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Known Vonage issue when inbound CID information is not displayed on your second telephone line.

Let me ask you two questions: (1) Are you not receiving caller id information on your vonage telephone line? (2) Do you utilize any advanced forwarding features such as the simul-ring ? If you answered yes to both of these questions, then this post will probably help you understand what is going on, and frustrate you even more!

I have been dealing with this issue for months now and have had three, yes 3, long conversations with Vonage (1 hour plus each time). I finally talked with a semi-knowledgeable and helpful representative who informed me that that this is a known issue with vonage and that they are still trying to figure out ways to fix the issue.

Here is the issue: My device (and apparently many others) do not support Caller ID on the second telephone line of vonage lines with the simulring feature enabled. So what is the answer? Get caller ID information on your first line only, choose which one you want to see the details of, set up another PAP device or go out and buy one that seems to work with two lines.

I asked the representative at Vonage what device did support two phone lines with the simul ring feature enabled - because I really don’t want to give up this great feature! It took her eight (8) minutes of research to find one - that is NOT a good sign! She was typing away furiously and muttering “let me just confirm… okay..and checking…” the entire time. Finally she told me that there are no current known issues with the Linksys 31p2 device - so she recommended I could buy this. Personally, I have a Linksys PAP 2 version 2 right now. And I know for a fact that I have a linksys router/PAP device somewhere in my closet, so I am going to dig that out and just use one line of two PAP devices for the time being.

There you have it. I told you that you would be more furstated, but hey - at least we have some answers!

Though this article appears technical, I promise that even the least of technology educated persons can follow along and gain value! If you can check your email, you can follow along in this article!Many find themselves given an email address from their university, college, highschool, place of work, or religious affiliation; unfortunately, often times along with this email address comes a poor mechanism for keeping up to date with receiving, sending and organizing these emails - often through some sluggish web based client. I want to share with you an easy to execute method to integrate your email (wherever it may originate) with your favorite email client - be it Outlook, Eudora, Opera, ACT!, etc. and continue to use your provided email address for both receiving and sending emails.

First, the problem: The need to write this article arose from assiting with the setup of a new office for an Aflac representative. Talking with the kind, but unhelpful support desk I found that their only solution to using the professional email domain, ‘@US.AFLAC.COM’, was to forward each rep’s email to a personal address of their choosing. The recommendations made by the support staff were “… your Comcast email, or even your AOL address.” This may appear to be a neat feature, but when you turn around to send an email back to a client, you realize that the neatness is only one way. Now everyone is receiving email from your personal and relatively unprofessional email address. Even worse, if you don’t have the method or knowledge to change the ‘reply-to-address’, any business you email will begin emailing your personal AOL address instead of emailing your business email address. In addition to the number of problems already brewing in your head, what if you change service providers? Well - frankly, you’ll lose access to your email address and all of those contacts who have saved that address as your primary contact venue. This is usually going to be a problem only to those that live or work away from the main facility that provides the email address. Take for example a student that lives off campus, a sales rep that works from their home, or any user who routinely checks their email off-site.

Now, for the solution: It is very rare that an Internet Service Provider (dialup modem, DSL, cable, broadband, AT&T, SBC, Verizon, Comcast, etc) would supply you with an internet connection but not provide you with an outgoing mail relay so that you can plug that setting into your mail program and then be able to send mail from your own computer. Alright - plain english: Your provider, lets say Comcast, allows you to send email through their server with your account with the mask of being any email address of your choosing - yes, now you are with me - this could be your Aflac email address, or that provided by your university. Don’t worry, we’ll get to the specific details on how to accomplish this in just a few minutes.

Over the last few years, more and more ISP’s have started to require their subscribers to use their SMTP server. If you can not send email using the servers of the organization that gave you the email address, you will most likely be able to use the servers provided by your Internet Service Provider.

You should contact your ISP or Network Administrator to get the name of their Outgoing Mailserver, we will need to plug that into the Outgoing Mailserver setting of your email program in just a few minutes. Many ISPs (MSN, Earthlink, Verizon, etc) do not even allow their customers to use any Outgoing Mailserver except their own.

How We Will Do It: In most situations, the origin of your email account provides a bare minimum of POP3 account access. This is a strange acronym that means you can access your email from another location and download a copy of it to a place of your choosing. There are other types of access, but for the sake of simplicity, the expectation that you will use your chosen client as the primary communication platform, and the expectation that your email account allows for POP3 (whether it be AFLAC, your university, gmail, yahoo, aol, etc) we will continue with the directions. This will allow for you to receive your email from that address straight to your computer without having to go to the web page each time you want to read your email.

