Credit cards can be wonderful things – to the right person! Some cards offer points and rewards just for using the card. However, if you do not pay off the entire statement balance before it is due, you will pay interest and give up potentially any benefit you gained. My tip for credit cards is to use it like cash. If you don’t have the cash to pay off your credit card right away, just put your credit card back in your pocket.

If you have credit card debt, the first thing you need to do is to get rid of your credit cards – stop charging! You have to stop in order to get better. Create a budget and set how much money you will set aside each month to pay it off. Be ready to struggle because you have already lived easier than you should have when you got yourself into the credit card debt in the first place. If you only pay the minimum balance, you will never pay the card off and the interest will keep accumulating.  Track every dollar your spend, and you’ll be amazed at where you’ll be able to save.  Here’s the priority list: pay God first (>10% – be charitable!), pay yourself second (20% is preferred – savings and paying off debt money), and the rest can be used for all else.  Follow this order and you’ll be amazed at the freedom you’ll have!

Now that you have stopped charging against your credit and set a budget, you are ready to pay your debt down in the most efficient manner possible. The key is to pay off your highest interest rate first. Look at all (credit card, auto, student loans, etc.) debts and organize them from highest rate to lowest rate. Now that you have all of your debts with the interest rates lined up, put in the minimum payment that is required for each debt. This is now your base so you know how much you have to pay off each month.

You have budgeted how much you are going to sacrifice each month to paying off your debts, so you take the amount left after all the minimum payments and use it to pay off the highest interest rate first. The more you can set aside, the quicker you can pay off your debts. Once you have paid a card, don’t make the mistake of charging more on it. Avoid your highest interest rates like the plague. My friend Patrick likes to say he is like a Gazelle to get out of debt. Be a Gazelle – get out of debt!

If you’re really serious about getting out of debt, here is a site set up by my personal finance professor from college to help people manage their finances. Here is a file to help you set up your budget and line up your debts for you in priority of how you should pay it off. I’ll deal with setting up budgets in another post.

Remember, if you’re in debt, you have to change your behavior. You’re a slave to a creditor. Whether you could avoid it or not, you have to change the way you live to make the situation better. Don’t buy a new car when you can buy a perfectly good used one. Don’t go out for lunch when you can just as easily make yourself a sandwich. Don’t use more of your credit when you’ve already abused what you’ve been given.

My wife and I would like a mini-van or perhaps an SUV because it would be easier to get our kid in and out of the car and to take trips. We have been living off of one car through car-pooling and public transportation since we have been married. We might be getting a new car, but the only car we can afford to pay cash for is one that costs $1,500 and works just fine. Taking a lunch to work everyday gets really old, but we do these things because we know in the future we can start to live without the burden of debts and with the satisfaction of knowing we are living within our means.  It may sound like life sucks, but avoiding debt is freedom and happiness.

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I believe my last post was a little technical.  However, come tax season, when you actually care about saving money on taxes, I suggest reviewing it in detail.  It could save you a lot of money.

When asking what people wanted to learn more about with regards to finances, a majority of the responses were from people who wanted to know how to avoid or get out of debt.  I thought it might be good then to start with the basics.  Debt – it’s like free money…except that it’s not free and the burden will never go away until you pay it off. This is how most retail financial institutions (e.g., banks) make money. They say “Sure! You can have $10,000 to help with your tuition, and you don’t have to pay me back until 6 months after you graduate.”

Example of $10,000 student loan

Let’s say you’re able to get a great student loan rate of 5% (credit cards can have annual rates over 20%) and your payment plan is over 10 years.  Unless this is a government student loan, you are accruing interest while you still go to school even though you are not paying anything yet.  For ease of my example, let’s assume that at the end of school, when your payments kick in, you have accrued $2,500 in interest (for you finance geeks this is a rough estimate of $10,000 accruing compounding interest over 4 years @ 5%).  That means you end school having to pay off $12,500 even though you only got $10,000 in cash for help with school.

The lending company (i.e., the bank) will set out a payment plan for you to make equal payments over the ten years you have to pay it off.  In our scenario, it roughly calculates to $130 a month.  If you multiply that times the number of payments you will be making (120) you will have paid the bank back $15,600.  Though you only got $10,000 in cash initially, you will have paid the bank over $5,000 in interest plus the original $10,000.  That stinks!  If your payment plan is over 20 or 30 years, you will pay even more in interest.  If your interest rate is higher like in the case of a credit card, you could be paying far more in interest alone than you ever received in cash.

