Sunrocket VoIP service - I can still make calls!

I was a loyal Sunrocket customer for about 2 years. I couldn't complain about the service while they were still in business and I still can't. Except for the loss of voicemail, I still have inbound and outbound calling capability. I signed up for the $199 per year deal in January of 2007. So, I have used about 7 months of it so far. By my calculations if I compare the monthly service that I had to the yearly service that I was using, I have just about broke even. Not sure how much longer I will be able to make calls, but I wonder about international calls. If they don't have a billing department any more will my call be free...

Here is a link to an article about the closing. http://www.nbc4.com/news/13700302/detail.html

Spiceworks - Network Management System

I found spiceworks while reading one of my RSS feeds about 2 months ago. Spiceworks is a network management program that is completely free and just about as robust as much larger and much much more expensive ones.

After reading about the program in the article and checking it out on their website (link here) I decided to download it and give it a try. The interface is web based. After some simple configuration to get it to work on your network it finds all of the devices. It will categorize and label everything. The program will tell you about the hardware and all of the specs that you need for your hardware inventory. It finds all of the software installed and can provide you with reports about who has what installed and whether or not you have enough licenses.

Spiceworks also includes a helpdesk function. I just set this up and I was worried that I would need to create individual users manually (it doesn't have Active Directory integration). But once the user goes to the helpdesk site and enters in the ticket spiceworks will associate the hardware device where the the user filled in the ticket. The username, computer name, IP address, and everything else that spiceworks already has in its database about the hardware device will show up. So far it is working great. I only wish that I could get the money in the paycheck for what I saved in a Network Management System.