voicemail posts

Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Google, VoIP

Voice Mac is a native Google Voice client for OS X

by Jay Hathaway Nov 5th 2009

We recently told you about an Adobe AIR-based Google Voice client with a pretty small featureset. It puts your SMS and voicemail messages close at hand on your desktop, but that's all it does.

If you're on a Mac, though, you can do a bit better. Voice Mac is a Google Voice client with a threaded SMS view, voicemail downloading, and the ability to make calls and send texts, and Address Book integration.

Voice Mac is certainly not gorgeous, but it has a ton of functionality.

There's an SMS and voicemail/call history browser, and it also has a built-in reverse phone lookup, so you can try to figure out who any mystery calls are from. If you don't use your Voice account frequently, the web interface might be fine for you, but if you're a Voice addict - especially one who uses SMS constantly - Voice Mac is worth a download.

[via Lifehacker]

Tags: google voice, GoogleVoice, sms, voicemail, voip

Filed under: Utilities, Productivity, Google

Google Voice desktop app keeps your SMS and Voicemail handy

by Jay Hathaway Oct 28th 2009

With Google Voice now able to take over the voicemail from your mobile number, there are more reasons than ever to keep your Google Voice messages close at hand. There's cross-platform Google Voice desktop app that does just that, giving you quick desktop access to your voicemail and SMS messages.

The desktop app's features are very basic: just your inbox and contacts, in a compact layout. It's good for making sure you don't miss incoming messages, but don't expect too much else from it. If you're on a Mac, you might prefer to use Fluid to create a standalone browser for Google Voice.

[via Lifehacker]

Tags: adobe air, AdobeAir, desktop, google voice, GoogleVoice, sms, voicemail

Filed under: Google, VoIP

Google Voice (voicemail) now works with existing phone numbers

by Brad Linder Oct 27th 2009

Google Voice is a service that lets you check your voicemail on the web, receive transcripts of voicemails via email, screen calls, and give out a single number to all of your contacts that they can dial to reach you on your cell, home phone, work number, or any other phone you use.

But there's one relatively high barrier to entry. Well, two if you count the fact that it's still in private beta. But the main barrier is that while people can ring your existing number by dialing a Google Voice number, up until now it's been a one way street. They couldn't dial your cellphone number and automatically transfer into your Google Voice account. And that's meant that you probably had to maintain two or more voicemail accounts.

But now Google is taking a baby step toward number portability. When new users sign up, they have a choice of asking for a new Google Voice number or using an existing phone number.

While you won't get all of the features of Google Voice if you sign up with an existing number, you will be able to direct all of your voicemail messages to your Google Voice inbox. What this version of Google Voice doesn't offer is the ability to have all calls made to that number forwarded to multiple phones.

If you already have a Google Voice account and phone number, you can add Google voicemail to existing mobile phones from supported carriers. This doesn't appear to be an option for non-mobile phones. For instance, I have Google Voice configured to ring my SkypeIn number and I would love to consolidate my Skype and Google voicemail boxes, but there's no easy way to do that yet.

Tags: google-voice, number-portability, voicemail

Filed under: Google, VoIP, Search

Google Voice messages start showing up in search results, Google responds

by Brad Linder Oct 19th 2009

Google Voice is an internet service that lets people make, receive private phone calls. Google.com is a search engine that makes it easy for users to find just about anything stored on the internet. See how these two things might possibly not play well together?

Earlier today Boy Genius Report noticed that if you did a search for site:https://www.google.com/voice/fm/* on Google, you found a few dozen Google Voice messages. As of this afternoon you can still find those search results. Click on them and you can listen to voicemail messages or read the automated transcripts.

It turns out things weren't quite as bad as they may have looked at first. Google wasn't including all Google Voice messages in its public search index. But the company was crawling messages that users had posted publicly on the web.

But after this information became public today Google told Boy Genius Report that it would begin restricting crawling of even these messages, allowing users to post their voicemail messages on personal blogs without worrying quite so much about the whole world finding them (although if you're posting it on the internet maybe you should expect the whole world to be able to find it).

