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Communication in the Cloud - 2010-05-23
COMMUNICATION IN THE CLOUD

Last week I mentioned several free websites that make my life as a real estate broker easier and more productive. This week we'll examine two of those in more detail:

* Google Voice is a free VOIP and voice mail service that assigns you a local telephone number, gives you free full-featured voice mail, and allows you to forward selected calls to selected landlines on a simultaneous or sequential basis. This allows me to have one phone number and yet have the phone ring in up to six different places simultaneously, so I never miss a call unless I choose to do so. I can even screen calls and listen in on the message, choosing to break in if I want to do so.

In addition, voice mails are recorded and sent to me as e-mail attachments, along with a remarkably accurate transcription of the message contents. Occasionally, Voice has difficulty with names, but it has a very accurate ear for phone numbers. It also allows me to return calls or make calls, including long distance calls, for free. The connection is not quite as good as a land line, but it's as good as any VOIP line I have ever heard.

The only problem with Google Voice is that they are now in the process of a national roll-out and are currently accepting only a limited number of new service applications. The sooner you request a number, the sooner you will get one. Search for "google voice" for more info.

* Google Mail, also known as gmail, delivers and stores and handles all my e-mail, even though I have my own domain name. In addition, Google includes the world's best spam filter for free. All my e-mail for the last several years is stored on Google's servers somewhere in the world, and they claim to have completely redundant back-up, meaning that if one server fails, another kicks in so fast that I won't know there was a problem.

The great part of all this is that wherever I am in the world, and whatever computer I happen to be using, all I have to do is connect to Google and I find all my e-mail, all my contacts, and all my voice mail messages. I suppose it's possible that I might visit somewhere in the world where there is no access to the Internet, but I haven't found one yet. Even low-end cruise ships now boast Internet cafes that allow me to connect for a few seconds and get all my e-mail. Then I can answer it all off-line, and connect again only long enough to send the data out, usually just a few seconds. In addition, it seems like every burger joint in America is now offering a free wi-fi hot spot. That makes staying connected truly easy.

E-mail handling for private domains is called Google Apps Standard Edition, and allows you up to 50 e-mail accounts at no charge.

 
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