In computing, a softphone is a software program for making telephone calls over the Internet using a general purpose computer, rather than using dedicated hardware. Often a softphone is designed to behave like a traditional telephone,

ePresence Interactive Media is an Open Source Web Conferencing and Webcasting system that delivers video and synchronized presentation media over the internet using multiple streaming formats for multiple platforms. Freeware from the University of Toronto, Canada

http://epresence.tv/products

http://sourceforge.net/projects/epresence/ 

For the global visualization of time zones and clocks on your desktop (freeware):

Desktop Sun Tracker 

http://www.herethere.net/dt/

This software displays two versions of the world map, a day, and a night version, and fades between them to show which portions of the world are in daylight, and which aren't. In other words, this is a dynamic wallpaper that updates based on where the sun is relative to the surface of the earth.

Breitling World Time

NATSpectrum

A nice small freeware tool to display live microphone input levels (meaning audio gain and frequency - the starting point for audio quality control in a gain structure), plus a mic volume and mute switch, and a headset volume level switch

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=43372

Try using an Amplifier with an Equalizer (built-in one) to boost the energy of some of the audio bands. Many are like guitar amplifiers (with a MIDI input for instruments), but look for softwares that have a Microphone input, like this one: