Google Voice

Okay so I've been hearing so much about Google Voice. When tried getting it earlier, I had to be invited. However I couldn't find someone to invite me. Finally it became available to everyone. I signed up.

When signed up it asked me for my area code or my zip code or my city. I chose my area code. Mostly because my city is in more then one location. I wanted to make sure I got the right location.

Then had to pick a word for my Google Voice Number. I tried several combos. All of which where taken. I was like what the heck. These words are never taken when I sign up to sites. I then chose 4 letter word. It was availible. I am now under the impression that my word was supposed to be 4 letters only. If I knew this would have made better 4 letter word. However the 4 letter word still means something to me. I guess I could of made 4 letter word that means a little more to me.

Anyhow I then got to add a my phone number to it. This was nice. Because now it acts as number that forwards over to the number. Kind of like those 800 numbers. You know you get an 800 number and it forward to your regular phone number. But what thought was nice was I could add my cell phone number, home number, Skype number, work number fax number and yada yada. So now instead of managing all of those numbers I only have to worry about single number.

Google then displays a 2 digit number on your computer screen. This is followed by you getting phone call asking you to enter your 2 digit verification code. This is the 2 digit number displayed on your screen. I can see why they would do this, this is to prevent number hijacking.

Another nice thing is the ability to send text messages and it supports voice. I can make phones from my computer. Think of Skype on crack. I can manage all of my contacts and everything from it.

When I manage my contacts I get list of contacts that I've added to my GMail Account that I can add to my Google Voice number as contact. It also displays all the people I've emailed on GMail account. I can then add those people as well. Not only this but you can import contactss that you have stored on your computer. I'm not sure what formats are supported yet for the uploadinh option mostly because I haven't tried it. But my guess is it will most likely be cvs format.

I'm not sure if you can sync your cell phone contacts and skype contacts onto Google Voice but if you can't this would be nice little feature. In short their seems to be so much you can do with it. It is really handy tool to not only manage all of your phone numbers, contacts, and such. But an all in contact management tool/ I've just read some stuff about adding Google voice to Pidgin. This will be nice as well. This way instead of my opening up web browser to use it I will be able to use it with program that is always running on my computer.

In shorts I think it is really nice to have. However I think they need to add better instructions on signing up to it.