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Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, VoIP

VoxOx 2 adds "personal assistant" to screen your calls

VoxOx 2.02
VoxOx is a chat, social networking, and VoIP communications tool for Windows and Mac. When you sign up for a beta account, you're assigned a phone number which people can dial from any phone to reach you. You can also make free calls to other VoxOx users or cheap calls to phone numbers.

We first looked at VoxOx when the service launched in November. This month, the VoxOx team released version 2, which is more stable and which has a handful of new features including:
  • A digital "personal assistant" that screens calls, sends them to voicemail, or routes them to your phone depending on your preferences
  • Send and receive texts from your VoxOx number
  • Skype IM integration (as well as Facebook and MySpace)
VoxOx 2 also loads faster and uses less memory than the initial release.

Filed under: Internet, Commercial, VoIP

Subscriptions make great presents - Holiday Gift Guide

Skype Pro
The holiday shopping season is upon us, and if you're trying to think up a few good gift ideas for your geeky or not so geeky friends and family, we're here to help. Over the next few days we'll be bringing you a number of suggestions for Download Squad style gifts.

To kick things off, I wanted to talk about a gift idea for the computer user who doesn't really need any new software: subscriptions. Nothing says I love you like a year's worth of unlimited domestic VoIP phone calls, or the security of knowing your files are securely backed up to an offsite storage space. Well, maybe not nothing, but certainly few things. Here are a few ideas for subscription based services you might want to buy for your loved ones. Feel free to add your own ideas or argue with my choice of services in the comments.

Skype

Skype provides a free way for Windows, Mac, and Linux users to make free voice or video calls to one another. But you can also buy credit or monthly subscriptions to make calls to regular telephones. You can also purchase a phone number that people can call to ring you on Skype.

Prices range from a few cents a minute for domestic calls, to $9.95 a month for unlimited international calls. For less than $36 a year you can buy a plan that will allow users to make unlimited domestic calls in the US and Canada. $60 a year will get you a SkypeIn phone number. If you purchase both an unlimited calling plan and a SkypeIn number, the price is even lower. And there are a ton of other options available.

Skype isn't the only game in town. You might also want to check out Gizmo5 or newcomer VoxOx.

Read more →

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, E-mail, Web services, VoIP, Social Software, Beta, web 2.0

VoxOx brings chat, social networking, phone calls together

VoxOx
VoxOx is one of those applications that does so many things that the easiest way to describe it is by listing some of the tools it can replace: AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Jabber, Google Talk, MSN Messenger, whatever email and social networking notifiers you use. In other words, it's like Digsby. But with support for video chat and VoIP calls to telephones. Oh yeah, and VoxOx automatically assigns all new users a phone number which people can dial to reach you on your computer.

VoxOx is currently in beta, with clients available for Windows and OS X. Linux and mobile clients are coming soon. And right now some of the services listed in VoxOx are unavailable. For examle, you can link the client to your Yahoo! Mail account to receive a pop up message every time you get a new email. But when you click the button to do the same thing with Gmail, nothing happens.

One of the most interesting things about VoxOx is the company's business model. You can do text chats with anyone for free. You can make free voice or video calls to anyone using VoxOx. And when you sign up you get 120 minutes of free calls to telephones. You can purchase credit for additional calls, or pay a monthly fee fro unlimited access. But every time you refer a friend to the service you get another 2 hours. And VoxOx will also soon add the ability for users to gain points by watching video ads.

If you're one of the first 500 Download Squad to register using our signup page, you'll get 1200 VoxOx Points which are good for 1200 domestic phone calls minutes of domestic US phone calls. Keep reading to find out how to get your bonus minutes.

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The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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