Response Point - SP1 - Nashville Road Trip

Ok - we're in. This is the June '08 Cincinnati -> Nashville Road Trip - 6/4 - 6/5. We've got about 6 guys from our Cincinnati SBS Users Group going to Nashville TN for the one day Microsoft Response Point Training. I'll be putting the third seat back in the Land Yacht and we will be southward bound. We are going to spend Wednesday evening enjoying some Nashville music and celebrating the 26th anniversary of the BlueBird Cafe. Then on to Franklin, TN for our class on Thursday.

Sonic Wall Event - Indianapolis

Mark Creamer and I spent a fun day as guests of SonicWall at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway yesterday. We spend the morning at the Brickyard Crossing Resort hearing a pretty impressive presentation by Joe Levy, CTO of SonicWall. Afterward, we were treated to a private suite at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where we were provided lunch and then passes that got us in to the Garage Area and the Pit Row. Mark even got to shake hands and talk to Micheal Andretti. I've got some pictures and video that you can see - just click here.

Indy

Response Point - SIP Trunking config

I configured my Response Point for SIP Trunking with Junction Networks service. Here is a screen shot of my current settings.

Lets Talk Computers - Radio Interview - Richard Sprague on Response Point

May 17, 2008 LET'S TALK COMPUTERS - Radio Talk Show - Interviews Richard Sprague on Microsoft Response Point. Click to Listen.

More Click to Dial in Response Point

So, the Response Point Assistant, now shows inside extensions plus entries in your Contact List and supports Click to Dial. This is fairly obvious. I'm not crazy about the the presentation of these contacts. Presently they are sorted alpha - so your inside contacts are intermingled with your outside contacts! You can click on the Number Column and this will put all your inside contacts together at the top of the list BUT your outside contacts will be sorted first by Work/Mobile/Home and then by name - BOOOOOO! NTG.

I just happened to find something else in the Click to Dial Realm. You can click Phone Settings from the Assistant menu and be taken to a browser version of the Call History. From here, you could, if you wanted, go through your list of MISSED CALLS and click on any one of them to call back - kind of a *69 (or whatever it is) on steroids. You can even pick which service you want to call out on - PSTN or SIP.

Response Point - SP1 & SIP!

Now on to SIP Trunking. Richard Sprague gave me a tip and I ran (or stumbled) with it. As has been announced - Microsoft is partnering with 2 SIP providers - NGT and CBeyond and support will be included in SP1 for these two guys by way of drop down menu choices. I don't think all the guts of this has been implemented quite yet as it was not evident in the CTP build that we received. ANYWAY, what Richard reminded me was that if we got a SIP account and got the right values manually entered into the RP Administrator SIP configuration (which is presently available) then we can add the SIP support NOW. I went online and created an account with JunctionNetworks - did a little of fiddling and voila (or wallah as I once read in a newsgroup) we have SIP! I'll include a screen shot of the settings here for future reference.

Response Point - SP1 CTP

Got the notice today that I could download the Response Point Service Pack 1 Community Technology Preview.

I immediately got to the download site and started on my update. The entire update process went very well in my opinion. Now it's just on to tinkering and using the new stuff - and it looks like there is LOTS of new stuff here.

IT Pro 2008 - New Orleans

I received a comment asking me to blog about the content of the conference. I think I will take the easy approach here refer you to Susan Bradley's blog because she is here and who could blog more or better than Susan? I actually got a picture of Susan not blogging - a somewhat unusual happening.

And, you can see this picture and more plus some parade videos - Jeff arranged our own New Orleans parade - at here.

IT Pro 2008 - New Orleans

Some really great IT stuff going on here in NOLA. Jeff Middletons, SBS Migration - IT Pro 2008 Conference. We had a great reception and gathering last night and now in the midst of the first day activities. More pictures and video at HERE.

Response Point - Cordless Headsets

in a recent email -

Allen,
We are still watching and waiting for the cordless phones. Do you have any further information regarding the release date?

As another option, is there a cordless headset solution that we could use that would work with this phone systems and you could also use for listening to audio on your computer (music, etc) that would switch to the phone when receiving a call? In our office employees listening to music etc use headphones and I thought it would be nice if we had something that would work for this as well as receiving calls as well as solve the wireless dilemma. Might be a long shot but I thought I would ask.

To which I replied -

Ask and ye shall receive. When you asked about the combination telephone/computer headset I thought you were nuts. Then I figured, like you said, you may as well ask – which told me I should check it out.

I found 2 choices from HelloDirect. They have a model 9350 which connects to both the phone and the computer, has a remote lifter/answerer and automatically switches from computer to phone. Price for this is $297. What this does not have is STEREO capability – it is just one earpiece. If you want stereo, you get 2 items – part # 13389 which is the 2 earpiece headset with remote lifter/answerer plus something called the media package for $100. With this combination you have to manually switch between computer and telephone. These sound pretty cool, if you ask me.

Still no cordless phone option built in to a Response Point System. Aastra is supposed to have one when they bring their product out – no firm date yet – but I believe I have heard ‘the summer’. Syspine is supposed to be working on a cordless option and I wouldn’t be surprised if Dlink is too.

Regards,
Allen