Friday video

Ever have one of those songs that you need the interweb just to know what the heck the lyrics are?

Well, in the case of Pearl Jam's Yellow Ledbetter, there are no official lyrics so people make up their own.

Google Grand Central

EDIT: Lookie what I got in My Mailbox today

Hello GrandCentral User,

We are happy to announce that GrandCentral has been upgraded and is relaunching as Google Voice. While not yet open to the public, we wanted to give you, our GrandCentral users, the first opportunity to start using Google Voice.

In addition to the GrandCentral features you already know, we've added voicemail transcription, SMS support, conference calling, Goog411, enhanced spam protection and low-priced international calling. We have also integrated GrandCentral with your Google Account and your Google Contacts list.

To upgrade your account to Google Voice, just log in to your GrandCentral account and follow the directions at the top of your inbox. Upon upgrading, your GrandCentral number, PIN, and forwarding phones will be moved to Google Voice.

Note that since Google Voice uses the Google address book, your GrandCentral contacts will not be imported automatically. You can import your GrandCentral address book with these instructions. You will also need to recreate any individual/group settings and greetings.

After you upgrade, all your new voicemails will be accessible at Google Voice, while all prior messages will remain available at GrandCentral.

Thanks for being a great GrandCentral user and we hope you enjoy Google Voice!

Original Post:

Ok, for all those that read this blog hoping to get in touch with your techie side I bring you another amazingly cool Google feature.

Grand Central

Excerpts from the FAQ;

GrandCentral is joining Google. We're excited about this. Being part of Google will helps us make our vision of improved voice communications one step closer to reality and bring innovative communications services to millions of users around the world. This will also ensure that your GrandCentral number is here for the long run, and that no matter how often you move, change jobs or phone providers, everyone can still reach you through the same phone number.

We have put together below a quick Q&A about the acquisition, but as always, we encourage our users to leave us some feedback through the feedback button above.

Craig Walker & Vincent Paquet, GrandCentral Founders

Background

Q: What is GrandCentral?

A: Based in Fremont, California, GrandCentral provides an innovative web-based voice communications platform that helps you manage all your phones and phone numbers through one simple interface. You get a single phone number that forwards to all of your phones, giving you one number for life.


OK in case you just missed that.

You get a single phone number that forwards to all of your phones, giving you one number for life.

That's right, one phone number in the area code of your choice that will automatically forward calls to a preferred list of numbers you choose.

I had a beta invitation and decided to try it out and I was immediately impressed.

You can check voice mail online, setup custom greetings, choose a routing preference. All for FREE (at least for now) I would imagine the service will cost the end users something eventually but who knows as long as Google continues to grow it may remain FREE forever.


Credit to Chris C for turning me on to this feature.

Please Stop Trying to Steal My Money

Lately it seems like everyone is stooping to new lows to try and gain headway in the current economic climate. I'm finally completely pissed off enough to actually write about it.

Here are a few examples in random order.

1. Recently my son had to visit the Mayo Clinic for some sleep issues he was having. First he visited our family Dr. who referred us over to Mayo. Since we were making the trip to Rochester we thought we would cover a few things at once so we called for an appt with an allergist as well. We specifically asked the Mayo appt desk if we needed another referral for this and they said "No"
A few weeks go by and we get a bill from Mayo for $1300 stating "outside of network"
Of course we filed the official appeal paperwork with United Healthcare and their response was.
"After further review this is still not covered"

2. About two years ago I made the mistake of selling some stock options. Why is that a mistake you might ask? Well, the company that exercised the options added the profit I made from stock sale amount to my W-2 and lumped it in with my normal income, no big deal. So when I filed my taxes I reported my total income from box 1 which included the stock sale amount. However, when the submitted 1099-B goes to the IRS from the company exercising the sale they report the actual sale amount not just the profit amount. Well, without any cost basis the IRS assumes you bought the stock for $0.0 and sold it for $X.X. This lead to an audit and the IRS sending me a bill for $7,000. Now what burns me so much about this is not that they sent me a bill but that clearly they already had my profit amount on my W-2 in box 12. They simply had to subtract the amount submitted on the 1099-B from the W-2 and bang done. Now I have to jump through hoops to submit an amended return and tell them I didn't buy the stock for $0.0 *sigh*

3. This summer we had a family reunion planned in Colorado and made reservations at a time share but due to the economic downturn very few people were going to make it so it was canceled. We were told up front that the cancellation fee was $100. Ok, I can live with that, we knew in advance what the policy was. A couple weeks go by and I get my credit card bill and there is a charge for $194 from the same time share company. WTF?
I call them and send them a letter and they are in process of charging me the correct amount.

4. My wife had a "pay as you go" cell phone about a year ago. There was a website where you could "top up" the phone when it ran low, you just had to deposit a minimum every 3 months. Once again, I check my charges to my credit card and out of the blue here is a charge for $39 from this cell phone company. I call them up and ask them and they say "I don't know how that happened"

5. I usually pay all my bills through auto pay through my bank account. I setup certain days of the month to pay certain bills and usually the process flows nicely. Well, without warning one of the companies I have setup to pay on the 15th of each month changes the due date to the 14th of the month. Seriously, WTF? So, the auto payment goes through as normal and of course the payment is stamped as "late" with a nice $39 late fee on the bill.

*sigh*

I have completely lost faith in anyone even remotely trying to be kind and understanding not to mention ethical. Unless you throw a complete fit and write letters and call people everyone tries to take advantage. Add to this all the actual "crooks" and you constantly have to be on high alert. I just don't want to live like that, always checking and questioning everything. I guess I could try to go completely "cash only" but that still wouldn't stop things like insurance companies denying claims or the IRS expecting you to know all the tax laws.