How to Accomplish This: The steps are extremly simply, if they aren’t - you can leave me a comment and tell me that they aren’t!

For the purposes of this article I will demonstrate using an AFLAC email account, an SBCGlobal service provider, and Outlook 2003 as the mail client. If you differ on any of these, that’s okay - you can still follow along, just make sure you replace your information in the obvious spots!

If this is your first time setting up Oulook, it will prompt you to add an email account. If you’ve dabbled in outlook previously, you’ll need to go to

1. In Microsoft Outlook, select Tools > E-mail Accounts.

2. On the E-mail Accounts wizard window, select “Add a new e-mail account” and click Next.

I am going to select the option for a POP3 account, this is the easiest choice, and most popular.

3. For your server type, select “POP3” and click Next.

Next we are prompted for some information pertaining to the account.

4. On the Internet E-mail Settings (POP3) window, enter your information as follows:

Your Name: Jeff Sickles (Enter your first and last name – this will be seen as the “from” name when others receive your mail)

E-mail Address: jsickles@DOMAIN.com (be sure to include the ‘@’ symbol with the domain name. This is the email address that will receive the email when someone clicks reply. Make sure its right!)

User Name: jsickles@DOMAIN.com (your user name is most often your email address. If you have not been given a specific user name, make it your full email address)

Password: supersecretpassword (Your password should have been indicated to you when you received your email address)

Be sure “remember my password” is checked

Now, for the fun stuff…

Incoming mail server (POP3): mail.DOMAIN.com (this is the most common pattern, though it certainly may vary. Try mail followed by a dot followed by the full domain (this is the name after the @ symbol in your email address - that’s a great first guess, google searches or asking your administrator can reveal more cryptic server names) Here’s an example, Joe@foxnews.com. foxnews.com would be the domain. Get the idea?

Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.Your Internet PRovider.net (As we discussed earlier, this will be your ISP server. I’ve made a short list of ISP’s that block port 25 and in addition provided their last known SMTP address. This should lessen your work.)

NOTE: These settings should work from both onsite and at home, if you experience any trouble with these settings (be sure to test both incoming and outgoing mail)

Your screen should look like the image below. Please make sure the checkboxes and information looks correct.

There are more instructions after the list.

A short list of ISP’s that Block Port 25 in addition to their SMTP address:

AOL: smtp.mail.aol.com
Adelphia: mail.adelphia.net
Ameritech: mailhost.det.ameritech.net
Astound Broadband: smtp.ca.astound.net
AT&T: mailhost.att.net
AT&T Global: smtp1.attglobal.net
Bell internet highspeed (Canadian): smtp10.bellnet.ca
Bell south: mail.bellsouth.net
bigpond.com (Australian): contact service provider for Settings.
CableOne: mail.cableone.net
Charter Communications: smtp.chartermi.net
Charter.net: smtp.charter.net
CharterTN.net: mail.chartertn.net
CharterMI.net: mail.chartermi.net
Cinncinnati Bell/Fuse Dial-up: smtp.fuse.net
coax.net: smtp.west.coax.net /east / central
comcast: smtp.comcast.net
Cox: smtp.west.cox.net - smtp.central.cox.net - smtp.east.cox.net
Earthlink: smtp.earthlink.net
Etisalat (UAE): smtp.emirates.net.ae
epix: out.epix.net
erols: smtp.erols.com
Frontiernet.net: smtp.frontiernet.net
fuse: smtp.fuse.net
iquest.net: mail.iquest.net
ISP.com: mail.isp.com
Juno: smtp.juno.com
Megared (Mexico): contact service provider for Settings.
Mindspring: smtp.mindspring.com
MSN: smtp.email.msn.com
MSN.DSL: secure.smtp.email.msn.com
NEBI.com: mail.nebi.com
Netcom: smtp.ix.netcom.com
NetZero: smtp.netzero.net
OOL (Optimum Online): mail.optonline.net
Optusnet: mail.optusnet.com.au
Pacific Bell (Pacbell): mail.pacbell.net
panix.com: mailhost.panix.com
PeoplePC: smtp.peoplepc.com
Quixnet.net: smtp.quixnet.net
RCN: smtp.rcn.com
Road Runner(NYC): smtp-server.nyc.rr.com (for other states, and regions contact your Road Runner Support team)
Rogers Hi-Speed (Canadian): smtp.broadband.rogers.com
SBC: smtp.sbcglobal.net
SBC Yahoo: smtp.sbcglobal.yahoo.com
speakeasy: mail.speakeasy.net
sympatico: smtp1.sympatico.ca
The-Beach.net: mail.the-beach.net
Verio: smtp.veriomail.com
Verizon: outgoing.verizon.net
Verizon(alt): smtpout.verizon.net
Videotron: relais.videotron.ca yourlink.ca (Canadian): contact service provider for Settings.

