Noteable Posts

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

QuantumTone Introduces Unlimited Calling to Bangladesh

NewswireToday - /newswire/ - New York, NY, United States, 12/24/2007 - Use your existing mobile or land phone to call worldwide unlimited for a flat rate .

   
 

QuantumTone announces today that it's launching the highly anticipated unlimited calling plans for Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Mexico, Vietnam, Turkey, Europe, Asia, and other South and Central American countries for flat monthly rates. This new service liberates consumers from paying per minute rate for international calls. They can use their existing mobile, home or get new digital home phone service from QuantumTone to use the service. It can also be used without any internet connection and is available through online portal and selected local retail storefronts in major metropolitan cities nationwide. This product will be rolled out to European and Middle Eastern consumers subsequently.

"Our service transforms any mobile or local land phone into an instant world phone with unlimited calling capabilities. The advent and perpetual developments of QuantumTone VoIP Technology has simplified international telephony. Realizing how agonizing, time consuming, and expensive for ethnic frequent callers to use long distance services and deceptive, gray-route prepaid calling cards, we felt the need for such flat rate unlimited calling plans. Residential consumers can take advantage of our new service and call their friends and family overseas worry free," said Monica Kish, the CEO of QuantumTone, "We are the first US telephone company that pioneered such aggressive worldwide unlimited plans to some of these high-cost international tariffs like anywhere in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mexico, Columbia, and other destinations."

QuantumTone ushers in a new era of VoIP connectivity and IP telephony sophistication never seen before in home and mobile device until recently, it completely redefines what a mobile phone and digital home phone can do using QuantumTone IP technology.

QuantumTone offers multiple unlimited domestic and international calling plans for residential and business consumers – VoIP Home and Q-TONE Mobile/Home which offer the convenience of registering either your existing mobile phone or local home phone or choosing QuantumTone VoIP to make free calls to your preferred overseas countries including domestic USA and Canada long distance. QuantumTone offers digital quality, enterprise grade VoIP solutions that comes with many essential calling features at no additional cost.

About QuantumTone
QuantumTone along with its partners, is an international digital phone company that specializes in technologically advanced, feature-rich, business quality unlimited local, long distance calling and IP hosting services bundled with enterprise grade broadband internet connectivity at a fraction of fixed cost to consumers, businesses, and enterprises in all 50 states in US and worldwide as a local and international phone service provider. Our technology enables anyone to use their traditional phone with high-speed internet (Cable, DSL, T1, ISDN) connection or existing mobile or home phone (without any internet) to make and receive phone calls anywhere in the world even while traveling. At QuantumTone our goal is to make calling simple and almost free for everyone using cutting edge IP technology.

QuantumTone is a wholly owned subsidiary of Quantum Leap Group, LLC based out of Dallas, TX with offices located throughout the US, Canada, and France. If you would like more information about the press release or to schedule an interview with QuantumTone, please call at 646-400-0440 x605 or email us at infoATquantumtone.com

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Customize GoogleTalk using Resource Hacker

Resource Hacking

To edit resources you will need a resource editor like Resource Hacker.

Change Language

To change the language of Google Talk you will need to:

  1. Open resource hacker.
  2. Choose the menu: file, open.
  3. Open the file c:\program files\google\google talk\googletalk.exe.
  4. Now you will see a treeview on the left.
  5. Double click on dialog.
  6. Double click on 130.
  7. Click on 0.
  8. You will see a window and a bunch of text like 'CONTROL "Password:", 1003, STATIC'...
  9. Change the text to another language, for example: 'CONTROL "Wachtwoord:", 1003, STATIC'...
  10. Click 'Compile Script'.
  11. Do this for all the dialogs.
  12. Double click on 'String Table' in the treeview.
  13. Click on 36.
  14. Click on 0.
  15. You will see a bunch of text like '567, "encountered an internal error'...
  16. Change the text to another language, for example: '567, "er is een interne fout voorgekomen'...
  17. Click 'Compile Script'.
  18. Do this for all the string tables.
  19. Make sure Google Talk is closed!!! and then click file, save.
  20. When you reopen Google Talk it should now be in another language.

