VOIP - Why not?

I've spent the last few months playing with VOIP.

Last summer I was reviewing my various statements and discovered that Telus was billing me $4.95 a month (on top of the other charges) for a "Long Distance Adminstration Fee". Since I had previously made sure that we had a Long Distance plan on our OTHER line and made sure everyone in the house used the other line for LD I was a bit surprised. Especially since that was about what I was paying for the other LD plan... AND for the occasional LD call that did get made we where dinged at the rate of about $.18/minute compared to $.04..

Pissed off does not adequately describe it.

Anyway, after a some investigation I managed to find out that you can get Telus to specifically lock out LD on a line and then they do not charge LD...

But as a side effect of all this I've learned that VOIP appears to be substantially cheaper. Freephone.ca promises a free service for inbound and outbound calls within Canada.

Itunes 9.03 Podcast Smart Playlist and Live Update sorting

I have been been battling a problem with Podcast Smart Playlists for almost a year now, still current as of iTunes 9.0.3.

Simply, if you create a Smart Playlist, select various podcasts for it and leave Live Update enabled, then your podcasts get updated automatically, i.e. added as available. But, there seems no apparent way to get them presented (on your iPhone or iTouch, iPod seems OK) in anything other than as downloaded order. I.e. oldest podcasts before newer ones.

Normally you should be able to select the sort in iTunes and that would be used on your device.

Today I found what seems to be a work around. First leave Live Update enabled in your smart playlist. Then create a new smart playlist. In this one the selection rule will be to select from the previous playlist. Also leave Live Update enabled for this one. Remember to "add" this to the list of playlists to sync to your device.

You should now see two playlists. The original in the download date order. The second in the requested order (I typically use  reverse download date order.)

Weird. But seems to work. Avoids having to keep Live-Update disabled while syncing, but enabling it before syncing to get your new podcasts added.

Dougle Click Start to get Audio Controls without unlocking your iPod or iTouch.

I finally figured out to to access this after noticing it occasionally, I but couldn't figure out how to replicate it.

Simple trick once you know it though. Just click on the Start button twice. You get audio controls without waking your iPhone (or iTouch) completely.