Is Gmail's Call Phone feature a game-changer?

Every once in a while a new feature is added to Gmail. The features are usually announced on a Google blog post and quickly picked up by the blogosphere. That's exactly what happened with Gmail's new "Call Phone" feature. 

 

If you're a Gmail user, and you have the voice and video plugin installed, you'll see a "Call phone" option in the "chat" section of Gmail. To make a call, you just click the link and an overlay with a dial pad pops up. You can either search your contacts, or dial the number using the pad. 

 

I've had a couple problems making outbound calls, where it says that the user I was calling ended the conversation, but the call was never placed. When this happens, I hit the "redial" button and the call goes through. 

Fri, 08/27/2010 - 08:02
Keeping track of those pesky to-dos


I'm the type of person who will likely forget about something unless I jot it down. Over the years I've used whiteboards, sticky notes (both real and computerized) and notebooks to keep track of my to-dos.

Thu, 08/19/2010 - 06:54
My initial thoughts on the Lost finale

I felt a little letdown by the season finale of Lost. But after thinking about it for a while, I realize that this ending was the only one that would have made sense.  Lost was all about questions for so long, and they did such a good job of making us want answers, that I think it would have been impossible to explain everything and still have the show make sense.
 

Mon, 05/24/2010 - 08:23
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Surprised by Fatcow Hosting

The other day, I was surprised to discover that Fatcow.com, the company I use to host this blog allows multiple sites to be served from one account. I’ve had various accounts with Fatcow over the last five years, and I’ve been pretty happy with the service, but being limited to only one site always irked me.
 

Tue, 05/04/2010 - 21:26
A great event and a reminder that the Web doesn't forget

It's funny how sometimes your personal and work lives can intersect. Yesterday I got an email at my work address from a PR person inviting me to a fundraising event for the Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition. Normally, that's not that unusual. But in this case, since I work in California and live in Colorado, it was strange to get the email at work. 
 

Fri, 04/09/2010 - 06:59
Trying out Colorado Native Lager's mobile marketing


Last night I tried AC Golden’s (aka Coors) Colorado Native Lager. The beer itself isn't bad and reminded me a bit of a hoppier Killian’s Irish Red. It’s got a nice amber color and a crisp lager taste. You can taste the sweetness of the malts and it’s balanced nicely with some hop bitterness.

At more than $9 for a six pack, it’s priced at the same price, or even a little higher, than most craft-brewed beers, and too be honest, if I’m going to spend nine bucks on beer, I’ll probably buy something with a bit more character.

Wed, 04/07/2010 - 13:08
Why I like Drupal

I’m not a web developer and that’s why I like the Drupal content management system so much. Drupal allows you to build Web sites (like this blog) that do things that you have no idea how to do unless you know how to code, which I don't.
 
Here’s a perfect example: I’m riding in a charity bike ride this summer and I thought it would be neat to allow people who donated to the cause to see exclusive content that other people couldn’t see. 

Tue, 04/06/2010 - 16:49
Slow browsing? Try OpenDNS

For the last few days my Internet browsers have been taking forever to load pages. Actually it wasn’t the loading that was taking forever, but rather connecting to the site. I figured that the problem was with my DNS settings. I have been using Google Public DNS, which was supposed to speed things up, but something wasn’t working right.

Fri, 04/02/2010 - 09:44
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How to install OS X when your DVD drive is broken (or missing)

Leopard disk

The DVD drive in my MacBook Pro is really flaky. It can read and write video DVDs just fine, but for some reason, it can’t read software DVDs.

So, when I needed to install an OS upgrade, I needed to find another way to do it. I had previously installed some software by putting the disk in my wife’s Mac and then mounting the disk over the network. I read that that method would not work in this case, plus it would probably take forever.

Wed, 03/31/2010 - 08:24
Qik wins the old iPhone video game (for now)

At the time I bought my iPhone 3G the iPhone 3GS had just come out but I didn’t feel like I really needed the video capture or digital compass features, so I opted for the older phone. I got a great deal on a refurbished model ($49!). 
 

Wed, 01/27/2010 - 11:09