Tags: google, google-voice, privacy, voicemail

Filed under: Utilities, Office, Productivity

3jam: Google Voice may have some competition

by Jay Hathaway Jul 30th 2009

3jam offers a bundle of phone-related services, all connected to a virtual number. It's like Google Voice, but it does a few neat tricks that Google Voice doesn't. Incoming calls can ring simultaneously on your phone, IM or Skype. If you don't use your landline, you can even port that number to 3jam. 3jam also handles text messages, visual voicemail (with transcription), and SMS-to-Email conversations.

3jam is also working an enterprise angle by offering numbers for groups, which is kind of handy if you're a small business or a community organization. 3jam's services will cost you a monthly fee, but the idea is that it will be cheaper and offer more services than your existing phone service. The rates are reasonable, with 5-cent texts in the US, and international rates that seem competitive. Call forwarding rates from the most expensive countries top out around 35 cents, but most are much lower, and it beats paying your cell carrier's long distance rates.

Tags: 3jam, google voice, GoogleVoice, IM, phone, skype, texting, voice, voicemail

Filed under: Audio, Business, Podcasting, Productivity, Web services

Phone.io: free conference calls, voicemail and podcasting from Drop.io

by Jay Hathaway Apr 1st 2009

Phony-o? It sounds like an April Fools' Day joke, but it's not. The drop.io team is actually releasing new services at an amazing rate, and the latest is a conference calling, voicemail recording, podcast ready app called Phone.io. It works like any other Drop.io drop, in that you can set it up in a couple of clicks by just naming it and giving it a password.

Your phone.io drop has phone numbers you can use for voicemails or conference calls, and you can save the records as mp3s. Where phone.io really gets cool is in the number of ways you can share your stuff in very few steps. You can embed your audio in other sites, download it, or push it out to RSS or iTunes. If you're into social networks, you can also share it via Facebook or Twitter, and of course, you can share the Drop.io drop itself. Phone.io scores points for both features and ease of use, and it's definitely worth a look if you need to deal with over-the-phone audio.

Tags: audio, conference-call, drop.io, phone, phone.io, podcast, recording, voicemail

Filed under: Internet, Text, VoIP

Skype and SpinVox offer voicemail to text conversion

by Brad Linder Mar 3rd 2009

Skype is launching a new feature that will let users convert voicemail messages to text which you can have sent to your phone via SMS. The company is working with SpinVox to offer the service.

The service will cost you. Prices run 25 cents per conversion in the US, which is about .20 Euros or £0.17 in the UK. And that doesn't include the cost of sending the SMS.

Long messages won't be fully converted. Instead you'll receive a text message with the first part of the voicemail transcribed, and a note suggesting you login to Skype to listen to the full message. SpinVox can handle translations in English, French, German and Spanish.

Honestly, I'm not convinced I would pay for this service, but I'm also not often away from my computer for extended periods of time. So I can usually just login and check my voicemail if I miss a call. What do you think? Would you pay $0.25 per message to have your Skype voicemail transcribed and sent to your mobile phone?

Tags: skype, sms, spinvox, voicemail

Filed under: Audio, Commercial, Freeware, Mobile Minute

SlyDial: Leave voicemail without actually having to talk to anyone

by Brad Linder Jul 22nd 2008

It's 2am and you really, really, really need to get in touch with your significant other to let them know how sorry you are about the thing you said earlier that night. But you're a bit tipsy, and they're probably asleep and you don't want to wake them up. So what do you do? Make a call that goes directly to voicemail of course. Because nothing says "I'm sorry babe," like a rambling voicemail message. And that's where slydial can help.

Slydial lets you make a call to any landline or cellphone number in the US and go straight to voicemail. Just call 267-slydial (that's a Pennsylvania area code, in case anyone was wondering), and while listening to the somewhat amusing, somewhat offensive introduction, just enter the number of the person you want to call. Slydial will play a rather obnoxious ad and then connect you to the voicemail. The person you're calling will then get a missed call and/or voicemail message, but their phone will never ring. It's sort of like sending a text message. But with voice. And without the SMS fees.

