There are times when you want to give out a phone number but you do not want to give out a live direct number. This happened to me when making some contact information cards for the library classes I volunteer teach. I certainly did not want to be giving out my cell phone number to just anyone who showed up for the classes. So I dusted off something I setup a while back. Grandcentral.com.

Grandcentral is now a Google owned property. It lets you pick a phone number you can keep effectively for life. The fun then begins. You can import the contact information from your computer and teach it how to route calls based on who is calling. So you could setup one number and if it is your spouse it rings your cell number and work number effectively forwarding the call. If it is an unknown stranger you can have it go to voicemail instead. Then Grandcentral will even email you a link you can click to play any recorded voicemail. Optionally you can have it SMS your cell phone to notify you of voicemail.

You can setup rules so certain contact numbers only get forwarded to certain real numbers for you such as home, work and cell. You can do this by grouping those contacts as well.

So if you have need to share a common number but want the control to protect your direct number privacy then Grandcentral is a great tool. It is free so create an account and give it a whirl.

PS You can even change the routing rules based on callerID from the call logs. So if someone starts bugging you, just route them to call blocked… =)

I got to drive a Prius the other day, for the first time. I’ve been curious for a while now about the technology, and about whether it was an easy switch to make.

After driving it for a bit, I’d have to say that, at least in the case of a Prius, it’s not a smooth switch to a hybrid. It really takes some getting used to. In fact, I actually started to get used to the weird feeling like it was stalling whenever you stopped at a red light, and it switched from gas to battery power. I might have even gotten used to just how light it felt as we were driving around and how odd it is to have a park button instead of a park on the gear shift. What I don’t think I’ll ever get used to is just how little power it had! Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big SUV, V-8 kind of guy. We have two Subaru’s in our family, a Forrester (lightweight SUV) and an Impreza so it’s not like we’re blowing people away with the engine power, but there’s enough there that I can step on it and get up to speed merging on the freeway, or turning out into traffic, as quickly as I need to. I didn’t feel that in the Prius. I felt like I was in danger of getting run down by other vehicles on the road as I put-putted along trying to get up to speed. That’s not a good feeling.

So techies and early adopters, is this a hybrid thing, or just a Prius thing?  Any of you own a hybrid? What are your thoughts? Do you expect the technology to get better and eliminate the lack of power, or are we headed to a future of driving around in golf carts?

The other day my dad got me some new type nimh rechargable batteries from costco. They are called Eneloop made by Sanyo.

I have been using them for several weeks now. Both in my Altec Lansing inMotion ipod portable speakers and in my Canon S2 IS camera. They last amazingly long and recharge way faster than my Energizer batteries. Usually the energizers can go dead within a few days. They also take over 30 minutes to charge on their own 15 minute speed charger. The eneloops can last over a year charged without use. They even come charged in the package. I also just charged a set of four AAs in 10 minutes on my Energizer charger.

They just rock. Finally what rechargeable batteries should have been all along. I definitely recommend these to anyone who wants to be a little green and not use disposable batteries.

Microsoft posted a screenshot of some new Exchange2007 options which made me laugh. Well worth a visit to check out this tool and read the comments too.

One of the sessions I attended last week at ABA Techshow was one that was aimed at helping attorneys and legal staff handle their email better. Since this is something we are going to be trying to help people do, in an effort to cut down on the ridiculous amount of email we store, I went looking for ways to help explain handling email better.

As the session went along, one of the speakers recommended using a second, web-based, email account for non-essential stuff. That way you don’t have mailing lists, newsletter subscriptions, Google News alerts, or other non-essential email keeping you from finding what you need in your Outlook, or interrupting you with a new mail alert. (Although they suggested killing that too, in all fairness.)

Anyhow, that got me thinking. Lots of places block access to web based email as a matter of policy. I began to wonder if unblocking that would put a small dent in the amount of email that our users are storing, and handling? After all, I know there are mailing lists I would rather subscribe to in Gmail, but don’t because I can’t access it at work.  That means, at least in my case, there’s a significant amount of email being handled by our Exchange server, and having to be dealt with somehow, in my Outlook, as opposed to just being over in Gmail, and me looking at it occasionally.

Now, I know the common refrain is that web based email account are a security risk, but is the risk that large, and does blocking access to web mail really mitigate that risk in a significant way? For example, years ago people decided to block it because of the virus risks, but just about all major web mail services do anti-virus scans on any attachments, and even then,  your desktop AV product should scan any attachments when you try to open them. So, to my mind, blocking might decrease the chance of getting a virus attachment slightly compared to depending on these other tools, but doesn’t make that much of a difference.

Now I know that’s hardly the only concern, but it’s just an example. Anyway, what do you think? I know some of you guys block web mail, and I’m sure some of you don’t. I also know almost all of us are struggling with what to do with all that email coming into, and being stored on, our networks and mail servers, so I’m curious about what you all think? Would allowing access put a dent in that, or is it not worth the increased risk?