This is an important step, do not skip over this!

5. Next you need to click on More Settings

Click on the tab labeled Outgoing Server

Check the box My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication (If you use comcast, you may be able to leave this box unchecked!!)

Logon using: (Put in your username and password you use to connect to the internet - assigned by your phone company if you have DSL)

THIS NEXT STEP IS OPTIONAL, let me explain.

When you check your mail through outlook, it looks to the email server and removes a copy of the message and puts it on your computer only. If you went to check your mail through the web later in the day, any messages already received would no longer be available for viewing. This is more of a personal choice, but you may also find it suitable for you. We can set an option to leave a copy on the server for a short period of time, so that we can easily access the email in both locations. It’s more about convenience. If you feel this isn’t necessary, skip the rest of this step. If you will find it helpful, follow these short steps.

4a. Click “More Settings.”

4b. Select the “Advanced” tab.

4c. Under Delivery, select Leave a copy of messages on the server.

4d. Now select Remove from server after 10 days.

4e. Select OK to exit that menu.

Click OK to finish in that screen

That’s it, now a message will remain for 10 days after you receive it – this allows you to check your messages from either place and still have past messages available in both locations. This will NOT remove messages from outlook.

5. Click on NEXT

6. Click FINISH.

That’s it, you should be done. You have successfully configured your outlook client to receive email from your email server.

Yeah that’s right, Google recently made Google Maps even better by adding Street Views to some popular places. Today you can look at San Francisco CA, Las Vegas NV, Denver CO, Miami FL, and New York NY at the street level. You can zoom right down as if you were standing on the street and then pan around the streets at your whim. You can also advance yourself down the street in either direction. In addition, Google estimates the address you are standing in front of while you circle around the streets and displays it on the screen. This is a really cool feature that holds great possibilities and potential for the future. Here’s a screenshot - doesn’t that make you want to go try it out yourself?

I can’t wait until I have some more time to play with this and take a look at some places I’ve been, and even some of the places I haven’t been. First impressions - the response is a little slow, but gee - for what you get - it’s awesome! Perhaps after the freshness wears off a little, the servers will respond a little better and provide a more seamless session when on the street level. I can’t wait to see more cities loaded up. You never know when the camera truck might be driving by, so keep your eyes open. And when you do see one - go wave, it will be a good laugh when you find yourself waving on Google maps! (NOTE: For best results, stand still with arm in air; actually waving may appear blurry and look pathetic)

You are undoubtedly aware that Verizon has claimed Vonage infringed on seven patents covering areas including VoIP billing, fraud detection, call waiting, and voicemail, gateways between VoIP and circuit-switched phone networks, and methods for using Wi-Fi handsets for VoIP.

Thankfully for Vonage and unfortunate for Verizon, the jury agreed on just three of the seven accusations. This brought the 197 million dollar lawsuit down to a less difficult to swallow $58 million. I’m sure Vonage CEO’s were happy for this call. It apperars Vonage unwillfully infringed on three patents, and TWO of them were related to billing. The jury also ruled that Vonage did not willfully infringe on Verizon’s patents, which greatly reduced the damages award from the original $197 million figure Verizon was seeking.

It’s funny how all of this comes out in the wide open in the same time frame that I write an article pertaining to the pros and cons of vonage service. Would this need to be added to the list? I think probably not - it looks as if Vonage has signed a deal with Voiceone, an independent VOIP service provider, this would eliminate the need for two of the three patents in the spotlight. This should prove that Vonage will be able to recover from this lawsuit - it might not be the most favorable option to Vonage themselves, but it beats going under.

Vonage is in a sign-up freeze at the moment as a result of an injunction issued on April 6 by Judge Hilton against Vonage, saying that the company must stop signing up new customers unless it can avoid infringing Verizon patents. The negative effects of this freeze-out in conjunction with regular customer turnover, and now frightened customer turnover will probably be the largest factors in Vonage’s instability.

