Neff Zone Column -- August 1, 2009

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Print Edition: August 1, 2009

HIGH TECH FOR ALL AGES

It’s time to dive into the technology pool once again. Last May I told you about a new telephone service Google was testing – Google Voice. Well, I’ve had Google Voice for a couple of weeks now and so far I’m very impressed.

Basically, Google Voice is a free service through which you can coordinate all your existing phones, place free long distance calls, send free text messages, and have free voicemail. The key word here (obviously) is "free."

Here’s how it works. First, you go to www.google.com/voice where you can see a demo of how Google Voice operates. At the bottom of the page is a link to request an invitation to get a Google Voice account. After you do that an invite will appear in your e-mail with instructions on how to proceed.

As part of setting up your account you’ll choose a local phone number. This will be a separate number from the ones you currently have (both land line and cell). On your account’s home page, you designate (with a check box) which of your current phones you want to ring when someone calls your Google Voice number. You can mix and match these at will on your account page. For example, I have it set so when someone calls my GV number both my home phone and my cell phone ring. When my wife and I are traveling, I’m going to set it so calls to my GV number will ring my cell and my wife’s cell (and not my home phone) so our kids will be sure to get one of us.

I’m sure you can see that this would be handy for someone who has a home phone, personal cell, business phone and business cell because the owner of all those numbers could coordinate all four with Google Voice and just give out the GV number.

When you want to make a call via Google Voice (local or long distance) you can dial it on your computer. GV will dial your personal phone, ask you to stand by while it dials the party whom you are calling, and when you’re connected you talk phone-to- phone just like you do now. You can also dial through GV with your phone (instead of your computer) by dialing your own GV number and then the number of the party you’re calling.

Ah, but there’s more. If you don’t answer and someone leaves a voicemail for you an audio copy goes into your GV voicemail box, the message is transcribed into print format and a copy of the voicemail is sent to your e-mail, and a print copy is also sent as a text to your cell phone.

There are more bells and whistles to Google Voice and you can check those out on the GV home page. The bottom line, however, is that you can mix and match all sorts of phone numbers you already have and manage all of them under the one, single Google Voice number. You give out one number to people (the GV number); they don’t have to remember all of your phone numbers, just one.

Now, onward to something else. I really like listening to old radio shows. (Yes, kidlings, people used to actually "listen" to shows back in the dark ages before high def cable television.) If you remember radio’s glory days and would like to revisit those thrilling days of yesteryear do I have a Web site for you – www.oldradioworld.com. Old Radio World has (literally) thousands of episodes of classic radio shows in MP3 format that you can download for free and then play on your MP3 player. The shows are listed in categories: comedy, mystery, westerns, science fiction, detectives, you name it. Listen to Fibber McGee and Molly, The Shadow, or Gunsmoke. How about 298 episodes of Dragnet or 386 episodes of Jack Benny? The site even has 56 World War II news broadcasts.

I’ve been hitting this site on a daily basis. When you see me walking around town with my MP3 player’s headphones on you might assume I’m listening to KISS or Chickenfoot, but the truth is I’m just as apt to be enjoying an episode of the Great Gildersleeve.

Finally, if you’re having problems with viruses, malware, or riskware (those nasty little things hackers have been launching at all of us), check out Malwarebyte’s Anti-Malware program. This is a free download from www.malwarebytes.org and once installed you can scan your computer for all sorts of troublesome intruders. After scanning identifies the culprits, the Anti-Malware cleans out the offenders.

Malwarebytes doesn’t replace your firewall and anti-virus applications, but it does give you one more tool to keep your computer safe.

Jim Neff is a local columnist. Comments to neffzone@gmail.com. Read Neff Zone columns online at www.neffzone.com/cadillacnews.