Google Voice - Beating the System
I love technology.
About a year or two ago I signed up for this service called GrandCentral. It was my attempt at sticking to the man, beating the system and whatnot. Lemme esplain:
GrandCentral is an internet-based phone number. Its totally free. You give this number out to people. You sign into your GC account online and you add in things like, your home number, your cell number, office number, etc. You then add in contacts. And here is where the magic happens:
You can tell this service that when Mom calls... have it ring all of your phones. But only on certain days, during certain hours. You can tell it that when a blocked call comes in, put it right through to voice mail. You can have all your calls go to your cell phone while you're at work. If your daycare/babysitter calls... ring all phones all the time. Waiting for a job interview call? Yup, you can give the GC number out on your resume and then make sure you get the call while strolling the streets of Noho spending that unemployment check! Magic! Annoying telemarketers never get to hear your voice!!! Its pretty cool.
Voicemail all goes into one place too. And you can get transcripts emailed to you if you want.
What this service doesn't do, or hasn't yet... is allow you to make calls like Skype does. BUT, Google has bought GrandCentral and this service is currently called Google Voice. I would imagine that this next step is coming down the pike. As is number portability: use your current number for your Google Voice number. Genius!
Very good article on Google Voice is here.
Check it out here and request an invite here.
Now... back to the beating the system aspect:
If you have a cell account where you can call/receive calls from any 5 numbers for free... you can make this Google Voice number one of your Faves. If you give out this number to everyone, whenever they call you it will be... drumroll please.... FREE! Cool right?
So, if you are paying through the nose for a huge number of minutes on your phone, this is a legal* and legit* way to get around it. Of course, you will need to have that circle of friends option with your cell carrier. And then wait for an invite from Google Voice because they went to beta and now are on an invite only basis. They aren't letting users send invites either, otherwise I would totally be sharing the love right now.
*I think.
About a year or two ago I signed up for this service called GrandCentral. It was my attempt at sticking to the man, beating the system and whatnot. Lemme esplain:
GrandCentral is an internet-based phone number. Its totally free. You give this number out to people. You sign into your GC account online and you add in things like, your home number, your cell number, office number, etc. You then add in contacts. And here is where the magic happens:
You can tell this service that when Mom calls... have it ring all of your phones. But only on certain days, during certain hours. You can tell it that when a blocked call comes in, put it right through to voice mail. You can have all your calls go to your cell phone while you're at work. If your daycare/babysitter calls... ring all phones all the time. Waiting for a job interview call? Yup, you can give the GC number out on your resume and then make sure you get the call while strolling the streets of Noho spending that unemployment check! Magic! Annoying telemarketers never get to hear your voice!!! Its pretty cool.
Voicemail all goes into one place too. And you can get transcripts emailed to you if you want.
What this service doesn't do, or hasn't yet... is allow you to make calls like Skype does. BUT, Google has bought GrandCentral and this service is currently called Google Voice. I would imagine that this next step is coming down the pike. As is number portability: use your current number for your Google Voice number. Genius!
Very good article on Google Voice is here.
Check it out here and request an invite here.
Now... back to the beating the system aspect:
If you have a cell account where you can call/receive calls from any 5 numbers for free... you can make this Google Voice number one of your Faves. If you give out this number to everyone, whenever they call you it will be... drumroll please.... FREE! Cool right?
So, if you are paying through the nose for a huge number of minutes on your phone, this is a legal* and legit* way to get around it. Of course, you will need to have that circle of friends option with your cell carrier. And then wait for an invite from Google Voice because they went to beta and now are on an invite only basis. They aren't letting users send invites either, otherwise I would totally be sharing the love right now.
*I think.
Comments
Post a Comment