Vonage announced it would keep operating and servicing subscribers, pay a court-mandated $66 million appeal bond, and also pay a 5.5 percent royalty on the Verizon patents into an escrow account during the appeals process.

To stir the pot even more, Vonage CEO Michael Snyder resigned without giving reason on April 11th, and chairman Jeffrey Citron was appointed interim CEO while the Vonage board searched for a replacement.

Vonage has a tough situation to pull out of, think they will do it?

This video makes fun of modern newbie computer users by illustrating - in a way fully understandable to them - how silly some of their questions are by creating a similar problem in the Middle Ages.

It’s from a show called Øystein & Meg (Øystein & I) produced by the Norwegian Broadcasting television channel (NRK) in 2001. The spoken language is Norwegian. It’s written by Knut Nærum and performed by Øystein Bache and Rune Gokstad. Thanks to Megan for pointing this out to me - a good laugh indeed. And now, the Medieval Helpdesk:

Word’s AutoCorrect feature is designed to fix your typos as they occur. You’ve probably noticed that “teh” is changed to “the” and “adn” is changed to “and.” This saves you some time when it comes to editing your document. If you are less observant, you may think you are a better typer than reality expresses - you have the folks at Microsoft to thank for that one.

AutoCorrect is also used to apply special formatting. For example (c) is changed to the copyright symbol.

Like many of Word’s features, you can customize AutoCorrect. You can use it to save some time when you’re working. You can assign abbreviations to frequently used names, phrases, and terminology. How frustrating is it to work in an insurance office and type ‘HSA’ for Health Savings Account and have word insist that you mean ‘has’. There’s a quick fix for this.

Though attempting to be helpful, sometimes, Word’s AutoCorrect feature can be a hassle if you do not want the text to be changed.

If you type something that is AutoCorrected, you can easily undo the AutoCorrect. To do this:

• Type what you want to type, and let Microsoft Word AutoCorrect it
• Press the Backspace key
• Now, what you type will be exactly the way you want it

You may want to have the AutoCorrect feature of Word make an exception for certain information that is typed in. To do this:

• Open the Tools menu.
• Click AutoCorrect.
• From the AutoCorrect tab, click Exceptions.
• From here, simply make your choice and click OK.

You can further customize AutoCorrect, follow these steps:

• From the Tools menu, select AutoCorrect Options…
• In the box labeled Replace type the abbreviation
• In the box labeled With enter the full text
• Click Add
• Click OK

You can also transfer your AutoCorrect settings between computers:

I will point you to this Microsoft Knowledge Base article to demonstrate how to transfer these settings between computers.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/826147

Voice Over IP is coming at you whether you are ready or not:

Voice Over IP (VoIP) is an emerging technology for most large businesses today and it’s finding a way into your home more quickly than you may think. There are hundreds of VoIP solutions available to the United States household today, each ranging on a large scale of quality, service, expandability, and reasonable liklihood to stay in business long enough to see Christmas 2008. Many who read this are probably already utilizing a VoIP solution as their local and long distance provider.

Vonage in my opinion is the best marketed residential and very small business name, so I will review and speak on several Vonage characteristics for the benefit of your betterment in decision making.

I am a personal current user of the Vonage services including 3 phone numbers in service with them. For the non-tech, or non-caring tech - skip this particular paragraph and continue to the next. For those that would like to know: Phone number one rings to line 1 connected to a dedicated fax machine. A Linksys/Cisco WRT54GP2 services the first phone line. Phone lines 2 and 3 are voice lines connected to a Linksys/Cisco stand-alone PAP2 device. I will speak more to the line types later - for the purposes of this article, the remaining network architecture is not as important.

The number one question in your head and the head of any other pursant of the VoIP technology is “how well does it work?” There will be different answers based upon your bandwidth and overall connection quality. In my particular residential situation, the connection is solid through SBC Global DSL. There are four full-time computer devices connected with several other miscalaneous computers and TCP/IP components. I consider these part time - tivo, xbox, secondary computers, palms, ip camera, etc. I will do my best below to extend some of my personal experiences in a manner that benefits your decisions. I do not work for Vonage, and am not paid by Vonage or any other marketing affiliate for this article.

What is the cost?