User Interface Editing

  1. Open googletalk.exe in Resource Hacker.
  2. Expand the Bitmap tree.
  3. Save bitmaps 139, 5001-5104.
  4. Edit the bitmaps in your image editor of choice to make them the color(s) you like.
  5. Replace the original bitmaps with your edited bitmaps in Resource Hacker (Action > Replace Bitmap).
  6. Save and try it out!.

Add items to tray menu

  1. Open Google Talk in Resource Hacker.
  2. Go to menu -> 110 -> Click on 0. It will open as text.
  3. Play with the menu items, for example you can add the item
    MENUITEM "Settings", 40003, MFT_STRING, MFS_ENABLED
  4. Click 'compile script'.
  5. Close all instances of Google Talk!
  6. Click File -> Save.

WM_COMMAND codes

    Chat Window:
  • 8001 - Start Call
  • 40081 - Start muting microphone
  • 8007 - Stop muting microphone
  • 8008 - Stop Call
  • 8015 - Show Send File dialog
  • 8003 - Email
  • 8013 - Start Voicemail
  • 8008 - Stop Voicemail
  • 8010 - Go off the record (both on and off)
  • 8017 - View past chats
  • 8011 - Block/unblock Main Window:
  • 40011 - Add Friend
  • 40080 - Enable/Disable all notifications
  • 40065 - Connection Monitor
  • 40080 - Save all settings
  • 40087 - Check for Updates Now
  • 40088 - Inbox
  • 40023 - About
  • 40089 - Check Mail Now
  • 40003 - Settings
  • 40020 - Help
  • 40088 - Email
  • 40002 - Sign out
  • 1404 - Voicemail

GoogleTalk Tips & Tricks

Shortcuts

  • CTRL + Mousewheel up/down over input textbox: Change the font size of the textbox.
  • F9: Open Gmail to send an email to your friend
  • F11: Start a call with your friend
  • F12: Stop the current call
  • ESC: Close the current window
  • ALT + ESC: Minimize the current window
  • TAB: Switch between multiple chat windows
  • CTRL + I: Same as TAB
  • SHIFT + TAB: Same as TAB but in reverse order
  • CTRL + TAB: Same as SHIFT + TAB
  • Windows + ESC: Open Google Talk (if it's minimized, or in the tray)

Conversation Text

  • A message can be 32767 characters long.
  • Certain smileys are recognized by Google Talk and will be shown in blue.
    :-| :-O :-x :-P :-D ;-) :-( :| :O :x :P :D :) :( ;-| ;-O ;-x ;-P ;-D ;-) ;-( ;| ;O ;x ;P ;D ;) ;( B-| B-O B-x B-P B-D B-) B-( B'( BO Bx BD B) B( B) And you can put a ' between the characters to get another one shown in blue.
  • To write text in bold, put it between *asteriks*
  • To write text in italic, put it between _underscores_
  • You can insert special characters like ♥♫☺ with 'Start / Programs / Accessories / System Tools / Character Maps'.

Conversation Window

  • Drag a conversation window on top of another and they will dock together.
  • Drag a file onto the chat history and you'll send the file to the selected contact.
  • When you see a message notification, you can right click it to close it without focusing the conversation window.

Conference Calls

  • What you need to do to have conference calls: Open up a copy of Google Talk on all computers with which you wish to conference. After one copy is opened make a new shortcut for Google Talk but at the end of it add /nomutex. If you installed it to the default folder then your shortcut should read "C:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe" /nomutex. Open 2 instances of the software on every user's computer. After this start a chain: User 1 should connect on one instance to user 2. User 2 will connect on his second instance to user 3. User 3 will connect using his second instance back to user 1. With this chain everyone is connected to everyone.

Nickname & Status Message

  • You can change your name in the Google Account page.
    or To change the nickname need to go to your Gmail account and change the name there. Choose Settings, Accounts, and then Edit info. Click on the second radio button, and enter your custom name.
    As a result all of your emails will have that nick as well, there is no way to seperate the two.
  • You can add a website in your custom message, it will be clickable when someone opens a conversation window with you.

Contacts

  • You don't need to say Yes or No when someone wants to add you as a friend; you can simply ignore it, the request will go away. (On the other hand, someone with whom you chat often will automatically turn to be your friend, unless you disable this).
  • The Gmail account 'user@gmail.com' can't be invited as your friend.

