More than 600,000 people log on to Plenty of Fish every day to send messages to potential mates with the possibility of romance hanging in the balance. In less than five years, after signing a deal with Google Inc.’s adWords service, Plenty of Fish is generating $10-million a year in revenue.

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To take advantage users have to create a Free Tpad Account and download the Free Tpad Vista Softphone.

Gary Holden, Software Manager for Tpad, said: “We have been listening to the feedback from our huge customer base and as a result we have redesigned the softphone SIP stack to work beautifully with Vista. The Tpad softphone is now even simpler to use to make low cost international calls”

Holden continued: “In celebration of this achievement we are going to add 20 cent (USD) to all first time users accounts for a limited period. For example, this will allow you to make a free 20 minute call to anywhere in the US using Tpad’s Low Cost VoIP Rates”

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The twin advisories from the network giant cover a range of vulnerabilities in Cisco IP Phones and its Unified Communications Manager (UCM) call management software.

A range of Cisco 7900 Series IP Phones are subject to multiple flaws, some of which may lend themselves to attacks involving the execution of arbitrary code on a vulnerable phone. Malicious DNS responses, a bug on the phone’s SSH server and flaws in the handling of MIME on SIP messages all create buffer overflow risks. Other bugs create a means to crash vulnerable phones.

The bugs affect ranges of Cisco Unified IP Phone devices running both SIP firmware and SCCP firmware.

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And, VARs say, VoIP has evolved and become a solution their customers can get behind to not only save some cash, but also relieve the headaches of having to rip and replace their current systems.

Speakeasy, a Best Buy - owned company, has launched its Integrated Voice offering, a service the vendor said is cheaper than replacing traditional business phone lines and an alternative to a rip-and-replace upgrade.

“Businesses want the functionality and cost savings of VoIP without having to replace their PBXs,” Speakeasy CEO Bruce Chatterley said, adding that Speakeasy’s Integrated Voice targets the growing SMB market.

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These companies will be displaying their VoIP portable telephone using WiMAX, which achieves All-IP voice communication, at the 2008 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (previously 3GSM show).

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The bugs – rated “highly critical” by vulnerability tracking firm Secunia – were reported in 16 devices from the networking giant’s Unified IP Phone 7900 series, according to a Cisco advisory. Affected phones are those running either the industry standard session initiation protocol (SIP) and/or Cisco’s proprietary Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP).

Four of the VoIP flaws are overflow vulnerabilities, caused by handling errors that could result in the installation of malicious code on a victim’s phone. Another two bugs could permit specially crafted packets to launch DoS attacks. And a final vulnerability may allow privilege escalation.

Read more about this at SC Magazine.

Social Communicator makes social networking truly social on mobile and PC devices by bringing voice and video calling, social media content (e.g. YouTube, RSS feeds, Flickr, etc.), unified messaging, online information delivery, and video feeds together for effortless content sharing and real-time communication. Using GIPS media processing, Social Communicator ensures that its VoIP functionality, both on mobile phones and PCs, is the highest-quality experience available.

“With GIPS media processing technology Movial is able to provide consistent, high-quality VoIP communication to users,” said Victor Donselaar, president of Movial. “More than 15 operators around the world rely on Movial’s unified communications solutions today. Social Communicator is the bridge that unites mobile operators with Internet companies to encourage more communication, and helps carriers increase average revenues per user.”

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Telecommuting helps recruit and retain valuable workers. According to a survey conducted by LifeCare, one of the largest privately owned employee benefits organizations in the U.S., flexible work arrangements mattered more to personnel than health care. Robert Half International asked CFOs what incentive was the most effective in attracting top accounting candidates. Telecommuting was listed as the top incentive by a surprising 33% of respondents.

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It’s a trend currently being played out among today’s top vendors. Take, for example, Microsoft. The Redmond giant expects 100 million business users to make VoIP calls on its Office Communications software within three years. That is more than double the size of the current VoIP market. Two versions of Microsoft’s Office Communications software are now in beta testing. Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft’s business division, says, “Software is set to transform business phone systems as profoundly as it has transformed virtually every other form of workplace communication.”

Read more about this at TCMnet.