Microsoft have for some time made available virtual images of XP with IE6 and IE7 available. With the new beta version of IE8 now available for testing, the download page for IE on XP and Vista has been updated.  You can also try the various IE’s in Vista too.  Note that all the downloads will expire at the end of June 2008 (but new ones will probably be available to download before then.)  Apparently IE8 won’t access Microsoft Update pages unless you run in IE7 emulation and restart your browser.

Our tax refund came in last week. My wife just loves to do our taxes, have it direct deposit to her checking account and then dole an allowance to me. Of course she almost always uses it to update something on the house. But this time I got to spend a little on something. A nice new Roomba 560 from Linens and Things.

Cnet had a good review on the 560 last fall. It has an improved vacuum, traction etc. You can read the review HERE.

The trick to buying an item like this from Linens and Things is to print off the 20$ discount coupon from the Internet. Here is a link to the 20% Coupon. It expires Dec 31, 2008. I was able to get the 560 for $305 including sales tax using the coupon.

The first one I got was dead out of the box. Would not power up or charge at all. Linens and Things exchanged it with no questions asked. The second one worked perfect. It made a little musical tone the moment I pulled out the battery protection tab from the bottom of the unit. Then I let it charge over night. It has been great. Our hardwood floors even feel cleaner when walking around in bare feet. Not that we ever had a messy house. It just makes so much difference in the feel of the floors and quality of the air having the roomba run twice a week during time we are out of the house. You can schedule the 560 for one time during any day of the week. So you can schedule say twice a week at 930am during the day while you are at work.

In the past two days I’ve seen references to three different options for online file storage. Obviously this is a growing industry!

The first two were in the latest issue of Tech Support Alert

1.3 Fifty Gigabytes of Free Online Storage
Most sites offering large quantities of free online storage usually impose strict monthly transfer limits. This one, suggested by subscriber “Greetz:One”, doesn’t seem to. More accurately I couldn’t see any. I gave it a quick whirl and as usual the upload speeds were modest. Also, the desktop client is pretty basic but it does allow you view your online files and to transfer files by drag and drop. OK, the service lacks the fancy backup management features you get with services like Mozy, but if you simply want a lot of online storage space then this site is well worth checking out.
http://adrive.com/home

1.4 More Free Online Storage Options
Subscriber Richard Barnes writes, “Gizmo I saw in January issue you mentioned Amazon S3 online Storage. I use a company called Online Storage Solution [1]. They charge $3 a month for unlimited storage and unlimited downloads. The upload/download method is a bit slow and primitive, but it does the job eventually. I see that they’ve got a special offer at the moment: $20 for a year’s storage. If you’ve got a load of stuff to store, it’s a lot cheaper than Amazon’s S3. I’ve uploaded about 12GB of photos and am now embarking upon uploading my 100GB music collection.”
http://onlinestoragesolution.com

The third mention I saw was today over on Online Tech Tips, about MediaFire, which  offers unlimited storage for free. A business model I have my doubts about, but that I have no experience with to give an opinion one one way or the other.

I have to admit, aside from a few things I keep in Google Docs, my Google Notebook, and my Flickr account. I don’t really store much online, but I am thinking about taking advantage of some of these tools for a nice offsite backup for my files. What have your experiences been?

I was listening to Techometria with Phil Windley on IT Conversations. I just found out OpenDNS has added more category blocking now. It goes beyond just Phishing and Adult content. Say you want to block p2p, file storage and webmail for your organization to reduce likelihood of someone getting to sites to bypass your protections. Now you can. Just setup a login and you can block the categories you need. Very cool.

Today I ran into a problem trying to make copies of a CD full of documents. The copy process in Nero threw me a number of unreadable errors, even trying to copy each folder at a time put me headfirst into a cyclic redundancy check error, which told me all I needed to know about the state of the physical media. Of course, just saying “Sorry it’s not readable” without trying something wasn’t an option, so off to Google I went.

I found a little utility called Recovery Toolbox for CD Free. Once installed, I launched it and had it copy off all the data from the CD. It took a little while, and made some odd noises in the CD drive when it hit the files that resided on the bad sectors of the CD, but it did recovery everything off the CD, which then allowed me to go ahead and make a copy of copies of it.

Can’t complain about a tool that does the job!

Yet more records get lost by businesses this year. Some closer to home for me than others. So just to be safe I decided to track down my Fed guaranteed annual credit report. Here is all you have to do if you are a USA resident. If you go to any site but this one they could be selling you a service. This is the site the agencies setup in response to the Federal law to provide the annual free report. If you do not want to check it online you can request it via phone or mail.