Conclusion

That, my friends, is why the banks make so much money and why you should avoid going into debt! That’s the basics – STAY OUT OF DEBT!!!

If you can’t avoid it –

1. Get as little of it as possible. Live like it’s not your money and you are dirt poor…because you are dirt poor when you’re in debt!  Don’t buy a new car, don’t go out to eat, don’t lose track of your budget!  If you are in debt, you should live like you are a slave to it so you will have more money to buy back your freedom sooner.
2. Pay it off as early as you can.  Keep living like you are dirt poor even when you have a salary that indicates otherwise.  Anything you pay above the required monthly payment can pay off the balance of the debt and reduces the total interest you pay. The bank gets far less of your money that way.  (Note – some lenders require you to indicate payments specifically as “principal repayment” otherwise they will consider it as next month’s payment paid early; check your loan agreement)

To quote Dave Ramsey, “If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.”  Great words to live by!
Getting into debt is easy, but getting out will be tough.  Good luck!

The next post will be on a plan to pay off your debts in the most efficient manner possible.

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I do not profess to be a tax expert, but I realize that I understand more than most. I warn you that with my background in tax and accounting, I have a tendency to be too technical. If you ever find that is the case or you do not understand something, please post a comment, and I will try and respond with a simpler explanation.   My goal is to save you money!

I’m pretty sure the following language is necessary with anything I post about:

This information is not intended or written to be used, and it cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding U.S. federal, state or local tax penalties.

With this post, you can follow along and learn by referring to the U.S. Individual Income Tax Return Form 1040.

What is a tax credit vs. a tax deduction?

• Tax Deduction

A tax deduction is something that reduces your taxable income, the base on which the tax you owe is calculated.

In tax, you break up deductions between “above the line” items and “below the line” items with the line referring to your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), the last line on page 1 or first line on page 2.

Your AGI is important for several reasons, and generally, you want it to be as low as possible. Your AGI is used to determine limitations on other deductions (i.e. – if you itemize, medical expenses are reduced by 7.5% of your AGI). Your AGI can be the starting point for your state tax return as well, so above the line items may reduce your state taxes where below the line items may not.  If you look at the 1040, everything on page 1 is an above the line item. Contributions to a Health Savings Account (HSA, subject of future post), moving expenses, educator expenses, student loan interest, contributions to a qualified traditional Investment Retirement Account (IRA, also subject of future post), etc.

Below the line items include the items on page 2. This would be your standard deduction or itemized deduction (you take the larger deduction of the two), personal exemptions (for those you can claim as dependents, including yourself), and special items for the elderly or disabled.

Notice that on line 43 you arrive at and calculate your taxable income, different from AGI, and on line 44 you calculate the total amount of tax you owe (your tax liability) using graduated tax rates. Notice, no credits have come into consideration.

• Tax Credit

A tax credit is a special gift from the government. Both these and many deductions vary by tax policy. Credits are very politically driven and can change quite often.

Remember that you have calculated the amount of tax due on your taxable income before considering any tax credits. Credits are like deductions of the tax you owe as opposed to deductions which reduce your taxable income.

Let’s say you have $50,000 of income. Both your above the line deductions and below the line deductions reduce your taxable income by $20,000 leaving you with $30,000 of taxable income. The tax you owe (your tax liability) is a percentage of your taxable income according to graduated rates (you can use the tax income tables provided in the 1040 instructions to make it easier). For the sake of the example, assume you had a 10% tax rate on that income resulting in a tax liability, amount you owe, of $3,000.

Any credits you qualify for can reduce that $3,000 tax liability to zero even if your credit is greater than your tax liability unless it’s a refundable credit.

• Refundable Tax Credits

Refundable credits are fantastic, especially if you can manage to reduce your tax liability to zero.  After your tax liability is reduced to zero, you get a refund for the remaining amount of the credit.

Using the previous example, let’s assume you qualify for a $3,500 Lifetime Learning credit which is a non-refundable credit. Since this is not refundable, your credit is limited to your tax liability or $3,000. You do not get any benefit from the extra $500 you qualified for.