At the time of this article, Vonage has four simple plans:

• 24.99 plan is for unlimited residential local and long distance calling anywhere in the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico.
• 14.99 plan is for 500 minutes of residential local and long distance calling anywhere in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico.
• 49.99 plan is for unlimited local and long distance calling anywhere in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico for business customers.
• 39.99 plan is for 1500 minutes of long distance calling anywhere in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico for business customers.

Everything in Life has a Side that is POSITIVE:

Low Prices - Under 25 bucks for unlimited long distance within the U.S. and Canada is an amazing rate. The lower plan with 500 minutes is also quite good depending on your calling habits. If you think the overall call time will even be close, it makes great sense to spend the extra ten dollars for the unlimited plan, especially if there are multiple family members using the line. There are also other incentives to lower your already low monthly rate.

Voicemail - This is nice because you can check voicemail through your phone or from the internet via windows media player, or have the message delivered straight to your email. Okay, maybe that’s kind of geekish - but here’s the reason this is a positive: If you use a home phone answering system, this can not pick up when you are on a call and someone is on call waiting. If your internet service goes out, so will your vonage phone line, thus no answering system at home. These are two reasons (among others) that it makes sense to use this feature.

Call forwarding and SimulRing - This can be configured from the easy to use web console, and I’ve personally found great value in this feature. There are two options here - one is call forwarding. You can enable a line to forward to a different number (cell, office, any phone) after the length of ringing time of your choosing. Downside to this, the voice messaging services will be provided by the phone number you just forwarded to if you don’t use the vonage voicemail service which will automatically retract the call to its system. The other feature which I use regularly is the SimulRing, this unique service will ring up to six phone numbers of your choosing when your vonage line rings. So, someone calls me on my vonage number and at the same exact time - my cell phone is ringing with the callerID passed forward!! I can choose to answer the phone call at any of these locations and all other phones stop ringing. Very nice feature to provide your presence to your family, friends, or customers from anywhere in the world. Seamless availability - yeah, it’s that good.

Call Transfer - I have to admit that I love this feature. You can transfer your current call to anywhere or anyone within the U.S. and Canada. Lets say you are on the phone with someone and you need to hit the road. Just transfer the number to your cell phone and keep on going. Don’t stop there. Think of the possibilities. Since you have don’t have to pay long distance and you’ll probably sign up with the unlimited minutes - you can play switchboard for family and friends so that no one has to pay.

Caller-ID - Vonage fully supports caller-ID assuming your phone has it built-in. Past complaints of not showing callerID on call waiting has been fixed - so no issues here. (see more in negatives below)

911 Service - This is a topic of high debate, I know. You have to register this with Vonage by entering in your exact address and then Vonage will have any 911 calls go directly to your local emergency team responsible for your address. Typically not a big deal - just be aware of the service.

Bandwidth Saver - This allows you to choose to sacrifice sound quality for the phone by choosing to use less bandwidth. If you have a good broadband connection, you might as well leave this at full which is 90kbs. I leave mine full bore and have no issues with sound quality or remaining bandwith.

Network Unavailability Forwarding - This feature is a lifesaver and peace of mind tool. Of course, I have more to say about this below, so make sure you read the cons too! If your cable modem is not on or there is a network failure with your Internet Service Provider or Vonage, then your phone calls will automatically forward to any number of your choosing. I have mine set where it forwards to my cell phone upon a disruption through the vonage service - this way if there is a blip or oops in the system (my fault or theirs), I can still receive the calls to my cell phone instead of constantly wondering if I’m missing important phone calls.

Virtual Phone Numbers - You’ve no doubt heard plentyabout this. Neat idea - some will use it, most won’t. For those not in the “know”. You can purchase a virtual phone number for five dollars. The number can be the area code of anywhere of your choosing. For example: I can call an Ohio virtual number that you have set up. The number then transfers me to your real phone number. I call free of charge (if I’m living in Ohio), you still get the phone call - everyone seems happy. You can not make outbound calls on virtual numbers.

Real-Time Online Records - In case you want to see who called and didn’t leave a voicemail or who you or a family member has called in previous months, it is all accessible in real-time from the web page. They have a dashboard view that shows all activity of incoming and outgoing calls. This too has its problems, read below.

Take Vonage Anywhere in the world - You can travel anywhere that has broadband connectivity and hook up your phone and still call the U.S. and Canada for free. This is a neat idea if you want to take your calling and call receiving abilities with you.

Alright, I’ve said a lot of nice things about Vonage, but the truth with any emerging and rapidly growing technology is not complete without discussing some of the downfalls and shortcomings of the technology. Before any conclusions are drawn, I want to share with you some of the negatives.

