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Message Digest Volume 28 : Issue 52 : "text" Format Messages in this Issue: Re: TeleTrap from TelTech Systems Low-Tech Fixes for High-Tech Problems Re: Low-Tech Fixes for High-Tech Problems When your files are online and you aren't The Cellphone, Navigating Our Lives ====== 27½ years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ====== Telecom and VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) Digest for the Internet. All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer, and other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:32:12 +0000 (UTC) From: danny burstein <dannyb@panix.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: TeleTrap from TelTech Systems Message-ID: <gnkj4s$s98$1@reader1.panix.com> [snip, regarding how "trapcall" works] While I have no firsthand knowledge of their system, I'll take a guess based on the info on their web page. What they claim to do is enable a recipient _on some cellphone accounts_ (that's part of the key here), when receiving a call that has CNID blocked, hit a few keys, route the call back to Teltech (Trapcall), and then get the call re-re-routed back to them, this time with a CNID stamp. There are two tricks here which let it work. At least from a technical side. I'm not sure of the legalities.. a: When the cellular customer first "gets" the call and then hits the "deny" button, the call is redirected to the server at teltech. This is the same situation as if the original recipient bounced it to v-mail or... as in many cases, to their landline office or home phone. In these situations the call to the third party is treated just as the original one would be, and the caller ID, if present, gets sent forward as well. In other words, if you're at home (and you've got a landline with caller ID display) and you've got your cell phone set up to "bounce" to your home phone (either automatically or when you hit a key), and a call comes in, you'll see the first CNID on your cellphone. Then, when you bounce it over, it'll show up on your land line. The original caller doesn't get any obvious indication that the call has been kicked over to a different phone. Now if the CNID is blocked, then neither your cell phone nor the land line will show it. BUT.... b: now we get to the magic trick. In reality standard CNID is, indeed, sent from the original caller along with the call initiation itself. If it isn't "blocked", then it gets transmitted to the recipient's phone. If the caller has chosen to block it, then the CNID string makes it "all the way" to the "central office" (term used a bit loosely) that's just before the recipient. That CO, instead of continuing to pass the CNID, sends along a "private" or "blocked" message. Keep in mind, again, that the CNID _is_ making it right to that last central office. What I suspect TelTech is doing is simply grabbing that CNID on the "bounced" call, and instead of dumping it onto the side, they've decided to pass it through. As to the legalities: On the one hand the FCC is pretty strict with CNID blocking. On the other, and this is where I suspect TelTech is hanging their hook, if the recipient is paying for the call (as in an "800" number), then they're allowed to get the info. (Usually it's via ANI rather than CNID, but the concept is the same). Since cellular customers pay for incoming calls, then a good case could be made (and I've made it in the past, but never pushed it through...) that cellular accounts should be able to similarly see who's calling. -- _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key dannyb@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:20:29 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Low-Tech Fixes for High-Tech Problems Message-ID: <p06240819c5c46bce36ca@[10.0.1.6]> BASICS Low-Tech Fixes for High-Tech Problems By PAUL BOUTIN February 19, 2009 BEHIND the cash register at Smoke Shop No. 2 in downtown San Francisco, Sam Azar swipes a customer's credit card to ring up Turkish cigarettes. The store's card reader fails to scan the card's magnetic strip. Azar swipes again, and again. No luck. As customers begin to queue, he reaches beneath the counter for a black plastic bag. He wraps one layer of the plastic around the card and swipes it again. Success. The sale is rung up. "I don't know how it works, it just does," says Mr. Azar, who learned the trick years ago from another clerk. Verifone, the company that makes the store's card reader, would not confirm or deny that the plastic bag trick works. But it's one of many low-tech fixes for high-tech failures that people without engineering degrees have discovered, often out of desperation, and shared. Today's shaky economy is likely to produce many more such tricks. "In postwar Japan, the economy wasn't doing so great, so you couldn't get everyday-use items like household cleaners," says Lisa Katayama, author of "Urawaza," a book named after the Japanese term for clever lifestyle tips and tricks. "So people looked for ways to do with what they had." Popular urawaza include picking up broken glass from the kitchen floor with a slice of bread, or placing houseplants on a water-soaked diaper to keep them watered during a vacation trip. Today, Americans are finding their own tips and tricks for fixing misbehaving gadgets with supplies as simple as paper and adhesive tape. Some, like Mr. Azar's plastic bag, are open to argument as to how they work, or whether they really work at all. But many tech home remedies can be explained by a little science. Cellphone Losing Charge If your cellphone loses its battery charge too quickly while idle in your pocket, part of the problem may be that your pocket is too warm. "Cellphone batteries do indeed last a bit longer if kept cool," says Isidor Buchanan, editor of the Battery University Web site. The 98.6-degree body heat of a human, transmitted through a cloth pocket to a cellphone inside, is enough to speed up chemical processes inside the phone's battery. That makes it run down faster. To keep the phone cooler, carry it in your purse or on your belt. This same method can be used to preserve your battery should you find yourself away from home without your charger. Turn off the phone and put it in the hotel refrigerator overnight to slow the battery's natural tendency to lose its charge. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/technology/personaltech/19basics.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:11:37 +1100 From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: Re: Low-Tech Fixes for High-Tech Problems Message-ID: <pan.2009.02.21.01.11.36.169975@myrealbox.com> On Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:51:50 -0500, Monty Solomon wrote: > BASICS > Low-Tech Fixes for High-Tech Problems ........ > This same method can be used to preserve your battery should you find > yourself away from home without your charger. Turn off the phone and put > it in the hotel refrigerator overnight to slow the battery's natural > tendency to lose its charge. > And if you keep "normal" batteries at home as spares, keep them in the freezer to slow the natural discharge/aging process. They may not work correctly until they have thawed out, but they will be there for you with more capacity left in them than those stored at room temperature for the same time. -- Regards, David. David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:12:02 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: When your files are online and you aren't Message-ID: <p06240835c5c486a280cc@[10.0.1.6]> TECH LAB When your files are online and you aren't By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff | February 19, 2009 The Boston Globe Funny thing about cloud computing - it's useless at 35,000 feet. In cloud computing, you rely on applications running on the Internet instead of on your personal machine. So rather than write a file in Microsoft Corp.'s Word or Excel, you might use Google Docs. This online suite from Google Inc. features word processor and spreadsheet programs and stores your documents in the Internet cloud. But online documents aren't much use when you're disconnected from the Internet - like when you're flying. Airline companies are beginning to deploy on-board Wi-Fi service, but it'll be a couple of years before it is generally available. And even on the ground, you can't always find an Internet connection. With earthbound copies of critical files, you can work on them as needed and upload any changes to the Net, first chance you get. And if you work on multiple computers, you can share updated files with all your other machines. If you're a Google Docs user, get a copy of Gears. This free program, available at gears.google.com, lets you download your Google-generated documents onto your computer. Work with them even when you're offline, and when you log in again, Gears uploads your modified documents to the Google Docs Internet server, so your up-to-date document is available on any Internet-connected machine. Gears isn't just for Google Docs fans; it works with other cloud computing services, including Zoho, a rival online document editing service, and Google's Gmail messaging service. You can plow through your e-mail on the plane, write up replies, then transmit them once you're back online. But Gears has its limitations. For instance, you can edit your existing Google Docs when offline, but you can't create new ones. Besides, Gears gives you no easy way to share multimedia files, like video, audio, and digital photographs. ... http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2009/02/19/when_your_files_are_online_and_you_arent/ ***** Moderator's Note ***** When I find a document stranded "in the cloud", while I'm incommunicado, I resort to coding in HTML on Notepad. It works fine, and is always portable. Bill Horne Temporary Moderator ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:35:43 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu Subject: The Cellphone, Navigating Our Lives Message-ID: <p0624084ac5c526d70df9@[10.0.1.6]> The Cellphone, Navigating Our Lives By JOHN MARKOFF The New York Times February 17, 2009 The cellphone is the world's most ubiquitous computer. The four billion cellphones in use around the globe carry personal information, provide access to the Web and are being used more and more to navigate the real world. And as cellphones change how we live, computer scientists say, they are also changing how we think about information. It has been 25 years since the desktop, with its files and folders, was introduced as a way to think about what went on inside a personal computer. The World Wide Web brought other ways of imagining the flow of data. With the dominance of the cellphone, a new metaphor is emerging for how we organize, find and use information. New in one sense, that is. It is also as ancient as humanity itself. That metaphor is the map. "The map underlies man's ability to perceive," said Richard Saul Wurman, a graphic designer who was a pioneer in the use of maps as a generalized way to search for information of all kinds before the emergence of the online world. As this metaphor takes over, it will change the way we behave, the way we think and the way we find our way around new neighborhoods. As researchers and businesses learn how to use all the information about a user's location that phones can provide, new privacy issues will emerge. You may use your phone to find friends and restaurants, but somebody else may be using your phone to find you and find out about you. Digital map displays on hand-held phones can now show the nearest gas station or A.T.M., reviews of nearby restaurants posted online by diners, or the location of friends. In the latest and biggest example of the map's power and versatility, Google started a location-aware friend-finding system called Latitude in 27 countries early this month. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/science/17map.html ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly to telecom- munications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to Usenet, where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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