Continuing the scenario, let’s assume you also qualify for the Making Work Pay refundable credit for $800. Now your tax liability has already been reduced to zero by the Lifetime Learning Credit, but the Making Work Pay credit is refundable meaning the government will send you a check for $800.

Thanks to refundable credits, my family received over $12,000 as a tax refund this year without paying or withholding a single dollar from my paychecks. The entire check came from refundable credits (2009 had lots of them).  Granted, I only received that money because I do not make very much money, but through proper planning, you can make sure you take full advantage of the deductions and credits available to you.

Takeaways & Strategy

Depending on your situation, you may pick and choose whether you elect for a deduction or a credit.  For example, my wife and I had education expenses this last year.  There are 3 options we qualified for with these education expenses: lifetime learning credit, a $4,000 above the line deduction, or American Opportunity refundable credit (the expanded Hope credit for 2009, previously non-refundable).  I only qualified for the first two while she qualified for all of them.  However, you can only choose one for each person with qualified education expenses.

First, I checked to see if the $4,000 deduction (the limit per return, not person) would leave me with a $0 tax liability after applying everything except my refundable credits.  This would have been ideal because the lower AGI would have helped me to reduce my state tax liability since my state starts its tax calculation with my AGI.  However, this was not enough to bring my tax liability to $0.  I decided to use the lifetime learning credit because that completely eliminated my tax liability where the $4,000 deduction couldn’t  .

Second, after reducing my tax liability to $0, I was free to take all the refundable credits possible and receive a refund of all the money that was withheld from my paychecks.  We took the American Opportunity credit for my wife’s expenses, and we received the entire refundable amount of $1,000.

It is important to understand the deductions and credits available and how they affect your tax return as there is some strategy to be made.  You can’t be sure that any software or tax return preparer will catch the strategies available to you.  The software I used did not, and because I caught it, I saved over $500.  Take a look at your return and play with the numbers.  If you realize that you could get more money back, you can always amend your return and claim the money you are due.

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I am a big movie buff. I have a film degree and hundreds of DVDs cluttering up my house to prove it. My memories are more like scenes ripped from the big screen, full of intense action, gritty suspense, and random symbolism. They even have their own soundtrack. I am constantly using movies to describe what’s going on in my life, even using them as analogies in speeches and writing to better address a point. When I meet up with friends, it’s never long before someone is quoting lines from some movie we saw together. Needless to say, movies are an integral part of my life and if you’re anything like me, you’re going to love the new website, MovieClips.com.

The site is pretty much self-explanatory, it’s a site full of movie clips, old and new. If you’ve ever scoured YouTube looking for that one clip from that one movie to share with your friend in an email, on Facebook, or on Twitter, then this site’s for you. The beauty of this site is that its creators, Rich Raddon and Zach James, have spent countless hours negotiating with all the major studios for the right to display their content legally online. In other words, unlike YouTube, who is being sued by studios like Universal for allowing clips from their movies to be shown, clips on MovieClips.com will never be taken down for copyright infringement. You are free to share them as often as you want wherever you like.

The site is simple and highly searchable. They have armies of film buffs scouring movies daily looking for keywords to tag each clip with. They mark everything from mood, to actors, to product placement, and more. They even have a feature called “we [heart]” that contains categories such as “Awesome FX,” “Alien Attacks,” “Die Already!,” and even “”Projectile Vomiting” to aid you in your browsing.

Sharing on MovieClips is easy. They have links to Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks to make sharing even easier (I should note that Facebook embedding is not available yet, but is coming soon. For now it’s just link sharing). You can also use the provided “embed” code to embed the clip right on your blog or website. This is where I think the real value will come. I could probably find an applicable clip to any post I write (so be warned), and what better way to spice up a boring post than with a movie clip, not to mention the obvious application for movie critics.

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MovieClips.com is still in beta, which means they are constantly adding new features to the site. They have most of the major studios on board, but are still working on more, so if you can’t find a movie now, chances are it’ll be there soon. They even have clips from movies still in theaters, like Avatar. If you encounter any errors with the site, be sure to report them, their customer support is great. I heard back about my issue within the same day. So check them out and share some clips with your friends, I could easily spend all day reliving my favorite movies. Below is an interview my brother, Jesse Stay (@Jesse on Twitter) did with MovieClips’ founders talking about the site.