If you want to avoid the obnoxious advertisement part of the equation, you can also register for an account and pay $.15 per call or $4.95 a month for unlimited calls. You know, in case you like to leave a *lot* of voicemails, but can't stand actually speaking with people in real-time.

[via Webware]

Tags: slydial, telephony, voicemail

Filed under: Internet, Blogging, Google, Beta

Sign up for Google's Blogger and get a GrandCentral invite

by Brad Linder Feb 22nd 2008

Looking for an invite to Google's GrandCentral? The service has been in private beta since Google bought internet telephony company last year. While the private beta label hasn't exactly come off just yet, Google is making it a lot easier for anyone who wants a GrandCentral account to sign up for one.

Today Google posted a little note on Blogger Buzz letting users of the company's Blogger service know that they could sign up for GrandCentral accounts immediately. As far as we can tell, that link should work whether you have a Blogger account or not. But if it doesn't work for you, all you have to do is sign up for a Blogger account. They're free.

Once you have a GrandCentral account, you will be assigned a phone number that you can link with a number of real world phones. Whenever someone calls your GrandCentral number, the call can ring through to your work, home, or cellphones. You can listen to your voicemail from the web. Or you can set rules for how calls from various numbers will be treated.

What's the Blogger connection? You can also use GrandCentral's WebCall feature to add a "Call Me" button to your web page. Visitors can click the button, and GrandCentral will connect their cellphone to your number without ever showing them your phone number. You can either take the call or send all calls directly to voicemail which you can access from the web. You can even post voicemail messages to your blog using GrandCentral's embeddable audio player.

Tags: blogger, callme, grandcentral, voicemail

Filed under: Audio, Business, Internet, Productivity, Web services

Skype Voicemail via SMS

by Chris Gilmer Aug 1st 2007

It looks like users of Skype will now be able to get SMS texts of voicemails thanks to a new partnership with Spinvox.

The new service will allow any Skype user to have their voice messages converted to text and sent as an SMS message when they are not located near a PC. It will be launched in English, Spanish, French and German languages at launch.

Spinvox is the originator of the Voice to Screen messaging category. Their service allows voicemail messages to be converted to text in four languages, and currently operating on five continents.

Tags: skype, sms, spinvox, voicemail, voip

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google, VoIP

Google acquires GrandCentral

by Brad Linder Jul 2nd 2007

My, how time flies. It seems like just last week we were telling you that Google was going to purchase internet telephone company GrandCentral. And now... they have.

What's GrandCentral? It's a service that lets you receive calls from all your phone numbers on a single phone. You can also combine all of your voice mailboxes into one simple account which you can access over the phone or on the web.

In announcing the acquisition, Google product manager Wesley Chan describes the technology as fitting well "into Google's efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between our users."

Does this mean GrandCentral's technology will be integrated with GTalk? It's not clear just yet, but we wouldn't rule it out. Google promises that service will be uninterrupted for existing customers while GrandCentral's technology is migrated over to Google's servers. In the meantime, Google says a limited number of beta invitations will be available for new customers.

Tags: grandcentral, mailbox, telephone, voicemail

Filed under: Business, Fun, Internet, Blogging, E-mail

Spinvox puts a new spin on your mobile phone

by Emily Price May 4th 2007

In principle Spinvox is very similar to Jott: it allows you to blog from your mobile phone and send messages to yourself and others, as well as convert your voicemail into a text message you can read on the spot. Here's a rundown of Spinvox's features:

Voicemail: From a caller's standpoint, nothing changes about your voicemail process. After someone leaves a voicemail, however, Spinvox will convert the message into text and automatically send you a text message and email with the transcript of the message. This can be great for messages left while you're in a meeting and can't pick up the phone, or phone calls that come while you're in an area too loud to answer.

