Magic Jack anyone?

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

But at $20 per year it's intriguing. How much is Skype per month or per year?

Skype pro is $3/month. I think $16/year difference to go with a higher class operation will be worth it in the long run. I think it gives you more options as well.

[acejoca]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

Another question. So does Magic Jack actually give you a Hawaii area code? if not does anyone know a cheap VOIP service that gives you a Hawaii area code?

[tutusue]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

Another question. So does Magic Jack actually give you a Hawaii area code? if not does anyone know a cheap VOIP service that gives you a Hawaii area code?

No...to your first question.
Dunno to your second question...but my unedumacated guess is no!

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

if not does anyone know a cheap VOIP service that gives you a Hawaii area code?

Try this: http://www.skype.com/allfeatures/onlinenumber/

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

Try this: http://www.skype.com/allfeatures/onlinenumber/

Wow for $3 per month that's $36 per year. Not bad for something that's already out there and tested.

[lensperson]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

I think I'll build a specific computer to handle the MagicJack and it's accompanying ads. But for the price it's worth the added inconvenience of phone tracking. Heck it's not like I use the phone for perverted reasons so I could care less that they're tracking my phone calls to my sister on Oahu, brother in LA, or those bill collectors everytime I forget to make a credit card payment

Hi there,
Building a new computer for the task is a wise idea imho. In the Seattle area a decent desktop without os can be found for about ten dollars. Slap a free os in there and off ya go.
Cutting edge ...no. Affordable ...yes. I heard the price of Milk was getting to seven dollars a gallon.
There is a store here called RePc.com that has piles of beige boxes any day of the week starting at about 20 bucks.
Regards,
Chris

[lensperson]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

Hi Craig,
I did not mean to sound cheeky with my last post.
Indeed, in this area ,adjacent to Microsoft,dozens of computers are given to thrift stores every day. It's a strictly regional phenomena and I wish I could just fill a cargo crate full of all the amazing stuff that turns up everyday at the thrift shops.
Most all have the hard drives wiped and when a computer as such is sold for about ten bucks it is not economically possible to install commercial operating systems.
A computer is much better than no computer.
Respectfully,
Lens

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

DO you know how much I'm salivating at your last post? I go down to the Salvation Army three times a week to scour for ANY computer parts. I'm lucky to find a computer once a month if not every other month here in Hilo.

Two weeks ago I picked up an old Dell 700M Pentium II laptop with 64 Meg of RAM. It was running Windows 95 but was a bit buggy. I also picked up a Dell XP OS restore disk from the same place. The laptop cost me $5 and the disk was a nickle.

Figuring it's worth it I attempted to bring this relic back to life. I installed 256Mb of RAM, replaced the broken CD-ROM drive with a DVD-ROM drive and loaded up the Dell XP Home OS disk and it took it!

Running at 333MHz and 256Mb of RAM I was watching DVD's glitchfree using Windows Media Player 10 on this old PII Laptop. I loaded up Open Office and suddenly this relic was a smoking laptop again.

So off it goes into my donation pile. I already have one person I'm looking at as a possible candidate for this computer.

Man if I had access to all those discarded and donated computers I could do wonders with them.

Not economically viable to install a commercial OS? Why go Windows when theres a ton of free Linux OS out there. But to give you a price on commercial OS, I can purchase from NewEgg.com an OEM version of Windows XP Home for $89. With Fed Ex two day shipping the cost to install a legitimate XP HOME operating system with COA and Disk is only $99. Run the updates from Microsoft and you have a full blown XP OS that would sell for roughly $300.

But don't consider doing that with Vista. Vista Home Basic OEM can also be purchased for under a hundred dollars but to install Vista on an older computer would be unwise as quite a few older computers' BIOS cannot register 1 or 2 gig of RAM. Vista Basic needs at least 1 gig to run smoothly plus a decent graphics card and 1GHz of processing speed. It's a hog, but not as bad as the Vista Premium which needs at least 2gig of RAM to run smoothly.

