calling

CNET Live - Episode 17 - Show Notes

Murali Subbarao, CEO of Billeo stopped by to talk about online billing.

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Things we Crave

Plusdeck EX

Toshiba wireless laptop dock

Insider Secrets

Anonymous wrote us on the CNET forums asking how you can get OS X to run on a PC. That discussion isn's allowed in the forums because of the fact that running OS X on a non-Apple computer breaks the EULA. Don't worry anonymous, I went there for you. Here's how I got OS X to run on my ThinkPad and why it's a legal mess to … Read more

Bottom line on the iPhone: No.

OK, bottom line on the iPhone: The PHONE part of it sucks! I have about eight cell phones and four BlackBerrys here - and the iPhone ranks lowest in clarity. Major negative. That alone would keep me from buying one if I were you (but of course we know *I* have a cellular obsession).

Other notes: The locking feature is great. Easy, smooth. Clock and Weather are fine. Its iPod is an iPod (my, time does make us blas?!). The PDA function rocks! Neat and clean. (CNET has a video on just about every feature of the iPhone for those … Read more

AT&T Video Share now available in 160 cities

After months of waiting, AT&T has finally made its Video Share service available nationwide. It launched the service in three cities back in June--San Antonio, Atlanta, and Dallas--but it is now available in 160 cities across the country. The video-calling service is pretty limited for now--it only supports one-way video streaming--but it's still a first in the country. The service is supported on only a few handsets: the LG CU500V, the Samsung Sync, the Samsung A717, and the Samsung A727. Also note that both the sender and the recipient will have to have 3G phones on a … Read more

E3: 'Call of Duty 4' trailer

To date, the Call of Duty franchise has been strictly a World War II affair. But with Call of Duty 4, Activision and developer Infinity Ward move the action to a 21st century setting. The military shooter brings an all-new graphics engine to the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC when it hits stores this fall. Can you say, "Halo who?"

Silencing the iPhone Strum Ringtone - Customizable Contacts?

So in our excitement with the iPhone my friends and I all picked the "strum" ringtone on the iPhone. It's sunny, happy and seems to sound the best on the iPhone speakers. I think it's appealing to us since it sounds like the ads. With that, it's pretty confusing when our iPhones ring. A typical conversation: "Is it yours?" "No, it's my phone," followed by, "Oh, wait, no it really is my phone!" We're such geeks.

You can see where confusion lies. But this highlights the limited … Read more

CNET Live - Episode 12 - Show Notes

I had the "pleasure" of being joined by Mr. iPhone today. We definitely ruined one man's career on this show and maybe two. But while dealing with the seriously delusional co-host, we also got some questions answered and gained a little mor einsight into the search for the iPhone.

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Things we Crave

Lap Blaster

Live Wires custom earphones

Insider Secrets

Spencer wrote "Hey I love your show, I'm from Nanaimo, BC, in Canada. Can i stream music from my laptop through ethernet to my xbox 360 or do I … Read more

CNET Live - Episode 9 - Show Notes

Our best show yet. No disrespect to previous guests and callers but this show just rocked! Thanks again to the rag Dolls for coming on and schooling me!

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Things we Crave

Anti-spying undergarments

Speed Racer's 'Mach 5' comes to life.

Insider Secrets

Keith writes, "Everybody stresses the importance of backing up important data, but nobody addresses the unfortunate lack of technology available to do so. How do I backup my data without spending a fortune?" - We've got some of the answers to Keith's conundrum on today's Insider Secret.

Back up your hard drive … Read more

Instant recall with CallRec for Palm OS

Editor's note: CallRec was tested on a Treo 650.

Pros: Records independently of app, tracks remaining storage, two recording input options, multiple ways to share Cons: No trigger hot key, two-second lapse with phone call recording

At a baseball game last summer, my friend recorded the incessant howls of a boisterous seatmate with his smart phone, replaying it in my ear with tinny imperfection. Too bad he didn't have a Palm device with CallRec tucked onto his memory card to forever capture the fan's clamorous "woo-woooos" with lifelike clarity.

CallRec is a midsize piece of commercial software (207KB on-phone storage; $30) that makes clear recordings of your notes-to-self and phone calls, and has enough options for tweaking the recording quality to cut out most background noise. The clean, understandable interface provides screen-touch buttons to start, stop, and replay recordings, though you can also initiate and end sessions by pressing the Treo's side button. CallRec names recordings with a time stamp, but it's easy to rename files, and to organize them by file name or duration. … Read more

Dial by e-mail

A company called Jangl launched a service this week that promises to provide free and low-cost phone calls over the Internet to any phone and from any phone anywhere in the world.

Sound familiar? Well, it should. In the wake of Skype's success everyone and his brother are trying to use the Web to provide cheap phone calls. Jajah, Jaxtr, GrandCentral Communications--they all make similar promises.

Jangl's twist is that it claims all that is needed for its service to work is an e-mail address of the person you want to call. And voila, you'll be … Read more