Drewby

We received our Lingo phone adapter today. The Lingo service is a Voice over IP (VoIP) system that allows us to make and receive phone calls using our broadband internet connection. We picked the Unlimited Asia Plan for $34.95 a month. This plan includes unlimited calling to US, Canada, UK, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, South Korea, Guam and most importantly Japan. My wife, Aya, is Japanese and we spend quite a bit of money on long distance calls to home each month. So, the prospect of unlimited calling to Japan for only $34.95 sold us on the idea.

I have to admit I was a little skeptical about how the quality would be once we hooked it up and actually called Aya's family. I have a home network with several computers, a switch and a cable router/firewall hooked to my RoadRunner cable modem. I took the device out of the box and plugged a network cable into the device and my network switch. After waiting a 2-3 minutes for it to connect to Lingo, I hooked a phone into the plain old telephone jack in the back of the adapter.

With great anticipation I handed the phone to Aya and she dialed up her family using the same digits she always uses to call home. A few seconds later, I hear her shouting “Moshi Moshi” into the phone and carrying on a conversation. My thought was that this was terrible; she needed to talk so loud, it must not be a great connection. However, a few minutes later her sister asked her why she was talking so loud. Aya apologized and carried on a normal conversation for several minutes with no worries about long distance.

I'm still watching to see how the service does over time with consitency and reliability. But, it looks like I'll go ahead and move our phone number over to the Lingo adapter (you can keep your home phone number in many areas of the country). Lingo also provides the option to get an additional phone number in other area codes or even in other countries, including Japan. The extra phone number connects to the same adapter, but can be set to have a different ring pattern.

I’ve made some changes that will be effective in January and I’m starting to get questions from friends and colleagues as the news begins to spread. This is an exciting and nervous time as my family and I journey on a new adventure. I thought it might be beneficial to describe them here in my blog so those who care can know what’s going on.

Starting January 3rd, I will be working as an independent consultant providing software architecture and development services. Although, the title includes the word independent, I’m joining an unofficial team of “independent” consultants in Ohio who collaborate together and get involved in the professional community.

There are several reasons I decided to work as an independent consultant.  One reason is that I’ve always had a spirit for entrepreneurship and this gives me a chance to discover that a bit. The other reason is a desire to pursue some career changes.

In recent months, I’ve been looking for job opportunities that combine my passion for technology with my passion for building community. Although I’m able to do those activities to some extent in my current role, I really want a job where reaching out to other professionals through community activities is a central element. Those jobs are difficult to find (or I just don’t know where to look). So, I’m creating my own job with the community and technology evangelism elements built-in. :)

I’m still keeping an eye out for full-time positions that will interest and challenge me. In the meantime, I’m going to have a lot of fun exploring the challenges and rewards of self-employment. I’m hoping to find some flexibility in this adventure to discover new ideas and increase my involvement in community activities.

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As I was writing this entry, I went in a different direction, explaining how I grew a passion for community and some of the awesome things that occurred with our community sites like TechEdBloggers.net and PDCBloggers.net. I think I’ll save those for another post as they really got me energized and thinking about the potential for more effective community networks.

We took a bunch of blog entries from our PDC Bloggers and TechEd Bloggers database and selected some of the best articles that talk about VSTO 2003. Check it out here:

Best of Blogs: Visual Studio Tools for Office, Version 2003