Chuck's Blog

I applied for Google Voice a few weeks back, (which by the way, you can do here) and got the invite yesterday morning. Eager to find out its features I quickly logged in, and found myself rather pleased.

After choosing your number and logging in you are presented with this page, which can be used to check your voicemail, place calls, send SMS messages, set your number settings, etc. It works in the exact same simple way that GMail does, so if you’ve used GMail before you will probably be able to navigate around Google Voice without any issues. Oh, and Google by default credits your account 0.10$ USD.

I tried out the calling feature from the website, and found that it works fine in Firefox. I also played around with the voice mail and SMS features. One thing to note is that your Google Voice number is textable by any U.S. phone, and it forwards these texts to whatever mobile phone you’ve linked to your account. It also provides the ability to reply through a proxy, so the person on the other side only sees your GV number.

If you look to the right, you can see a picture of how it looks for starting a GV texting session. If you start typing a number or name of a contact it will offer you auto-completed choices.

Texting in the U.S. is free, but supposedly some people have managed to text international countries without a fee. I haven’t though.

Below is a shot of me texting myself. Notice how GV replaced my mobile number with my name. (Saving me from having to blur it out)

The only problems I’ve noticed so far with GV is its lack of availability in countries other than the U.S. and the inability to text/call foreign numbers for free/monthly fee. Sure, I can understand countries outside your continent costing money, but what about the numbers in say Canada? Until this is resolved I will continue to use Skype for calling, and GV for receiving.

Been with VPSLink quite a few months now, and I must say things are going well.

chuck@wine:~$ uptime
 20:50:50 up 64 days, 51 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

Last reboot I did myself for a software update. And the only other downtime before that was during their datacenter power failure. No biggy though – only a few hours down and they promptly credited my account. They are also taking measures to make sure this will never happen again. (Second datacenter on the other side of the U.S. work-in-progress)

Remember, my referral code is 9PDT2M for anyone interested in getting a recurring 10% on any VPS package they offer. It also credits my account a little for everyone I refer, reducing the cost of hosting this blog.

If your a student like me you quite often need to make long distance calls across the nation to friends and family for various reasons. The only problem? Cell phone plans are crazy expensive to complete this job.

The solution? Well as long as you have WiFi access, why not just use Skype on your iPod? As long as you have a second generation iPod touch you can plug in a microphone & headphone set (About 5$ off eBay) and purchase the 2.95$/mnt plan from Skype for unlimited long distance* in the U.S. and Canada. After that simply install the free Skype app and away you go. It may be worthwhile to purchase an online number too, which basically links a phone number to your Skype account. You also get voice-mail added on with the subscription.

I actually use this for calling friends in Canada from the U.S. at an affordable rate. Call quality isn’t bad, but there is a slight (about half a second) delay when speaking that may be slightly annoying to some. I think it may be the WiFi and iPod processor combined causing this delay, because I never really noticed it when using Skype on a computer.

* The only thing about Skype’s unlimited plan is it isn’t truly unlimited. They have a “fair use” policy that usually doesnt cause any problems on light usage. Check their site for more info

Just a heads up for other people who may have this phone or are thinking of getting it — its front buttons (especially the OK button) tend to stop working/act funny after a few months of moderate usage. I’ve contacted Verizon a couple times now and got it replaced under warranty twice, but it continues to do the same thing. I’m seeing if it’s possible to get a credit towards a new phone instead of constantly replacing this one.

My opinion? Avoid this phone for now if possible. It’s a very nice phone, but trust me, the front buttons going really gets annoying after awhile.