NobelDialer Makes International Phone Cards Painless

International phone rates have come down over the years, but not that much. Many people have adopted the prepaid phone card as a way to get bargain basement prices for their international phone calls. But phone cards can be a pain to use compared to just direct dialing the number you want. What would be ideal is the rates of a prepaid card with the dialing convenience of a standard long distance plan.

NobelCom has come up with an app for your favorite smartphone that makes the dialing easy again. It’s called the NobelDialer and it’s free. You have your choice of downloads for iPhone, Android or BlackBerry.

What does the NobelDialer app do? It automatically dials the access number, PINs and destination numbers for the calls you want to make. You can call your address book contacts or do a fast dial through a favorites screen. It maintains a built-in list of access numbers and call history. The NobelDialer even works with PIN-less calling cards to use ANI or automatic number identification by the service provider. If you need help, there’s a toll free number to call for assistance.

Here’s how to use the NobelDIaler. You download and install the application software for the particular brand of smartphone you own. It comes customized for iPhones, Android phones and BlackBerry devices. Then launch NobelDialer and follow a one time 3 step setup wizard to get started. What then? Start calling. Enter the country code and destination number. You don’t need to include the “011” or “+” portion of the international number.

You don’t change your long distance service or make any changes to your cell phone plan with NobelCom. This is an add-on service that you use only when you want to save money on long distance phone calls. In most cases, this means calls to another country that either cost a fortune with your current phone service or are blocked completely.

NobelCom specializes prepaid calling cards like the ones you find at convenience stores, but with more options and better rates. Prepaid calling cards can give you excellent calling rates, such as 1.2 cents per minute to France or China, 13.4 cents per minute to Afghanistan and 3.9 cents per minute to Iraq. Calls to Mexico start at 2 cents per minute, with Italy and South Korea at a mere 1.4 cents per minute. Is it possible to call overseas for less than a penny a minute? Yes. Call the United Kingdom for 0.9 cents per minute. All of these are advertised rates on the NobelCom site as of this writing.

There’s a real art to maximizing the potential of prepaid calling cards and NobelCom helps guide you through it. Every card has a certain rates and conditions. Some have rock bottom per minute rates, but charge you a weekly maintenance fee. Some have a connection fee. Rounding can be to the nearest second, minute, or multiple minutes. That’s important if you make a lot of short calls. You don’t want to make a dozen 1 minute calls but have them rounded to 4 minutes minimum. If you are going to make just one or two calls for an hour, then the rounding isn’t so important.

You can call to just about any country or from any country on Earth with prepaid calling cards. It’s just a matter of picking the right card to meet your needs. If you have a smartphone, don’t forget to get the NobelDialer and really make dialing a fast and easy process.

Here’s an extra bonus. Get a FREE 15 minute trial of NobleCom so you can try before you buy and see that this is the international long distance service for you. Yes, it’s good for many international destinations. Learn more about NobelCom Prepaid Calling Cards and place your order quickly and easily online, including recharging when you need it.

Hyper Crush iPhone / Android Game

Shouts out to Michael Wagner and Voxel Software for workin on what looks to be an amazing 8-Bit iPhone game for us. Should be done Very soon! If the game does well in the App store we’ll bring it over into the Android Market. We have been big time Android users since day one and would love for it be available to everyone. Baby steps… Oh and heres a newer screen shot!

Smartphone Charger and Backup Battery

Batteries are the bane of our existence. Can’t live with their pitiful charge. Can’t toss ‘em because then you’re completely dead in the water. Have you been a victim of short battery life? Have you been stranded powerless in the middle of nowhere, especially at restaurants? What you need is the ZAGGsparq 2.0.

ZAGGsparq 2.0 is two devices in one. First it’s a charger for all your USB charged devices. That’s pretty much everything these days. Second, it’s a backup battery with up to four time the charge contained in your device’s battery. Charge it when you have a outlet handy. Use it to power or recharge your gadgets where there are no outlets to be found. Check out this short video to get the overview.



Note that the ZAGGsparq 2.0 has two types of USB ports. One offers an optimized charge for devices that are capable of taking advantage of this feature. The Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod can make good use of this. The other port is a plain vanilla USB charger that works with other devices that don’t use the optimized USB charging specification.

The ZAGGsparq 2.0 is specifically engineered to charge the Apple iPad. Amazingly, it adds an additional 5 to 6 hours of video playback to the iPad. It will also extend the operation of your iPhone or iPod when you are running low but not in situation where you can pull out a conventional charger and plug it in.

You’re looking at a 6,000 mAh Lithium Polymer battery with the power to charge most smartphones 4 times, the yellow LED’s onboard indicate the amount of charge available in steps of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. You can plug it into any outlet with 100 to 240 VAC @ 50/60 Hz. Maximum output power is 2000 mA (2 Amps) at 5V.

All this fits into a package 3.5 x 3.5 x 1 inch. That’s easily small enough to fit into pocket, purse or other bag. How much does it weigh? Just 8.6 ounces - about half a pound.

Does this sound like just the accessory you’ve been desperately needing? If so, learn more and order your ZAGGsparq 2.0 charger and backup battery now.

Fixed Mobile Convergence Includes Android and iPhone

When we think of network convergence, it is generally in terms of engineering the LAN, MAN and WAN to support voice, video and data. Network convergence is at the heart of the productivity and cost savings offered by enterprise VoIP solutions. Even so, there is still one piece missing. That’s the mobile phone. This is where FMC or Fixed Mobile Convergence comes into play.

The idea behind FMC is that cell phones, especially smartphones, are now so ubiquitous that they have to be included in the corporate communications structure or there will be a big hole in the system. It’s especially true for sales people, field engineers, and anyone else who spends a significant amount of time out of the office and away from the desk phone. It’s also true, perhaps unfortunately, that we’re in a 24/7 world where important calls may come in at any time.

Some employees handle this situation with workarounds, such as setting up the office phone to forward to their cell phone when they leave the office. That’s fine when they remember. If not, voice mail becomes the communications method of last resort. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the office phone system extended to include your mobile phone?

Smoothstone IP Communications thinks so and is now making their Mobile Connect app available to both Android and iPhone using customers. What Mobile Connect does integrate your smartphone into the enterprise communications platform. You then have one number, your work number, that rings on both your desk phone and your cell phone. When you place an outgoing call, the Caller ID reflects your work number, not your personal mobile number. Other calling features include access to the company directory, low cost international calling, 4-digit on-net dialing, visual voice mail and one-touch access to listen to and manipulate voice mail messages.

There are also advanced features from Smoothstone’s VoiceMAXX system that carry over to Mobile Connect. These include call recording and centralized call detail reporting.

VoiceMAXX is Smoothstone’s cloud based PBX telephone system. It relieves businesses of the need to invest in and maintain an on-premises PBX system, yet has the flexibility to integrate with and extend an existing PBX.

Cloud hosted PBX is a pay-as-you go proposition that easily scales to include more users as needed. With a cloud solution, you don’t have to over-provision your system to allow for growth. You simply buy more capacity as you need it. You also don’t have the agony of a “fork lift upgrade” that involves ripping out your old PBX and replacing it with a new one of higher capacity, more modern design or more features. All of those capital investment, installation, upgrades and daily maintenance tasks are taken care of by the cloud service provider. You just concentrate on those things that advance the business you are in.

Is your existing business telephone system creaking at the seams, or are you ready for the higher productivity that comes from advanced features such as fixed mobile convergence? If so, learn more and get pricing for cloud hosted PBX telephone services scaled to match the needs of your business, be it small, medium or enterprise level.

Apple ignores requests by poisoned workers

As the workers are now expriencing recurring symptoms, we now demand:

1. United Win immediately offer check-ups and follow-up treatments to the workers in hospitals that recognized and trusted by the workers. Meanwhile, United Win should pay workers basic salaries, and sufficient allowance for hospitalization and food. For the workers who have resumed work in United Win, Apple and United Win must ensure decent wage and sufficient rest time;

2. Apple have to monitor and pay for the rectification of United Win. Apple should not cut the order in United Win and should provide workers with suitable and effective protective measures and equipments;

3. Apple have to monitor United Win to stop using dispatch workers, and facilitate United Win to convert the dispatch workers into regular workers by signing contract with United Win according to the China Labour Law and China Labour Contract Law;

4. Apple have to raise its unit price, so that United Win could pay the workers with decent living wage. For now, workers are forced to work overtime 18 hours every week, which is violating the requirement of the China Labour Law that overtime work should be limited to 36 hours a mouth.