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You can also find MovieClips on their Facebook page or on Twitter.

Disclaimer: I was in no way compensated by MovieClips.com for this post. This is simply a site I love and think should be more widely used.

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Since moving into a new house, I have been in a constant battle with weak digital signals. I placed our over-the-air antenna in a room with a south-facing window, thinking all our local repeaters were to the south of us (a fact that was even incorrectly confirmed by my local NBC station through one of their engineers). Yet every time we wanted to watch a show on a different network than we were on, I had to trudge up to the second floor and move the old bunny ears around while my wife shouted confirmations from below. Something had to be done.

As a quick aside, it wasn’t all bad. In an email exchange with the local NBC station attempting to get them to boost their signal since theirs is the only channel we can never get, the engineer let me know that an antenna with bunny ears is the best at getting VHF signals, which are the lower channels on your TV and the stations with the lowest frequency. In my case, NBC is channel 3 and the lowest frequency in the area. Keep that in mind when choosing your antenna, bunny ears are not obsolete after all.

After countless vain attempts to get the elusive NBC on our TV so my wife could watch Biggest Loser without waiting the week that Hulu requires, I started looking at outdoor antennas, figuring all the wireless signals in our house and the thermal barriers we put around it were causing too much interference. In my searches (I’m leaning towards this one), I came across a website that has changed our TV watching forever for the good: AntennaWeb.

AntennaWeb proclaims itself as a way to “Maximize your television reception,” and maximize it does. You simply choose your antenna (or the closest match), enter your address, adjust your location for better accuracy, and it tells you what direction each local station’s signal is coming from (in degrees). I simply busted out my trusty Boy Scout compass, pointed the antenna in the exact direction stated on the website for optimum signal reception, and we now get just about every channel in the area without having to move any bunny ears.

Now, there are still many factors that go into the quality of your signal reception. The slightest change in weather can affect things as can microwaves, wireless internet, cell phones, and other similar devices, so keep that in mind when choosing the best room for your antenna. If indoors, it’s best to put it near a window as the signal passes better through windows than walls, and you’ll want it to be as high as you can get it, above any possible interferers. We sometimes even get NBC when everything feels like cooperating.

I’m still going to get the outdoor antenna, but with AntennaWeb, I can be sure where to place it and that it’s going to work. If we get most channels with an indoor antenna, we should definitely have better luck with a stronger outdoor antenna. Go ahead, try out AntennaWeb and let me know how it works in your area.

Disclaimer: This post is for informative purposes only. I am in no way involved with or a part of AntennaWeb or any possible affiliates. I have received no compensation from AntennaWeb for this post.

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Google Reader announced some new features yesterday, so I thought I’d continue the Google theme of my blog lately by breaking it down for the uninitiated. The idea of an RSS subscription manager, or reader is foreign to most internet users, but it can be very helpful, especially for mothers and estranged friends and family trying to keep up with the blogs of loved ones. What follows is my attempt to de-mystify Google Reader, using more familiar language. Feel free, as always, to leave questions in the comments below, or on Twitter or Facebook.

What is Google Reader?

Google Reader is an RSS-based subscription service and manager. I know, I’ve lost you already. Put more simply, Google Reader is a tool used to put all the blogs you check regularly in one central location. From Wikipedia:

RSS (most commonly translated as “Really Simple Syndication” but sometimes “Rich Site Summary”) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.

Google Reader takes the “RSS feeds” (or more simply, the constantly updated content) from your favorite blogs or news sites and constantly checks them for updates, so you don’t have to go to little Billy’s model rocket page 5 times a day just to see his latest launch. You just go to your Google Reader and wait for the post to show up.

It’s a lot like having an email account for your blogs. You don’t go to a hundred different sites to get messages from your hundreds of accounts, you go to one email account and let the messages come to you. Why should it be any different with the websites you frequent? Google Reader makes that happen. You go to one place and your websites come to you.

How do I get started?

