Phillip Holt's World

Today I leave for Spain, one weeks holiday.

We have a Timeshare in a place called Jardines del Puerto, in Puerto Banus, on the Costa del Sol, the St Tropez of Southern Spain.

I have had so much on my mind that I had forgotten until this week that it was due, Mee Len had done all the orgainising, including inviting her two sisters, Mee Chee and Mee Wah.

Oh Poo Poo. (click to understand).

I am taking loads of books and DVD’s to keep me occupied, plus my computer. I doubt if I will be posting as there is no internet in the complex the apartment is in.

I am also having to pack pajamas, as I normally sleep in the raw or nude, and walking around the flat in that state could be rather embassing. Don’t even think about it.

As many will know who have attended my courses around the world, I love gadgets, new technologies. If it is new, I have to have it, I have to know how it will work.

When VoIP (Voice over the Internet Protocol) was introduced, I knew I had to find out how it worked. Being able to use the internet to speak to the rest of the world at very cheap rates, or if you could link the two parties (or more) together, called peer to peer, to speak free of charge.

It was not long that specialised proprietary software came along that automated the system, made it easy for the public and business communities to use the technologies.

Standards were established, so that everybody would be playing on the same football pitch in the same game. Some of these were SIP, FWD, laxtel and IPtel. These standards are like the languages we speak, if a person only speaks English (say SIP), can they, will they be able to speak to a person who only speaks Turkish (say IPtel)?

The best known standard is the SIP standard, standing for Session Initiation Protocol, a language like English or Turkish, and many companies implemented this standard in their telephone equipment and software to drive the equipment.

This equipment and software was difficult to install, implement and use. I remember the first one I tried to install was a failure, well, I got it to work after much effort, but no-one else was using it in my community around the world. As with most of new gadgets, the telephones ended up gathering dust.

Then came the proprietary software Skype, (not SIP or other standard or protocol), only Skype will talk to Skype. It is free, easy to install, in fact all you do is hit one button, and away you go.

Wonderful marketing by Skype. Give it away, get market penetration, masses of customers, offer add-ons, like cheap international calls, free communication with people who have the Skype software and are online at the same time. 

They had the market to themselves, and took advantage of it. Great product.

I recently purchased another gadget the Nokia 770 tablet computer, and found that Skype would not work on it due to the operating system employed on the Nokia 770. They offered another system called Gizmo.

Gizmo is a product offered by the creators of the SIP protocol SIPhone. It is free to download, offers very cheap international calls, and free calls to fellow Gizmo users, much the same as Skype.

There is a difference in the way the software works and the language or protocols, but that does not bother the end users, it is transparent to them, but the difference gives certain advantages of Gizmo over Skype.

The biggest to me is the ability to make free landline (PSTN, Public Switched Telephone Network) to fellow Gizmo users no matter where they are in the world.

I got my special friend in Turkey, Asu, to join Gizmo  and in her profile enter her home and mobile telephone numbers, and I likewise did the same. I asked Asu to switch off her computer or close the Gizmo software, and I called her, the call was directed to her landline and we talked. 

It cost me nothing to make the call, from the UK to Turkey.

Try it, you might like it. 


                                                                      on Gizmo.


                                                                      download Gizmo.

As people who have worked with me know, for 35 years I worked in the computer industry, an expert, working at the forefront of technology as I was employed by computer manufacturers like NCR, Sperry Univac and Texas Instruments.

I was working on speech recognition, artificial intelligence (AI), back in the early 1980’s. I worked with Texas Instruments with one of the first PC’s in 1982, and using data communication again back in the 1980’s.

I know about computers and their workings, but usually I keep my mouth shut. 

In the mid 1990’s I walked away from computers, to start a new life in my career, but still playing with computing and technology.

The internet is perhaps one of the major advancements in computing, it has changed the face of the earth, how we communicate, work, live our lives. When it works it is fine.

I have a number of web sites, where people can book on courses like to learn Stage Hypnosis this September 2007, PhotoReading, or to book sessions to cure phobias, fears or gain confidence. They can contact me via emails via any of these web sites or addresses.

All works well, when it works.

I suppose we are lucky in the UK to have so much wild life in both the countryside and towns and cities.

It is not often that one can appreciate wildlife close at hand, but on a recent visit to my in-laws Joe and Mee Chee, I was able to get quite close to some foxes in their garden in Leatherhead.

                              

Not by chance today I met a old friend who I had not been in contact with for a long time.

I have often thought about my friend Bill, but always put off for one reason or other making that contact. I would see pictures on the TV, the internet or in books and magazines, that would remind me of our good and bad times together. Even walking down the street, sometimes I would see someone who had the same hair style, the same posture, and my memories would go back to Bill.

So I made the effort, and made contact with Bill and we met. It was such a relief, we still got on. After a good hand shake, we talked about the good times we had together, recalling memories, asking each other about other friends.

“Where was Richard?”

“What has happened to Sidney?”

Bill told me that Sid had got together with an old friend Jenny, and that they were happy with their situation, pity really, as I know Bill had always wanted a long term relationship with Jenny. But, Bill I found out had moved away and lost contact.

Like me, Bill had failed to keep in contact.

I made a resolution to keep in contact with Bill in the future, and go out of my way to contact others.

You never know what may come up.

I am not one to fantasize, not one to take on board weird and wonderful ideas without investigation, but last night, Saturday 4th August, I have no explanation as to what we saw.

Saturday had been a beautiful day, cloudless, sunny and warm, and Mee Len wanted to visit her sister Mee Chee near Leatherhead, half an hour’s car ride from Kingston upon Thames.
 
We spent an evening putting the world to rights over a meal of chicken and salad, feeding the daily arrival of foxes the leftovers, and left for home about 10pm.

After putting my car to bed in the garage, we walked back to our flat through the gardens of Norbiton Hall, under a cloudless and for once a star studded sky. It is rare to see stars in London to high light pollution from street lights and the human population.