Failure is the Key to Success

Since my trial of VoIP a couple of weeks ago, I have purchased a Linksys SPA-3000 from BroadbandBuyer.

I have configured this using the wizards at Voxilla to get me started, and then adjusted the dialing plan and added additional gateways for the alternate VoIP services that I have subscribed to. I have added a local area incoming number to my VoIPCheap account and this gives me outgoing caller id on all calls using VoIPCheap. Incoming calls also have caller id, better than paying for it with my existing phone provider.

I also came across a brilliant utility to monitor the SPA-3000 adapter. This is a free piece of software called Sipura 3000 System Tray Monitor. This will monitor the adapter to ensure that the VOIP service is registered and working and will also pop up a message with the caller id of incoming calls.

I rang Lyall today on this new setup and got a really clear line. Last time it was a cheap call; this time it was free. A 40 minute call to New Zealand for nothing!

My dial plan for anyone that is interested is currently:

(999S0<:@gw0>|<9,:>xx.<:@gw0>|<:00441582>[4-8]xxxxx<:@gw2>|

<01:00441>xxxxxxxxx<:@gw2>|<02:00442>xxxxxxxxx<:@gw2>|

<07:00447>xxxxxxxxx<:@gw2>|*xx.<:@gw2>|xxx.<:@gw2>)

This basically means that:

• 999 goes immediately via gateway 0 (my PSTN line)
• I dial a 9 to get connected to my PSTN line
• All local numbers get prefixed with the full dialing code and sent out
  via gateway 2 (VoipCheap)
• 01xxx ,02xxx and 07xxx (mobile) numbers get prefixed with the full
  dialing code and sent out via gateway 2
• Any other calls get sent out via gateway 2

If VoipCheap calls become more expensive than one of the other services I can adjust the plan accordingly.

(edited to make dialing plan wrap around)

Found a note on Jo’s car this morning. It appears one of the neighbours has an issue with us having parked on the road outside their house.

We are usually parked outside our own house, but due to another parked car, Jo had to park a bit further up the road. I guessed yesterday that they weren’t too happy about this, as they had managed to park on their front grass after Jo had parked, but when they went out in the afternoon, they had to drive along the footpath to get back onto the road due to other vehicles being parked.

Its not as though the road gets very busy, you can usually park within a house or two of your own, unless the school has an event on.

We went to the Dunstable Music Centre end of term concert this morning at Manshead School. Both Peter and Jo were playing in it. Next week is the last session before the end of term and then it’s not back until mid September.

When Lyall was over last month, we located his great grandparents’ (my great great grandparents’) grave. Tonight, I finally got round to writing to the funeral directors whose name was carved on the memorial stone. Hopefully they will still have records of the burials and will be able to assist with cleaning and repairing the memorial stone.

I added my blog to the Technorati blog finder today. It may get me a couple of visitors, who knows if I’m really lucky, I may get a breakthrough on one of my family tree brickwalls.

Technorati Profile

Tags:family tree,technorati

I realised today that I hadn’t had any emails to my family tree email account for several days.

Unfortunately this was due to a rule I put in place to deal with some spam that I was receiving. The result of this was that I was deleting the emails before I even saw them. Hopefully I won’t have lost anything critical, but I’ll probably never know. I’ll be a lot more careful with email rules in future.