New York Renovator

We’ve been puttering around the idea of getting a Magic Jack device for the home. The landline is just TOO expensive. And we really don’t use the telephone a whole lot. I have a hard time seeing why we should be shelling out $60 a month so telemarketers can bombard us with their calls. :-p

Some people I know have recently got the Magic Jack device. It’s a little piece of hardware that you plug into your computer (in the USB port) and it will allow you to send and receive telephone calls. It’s called Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), and works a lot like Skype (but cheaper and more reliable). The gadget sells for about $40, and all calls are free the first year. After that, it’s just $20 a YEAR. It sounds so good. I’ve done some reading up about it; some folks have given me their opinions about it; and I actually saw and handled the device at a friend’s home the other day. I’m THIS CLOSE to getting it.

Leave it to the kids to want to make a cute video about the gadget. They are getting very good with videos! They create funny characters and even have a few running gags and serials in the works. This is their latest. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Jeeves and Madeline, discussing the amazing Magic Jack gadget!

We made the video with Roxio Creator 2010. We love that software!

So what do you think of Magic Jack? If you have it, please leave a comment and tell us what you think about it.

Did you know that many newer, souped-up computers are coming without telephone modems installed?? :-p I just found out. I use DSL, so I have not really had any need for a phone modem. But I am tinkering with the phone line (I want to control telephone calls from my computer) and I had to buy a data modem for the computer. It caused me to look afresh at my telephone lines, installation and wiring, and my telephone plan with my phone company (Verizon).

(I also discovered that my telephone account still has an active “Wire Maintenance Plan” that I was getting charged $10 a month for!! Holy cow! Since I rewired my entire living room, including telephone and ethernet, I think I am confident that I don’t need to pay Verizon $10 a month to fix it “in case” something goes wrong. Grr! I’ve been paying that all this time!!).

Anyway… data modems can be pricey! I had a choice of getting an internal or an external modem for my computer. My computer is still under warranty, so I had to choose an external (I would have loved to install an internal!! And they were cheaper!) modem. But, yow, external modems can be as much as $200! So I went “budget” (of course!). Hey– no surpises here– the best stuff I found was at (you guessed it) Buy.com! This is the TRENDnet data modem on sale. Nice price, eh!

Buy.com has great stuff. I am always checking out their weekly sale page for great deals on electronics and supplies. I highly recommend Buy.com– not only are their prices spectacular, so is their customer service, their shipping speed, and the selection! Buy.com allows third-party sellers to sell stuff, which really improves the selection and makes prices much more competitive. So if you need something (anything under the sun, really), try Buy.com before going to those pricey Big Box stores. I love Buy.com!

So, now with my data modem coming in, I can monitor all phone calls from my computer. I’ll have more about that in later posts– but we get a lot of telemarketing calls and I’m going to use some software to *zap* these calls forever!!! Muahahahahahha!!!

When we gutted the living room, money was really tight. (It’s always tight, though). Yet, I gritted my teeth and decided to shell out the additional $70 to buy materials for Cat5 installation. Cat5 is wiring for ethernet– DSL internet. Previously, we simply had long ropes of ethernet cables strewn across the living room from the DSL router to each computer. I tried to hide them, of course, but they still looked awful, like a big black spider web of cables. And in some cases, I couldn’t use Cat5 for a computer because I couldn’t string cable across a doorway. I’d use wireless for the computer, but if we use the cordless telephone in the living room, that computer would lose it’s connection. Grr.

So… back to gutting the living room. OK. We pulled out the walls and some of the noggin (bricks between the studs, my post about it is here). I installed electrical wiring, telephone wiring, and ethernet Cat5 wiring (my posts where I blogged about it are here). Here are a few visual aids:

Learning HOW to install it was harder than the actual install. That took some time. When I felt confident enough, I made a total of four connections for the living room (we use four computers for our homeschool lessons)

This is the finished project for the connections at the work station. At each computer work station, there are more modems, ready for Cat5 ethernet cables to be plugged in.

Well, anyway, today the kids and I moved the furniture (well, they moved it) and we dusted and organized the room to prepare for school lessons. And we also shifted the computers around. I had to unplug all the cables and create new workstations. And BOY OH BOY am I thankful I didn’t have to lace ethernet cables all across the floors and walls this year!! I am slapping myself on the back for it. I am SO glad I paid that $70 for the wiring and installed it.

Moral of the story– it is true, it’s better to do everything you can while the walls are open rather than regret missing the opportunity later. I am so elated that I did something right this time, lol!