Getting started is as simple as logging in. Go to the Google Reader homepage here, and either use your existing Google Account to log in, or register for a new one. If you use GMail or any other Google service, you already have an account and you should use that one, for reasons I’ll explain later. After logging in, you’ll be brought to this screen:

Google put some helpful tips in your feed to get you started. Go ahead and read them for a quick overview of what I’m about to talk about. There’s even a video to walk you through some of it. The first thing you’ll want to do is add your favorite websites. Click “Add a Subscription,” then enter in the address of any website. I’ll use this site just as an example. Enter http://www.afrowhitey.com and click “Add.”

You’ll notice “The Mighty AfroWhitey” shows up under the “Subscriptions” tab. Click on it.

Congratulations, you are now reading The Mighty AfroWhitey from your very own Google Reader. You can customize the way you see each feed by clicking on the “Settings” link. I prefer seeing my sites as a list, and using the “Previous Item” and “Next Item” buttons to scroll through them. To do this, click on “List” in the upper-right corner of the blue box. To go back to the old view, click “Expanded.”

As you add more subscriptions, you may prefer to read through all your websites in the order they posted. To do this, click on “All Items” and you’ll see all the posts from all your websites. You can then sort them by oldest or newest by clicking on “View Settings” (“Feed Settings” when in a specific subscription). “Oldest” puts the oldest posts at the top, “Newest” starts with the newest. I prefer to sort by oldest and cycle through the posts using the “Next Item” button.

Now what?

Now you’re pretty much on your own. Add whatever site you want to your reader using the “Add Subscription” button, or you can create a bookmark to add any site you’re viewing that will go in your toolbar. This can be found in the “Goodies” tab of your settings. To find out if a site is subscribable or not, check the address bar. If you see an icon next to the address that looks like a soundwave, you can subscribe and all updates will come to your reader (it’s the icon next to the star in the screenshot below).

I suggest starting with any family or friends’ blogs and moving on to news sites or even, like the New York Times or CNN or BBC, or even ESPN. You can also subscribe to specific columns, like sports or fashion, or specific contributors a lot of the time. I keep track of my movie reviews this way. You can subscribe to Roger Ebert or my personal favorite, Peter Travers. Just look for the icon on any page you’re reading and you’ll know if it’s an option.

Bonus features (A little on the advanced side):

One of the coolest features of Google Reader is the ability to share a post with any of your Google Contacts. This means that if you think your mom will like a post, you can email it to her without even leaving Google Reader. If you look at the bottom of any post in reader, you’ll see a bunch of links: “Add Star,” “Like,” “Share,” “Share with note,” “Email,” “Keep Unread,” and “Add Tags.” “Preview” is only there because I use a program called Better GReader for some added functionality.

“Add Star” is a way of organizing your favorite posts so you can come back to them later. You’ll notice a “Starred Items” link on the left below “All Items.” Clicking this will show you all the posts you’ve starred. You can also search all starred items by using the drop-down menu next to the search button.

“Like” is a new feature. Clicking like in Google Reader works just like it does in Facebook. Anyone who reads that post will see how many people have liked it. You can also see the individual people that liked the post. This is useful when looking for more people that share similar interests to discover more interesting blogs. Just click on the link below the title to see the individuals, then click on a name to see their shares.

“Share” will share the post with any of your Google Reader followers. Your followers are any of your Google Contacts you’ve allowed to see your shares. To choose who sees these, click on “Sharing Settings” under the “People You Follow” tab. You can also “Share with Note” to personalize any of your shares with a little message. My shares can be found here. Go ahead and follow me if you like. I share anything from cool technology, to movie news, to funny videos.

The rest of them are pretty self-explanatory. The most useful of which being “Email.” Click on this and you can email a post to anyone in the world. It will even auto-fill for you if you used your GMail account to login. It’s vey handy for sharing with those who haven’t yet taken the Google Reader plunge.

So there you have it. I hope I’ve de-mystified Google Reader for those who may be weary of joining. As always, leave any questions in the comments, or Twitter, or Facebook. And don’t forget to become a fan on Facebook!

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I started advertising my home consultation services on Craigslist last weekend using my new Google Voice number and I received my first telemarketing call as a result of that today. No problem, right? I’ve got Google Voice. With call screening enabled for all unknown numbers, I was immediately given the option to send them straight to voicemail, and send them I did. A few seconds later, I got my text with the transcription of the voicemail and sure enough, it was a marketing call.