If you have a Pentium I or II using MMX technology and your computer can take as little as 128Mb of RAM, XP Home, Pro, Media Center 2005 will run on it smoothly. If it has a 16-bit PCI graphics card it will run even better. And if you're running a sound card it will run fantastic.

If all you're doing is surfing the internet and email then you don't need a dual core or even a quad core computer.

For less than $200 I can take most older computers running at least a Pentium based motherboard and bring them up to 21st century computing needs. That basically includes a RAM upgrade and the OS itself. I don't charge labor.

[AbsolutChaos]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

Midweek has an article on magicJack this week...

http://www.midweek.com/content/colum...ith_magicjack/

[mapen]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

I checked Magic Jack's web site and it still looks like they do not have Hawaii 808 phone numbers. Are you folks using mainland phone numbers with your Magic Jack? Or were you able to port an existing 808 number to your Magic Jack?

[WebDude]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

Hello everyone,

I've had the Magic Jack for a couple weeks now, and I actually purchased it for a trip to the Philippines in December. I wanted an easy way to call back to the US...

Anyways, the call quality is decent, but far from perfect. There seems to be short breaks both on my end, and on the other end. I've had a few calls where the other person could not hear me, but I could hear them. Another annoyance is making local calls, even though I have a 702 telephone number, I still have to dial 1(702) when I make local calls. As for the voicemail, you have a number to call to check your voice messages, but those calls need to be made from your magic jack phone. There may be other ways to access it, but I don't really use it since my phone has an answering machine, which picks up before calls get sent to voicemail.

All in all, it's a decent little device that allows me to drop my cell phone plan to a smaller plan, since that was the only phone I was using, so I save a few bucks a month, plus it allows me to make calls back to the US if I'm in another country, assuming you have broadband access overseas. But I think it's one of those, you get what you pay for scenarios, since the call quality is far from perfect, but acceptable, considering it's only costing me $20 a year to renew...

Hope this helps everyone...

WebDude

PS
If anyone wants to hear what the call quality is like, shoot me a PM with your number, and I would be happy to call you...

[mapen]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

I did some research and checked alot of VOIP providers similar to Magic Jack, looking for Hawaii 808 phone number availability.

Of the great many providers I checked, www.gizmo5.com was the only one that offers phone numbers in the Hawaii 808 area code. Unfortunately, it's not as cheap as Magic Jack. Gizmo5 charges $35 per year for their service, and it seems only incoming calls are free. Looks like they charge for outgoing calls (or free to other VOIP users).

Unlike Magic Jack, you may have to purchase additional equipment to use the service, which has the advantage that you do not have to leave your computer on to make and receive phone calls. With Magic Jack, you can only receive and make calls if your computer is turned on.

A SIP VOIP adapter is needed to hook your analog phones up to your ethernet router ($30-$50 on eBay). This setup bypasses your computer.

Or, you have the option of buying a cordless Wifi phone that talks directly with your Wifi access point, totally bypassing your computer.

If you don't have a router, you can buy a USB adapter or even a USB phone that plugs into your computer (some on eBay are less than $15).

[amagab]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

I hope we can get some more discussions in this thread as it's just what I am looking or. I used to have a Skype number and it worked really well. I only canceled it because they don't provide 808 numbers. Having an 808 number and being able to port my current number is critical for me so unless that can be done I'm not interested. I've been holding my breath for MagicJack. They are saying that they will support porting 808 numbers by the end of the year. I'm hopeful AND skeptic about that.

Please, if anyone else knows any cheap VoIP providers that you can port 808 numbers to please let me know.

Mahalo!

[Konaguy]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

I believe http://www.808netfone.com/ uses the 808 area code along with Oceanic's digital phone service.

[Seeking Penance]

Re: Magic Jack anyone?

magic jack's been around since the spring - my aunt back home has one - they were giving out free samples in brooklyn - apparently it works