And with Each Positive there is usually a NEGATIVE:

Dependent on Broadband/Power - You are completely dependent on having power at your house and no broadband outage. The Network Unavailability forwarding works greats if you have a cell phone or landline but it is probably not a good idea to have this service without at least a cell phone in case of emergencies. In these terms, your phone line will naturally be less reliable than your POTS (Plain Old Telephone System).

No 411 - There is no directory assistance available currently with this service. I personally never use 411 since the internet is the best way to look up phone numbers but this could be problematic for people who use directory assistance frequently.

Numbers not Available for all cities - Although Vonage is constantly adding local numbers to new areas, they may not have one for your city. You can still get the service if you don’t mind having a phone number outside of your local calling area.

Caller-ID Issues - The caller-ID for incoming use to have some problems, but this seems to be cleared up. The only “problem” remaining is that your outbound calls do not show full caller ID in the manner you may desire. Your phone number will be shown, but the associated name varies. The name for me usually shows up as my phone number a second time. I’ve heard others sometimes get the phone number with the name VONAGE in the caller ID. There are requests for actual names to be associated in the future - I hope this becomes available.

Internet Latency - Internet latency could affect the quality of your phone calls and it is possible to get the “tin can” or echo effect on phone calls especially if you are utilizing a great deal of bandwith on your network already. I have not run into this issue at the time of this writing but I expect it will occur at least sporadically just due to the nature of the internet in general.

Web Interface - While the concept is strong, the interface and response leaves a little to be desired. The configuration page is easy enough (Forward, SimulRing, E911, etc), but the rest of the dashboard is nothing too special. In addition, I’ve found the search queries do NOT return accurate results. I’ve had better luck viewing ALL history and searching with my browsers search for a phone number. Typically searching for a phone number with their tool yields no results - very frustrating and misleading.

Call Waiting - When receiving a call on the call waiting line, an awful screeching and beeping sound comes over the line instead of a casual beep. The sound is best mimiced by something R2D2 might give off. Very disruptive. You can of course disable call waiting if you wish - but be sure you have vonage voicemail setup, else you’ll miss the call entirely (this part is no different than a typical phone line to your house)

Vonage Support - I’ve dealt with Vonage support on three occassions, non of which are thought of fondly. Second-level support with vonage is hard to get to and first-level support remain pretty clueless. I’m not sure which country vonage is exporting their calls to, but it was certainly difficult to communicate each of the times I called. It was also difficult to comprehend the directions I was intended to carry out. This is not my only complain, the other problem is that they are (in my experience) strictly tied to their scripts. There is no customization of support help it is entirely scripted and you had better hope that your problem fits into one of their recorded issues.

Conclusion:

Vonage is not for everyone. However, if you already have a broadband connection and have a fair amount of long distance phone calls then it may be a cost effective solution and give you peace of mind knowing you will not have to pay for long distance phone calls anymore.

I will not claim that the Vonage train has been perfect - infact in my first weeks of service the line condition was horrible, the connection was inconsistent, and the support did not seem very supportive. These issues seem to have worked themselves out and I have not had an issue since the time. The calls are crystal clear and the flexibility is nice. I think I joined during some growing pains as the website always had some sort of issue announcement posted. Today, I occassionaly lose connectivity on one of my three lines. A small pain, but it has never occurred during a call - and it always seems to rejoin itself nicely. I have had no issues when the phone line is seized - and this is a good thing.

For a home solution, the easiest type of setup in this case is a newer cordless system where you utilize a single base that can transmit to several different handheld units. These systems are very popular today. If you still wish to use your existing phones and phone locations, Vonage actually allows you to connect a Cisco ATA analog to digital phone converter to your existing phone(s). Your phone functions exactly the same as if you are using a regular POTS line provided by local carrier. You do have to dial the full 11 digit number for all calls but all features work the same such as caller-ID, call-waiting, etc. Some phones can be programmed (like mine) to automatically append your local areacode to all calls - this allows you to dial a normal seven digits when inside your local calling area.

If you have additional thoughts or personal experience you wish to share, please leave them in the comments. There is no way you would possibly read a complete review of every last aspect included with the Vonage services, so I have not written one. This is not intended to hit on every aspect of Vonage, these are some strong and weak points that I’ve personally come across and find somewhat ambiguous or undefinable without personal experience - I hope you find them helpful in your decision making.

