Google Voice

I had signed up for the trial edition of Google Voice a couple of months back and was pretty excited when I got an email saying it was available. I signed up for a number and I've been experimenting with some of the features. It's amazing to see what it does and how it work, and it'll be very handy with this new business. I can set it up to simultaneously ring my home number as well as my cell phone number, which would be very handy. During the day I can use my home phone (saving cell phone minutes) but when I'm out and about the cell access would be fantastic. Google Voice gives you a phone number for free, and allows you to make calls to anywhere (non-international) for free. Considering I worked for a VOIP (voice over internet protocol) provider for a while, this is a huge deal.

Getting the number I wanted was the best part. I picked a close exchange (Grain Valley, MO) so that customers wouldn't have a long distance call to me, and that the number would seem a bit more familiar. I was able to find suggestions based on a series of letters I chose -- "GOD" in this case. I still haven't figured out all the stuff on it or fully implemented the features, but I'm anxious to write up an article or two to share more info with others about it. Google is simply amazing, but I hope they don't become too Microsoft like in their ways.