How A Little Hack Can Be Lifechanging
One of the things I love about mobile browsers is they recognize phone numbers and activate them. You search for a store on your mobile phone, you find the phone number, you click on it, and you place the call.
I've always wanted to work like that at home, but I really don't like calling on my laptop. I love the ability to roam around my home or office with my mobile phone or cordless phone and as much as I love my laptop, it makes a lousy phone.
On Thursday I posted about voice in the cloud and SIP phones. And Ken Berger left this comment letting us know about a Firefox extension for OnSip.
I installed the Firefox extension on my laptop yesterday morning and now every phone number I come across in Firefox is activated just like in my mobile browser. When I click on the number, my wireless SIP phone rings, I pick up the call, and I am connected. I can walk around my home and do the call just like I was on my cell phone.
This is a little hack. It wasn't a huge amount of effort for OnSip to build this extension and the extension has only been downloaded 902 times as of this morning at the Firefox add on service. So in the grand scheme of things, this isn't a big game changing web service.
But it is a lifechanger for me. It simplifies making calls and makes the wired experience mimic the mobile one.
All of this is possible when your phone becomes a device on your network and the Internet just like your computer. As I said yesterday, this convergence is a big deal.
As Ken said in another comment, "Fones are finally fun."