A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

That’s as verbose as my computer would get. Restarting provided the same exact routine, and although I could access the BIOS - there was nothing there that could help me. My hard disk took a serious hit and I was down and out because of it. At this point in time I was working on an HP NC8430, but don’t be relieved - this could happen to any computer! These are some steps that I took, that you too could take in the event that you are finding a similar problem.

You should first think about the situation to determine if there is extensive damage to the drive itself. If you hear any sort of clunking, scratching, or screeching - I would highly suggest that you keep the computer and drive powered off until the exact point in time that you wish to recover the data - otherwise you may compromise it all. I knew that my computer had not been through any serious beatings, didn’t get bumped, dropped, or smacked. I did know that I had just restarted my computer and shortly before this point in time - installed some new software and Microsoft patches. I considered this to be a data issuse rather than a hardware issue, so I moved forward.

• Sometimes this type of thing can be remedied simply by re-seating the hard drive. Sounds difficult? It really isn’t. Each computer will be slightly different, but you should be able to find some instructions specific to your model by searching google. Even if you operate on a laptop, you can often remove just a few screws to access the drive with ease. When you have located the drive, you can simply pull the power and data cables from the drive - hold your nose for 10 seconds with your thumb and index finger, then reconnect the cables in the same fashion. Screw everything back together (optional - you may need to acess them again shortly) and then start your computer.

Perhaps you find that this fixes your problem - carry on and count yourself lucky. When you find that the above didn’t work, you can try step two.

• You need to go dig for your windows install disc - hopefully you have one! If not, borrow a friends - we are going to attempt a repair, NOT A REINSTALL, so you don’t have a licensing issue if your choose to borrow the media cd’s. Put the CD in the drive and then boot the computer and watch for the words ‘Press any key to boot from CD…’ in the upper left corner. When these words appear, press the key corresponding to the last letter in your first name and wait for the CD to do its magic. (If you don’t get these magical words, you may need to check your BIOS settings - search google for ‘bios boot sequence’ and adjust yours accordingly - most computers are set by the manufacturer in the proper fashion). Wait for the CD to do its thing - it will hopefully begin loading drivers and you should see a blue screen as it prepares. If you can see this screen - you may be in luck! Follow the prompts to REPAIR your windows installation. DO NOT INSTALL - unless you purposely intend to lose all your data. As my luck goes, this method did not work - I was instead faced with a perpetually black screen after booting to CD. A few words came to mind - none were kind.

Perhaps this fixes your problem - carry on and count yourself partially lucky. When you find neither of the above worked, continue to the next step.

• I’m not sure I am going to actually reccommend this as a step if the previous two have not worked for you. But if you have some geek in your blood, have another computer not far away, and you feel like it - you could try to load up knoppix. It could very well repair your OS. It’s worth a shot, but unlikely if the previous methods have not worked.

So, your still not recovered, this last step is the way you have to go - and the way I did go.

• Unfortunately for me, I had to take out the drive and connect it to a different computer in attempts to recover the data. Unfortunately for you, I suggest that it is time you did the same. I owned IDE converters but had not previously invested in SATA adapaters - so guess what, had to go to the store. If you find yourself in the same bind and without a secondary PC to attach to, your best bet is to go purchase a SATA to USB 2.0 adapater. I took a trip to a geeks delight (computers, cables, connectors, parts, and much more) just down the street and found the best deal (and easiest route) to be the SATA to USB2.0 connector. If this is beginning to scare you, don’t be scared. If you can remove your hard drive - you can make this work. Order up your new drive from your favorite vendor, then connect your old drive to your USB ports - copy over all the personal data. If you had a warranty plan of some sort, wipe off the original drive and send it back. If you didn’t have a warranty plan you could take the drive to a friends house to copy the data and then reformat it or else you just created yourself an external drive for that extra storage you’ve always wanted! The device is certainly handy, and I’m sure I’ll need it again some day. Here’s some pictures for you visually-stimulated folk:

That’s the best method for recovering your data in this type of situation. These instructions could also apply to a wide variety of error messages, this is just the particular instance I was faced with. If you are really lazy - send your drive out for someone else to take care of it - but this is the practical method.

Anyway - I am fully recovered from this incident and I have a brand new 100GB drive in my laptop to carry me over. In some ways, it was very nice to be able to wipe fresh and start clean while still recovering all of my important data. I just wish it were a little more timely. Darn computers are never very timely with their quirks.