Full Story

Source: SACOM

Chinese workers appeal to Apple over health worries | Reuters

Daily exposure to hexyl hydrid can cause long-term and possibly irreversible nerve damage, said Lam Ching-wan, a chemical pathologist at the University of Hong Kong. According to U.S. National Library of Medicine, there have been dozens of documented cases where workers suffered nerve and eye damage from exposure to n-hexane.

Workers said they wore protective gear, including masks and goggles, but worked in an enclosed, poorly ventilated space. In its report, Apple said that Wintek had switched to the chemical from alcohol without changing the ventilation system.

Jia, the technician, said that after working for a year on the production for Apple touch screens, he felt there was something wrong, but ignored the problems, blaming them on work stress or moodiness.

Soon he heard other workers were hospitalised and suspected it had something to do with the chemical hexyl hydride, which managers had said could be safely used.

Jia went to a hospital in Suzhou in August 2009, when doctors told him he had nerve damage. Doctors soon found many of his workmates had similar problems and were advised to be hospitalised.











Source: reuters.com

Your Ally In The Android vs iPhone Battle

LG’s first Android phone is a winner right out of the gate. The LG Ally for Verizon Wireless offers an impressive array of features and the ability to customize your phone with tens of thousands of apps from the Android Market.

Is texting or email an important part of your mobile activities? If so, you’ll love the ability to use real keys instead of poking at a glass screen. The LG Ally offers both a 3.2 inch touch screen and a slide out full QWERTY keyboard with nicely sized physical keys. You’ve got 5 home screens to customize, so just go nuts with those Android apps.

This is also a social networking phone. The included LG Socialite widget lets you manage your Facebook and Twitter accounts simultaneously. Why have to choose when you can have both? What fun is voicemail unless you can view and manage it on your cell phone. This one has that capability.

As you can see, the LG Ally has some unique capabilities. But it also has all the standard Internet and multimedia capabilities that you expect in an advanced smartphone. Text message and multimedia messaging are built-in. So is an email client that supports push Gmail and Exchange. The Android Webkit HTML5-based Web browser puts the Web at your fingertips. Verizon’s 3G EVDO Rev A network and WiFi access connect you to the bandwidth you need to access the Web with ease.

You’re all set up to capture what you see with the 3.2 Megapixel digital camera. This one has modes similar to many higher priced digital cameras. You get night mode, macro mode, panorama, smile detection and beauty shot. Flash and auto-focus are part of this camera, as well as the ability to use it as a camcorder to capture videos that you can share with friends or your social network right from the phone.

Other useful features include integrated GPS that provides spoken turn-by-turn directions and real time traffic updates, MP3 player that lets you download MP3s from the Amazon Music Store, streaming multimedia support, Stereo Bluetooth so that you can stream your music in high quality to headphones and other compatible devices, and a lot more.

Does the this sound like the type of smartphone you’ve been looking for if you could afford it? Well, you can. Right now the LG Ally is free when you order it with new Verizon Wireless service. That deal may not last for long, so go for it this is the phone for you.

If you prefer, you can check out all the Android phones and other cell phone special offers now available through Cell Phone Plans Finder.

Amazing Sonos S5 Wireless Whole House Music System

Remember record players? I didn’t think so. How about stereos? They were ubiquitous in every dorm room and then every apartment and home. Record players and stereos are yesterday’s news, but high quality music listening is alive and well. If you want the latest in high performance equipment, you need to be looking at the Sonos S5 wireless music system.




What’s wrong with stereos? Nothing, if the local FM stations or your old Edgar Winter vinyl is all you need. Oh, you’ve upgraded to CDs? Great. Can you still buy those things?