I decided to ignore it and move on with my day until tonight, when I logged into my Google Voice account to see what I could do with it. The marketer’s voicemail was right there at the top of my inbox with two options: “Reply” and “More.” I clicked more and was given options to mark as unread, add a note, block, email, download, or embed. I clicked block emphatically. What followed is what prompted this post.

Apparently, anyone you block in Google Voice will from that point on be greeted with the following recorded message: “We’re sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service … ” You will never hear from them again. This is my new favorite feature!

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It all started last year when I joined a Virtual Stock Exchange competition with a bunch of friends. We were to play the stock market for a year straight using $10,000 of fake money. Whoever had the biggest gain by the end of the year would win. I came in second, right behind a guy who made some last-minute shortsells, and I have Google to thank for it. I almost doubled my fake money.

I bought their fake stock about 6 months or so ago and it rose slowly in the next months. Then, rumors started about a Google Phone soon to be released and their stock exploded. It rose even higher after they actually released the “Google Phone” and continued to rise after that. What makes them so special? Release after release of easy-to-use, life-easing web applications. Let me just share a few that have struck my fancy.

1. Google Maps

“Google Maps is the best! / Trudat! / Double True!”

Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell knew what they were talking about. Even if Lazy Sunday was a year or so ago. I use it at least once a day without even thinking about it, it has become that much a part of my life.

What makes Google Maps so great is their constant innovation. I once used street view to prove the accuracy of a photo sent to me in an email (Proof here). I just used Satellite view last Sunday to see if there was anywhere to park near our new church building. Over the holidays, I used the route-drag feature to change my driving directions to use the Merrit Parkway to get from Boston to New Jersey, and then to add a pit-stop in Manhattan on the way back. For our wedding, I made my own embedded Google Map that contained markers for all the important venues in the area around our reception. I can’t wait to see what they do next!

2. Google Reader

I used to spend hours every week just checking my friend’s various blogs to see if they had updated anything. After a while I just gave up, it was too much to keep track of. I had heard of reader programs, but never tried any because they seemed so foreign. It wasn’t until I installed Lifehacker’s Better Gmail Firefox extension that I realized how great a reader program could be. It put Google Reader right there in my Gmail window (the new version does not have this feature yet, they’re waiting on someone to come up with an updated Greasemonkey script). I had to try it out.

Basically, like any other reader, it stores your blogs in one central place and updates when your blogs update. But what makes Google Reader so great (besides seamless integration with all the other Google products) is their new sharing feature. I can mark blogs that I think will be useful to my friends without having to email them a link to the site. I just click “share” and move on. Then it’s up to them to look or not.

My wife shares a lot of design possibilities to try in our house after we move and I’ve been exposed to a world I never knew existed with my brother’s programming blog shares. Sure, there’s programs like del.icio.us, digg, and StumbleUpon that do similar things, but with Google Reader, it’s all right in front of me as I read my blogs, no need to bookmark or install anything else.

3. GMail + Google Talk

Before I moved to New York City, I mainly used AOL’s Instant Messenger. I’ve had an account with them since junior high when AOL was the way to the internet. A few of my friends were on MSN Messenger, so I started using programs like Trillian (for PC), or Adium (for Mac) to talk to both in a single program. When I moved to New York, I discovered that I was years behind. Sure I had a gmail account, but I was not on Google Talk. Everyone was on Google Talk. I decided to check it out.

What makes Google Talk so great, is the fact that you don’t have to install any additional software, it’s right there in your web browser. This means I can chat with just about all my friends no matter where I am, whether on my computer or not. My wife uses it at work because it’s so easy to hide. It just looks like you’re typing an email. In fact, that’s how we got to know each other at first. She never would’ve married me if not for GTalk. Sure I use Adium for all my chatting purposes, but that’s only because a few of my friends still have not moved over to Google.

There’s not much to say about GMail that you probably don’t already know except that it’s great. I have about 4 different accounts that forward to one master account for easy labeling on emails like work, family, and online accounts. I use that same account to check my business email using POP, and I have most of my contacts grouped for quick mass emails. UPDATE: You can now drag and drop emails into labels (like folders) and labels onto emails. It saves a step when archiving.

So there it is. Call me a fanboy if you want, but I heart Google. Honorable mentions include iGoogle, Google Calendar (my wife and I share ours to keep up on each other’s appointments), and Google Text. Google Info has potential, but I have yet to see it give me reliable results.