Memos: Need to remember to pick up some milk on the way home? The memo option allows you to call and leave a message for yourself that will be sent to your email inbox.

Email: The email option, called "broadcast" by Spinvox, allows you to send the same message to a large group of your contacts at the same time. While Jott sends mass emails or text messages, Broadcast on Spinvox is limited to text messaging contacts.

Blog: The blog client allows you to post blog posts directly from your phone to Blogger, Vox, and LiveJournal blogs. If you have several different users on your blog you can give them all the blog number and allow everyone to post via mobile phone.

Spinvox works with any cell phone or carrier in and can be test driven for free with later pricing based on your usage of the service.

Tags: blogging, email, internet messaging, InternetMessaging, messages, text messages, TextMessages, voicemail

Filed under: Audio, Text, Web services

SimulScribe transcribes voicemail into text

by Chris Gilmer Mar 2nd 2007

SimulScribe is offering a unique solution for users of voice mail; A way to convert voice mail into readable text.

SimulScribe transcribes voice mails and sends them directly to your mobile device as text or email messages. Its sometimes a hassle to check voicemails and write down notes from messages -- and its so much easier to take a glance at txts that come in -- so what better way than to get your voice messages sent straight to your portable device.

It is a tad pricey though at $9.95 for a bundle of 40 messages. You can try it free for a month to see if you can justify the charge. SimulScribe currently has over 5000 users, and supposedly will announce a deal with a major national carrier in April.

Tags: email, read, SimulScribe, text, txt, voice, voice mail, VoiceMail

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Text, Utilities, Web services, Google, Social Software, Googleholic

Googleholic - August 1st 2006

by Chris Gilmer Aug 1st 2006

In this issue of Googleholic we cover:

Flint cant get enough of Google
Google City Giudes
Hidden Google Services
Google's Summer Health Tips
Making Google Buttons
Google Earth for Katrina

and more...

Tags: attractions, city guides, CityGuides, code hosting, CodeHosting, day trips, DayTrips, file transfer, FileTransfer, flint, flint journal, FlintJournal, google, Google Buttons, Google Desktop, Google Earth, Google Events, Google Guess, Google Online Assessment, Google Real Estate Search, Google Services, google verticals, GoogleButtons, GoogleDesktop, GoogleEarth, GoogleEvents, GoogleGuess, googleholic, GoogleOnlineAssessment, GoogleRealEstateSearch, GoogleServices, GoogleVerticals, heat exhaustion, HeatExhaustion, Hurricane Katrina, HurricaneKatrina, insect repellent, InsectRepellent, katrina, larry page, LarryPage, lodging, michigan, Mobile Marketplace, MobileMarketplace, open source, OpenSource, serp, Share Error, ShareError, shopping, Summer Health Tips, SummerHealthTips, sunscreen, Taraneh Razavi, TaranehRazavi, the flint clug, TheFlintClug, thunderstorms, tick bites, TickBites, toolbar, tours, voicemail, Weaver, xml

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Utilities, E-mail, Web services, Google, Microsoft, VoIP, P2P

Google Talk File Transfer, Voicemail, and Music Status Update

by Chris Gilmer Jul 28th 2006

Google has just released a great new version of Google Talk. This new version has all the goodies people have been asking for.

This new feature list includes:

File Transfer - Send unlimited files and folders to contacts. With no restrictions on file size.
Voicemail - If your buddy isn't answering his/her call, leave a message. A voicemail message. And even if your friend doesn't use Google Talk, they can still receive it in a nice little attached audio file.
Music Status - Show what tunes you are currently listening to.

Google Talk is shaping up to be an ultimate player in the IM and VoIP world. They have come a long way since the launch of their first rendition of a barebones instant messenger. MSN Messenger look out!

Tags: audio, file transfer, FileTransfer, fmsn messenger, FmsnMessenger, google, google news, google talk, GoogleNews, GoogleTalk, im, instant messenger, InstantMessenger, music status, MusicStatus, voicemail

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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