Access numbers

USA 714-333-0397
UK 08449332754
UK 07031967238
UK 08444848677
UK 08700687353
UK 08715041691
Switzerland 61-5117717
Russia 3452-591002
Germany 1803-5350033033
France 1-79-99-79-99
China 21-31001856
Canada 613-686-1602
Brazil 11-3511-5700
Australia 3-8807-2174

Call free to India

Make a free call to India by following these steps:
1. Register for free at sab se bolo.com . Get your member ID and password. Provide these to your Indian contact and ask them to call into the conference.
2. Call any of these access numbers.
3. On the prompt dial *011-CONRAD. (This code will keep changing. So check this page before you make a call) This code is not required if you call through the UK numbers.
4. When prompted again, dial your member ID and password to enter into conference. You can have multiple people from India dial into the conference.

Do not abuse the system, or we might all lose it !!

Alternative methods for step 2:
METHOD 1.
Instead of calling the access numbers, you can even use your SIP phone/ATA to make a call to *0112663@sipbroker.com
METHOD 2. You can call from Google Talk by following these steps:
(a) Send a friend request to service@gtalk2voip.com. You will get an accept
(b) Now open a chat window for service@gtalk2voip.com and type "CALL *0112663@sipbroker.com"
(c) Accept the incoming call.
(d) You will hear one ring and after some time, you will be connected to the conference call.

Converting your smartphone into a GPS navigation system

This entry essentially explains how to convert your bluetooth enabled smartphone into a GPS navigation system. This can also be used for those phones which have inbuilt GPS. If you do not have GPS, this will tell you how to store maps in your phone and view them.

Basic Requirements:
1. Smartphone - any one of the following
(a) Nokia symbian 60 series or above eg. 6630, all N-series and E-series of mobile phones
(b) Any mobile running Windows Mobile 5 or 6.


Getting the right hardware:

If you already have a bluetooth GPS or an inbuilt GPS in your phone, skip to the next section. If you need a GPS navigation system, the simplest and cheapest way I think would be to buy a smartphone and a bluetooth GPS and get it for half the price of a phone with inbuilt GPS. For instance, the cheapest option that I know of is Nokia N72 (INR 8000/-) + Navibe GB735 (INR 1800/-), while most of the GPS enabled phones currently in the market are above INR 20,000/- . There are Nokia smartpones cheaper than N72, but I they are much less worth for the 1000 rupee less that you pay.



Getting the right software:

(a) If you are using Nokia phone, get the SmartcomGPS software. You can get it from here mobilesmania forum. You will need to register for free at the site and dig a little bit to find the version for your phone. There is also a older but less featured MapViewGPS. Any of the above software will suffice.
(b)If you are running Windows Mobile phone, get the OziExplorerCE software, which is also available at the mobilesmania forum

Getting the maps
(a) If you are using Nokia phone, convert any of map image(JPG/PNG/BMP etc) that you have to ogf2 format using this software.
(b) If you are using Windows Mobile, use the Img2ozf application which come along witht he application to convert your files into the ozf2 format
(c) If you are using GPS, you need to calibrate the maps before you first use it. (i.e generating the .map file)

For your convenience, I have given links to some of JPG/PNG maps here. Below are the OGF2 and MAP files for some of these maps. You can store these files directly in the "e:\data\smartcomgps\maps" folder of your phone and get it working right away with or without GPS.
Kolkata OGF2 file
Kolkata MAP file (calibration file for the kolkata map)
If you have any problem or if you wants maps of other places, please leave a comment and I will try to make one.

Convert your smartphone into a WiFi hotspot

If you have a Wifi enabbled smartphone, this piece of freeware Walkinghotspot will allow you to make it a WiFi hotspot. WiFi clients including your laptop can connect to your phone through WiFi, and access GPRS/3G for accessing internet. I use this feature for browsing the internet from my laptop through the wireless connection.
This avoids you the hassles of connecting bluetooth and installing the drivers in your laptop. Currently it supports only Windows Mobile and Symbian series devices. Works like a charm on my Nokia N80.

Once you register at their website, they will send you a link (For symbian 3rd edition devices this might suffice) which you can access to download the executable.

Converting audio files to mp3 using mencoder

Requirements:

Install the Mplayer binaries for your operating system from http://www.mplayerhq.hu/

Command line option:

mencoder -ovc frameno -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=128 -of rawaudio -o <output_file.mp3> -audiofile <input_file> <dummy_video_file>

Make sure that the play time of the video file is more than the play time of the audio you are trying to convert. In case it is not, you can give multiple video files in the place of one. 

All free wordwide phone calling

Different providers give free calling to US/Canada from time to time. This blog post is intended to provide a list of free calling to US/Canada. This will be updated when there is a new service , or when services cease to exist. So do check back in to know what is the latest.

1. Earthcaller(Only US/Canada)
They allow FREE PC to phone calls anywhere in US. You can make calls only from a PC.

2. Gizmo combination with Ringbranch (Only US/Canada)
Check out this blog entry to find out how. You can make calls from Gizmo softphone from your PC, or you can use your VOIP phone/ATA device for calling. Right now limited to 1000 minuts of call per month.

