Gmail

:sun Cool. Just signed up to google’s new (beta) email service (gmail). Nice, since it hasn’t been released to the general public yet.

So I should get 1GB of mail storage, webmail, spam filtering, and email search powered by google. The only (semi) controversial point about this service seems to be that the google servers scan emails for text to show appropriate adverts against. I don’t see a real problem here.

Cheap UK Mobile Calls

:sun The more I look into VoIP the better it gets. It seems that there is new functionality coming out daily. I recently came across voipuser.co.uk, which is a site setup by a friend. Currently they don’t actually offer a voip calling service as such, but do offer free 0844, 0870, 0871, and 0703 phone numbers. Once registered you can redirect your given number to a number of destinations like a mobile, international PSTN or SIP/VoIP address.

Here I’ve been allocated an 0844 number that I’ve redirected to my (vodafone) mobile. What this means is that I can be called on my mobile using the 0844 number, and it should only cost the caller 5p/min. When compared to the 20(+-)p/min it would cost them otherwise, it’s a great saving.

Soon they will be offering a sort of voicemail service, where unanswered calls will go to voicemail, recorded and then emailed to you as an attachment.

Nice work Dean & TJ.

More VoIP..

:sun FreeWorldDialup are now offering a method of allowing users to forward their FWD inbound calls to another SIP address. This is what I’ve been waiting for because I can forward it to my regular voip account, and people who use FWD can call me direct without having to play around with various dialling prefixes.

Also in a previous post I mentioned that I have a Washington phone number that rings here in the UK (thanks to ipkall.com). Recently a friend in Chicago called the number from his mobile and it didn’t cost him a cent. The line quality was pretty much perfect.

Family History and Culture

:sun For some time now I have wanted to use the internet as an archive for my extended family’s history and culture. I’ve heard rumours that some of my relatives have a paper based family tree that goes back a thousand years and that there are relatives all spread all over the world.

Spam

:angry I’m being overrun with bloody spam at the moment. Despite being ‘filtered’ by BT Yahoo and then again by my own server, I’m still getting shed loads.

What is the point apart from really pissing people off.