I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I only poke fun a these traditional music systems (my Electro-Voice speakers still take up most of the living room cabinets) to emphasize the advances introduced by Sonos in their ZonePlayer S5 wireless multi-room music system. Each of these devices looks something like a bookshelf loudspeaker. But behind the grill are 5 separate speakers. There are 2 tweeters, 2 mid-range drivers and 1 subwoofer, each with their own Class-D digital amplifiers. The rest of the electronics package is a wireless connection system that allows you to set as many of these as you want around the house and they’ll all play the same song or each can play something different.

What’s driving the music? Your electronic song collection on your computer. You can also tune-in Internet music services, such as Pandora, or choose from a huge selection of Internet radio stations. You simply connect one of the S5 units to your router with an Ethernet cable and the others will form a mesh network to get a wireless connection.

What’s even cooler is the iPhone app for Sonos. Your iPhone or iPod touch becomes a portable controller to select what music plays on which ZonePlayer. Sonos also sells a dedicated controller if you don’t have the necessary Apple gadgets. Or go without the controller and use your computer to run the show.

You’ll have a hard time believing just how different this system is without watching the video and reading through the descriptions. Take a few minutes and check out the amazing Sonos ZonePlayer Wireless Music System .

Smartphone performance : Monzilla

Iphone is turning to the mobile computer, to provide the customer satisfaction
The iPhone isn't a true mobile computer yet, but it's on the right track, according to a Mozilla executive.

"Getting a no-compromise web experience on devices requires significant memory (>=64MB) as well as significant CPU horsepower. High end devices today are just approaching these requirements and will be commonplace soon," wrote Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering at Mozilla, in a blog post Tuesday, implying that while the iPhone and its current competitors don't quite have what it takes under the hood to be full-fledged mobile computers, we're not all that far away.
It seems to me like there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing going on here. Are smartphones slower than people would like because the hardware is too rudimentary, or because truly useful software is too bloated for the limited memory and power requirements of smartphones? I don't think too many people bought an iPhone expecting it would be just as zippy as their PC, but just how much slower is it than a PC?

Schroepfer thinks, based on third-party tests, that the iPhone is about 10 to 100 times slower than a MacBook Pro on scripting benchmarks and about 3 to 5 times slower than a ThinkPad T40 laptop when operating on the same Wi-Fi network. "But rapid improvements in mobile processors will close this gap within a few years," he wrote.


He estimates that the iPhone is using about 128MB of system RAM, and a processor (known to be an ARM-based chip from Samsung) running at between 400MHz and 600MHz. Apple's iPhone application development policy means we're not going to see Firefox on the iPhone anytime soon, but that's information that Mozilla is using to work on future mobile browsers for devices like the iPhone that won't be able to run unmodified PC software for several years.

As Schroepfer notes, the nice thing about the chip industry is that we can be reasonably sure that there will be more performance to work with every couple of years. Both ARM and Intel have set aggressive performance and power consumption goals for chips due out over the next several years.

But Schoepfer seems to be operating under the assumption that it's the hardware that is holding back a true Internet experience on a smartphone. "Up until very recently, device limitations required writing new mobile browsers from the ground up," he wrote. I wonder if that was such a bad thing; I'm sure to save time and effort developers would rather port as much of their PC code as is feasible over to smartphones, but is it better to develop mobile software that's designed specifically for mobile devices or to investigate ways to move the multitude of software that's already out there for PCs to a new category of mobile devices?

Mozilla wants to work both sides of the fence, not wanting to throw away all the work they've done on PC development when mobile processors are bound to get more capable, but recognizing that mobile-computing requirements are different. "There is far from a dominant player in this marketplace and even the best mobile browsers today have compromises in user experience, performance, and compatibility. There is still *plenty* of room for innovation," Schroepfer wrote.

I'm no software developer, and I'd welcome feedback about this from those who are examining this problem. It seems pretty clear to me that true mobile computing is going to require new thinking about software development in addition to faster hardware, the same way multicore processors have shaken up the PC software development industry. And those concepts are even going to merge at some point: by 2010 ARM's partners will have multicore mobile processors on the market.

Does that mean personal-computing software development is headed down two different development paths or that smartphone developers and PC developers are converging at some point down the road? Let me know what you think.