Google has started accpeting requests for invites to Google Voice. Id post a link but I’ve already typed out the rest of this post and on the g1 if I leave the browser once I come back it refreshes the page and I lose evereything I’ve written. I’ve alredy informed Google of this.
For those who don’t know, Google voice gives you a new phone number which, when called, connects to the phone numbers you have now. This has a few advantages. First Google can handle your voicemail much better than your carrier. You can personalize greetings for contacts or groups of people. It can transcribe your voicemails and send them to you as either an email or SMS. You can easily access your voicemail online.
You have one number for the rest of your life, for all your home, work, and cell phones. You tell Google Voice which callers are routed to which phone or phones. By pressing # or something on your cell phone you can ring your home phone, answer, hang up the cell phone and continue your conversation on the home phone. Fucking magic.
Google voice also let’s you record calls by pressing 4. Those recordings can be accessed online as well.
But wait there’s more. Say you make a craigslist posting and want to have prospective buyers call you. Normally you’d have to throw your phone number out to the world. Now you can easily place a “call me” button which asks for their number then connects him to you.
There’s more and there will be more in the future to talk about Google Voice.
I heard that there were supposed to be all these new features in the latest version of google maps but couldn’t find any of them. On a recent search of the marketplaces top applications I saw googe maps. The thing is I never even knew there was a map app, I had just always used the one that came installed.
The app version of google maps includes voice search, business reviews, and updates? Looks like google is taking on twitter and facebook’s similar feature.
On a similar note I think we should try to find some way of communicating as a group besides the forum. I’m not sure but I think twitter is a little too much of a public place. I just got a facebook account a few weeks ago. I havnt really messed around with it yet so I don’t know if we could use it to replace the forums. Seems to me like we could. The main problems with the forum is that it doesn’t push the posts out. Well it does through an rss feed, but finding an rss reader that can handle the login is a pain. The forum server is super slow. The forums have been a fun place and we might as well keep it up cause its free, but I think we should move to facebook or something else if there are any suggestions.
It might get boring after 10 minutes but its awesome to watch a live stream of the men working in space. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html And while I’m at it you should follow NASA on twitter for live updates on the mission and future mission. Also, follow me, I’m coretron.
I have no mp3s on my computer. I haven’t for years. I get all my music from imeem.com. You can search an artist and instantly get a playlist of their songs. You can give it one song you have on your mind and from there it will take you on a musical journey of songs based on the one you gave it. Any time you find a song you love you can favorite it and it’ll be remembered till the day you die. You can also share the song with your friends and if they are also hip to the imeem you can both see what the other has been listening to lately. Between every 20th song they have a 4 second promo for a new band, but other than that there are no ads. I love letting it take me on a journey of songs and along the way i can mark the best as favorites. On my G1 I can load the imeem app which can play a playlist of random songs i’ve favorited (spellchecker doesn’t know “favorited”). As I’m writing this the imeem.com player chose a variation of a song on my favorite playlist, which is infinitely excellent. (here’s the song it chose, here’s the version on my list, heres a third verion it threw my way, it’s kinda a gay song but its catchy). Imeem is close to perfecting the art of new song selection based on your past listening. There’s really no reason to download music when there’s imeem.com. My only beef with them is that the g1 application doesn’t play any song you tell it to, it only randomly plays an artist and similar artists, your favorited songs, or mp3’s you uploaded. It also has the bizarre feature of finding popular songs based on your GPS location....
Sure we see one of these bills make it this far every once and a while, but this time things might be looking a little more serious. Schwarzenegger says it’s “time for debate” on the issue. The bill, AB 390, comes from Tom Ammiano, here’s his press release on the matter. He quotes a field poll saying 56% of Californians support legalizing taxing and regulating marijuana. He says it could generate 1.3 billion a year in tax revenue at $50/oz, that’s 26 million ounces, 1.6 million pounds or .75 oz for every man woman and child in Cali. In the past Schwarzenegger has said pots a leaf not a drug, and we all know Obama’s cool with it. It makes sense and I believe it’s just a matter of time. The state is desperate for money and this is a huge untapped cash cow that isn’t going anywhere.
Get it now legally and free from Microsoft. It’s good till July 2010, but you’ll probably want to upgrade to a pirated version of the final version. It boots and installs in record times. It took about 30 min to install and about 30-40 sec to boot. I haven’t done much yet, perhaps I should compile a full review… That sounds like actual blog work.
Here’s a little of what I know for now. To get Chrome working you have to get the latest beta build. Windows 7 comes with a full copy of Windows XP which uses virtualization to run in Windows 7. In about 10 seconds you can have XP running a program in window in Win 7. One of the things that’s held Windows back is that they have to maintain compatibility for all the old software and hardware. Even if you don’t need it, which most modern people don’t, it’s there slowing down your OS. This new way of having XP boot within Win 7 for legacy programs allows Win 7 to be faster and more lightweight. Here’s the kicker, your CPU has to support virtualization. Apperently even some lower end modern CPUs don’t even have this, but some from as far back as 2006 do. Here’s a good blog post about more on the issue.
I highly recommend using Windows 7 RC1.
I was at a web page explaining how to install the wake on lan application for the g1 when I saw something claiming to be a QR link to the application. I googled it and found that the Barcode Scanner app can read QR codes. The g1 scanned the image then gave me the link to the page. They can also link to numbers for sms or call. Apparently these are popular in Japan, especially on ads. Here’s the link to the wake on lan app which, when properly configured and supported, lets you remotly boot your computer. It’s the fastest way to get a webpage or phone number onto your phone. QR code generators are freely available on the internet.
Microphones and speakers are really the same thing, they are just a diaphragm a magnet and a coil used to convert an analog electric signal into sound or vice versa. In a pinch you can plug your headphones into your mic jack and talk into your headphones. I wouldn’t recommend trying to hear music through your mic as you’d overload it.
My speakers and headphones use a simple splitter to share my PC line out. Just today I dropped my headphones and heard it in the speakers. Sure enough I could talk into the headphones and hear it amplified in the speakers. The headphones could play the PC sound while also recieving audio which was then amplified by the speakers, which also play the PC sound. Its a very unexpected consequence of my setup but makes sense when you think about it. The speakers are receiving not only the PC sound but also the current induced by the headphones. Anyone have a solution? I might get an external card, mines reaching retirement age anyways.
To install you have to reformat your phone, but there are backup apps on the marketplace that help get you back. I just got it and haven’t looked through it all yet, there are lots of little changes. Here’s a video sample. It’s a 352×288 mpeg4 at 17 fps and its 2.5MB for 1 minute of video and audio. The actual cupcake is coming out soon. The HTC Magic releases on Vodaphone May 5th for FREE with contract, not in the US though. It’ll be running cupcake. In fact, the hacked cupcake for the G1 is just the HTC Magic software made to work on the G1. On screen keyboard works well, it’s good at autocorrecting misclicks. Check out Haykuro’s Blog for downloads and instructions.
