Google Voice is a service that gives you a single phone number for all of your phones. Still in closed beta, those with an invite can select a phone number from Google (hopefully in the same area code as you are), and use this number to take advantage of advanced services such as: Voicemail to email, voicemail transcribing, call conferencing, international calls, blocking and screening. Never miss a call again and my favorite use is that I never have to give someone my actual cell number again!
When Google Voice opens to the public or if you have gotten your hands on an invitation, login to your google account and setup your google voice account. It will ask you to select a phone number and authorize a phone you would like to use with the service. From the browser based control panel you can add phones, setup voicemail, view and listen to voicemail and manage your google contacts.
Contacts can be setup into groups and either full groups or individuals can be blocked, screened or allowed to ring through. Multiple phones can be used with the service. For example I have my cell, work and home phones all synced to the google voice system. When someone calls my google voice number, all phones will ring, or not, depending on how i have the system setup.
To use your Google Voice account with your cell, home or work phones you will need to dial a number to access the google system and then initiate your call to the intended party. When the call is placed using the Google system, your Google Voice number is displayed to the recipient and not your actual cell number. This option however is configurable via the Google Voice control panel. Applications for cell phones that automate this process are available for Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile and Android devices. Android phones obviously have the best solution for this as it is written by Google.
Google Voice, 1 number for everything!
Companies and small businesses have been sending invoices to customers the same old way for decades, but what if I told you there is a service that could change the tired old thinking and make it simple and fast. This is where Freshbooks comes in.
Anyone who owns a small, medium or even large business knows that sitting down every month with either excel, word or quickbooks to create and send out invoices is a boring and time consuming task. Your time could be better utilized doing other things like looking for the next new client to invoice one day. Invoices have to be created, printed, stuffed into envelopes, addressed, stamped and mailed using traditional snail mail. Then you have to wait for your customers to write a check and do the process all over again to mail you a check. Thats alot of time and I dont know about you but I dont have any staff members with extra time on their hands. On another note, how do you keep track of time spent on projects for customers and does that time data import to your current invoicing methods seemlessly, I bet it doesnt. Take a look at Freshbooks!
The Joomla website system is a CMS (content managment system) that allows you to quickly and easily build web, intranet, merchant or personal spaces quickly and easily. Post content using a browser based managment portal just as easily as creating a document with a word processor and add tags and SEO information quickly and easily. Create custom webpages that suit the needs of you and your viewers. The benefits and uses are endless but thats not the best part.
The best part of Joomla is that its open source. Its free to use! Since this is an open source platform, that means there are millions of dvelopers working on it everyday making it better and easier to use. Plugins and new functionality is being added everyday. Some of these added features include, polls, galleries, calendars, forums, blogs, banner systems and anything else you could possibly want in a web design. Cant find a plugin for a function you want? If you have a little programming experience you can build it yourself. Dont have any programming experience? Submit a request to the Joomla community. Thats the beauty of open source!
Take a look at Joomla! and see what it can do for your website!
Choosing a Web Hosting Provider
Choosing a web-hosting provider these days can be daunting task with the vast number of options you have. Some think “Well its just a place to put my website, how complicated can it be?” In order to choose a competent and reliable hosting provider, you need to do some homework and see what services and guarantees your choice provides. Remember you always get what you pay for! Here are a few things you should look at when researching a potential web hosting provider.