Most people have probably used the Microsoft knowledge base but did you know that Microsoft Certified Partners (anyone who has passed a Microsoft exam) has access to an internal database that may have more information and articles? As long as you are already certified and have a LiveID then you can access the Microsoft Partner Level Knowledge Base.

My wife got wind of this tool in one of the PR/Marketing newsletters she’s subscribed to. It’s called Qipit, and the idea is that you take a photo of class notes,  a whiteboard, or other document, email it or SMS it to them and get a PDF version of it for your use or to share with others.

My question is, do you see this as a useful tool, or do you corporate security type folks see it as your worst nightmare, someone coming to work and photographing sensitive documents with their phone and being able to easily get them as PDF, completely bypassing all the measures you take to keep them from being emailed outside your organization?

I didn’t know about this feature either. Flickr Guest Pass:

You can share public photos in your photostream by copying the URL in your browser’s address bar and pasting it an email. Anyone can see your public photos anytime, whether they’re a Flickr member or not.

But! If you want to share private photos with people, use a Guest Pass. You can grant anyone access to the entire contents of one of your sets, including any private photos it contains. A Guest Pass is actually just that URL. This means that whoever sees that URL can access the set and all the photos inside it.

Go to the set you want to share and click the “Share this set” button. Then we’ll help you either send an email to friends via Flickr or make a special web address (URL) that you can share.

You can then expire the pass whenever you want to. I had no idea until I saw it on Daring Fireball tonight. I could see myself using it.

This was a warning message that I was greeted with on my new laptop at work today when I was messing around with dual screens and setting their resolution. Funny how it thinks the resolution I chose would result in a “fuzzy display” is worse off then its suggested “squinty display.”

Thanks, but no-thanks… I’ll keep my “fuzzy display” setting.

A few weeks ago I had a need to uninstall some software from my XP laptop at work. I did the usual START / Settings / Control Panel / Add and Remove Programs, but it simply wouldn’t populate the list of applications no matter how long I waited.

I REALLY didn’t want to reimage my machine just because of this one glitch — let me rephrase that… I was NOT going to reimage my machine because of this one glitch! But I still needed to get a certain application uninstalled and I also didn’t want to have to manually uninstall it.

I dug around on Microsoft’s site looking for a KB article on the issue, but nothing I found offered any relief. Then I came upon CCleaner.

Not only am I able to uninstall my apps now, I can do so many other things, like… clear temporary files, URL history, cookies from IE, Firefox or Opera, but also clean out the Recycle Bin, MRU lists, temp files, and clean up the registry.

A very handy tool… and best of all, it’s freeware!

Here is a great tool if you have friends or relatives who may have just received a new piece of software or perhaps received a new PC and need to know how to do something on their system software-wise.

Jing is a nifty free tool to create quick and simple screencasts. Even better, screencast.com will host your screencasts for you for free!

As an example, here is a link to a quick screencast I did to help a family member add photos to a group on Flickr.

Since it is a new year I was updating things in my iCal on my mac. I got to wondering if there was a way to subscribe to iCalendars (RFC 2445) shared calendars. Not import but actually subscribe so they stay up to date. I found an open source project called Remote Calendars. The latest version is v6.3 on May 19, 2007. So its fairly current. If you are a windows users and want to subscribe to iCalendars you can give it a try.

I just wish more groups used iCal feeds for their schedules. I was looking up our local library to see what they offered for computer classes and see if it was something I could volunteer to help with. The schedule is on the web page only and as a PDF flier.

Alternately if you are not an outlook user, there is always Mozilla Sunbird. It is a free calendar program that supports iCal subscriptions.

Links Mentioned:
Remote Calendars iCal for MS Outlook 2003 & 2007
Mozilla Sunbird
iCal Share - Lots of Publically Shared Calendar feeds
RFC 2445 - Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification

Putting up your prefab Christmas tree? Does it give you a hard time going back into the box? Rather than get a case of the prickly arms trying to squeeze it into the box try a towel or multiply trash bag. Just lay it around the section of the tree you are working on and squeeze it back down into storage shape. It will be much more comfortable and easier to get it into the box for storage.

Those of us who travel for work have already heard about the new guidelines from the TSA regarding carrying Lithium batteries onto planes effective January 1, 2008.

But you should take this into account all the time. My dad twice has had his pocket get really warm all the sudden from spare batteries in his pocket shorting with contact from keys and change. He takes lots of photos so he carries a spare set all the time. He recently gave me a small plastic case made for carrying my spare batteries when I am out taking pictures. He now carries his this way. Unfortunately I cannot find the simple 4 battery case online to link here. BUT I did find a nice 8 battery case meant for photographers to toss in their bag. You can find the case over at B&H Photo for $9.00 USD. If only cyberguys carried like a five pack of the four battery plastic holders. I would buy that in a minute.