And while I’m linking, check out www.japanesebugfights.com. Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.

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Some of my more astute readers may have noticed the little box to the left that appeared not too long ago. It’s the one that says “Call Me,” and it’s all powered by Google Voice. All you have to do is enter your phone number and the robots at Google will call you and me simultaneously, allowing us to connect and discuss your technology needs. I know, it’s amazing, and it doesn’t end there.

Google Voice is a free service that allows you to manage your contacts and phone calls in a way you never could before. It’s invite-only at this point, but you can get your invite here and they’ve been rolling it out slowly to those that have requested invites. I got mine a couple weeks ago.

On to the features.

The short video above provides a great overview and you can find more information on Google’s own about page. Basically, Google gives you one phone number to rule all your other phone numbers. For example, if you call my Google number (or click the box to the left) and you happen to be my wife, both my cell phone and my home phone will ring so I can be sure to hear it. If I don’t answer, she’s greeted by a special voicemail greeting that no one else can hear. If you’re a member of my family and I don’t answer, you get another greeting. If I haven’t entered your number in my Google Contacts, just my cell phone will ring, and if I don’t answer, you’ll get the standard greeting.

You can also set it to go straight to voicemail when you receive a call from specified numbers (very helpful for telemarketers) and you can record any call in progress (helpful for telemarketers and customer support calls). Any voicemail or recording is automatically stored in your Google Voice Inbox, where you can play it or read Google’s attempted transcription of the recording (still a work in progress as you can see in the screenshot). I have it set to text message me whenever I miss a call or receive a voicemail, so I can read the voicemail transcription without even calling. It makes a great business phone for any freelancer.

You can also send text messages and start your calls right from the Inbox. Other nice Inbox features are voicemail emailing, recorded call emailing, and text message emailing. You can send pretty much anything recorded to anyone you want. It’s all integrated seamlessly with Google’s other services.

All-in-all, it’s a great service that will only get better. There are rumors of Google porting their service through your existing numbers in the future, which would negate the hassle of telling everyone in your address book about the new number. Until then, Lifehacker has a great post on how to ease your transition to Google Voice.

It’s a cinch to set up. You just choose an area code, then either pick from a list of available numbers or try to make up your own (none of my word combinations were available in my area code). You then give it an existing phone number to work with, it calls to verify, and you’re good to go!

So go ahead, sign up for an invite and let me know what you think. And as always, feel free to ask me any questions, or call me using the fancy new box to the left! Oh, and don’t forget to become a fan on the Facebook page. I’ll be sharing links and other gems over there.

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You may remember one of my earliest posts on this site, “How to Survive the DTV Switch,” but when I wrote that post, I had no idea that the DTV switch could actually be a matter of survival for some people. I was reading through my blogs the other day, when I came across this article: “Digital TV Saved a Man’s Life.” From the original article:

As of 11:15 p.m. Saturday, 69,003 Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division customers were without power. On Friday, soon after the storm blew through, more than 131,000 customers were without power.

The damages caused by the storm are easy to see at the Midtown home of 86-year-old Robert Monsarrat. [...] Monsarrat hasn’t received his digital converter box yet, so instead of watching “The Oprah Winfrey Show” from his bedroom like usual, he went into the kitchen to use his only digital television.

Soon after, lightning struck a large red oak in his backyard, causing it to come crashing down on his house at Hawthorne and Peach near Overton Park. [...] The tree destroyed the back of the house, including his bedroom. [...] Other than a few bruises, minor cuts and a gash on his head, Monsarrat was not seriously injured.

So there you have it. By the transitive property of equality, this blog can save your life. I wrote about switching to digital television, and digital television saved that man’s life, therefore my article saved that man’s life!

Okay, maybe not, but I do hope that everyone else out there made it through the transition without any problems. I may have to upgrade our antenna because after the switch, our local digital signals don’t seem to be coming in as strong as they used to be. How about you? Did you survive the switch?

Oh, and don’t forget to become a fan on Facebook! I’ll be trying to post more content such as links and shorter tips over there so it becomes a little more valuable to follow. Plus, if I get 100 or more fans, I can get a nifty new vanity url!

- Source: CommercialAppeal.com via Warming Glow

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