous providers. The winner appears to be Google in this round! Now I will caveat this by saying that Skype does offer unlimited international packages for a monthly and quarterly fee that allow you unlimited calling to landlines in the UK along with other countries. Now I’m not saying that this is bad, as I was signed up for this service until just recently. But the downside is that the Skype call quality was never what I really needed it to be, so even though the landline calls were covered and ultimately reduced the price, I always had issues with people not being able to hear me well.

In the end I would recommend anyone who in a similar position as I am to look at Google Voice as an inexpensive way of both making international calls, but making it easier to manage your contacts and voice messages and leveraging the services within Google Voice to do your job more effectively! Post comments if you have any questions!

A review of Kyle XY

Aug 17th

Posted by evo in Thoughts

1 comment

I’m just winding down on a weekend long, partial week long marathon of Kyle XY on Hulu and I thought that I would provide some feedback as I feel just as most people have felt when the show abruptly ended after the 3rd season.

First off, let me just say what an awesome show this has been! It doesn’t happen often that a show surprises, both in content and in the emotional stires that gets drawn up when watching the show, but this one has. A mark of a good show to me has always been its ability to draw in a user, and for good or bad, this one has drawn in me further than I had expected, an further than I care to admit at this moment in time. What makes this show so interest? Let’s first start with the content. Usually with shows like this, the content is very light, somewhat comical, but not Kyle XY–from the very start, the show has very mature lines and deep controversial topics that either teens or families or groups of people struggle with.

The science behind the show, while is still science fiction, would be something that I would have expected on SyFy instead of on ABC Family. Complex, interconnected, a continual story line that is interwoven with mini-story arches that not only made the story better, but drew you into each of the characters. What makes this interesting is that usually there is a spell bounding revelation that causes changes to occur, but in this case, it was small incremental changes little things that caused the story to shift one way to another. You could almost compare this to the X-Files in the sense that what the writers giveth, the writers taketh away. Not to mention a super secret organization, in this case, three organizations, that bring mortal peril to Kyle and Jessie and in season 3 to the Tragers and to Amanda that results in one of the best relationships in the series to be put into a blender and mixed up, down, left and right until you can’t tell if the characters know what’s real and what’s not.

There are many questions as to why the writers did what they did with the characters. The main issue that is central to the series has always been Kyles desire to be loved and to love another. This came very quickly to Kyle through his encounter with Amanda early in the series, as the girl next door neighbor who sparks something in Kyle that he doesn’t know himself what it is until later on in the series when he learns to understand and interpret the feelings and sensations that surround him. Central to this is the relationship that he eventually has with Amanda, one that we all thought would last, but in the cruelist way possible the writers stripped this from us in an act of chaos by flipping the tables between the end of Season 2 and Season 3 that resulted in Amanda and Kyle moving apart due to the secrets that Kyle couldn’t tell Amanda. This is a question that even to this day as I finish up Season 3 can’t understand why they chose to take that route. In one episode, Kyle is asked by Decklin and Josh why he doesn’t read her in–this question has plagued me from the beginning as it would seem the most common practical thing for Kyle to do is to bring Amanda into the fold. At the start of Season 2, Kyle brings the Tragers into the fold, and not just one, but all of them after Decklin and Foss. Kyles explaination is that he can’t let anything happen to Amanda, that he has to protect her–but that logic doesn’t hold up. I mean, Kyle cares about the Tragers just as much if not more than Amanda, this is shown when Kyle trades the amniotic fluid that saved Balen to save Nicole after she gets into an accident that threatens her life and in exchange has to then team up with Ladnok an organization that Kyle sees as being pure evil–and yet he does. And through all of this, he doesn’t see that his life would be drastically improved by reading in Amanda and having her part of his inner circle? She’s already been affected by the activities of Zezicks, Madacorp, and Ladnok, so why does he continue to resist the temptation to bring close the person that means the most to him in his life? One of the comments by the writers after the series ended was that the hero character always tends to be by themselves–that in the end he would have been probably written to be alone without Amanda or Jessie. I ask isn’t every superhero or hero type character suppose to put faith in those less like them to be able to feel human and connect themselves to the people and things that they are always trying to protect? What’s the purpose of what the heroes do if they never get to be with those who they are trying to protect?

I actually think that towards the end, Kyle became less open to interpretting humans and learning and became more paranoid and confused. A love interest would help ground him and act as a sensible buffer for the things that he does. A lot of time Kyle gets himself into trouble, and having that voice of reason may be that thing to keep him out of trouble.

Kyle should have learned that he doesn’t need to take on the troubles of the world all by himself. He’s one person against a multi-national organization that is hell bent on taking science and using that to their advantage.

An interesting concept and perhaps a twist that ABC or whomever could look at doing to do a sequel to Kyle XY–what if Amanda in her quiet shell, decides to ditch the music career and go into business, turns into a cut throat business woman, starts to work for and infiltrate the ranks of Ladnok and ends of being involved with the very thing that Kyle had worked so hard to protect her against. And then later in life they meet up in some dramatic meet and greet and instead of him being the one to protect her, she is trying to destroy him so she can further the agenda’s of Ladnok. Definitely an interesting concept!

Blank Slate

Aug 14th

Posted by evo in Thoughts

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What would you do if one morning you woke up and you knew nothing of your life previous to that day, and you had to re-learn what it meant not just to be a human, but to be you again. But is that even possible? What is it to be you? Can that be relearned, or is the process of many years of doing what you do to become you something so unique that like fingerprints no two are the same.

In watching Kyle XY, I’m supremely intrigued by this idea of what you would do if you had to try and figure out who you are and learn what it is to be human. I think to myself, this is one of the biggest challenges that we have had in terms of building artificial intelligence, we don’t know what intelligence really is, to be you. How do you tell something that you just created (similar to just waking up one day at the appeared age of 16 and not know anything before the minute or second that you woke up) how to be aware, how to think, how to understand?

We take for granted this process, thousands upon thousands of children have been born and raised by adults, and yet we have no idea why that process works, and how we can replicate that without the aid of millions of years of evolution helping us along the way. While the core of a computer can respond to something in a millionth of a second, a computer can’t learn something that it hasn’t been taught, and everything incurrs a certain degree of logic that must be adhered to. How do you then tell a computer to take something that is apparently unlogical (such the Spock reference!) and interpret that in any other way than Null Pointer Exception (just using an NPE as an example, but basically anything that results in an exception being thrown because 2+2 now doesn’t equal 4.

I think we pride ourselves as human begins as being the masters of our own universe, of our own domain. And we use science or constructs such as mathamatics to explain the physical and meta-physical world around us in ways that we otherwise might not be able to explain. But do all things in nature follow these natural rules? It begs the question–are humans the exception to the natural order of things? Lets look at this in further detail. If we use a Carl Sagan like example of evolution, as he describes in The Cosmos, then at some point in our evolution man took a separate path that over millions of years resulted in who we are. But out of the billions of billions of cells and species, why is it that our species is the only one to have decided to take that course? Why is it that sharks still look like sharks from millions of years ago–wouldn’t they be far superior to us if they had just decided to “wake up” and mutate to the point where they could use their brains in similar ways that we do?

But more to the point if we defy the natural order of things by not conforming to our surroundings like every other occupant on this little blue planet in the middle of our galaxy, are we really ones to try and understand how things work? Aren’t we already starting off the beaten path, so to understand the world around us is pretty much like a dog trying to learn how to fly? We put a man on the moon (assuming the popular belief that we did), and yet we have no idea how we can think. We have this inner drive to learn more and more about what’s out there in the vast universe–to ask and answer the question, are we alone in this universe, but in introspetively speaking, we have little to no fundamental understands that will help us know how we are who we are and how we can replicate that in other ways. If we could get a computer to think like we do, how will that change who we are and what we do?

Obama Health Care Town Halls

Aug 14th

Posted by evo in Thoughts

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So I was watching AMFix this morning, and I have to first start off by saying that I haven’t been following the Obama health care debates at all (life, work, everything else just is taking priority at the minute). But at any rate, nothing else was on the idiot tube this morning, so I decided to hear what they had to say. Obviously there wasn’t any discussions on the meat and potatoes of the health care package, the conversation was focused more on how people were reacting to what he had to say at these town halls.

Now I’m no political expert, and by no means, an expert in his package, but it would seem to me that as one of the last so-called Superpowers of the world, America has done nothing to fix a lingering issue of personal health and improving the quality of life for each American. Over 40 million American’s are without any type of healthcare, and yet we still consider ourselves to be the richest country in the world? Sure, the upper echelon’s of society who have jobs that pay for healthcare, and can afford private insurance or the pricey procedures; however, for the rest of the American population how do they go on their day to day lives?

