The Mobile Lifestyle

I am always one to try and find ways technology can make my life better or easier. Using a couple free services, I have basically eliminated 2.7% of all my problems in my life and I must say. . . I love it.


So, I was reading an article by Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal and he was talking about some new online services that give the ability to literally take control of your voice mail. He gave some good reviews to two different sites: www.youmail.com and www.grandcentral.com. They both offer the same services but in round about ways. I will tell you what I use them for. YouMail, I love because I can choose who listens to what message. I can record a message or select a bunch of different kinds for other callers. The voice mails are then e-mailed in MP3 format and I can save them for black mailing purposes later. GrandCentral is cool, cause I have a 801 number even though I live in Washington, it is also nice for when I am selling items on the classifieds and people can call the GrandCentral number instead of giving out my personal number. I can also screen people using both services.

As for my opinion. . . I would recommend using YouMail, if you just want more control of voice mail. If you have more specific business reasons you want the ability to ring to mulitple phones then GrandCentral could be cool.

In related news--Google has finally fixed their iMAP issue with Windows Mobile 6 devices. When this feature was first released it wouldn't show the text of the e-mail on the screen. Now it is fixed and I am no longer doing the POP3 thing. Here is the link.