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So after a few days using Google voice, I have to say that I find it interesting and extremely useful!.  If you haven’t yet heard about Google Voice visit their site here.

At first glance it seems interesting because you can have one phone number ring all of your phones.  That is if you’re like me and have a home phone plus a cell phone plus a work phone… trying to give these numbers to all of my friends and keeping track of who has which numbers is just ridiculously hard to manage.  With Google Voice I can give out one number and I get to decide who can reach on which of my other phone numbers and even when they can reach me directly and when they just get routed to voicemail.  If I only want my friends to reach me on the weekends then I can set that up or even sending all cals to my work phone when I know I’ll be at my desk.

So as you can see this new offering from Google seems quite useful.  However one of My favorite features is transcripts of voicemails!  I can read my voicemail or listen to them if I choose.  I can even download them.  this seems perfect if you just want to setup a voicemail box say if you’re a podcaster or in radio and want to be able to play recorded messages on your show!

Above is a screencap of one of my voicemails from a telemarketer… yes I was stoked even to get a call from a telemarketer.  It appears that the number was in someone’s database.  It happens.  But the good news is that you can block numbers like this one easily.  My point for sharing that above image is to show you that the voice to text is still not perfect but still quite useful if you just want to scan messages quickly.  THe grey text is where the software wasn’t sure if it got the word right or not.  I could so have some reall fun with this!  and I’m tempted to give out my phone number to everyone and ask for strange and creative messages… but I think i’m gonna think about that one for a bit…

Anyway… this isn’t a full review of the Google Voice service but I thought I just give a heads up on my experience of using it… Peace!

A few days ago I applied for an invitation to GoogleVoice.

Let me say that when I signed up for it I had no idea what it was or what it did. I was mainly trying to get the jump on a friend of mine for the service… he ended up getting in before me but that’s ok because the service is quite interesting.

The main gist of the service is having a phone number that’s tied to you and not to any particular location like a land line phone in your home or your cel phone.  Instead you input all your phone numbers and your GoogleVoice number rings all the phones you’ve added. This way you can constantly change numbers on your land line, cell phone or work numbers and still retain one single number so people can always reach you.

At the moment my only gripe is that they didn’t have any phone numbers available in my local calling area.  so I chose a number with a 213 area code.  I chose 213 because I have some friends there and it seemed logical to have an L.A. number.  Selecting the initial number was free and I know that if you change your number there is a $10 fee.

So for me this just seemed like a geeky thing to be a part of but the more I look at it the more I’m seeing other possiblities for it’s use in my life.  I will keep using it and report back later…

JTag

update: Found some interesting articles when doing a search for GoogleVoice… enjoy!

Apple Rejects Google Voice iPhone App – PC World
Google Voice – Wikipedia
Google Voice: 5 Reasons to Use It, 5 Reasons to Think Twice – PC World
PC World’s review of Google Voice
Google Voice: A push to rewire your phone service – CNN

Well it’s now day 34 of using My e-cigarette and the same number of days since I’ve had a traditional tobacco cigarette.  I am proud to say that this product has helped me to quit smoking tobacco. However the powers that be, mainly the FDA, wants to take the product that helped me and many others quit tobacco, away from us.

Yesterday the FDA made a statement that indicated that E-cigarettes or electronic cigarettes were just as bad for you as traditional tobacco cigarettes.  and the media ran with the story as the FDA told it to them.  This upsets me because if the media had taken the time to read the report that the FDA made this statement based on, they would have seen that the study indicates just the opposite.  That e-cigs are not as dangerous as tobacco because the study indicates that they found only 1 carcinogen in the e-cig liquid when tobacco contains more than 40 known carcinogens!  I offer the release and the study below so you cna make up your own mind

FDA and Public Health Experts Warn About Electronic Cigarettes
Sumary on FDA Anaylsis
Final report on FDA analysis

P.S.   Just because it’s the government doesn’t mean that they’re looking out for your best interests…