It’s really a game of Russian roulette that we are playing here with these folks lives and certainly a generational issue of inherited bad decisions. Those without healthcare first and foremost do not take any preventative care, but also that means when something does go wrong, they have to use emergency services (where services are then diverted from other emergencies thus putting a strain on the system) and in some cases can’t afford to pay for the costs of the procedures and visit and therefore it is up to society to flip the bill. We do that with increase in healthcare costs that we pay out of pocket, and rising insurance premiums that we see year after year. So I ask, for those who do not have healthcare, to have the government move in and provide a sort of manditory universal coverage, isn’t that just a fair thing to do and in effect a way for you to pull your weight in society? Going back to those who choose to pay roulette with their health, when they have children are those children going to be raised in an environment where they understand their health and take responsibility for that, or will they following in their parents footsteps and take similar measures to not get themselves insured and yet still be a drain on the rest of society?

I’m certainly not a big fan of government–any government getting too large and taking too much interest in sectors where the people should drive it through go old fashion capitalism and suppy and demand, but I do think that when it comes to health and the care of you and your families health, it isn’t a matter that should be taken on lightly. In fact, of all the things that we do spend money on, such as our over-inflated defense budget, let’s take a step back and think about this. We spend money with the intent that through R&D and superior firepower we will hold back any forces that wish to do harm to this country or the people of this country; and yet a simple bacteria or virus or poor diet (and the list goes on) is doing more harm to us now, today, in a clear and present danger sort of way, and yet we do not spend nearly as much time and resources to address it? Why is that?

And yet the people at the town hall meetings who were acting up and disagree with Obama’s plan, if asked if they support the wars (plural) that are going on and the 3 trillion dollars that we have spent on it was spent wisely, I wonder how many would get up on their soap box and declare us victors on all fronts as if we defeated the Nazies. How many of those people offer any type of meaningful resolution or alternative that can still achieve similar goals? And let’s be clear, the goals of this nation regarding healthcare should be focused on:

Reducing dependencies on a system that unfairly charges those who do the right thing (pay for the services that they receive) by requiring everyone to be covered by some sort of insurance.
Everyone should have manditory preventitive care and regular checkups to ensure optimal health and address minor issues when they are minor to stave off major issues that could have been avoided
Reduce overhead on government programs, such as Medicare and Mediaid from those who should be covered under alternative insurance, so funds can be diverted to those who the programs were originally intended for
To improve the overall health and well being of this nation and everyone within

The last one I think is the most important, as I’m not even advocating that there is a single road to victory on this one. It’s not just going to see your doctor once a year, but other steps such as improving your own lifestyle, that will aid in the recovery process of getting healthier. For example, you could be drastically overweight, and seeing your doctor is still a very beneficial thing to do and can catch many illnesses before they become life-threatening, but until you do something yourself to loose the weight that you have, all that can be done by a doctor is very superficial and never alleviates the underlying condition.

American’s have become too reliant on others to fix our problems. If there is a problem with our health, we ask well where’s the program that would have helped me on that? If we have a problem with our children at school, we ask well where’s the person who should have been looking after my kid? If we don’t stop this cycle of dependency we will never reach a point in our development as a society as a country, where we can say we are truely independent. Independence and freedom carries a stringent pricetag, one of self initiation and understanding that someone else shouldn’t be responsible for cleaning up your messes.

Disappointed at what’s going on these days

Aug 13th

Posted by evo in Thoughts

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Have parents really just let go and decided to let the environment raise their kinds? Honestly, this gives pause for concern as parents should be more involved in what their children do both inside and outside of the house, and when there is lack of guidance and discipline, naturally kids will push the boundaries till they break. Is the only fix for those who do not agree with those methods of parent just move away–away from the kids and their clueless parents?

Sigh, I just wonder to myself how it is that we still require all kinds of hoops to go through to get a gun, and yet when it comes to having children, anyone can do it and in fact do do it in mass frequency (Idiocracy all over again). Is it our civic responsibility to aid in the development and guidance of the children left to the harsh world to raise, or is it somehow something we must just turn a deaf ear to and let what will happen, happen? I can’t believe that doing nothing is the right thing to do in these cases, and yet when you want to do something more, you are faced with the reality that in most cases, your help is not welcome or wanted, and actually even in the face of insurmountable opposition and evidence to show that their child is really a social problem, the parents defend them with the gusto that you think to yourself “if you did this in the first place and put that much effort into your child, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation!”.

How do you reach a kid who’s sole purpose this far in life has been to live up to nobody’s expectations and who themselves have none? This seems to be an ever mounting reality that we are facing and yet the solution seems so common sensical that when we take a step back and really think about it, we can’t seem to find a reason why we wouldn’t all be doing the right thing and have a society filled with well adjusted individuals who find purpose in themselves and the people around them.

And if the answer is that those who find themselves as the social outcasts in trying to instill the right thing onto others, is there really a place in this world where others of like minds gravitates to? A sort of haven for the sane? Perhaps the real reason that there is such a divide amongst social classes, the need to classify everyone and everything around us, is to distance ourselves from the things that we deem to be “wrong” and to surround ourselves with those who we find acceptable, or tolerant of our own wishes for what is normal. Sure you can’t live your life with doors unlocked these days, or to trust absolutely in those around you, but certainly there is a point at which we can trust in the abilities of others to do the necessary and to take care of the thing that we call mini-me (or me’s in the plural if you are so inclined).

And how much work does this really require? Well lets face it–while I can’t say from my own personal experience how much work is involved, I will venture the pure guestimation method to say that not just having kids but raising them is not something we should enter into lightly. We should be concerned with ourselves from the beginning and question our own motivies and examine with a high degree of scrutiny what it is that we think we will offer this child, this life, in terms of a future, in terms of a contribution to society. That isn’t to say that we should nievly think that our child will b the next Stephen Hawking or Enrico Fermi, but we should all believe that each child has something incredible that they will bestow unto this world and you can live knowing that who they are, what they are, is a direct result in the efforts that invested. It’s similar to a 401k, with patience and a watchful eye, your little bit can become a lot over time. Raising a child I would think is a very similar process whereby one takes small steps to build a strong foundation, one that will support add-on steps that are placed in small and patient increments.

Are the best parents the ones that go into the process with the idea that they will be the best parent ever?!? Or are the best parents the ones that are surely terrified that they will not be able to do enough and constantly on a daily and hourly basis look for ways that they can become better for themselves and their children? My guess would be the later, but again that’s just me and my inexperience talking! However, a lot of things in life are just common sense, and if we believe that part of what makes us human lives in our DNA, in the very fabric that makes us alive, that there are hundreds or thousands of years of experience tucked away in those strains, then parenting should come natural to us–and yet, this is the exception and not the norm, and 9 times out of 10 we have to do more than we expect, or more than we can, to make that new life turn out to be something more than just another drain on society.

Improving Windows Vista Network Performance

Jun 14th

Posted by evo in Useful Information

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There are many ways to improve Windows Vista’s network performance. I’ve been documenting some of the ways here:

http://evolutioncreations.wik.is/Windows_Desktop/Improving_Windows_Vista_Network_Performance

What’s in a Krispy Kream Donut?

Jun 12th

Posted by evo in Useful Information

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As most of you know I’ve been knee deep in Atkin’s and really now seeing some major progress. But after watching a Donut paradise special on TV the other day, where they took us on a cross-country adventure looking for the best donuts, I suddenly started to crave that which we all know is bad for us–the donut!

So wouldn’t you know what I started looking for Nutritional information from websites and I couldn’t find the ingredients for a KK donut. Now as most know Atkins is all about the carbs, but getting further into your eating, you should also (regardless if you are on Atkins) be focused on WHAT is in your food. It’s absolutely surprising to know that the food that we’ve come to love and enjoy is actually pretty bad for us in many different ways, but mainly because of the raw materials that goes into making the food.

Below is what I got back from Krispy Kream regarding the ingredients that they use, and enough to say YOU SHOULD NOT EAT THESE on the sheer principle that the first ingredient is not at all what you want to put into your body!

Ingredients: Enriched bleached wheat flour (contains bleached wheat flour,
niacin, reduced iron, thiamine, mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), dextrose,
vegetable shortening (partially hydrogenerated soybean and/or cottonseed oil),
water, sugar, soy flour, egg yolks, vital wheat gluten, yeast, nonfat milk, yeast
nutrients (calcium sulfate, ammonium sulfate), dough conditioners (calcium
dioxide, monocalcium and dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, sodium
stearoyl-2-lacrylate, whey, starch, ascorbic acid, sodium bicarbonate, calcium
carbonate), salt, mono-and-diglycerides, ethoxylated mono- and diglycerides,
lecithin, calcium propionate (to retain freshness), cellulose gum, natural and
artificial flavors, fungal alpha amylase, amylase, maltogenic amylase,
pantosenase, protease, sodium caseinate, corn maltodextrin, corn syrup solids
and BHT (to help protect flavor).
Glaze also may contain: Calcium carbonate, agar, locust bean gum, disodium
phosphate, and sorbitan monostearate.

This isn’t to say that the donuts are terrible, but for those who are health consicous and this is going out to the majority of US folks who are considered to be on the obease side of things, you should definitely stay away from foods with enriched bleached white flour. Really where’s the nutritional benefit from that!