Sound & Video

  • It's possible to broadcast music, MP3, etc.. through Google Talk.
    Unplug your microphone. Double click on the speaker icon in the lower right corner. This will open
    up "Volume Control". Select "Options" and then "Properties". Then check the button
    next to "Recording" then click OK. You may also have to change your setting under
    Mixer Device. Now the Recording Control screen should be up. On my computer I selected "Wave Out Mix". Click on the green phone in Google Talk and call your friend.

Secret Startup Parameters

  • /nomutex: allows you to open more than one instance of Google Talk
  • /autostart: when Google Talk is run with this parameter, it will check the registry settings to see if it needs to be started or not. If the "Start automatically with Windows" option is unchecked, it won't start.
  • /forcestart: same as /autostart, but forces it to start no matter what option was set.
  • /S upgrade: Used when upgrading Google Talk
  • /register: registers Google Talk in the registry, includig the GMail Compose method.
  • /checkupdate: check for newer versions
  • /plaintextauth: uses plain authentication mechanism instead then Google's GAIA mechanism. Used for testing the plain method on Google's servers.
  • /nogaiaauth: disables GAIA authentication method. The same as above.
  • /factoryreset: set settings back to default.
  • /gaiaserver servername.com: uses a different GAIA server to connect to Google Talk. Used for debug purposes only, there are no other known GAIA servers.
  • /mailto email@host.com: send an email with Gmail
  • /diag: start Google Talk in diagnostic mode
  • /log: probably has something to do with the diagnostic logging
  • /unregister: ?
  • /embedding: ?

Others

  • If there's something you think is missing in Google Talk, send off a message to Google.
  • There was a hidden game in Google Talk. In the about screen you could see 'play 23 21 13 16 21 19 . 7 1 13 5'. Each number represented a letter. a=1, b=2, c=3 .... When you translated this message it said: 'play wumpus.game'. To play this game you had to invite wumpus.game@gmail.com as a friend. wumpus.game@gmail.com is always offline now. You can still play Hunt the Wumpus here.
  • Google Talk can dock into the Google Desktop Sidebar. Doubleclick on the titlebar in the Google Talk main window and it docks as a panel into the GDS and slides out when you click the top of the docked panel.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Google Talk in Windows Live Messenger 9!

Recently a Microsoft employee announced what they're working on for the new version of Windows Live Messenger, connections with GTalk, ICQ and AIM. ICQ and AIM is still in the works. But they claim they have a basic connection to the Google Talk network, which means you can use Google Talk inside of Windows Live Messenger, like the Yahoo! compatibility added a while ago. Unfortunately, it doesn't support voice or file calls yet.
They're also working on adding some goodies, like multiple video/voice chats, and a new API for developing addons, but that's not relevant to Google Talk.
The first beta has been released, according to Ampcoder at Neowin. But it's a private beta, so you cannot get it unless it's leaked or they decide to release it public.

So, what do you think? Has Google teamed up with Microsoft? Or do Microsoft want to create a multi-protocol client without the support of Google? Or Microsoft just trying add some capabilities which its messenger lacked compared to Gtalk, YIM etc?

Source: Liveside.net .

Translate in your GoogleTalk!

Google released 23 translation chat-bots yesterday. You just send them a message and they'll reply back with the translation within a second, inside Google Talk or any other jabber client. List of bots:
 

ar2en, de2en, de2fr, el2en, en2ar, en2de, en2el, en2es, en2fr, en2it, en2ja, en2ko, en2nl, en2ru, en2zh, es2en, fr2de, fr2en, it2en, ja2en, ko2en, nl2en, ru2en, zh2en

Explanation on the language codes: 
EN = English, NL = Dutch, DE = German, ES = Spanish, FR = French, IT = Italian, KO = Korean, RU = Russian, JA = Japanese, ZH = Chinese.

Add the bot like this to your buddylist:
<FirstLanguage>2<SecondLanguage>@bot.talk.google.com


This service is hosted by Google, and therefore I bet it's using Google's translation tool. :P
Google also encourage you to create your own bots, if you know programming. :) Since the XMPP protocol is open, you can find a lot information on bot-making on the web.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Tech museum Award : Achievment by two IT organization of Bangladesh

Watch this video interview of Cellbazaar in NTV
View full list of award laureates at The Tech Museum Awards