3.ViatalkFree(Only US/Canada)

Allows free calling between two US numbers. Enter the two numbers in their website, and they will call and connect both of you. If you reside in another country, you can still work it out if you have a incoming US number mapped to you SIP device(eg sipnumber service)

4. JustVoip (Many countries)
Supported countries :Argentina,Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil,Bulgaria,Canada,Chile,Colombia,Cyprus,Czech Republic,Denmark,Estonia,France,Germany,Greece,Hong Kong (+mobile),
Hungary,Ireland,Italy,Japan,Latvia,Luxembourg,Malaysia,Mexico [guadalajara],Mexico [mexico City],Mexico [monterrey],Monaco,Netherlands,New Zealand,Norway,Panama,Peru,Poland,
Portugal,Puerto Rico (+mobile),Romania,Russian Federation,Singapore,Slovak Republic,Slovenia,South Korea,Spain,Sweden,Switzerland,Taiwan,Thailand,United Kingdom,United States (+mobile),Venezuela

You can make free call from this site. You need a phone number in one of the above countries to call to these locations. If you reside in another country, you can still work it out if you have a incoming US number mapped to you SIP device(eg sipnumber service)

5. LDUsa

Calls are limited to 5 minutes. They allow you to make international calls to many international destinations from any phone. You will be given local dial in number and a PIN to call your destination. You do not require any hardware/soft phone. In India, they currently allow calls only to Hyderabad landlines. They are going to introduce calls to other parts on India May 1st

6. Free call to India

By this facilty, you will get a conference dial-in in many countries. People in India can call their own local number to connect to the conference.

Call phones worldwide free

Be aware that in the following method, the calling is FREE for the caller, but the callee incurs local call charges

In an earlier post I had mentioned how to call free to phones in US/Canada . Using this and then registering with rebtel , you will be able to call the following countries.

Argentina Australia Austria Bahrain (Beta) Belgium Brazil Bulgaria Canada Chile China (Beta) Croatia (Beta) Cyprus Czech Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Hongkong, China (Beta) Hungary Ireland Israel Italy Japan Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Norway Peru Poland Romania Slovakia (Beta) Slovenia (Beta) South Africa (Beta) Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey United Kingdom United States

Requirements
1. An internet connection
2. A computer
3. Mic and headphone/speaker !!!
4. Help of a friend in US with a US mobile to help in setting things up for the first time.
5. A setup describe in this article

Theory of functioning:
1. Rebtel is a VOIP service, which, among other services, allows you to call a US number, and reaches your destination country through VOIP. From here a local call is made to your destination phone number. The callee has to call back to this local number and both the caller and callee are connected. Total charges - callee incurs local calling charges.

Things to set up:
1. At first, have this setup ready
2. Register at Rebtel
3. Give your Ringbranch number as you number at Rebtel. Keep your own phone number to call in Ringbranch a a firnd's number in US/Canada.
4. On registering to the site, you will get an automated verification call at the friend's number. Once the verification is over, you can put the destination number in ringbranch to whatever was before.

How to add a contact
1. Login to you rebtel account , adn enter your international contact number.
2. Once you enter the number, you will get two numbers - a local number in US, and a local number in your destination country.
3. For every contact, steps 1 and 2 will have to be done. Note down the corresponding numbers for all future calling to these contacts.
4. Enter the US local numbers that you got in your ringbranch contact page.

How to make an almost free call
1. Open gizmo, and call your ringbranch through backdoor.
2. Enter the contact nuber corresponding to the US number of your destination number.
3. Your call will be connected to your destination phone.
4. On connecting the call, tell your callee to call back on the caller id displayed on his phone. This number is the same as the number you got in step 2 in the previous section.
5. You stay on the line, when callee calls back to the number, and both of you will be connected.

Check here to see how rebtel connects your call.

Free calls to anywhere in US/Canada using Gizmo & Ringbranch

(Looks like this feature has been blocked by GIZMO. Will keep you updated)
What you need:
1. An internet connection
2. A computer
3. Mic and headphone/speaker !!!
4. Help of a friend in US with a US mobile to help in setting things up for the first time.

Theory of functioning:
1. Gizmo VOIP provides free calling to certain US telephone numbers through their backdoor dialling mechanism.
2. Ringbranch provides a functionality where you can dial into your ringbranch number and call any of your contacts (only US/Canada allowed ; maximum of 100) for free (total 1000 minutes allowed per month)
3. Now, the ringbranch number that you get is a free location if you dial from gizmo.
4. We make use of these facts to make free calls to location in US/Canada.

Things to set up:
1. Register yourself free at Ringbranch . In your profile, set your primary phone number as your US friend's number. Note down your ring branch number. In your profile settings, "When you call your RingBranch number in order to call out to one of your friends, what number do you want displayed on your friends' Caller ID?" , put the choice as "actual number".

2. Download gizmo . Register yourself from the application.

3. From gizmo, call the number 0101-<your ringbranch number>. This will ring your friend's mobile. Ask him to save that number and let you know that number. This is the your gizmo outgoing number.

4. Go back to ringbranch profile settings and put your gizmo outgoing number as your primary phone number instead of your friend's number.

5. Go on and add upto 100 US/Contacts in your ringbranch contacts page.
6. Your settings are finished.

How to make the free call:
1. Open gizmo, and call 0101-<your ringbranch number>
2. You will be greeted by a prompt to enter the number in the contact list that you want to call. Enter the number followed by # .(eg. 15#)
3 Thats it, your call will be connected. If at any time you want to call a new contact, go and update your ringbranch contact list at their website, and start making the call.

You can extend this and use rebtel, to make international calls. I will explain this in a separate post.