I have just returned from a week of personal time, spent mostly in hard labor as I helped erect a retaining wall outside my house. (I hurt in places I never thought I’d ever feel pain.)
Now I’m playing catch-up with a few of the topics I covered prior to my “vacation.”
Google Voice. I earlier reviewed this nifty service, which assigns you a special phone number. When someone calls you at that number, all your phones (cell, home, work) ring. And that’s just for starters.
I complained in my column that Google was rolling out its voice service only to users of generic Google accounts and not domain name-customized ones (also known as Google Apps for your Domain). At least, that is what a Google PR person told me. Per one of her e-mails:
Right now, (Google Voice is) only integrated with consumer Google Accounts/Gmail accounts.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I received a Google Voice invite and had no trouble associating the service with my own domain name-customized Google account. Either that PR flack was tragically misinformed, or Google has quietly broadened Google Voice compatibility beyond its generic accounts.
Regardless, I’m pleased.
In a related note, a friend pointed me to this nifty iPhone app that integrates Google Voice with the Apple handset better than browser-based access does. I’m holding out for an official Google Voice app from the Googleplex, though.
Data backup. In another recent column, I discussed a variety of data backup options. These include Dropbox, a service for selectively archiving files up into the cloud. I praised it as an elegant option that is more Mac-friendly than its rivals. I wrote:
But while SugarSync, Syncplicity and Dropbox all work on Macs, only the latter doesn't make it feel like an afterthought.
I was hardly surprised, then, when Syncplicity e-mailed me over my vacation to inform me that the service’s Mac software and support were being yanked after their much-publicized unveiling earlier this year. Oh, good riddance, Syncplicity.
CrashPlan, a Minnesota-based data-backup service also featured in my column, comes up during my recent co-host grand debut on the Minnov8 Gang Podcast.
