PTP Blog

Maybe not now, maybe not next week, but someday, you’ll be out doing tech support at an organization and will learn that although they do have a legal license, they don’t actually know what the license key is. This product claims to be able to retrieve the keys - and though I can’t vouch for it, when you’re in need of something like this, anything is worth a try:

Finding your Windows key with the Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder:

Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder is a free Windows application that will retrieve the product key used to install Windows or Office on your computer. The application currently supports Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, and Server 2003 as well as Office 97 and XP. If your computer did not come with a copy of the Windows CD (as many computers don’t nowadays) this may be a useful utility for you if you need to do a reinstall one day. Please note that it is not intended to be used with pirated copies of the software, so don’t do it!

via Tip Monkies

I N K S C A P E was in the news today because they’ve just released a new version of the software on their way to a 1.0 release. From the website, the software looks quite good, and it’s nice to see that they are releasing for Linux, Windows, and Mac.

This is high on list of software to evaluate because the recent acquisition of Macromedia by Adobe has left the availability of non-profit discounted copes of freehand in question.

Have you used it? What do you think?

Brian over at Audio Activism has two posts that I’ve linked to through del.icio.us. I’m linking to them here and here to make sure that you see them, but also because I want some feedback.

I’ve long wanted to do more interviews like the one we did with Anthony Thigpenn of SCOPE or the videos from our convening on technologies related to organizing for civic participation. Video is hard to do, and it’s expensive, but as the posts from Audio Activism illustrate, audio interviews are quite a bit easier.

So, here’s what I’m wondering:

1. Would you listen to interviews with organizers from community-led organizations?
2. Who would you want to see us interview? and what questions would you want to hear asked

well, that was quick! I just started up my Gizmo Project client and got a notification that there was a new version available. After a quick download, here’s what I saw in the “Readme” file:

• Call Encryption - Calls between two Gizmo Project clients will be digitally encrypted. A lock icon will display when encryption is enabled.

. . .
- Added automatic support for Gizmo client-to-client call encryption.

So, it would appear that encryption is now partially part of gizmo. What’s not clear is if or how calls to “regular” phones are encrypted, but hopefully that will be addressed soon.

According to their knowledgebase, voice traffic on gizmo is unencrypted at present, though will be encrypted once they are out of beta.

Rui Carmo over at the Tao of Mac nails a great number of the problems with the currently available intranet-esq tools and cross-organization collaboration in general in his blog post:The Wheel, That Radical New Concept.

A small quote:

. . . the current emphasis on web-based enterprise tools is A Good Thing. But the features they deliver (forums, file repositories with versioning, ad-hoc databases, issue tracking, scheduling, etc.) are grossly underused, because (and here’s my main point) they do little to enhance the actual creative process - they are almost all passive, storage-oriented tools that may do a good job of capturing your organization’s know-how and processes, but do little (if anything) to enhance them.

No matter how many alarms, triggers and scripting you can bolt on to them, they don’t help you create things - they merely let you drop files in and shunt bits of information around as comments, trouble tickets, or database fields, all the while performing a rather poor imitation of a shared file system.

Since I’m about 65% through an intranet project right now, this resonated in lots of different ways. I just wish I’d had it a few weeks ago when I was showing folks the intranet options. The analysis of what’s wrong is dead on, as is the analysis of what’s needed. The funny, or maybe sad thing is that at the end of the day, less-than-stellar intranet software is still better than the alternative.

as advertised on the Skype blog, tomorrow’s another free skype-out credits day.

If only the Gizmo Project would do the same.

This is isn’t exactly the easiest or most “seamless” call-in (which is why the Gizmo Project folks also sell a traditional call-in add-on), but if you dial one of these access numbers and then hit 1 for the sipphone network, you can call my gizmo client by dialing my sip number. I just tested it with the Atlanta number and it work just fine - and the incoming caller-ID works too!

On Friday, I grabbed a copy of the Gizmo Project VOIP program. It’s somewhat similar to Skype in functionality, but rather different in underlying mechanics.

What grabbed my attention about the Gizmo Project was that it uses an open VOIP protocal that’s also supported by the FLOSS Asterisk PBX. In addition to being an open protocal, the codecs used by the Gizmo Project claim to be able to provide good quality voice transmission over dial-up links. Finally, although the conference service is still not supported, I was intrigued by the software’s free conference service.

So, I’ve set it up, and invite you all to do the same so we can evaluate it. I’m on as arifmamdani, same name as on Skype, so feel free to give me a call!

I’ve been reachable via Skype for quite some time now, but over the last few weeks have decided to make more of an effort to try to use Skype more often which is why this blog is now sporting a little “skype me” button over on the right there.

If you’re not familiar with Skype, it’s a peer to peer VOIP (Voice Over IP) system. Voice Over IP makes some sense if you know what IP is - in this case, it’s Internet Protocol - Wikipedia puts it nicely as:

the routing of voice conversations over the Internet

Also noteworthy is that Skype is free with caveats. Skype is free for calls to other Skype users - you just download the program, create an account and go. Skype also includes some options to connect to “regular” land-line and cell phones. These options include pay-as-go plans for both incoming calls (”regular phone” to Skype) or outgoing calls.

We can go into a discussion about the pros and cons of Skype and it’s rates and all that if there’s a desire for it, but while you’re deciding if you want that, why not download and setup Skype and give it a try.