Voice Over Internet Protocol (or just VoIP), a hot sector in the enterprise market for years, has finally trickled down to the desktop. Popular services like Vonage and Skype sidestep Ma Bell’s steep rates, but an amazing alternative is rapidly gaining traction: Gizmo (http://www.gizmoproject.com/.)
Gizmo marries Jabber- based instant messaging with an Internet telephone and loads of other features, including free Gizmo-to-Gizmo calls, free voicemail, and free conferencing. Gizmo also offers great audio quality, and with a small piece of hardware, can even be used as a traditional landline. Client software for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux is free, and the company is working on an open source version of the software to be provided under the GNU Public License.
Hey, call me on Gizmo! We’ll do lunch!
End iTunes Envy
Have a burgeoning music library? Banshee (http://banshee-project.org/) is here to tame it. Listen, rip, organize, and burn.
A GNOME-based tool, Banshee provides a gorgeous user interface (pictured) and many of the features you find in an application like Apple’s iTunes, such as importing and editing tracks, CD burning and playlists. Better yet, Banshee also bundles excellent iPod support, a key feature for those of us tethered to our little white bundles of audible joy. You can connect multiple iPods simultaneously, edit iPod properties, and you can even DJ straight from…
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