Google Talk + Voice = Unlimited Free Calls

As myself an evangelizer of what I say "telecommunication 2.0", I am happy to see the proof of GrandCentral not being killed off by Google. Yes, Google launched their Voice service as a "preview" based on GrandCentral and it's existing users.

Although Teleflip, an email-over-SMS service, is a goner, Google has integrated SMS in to their Voice service. Well, it's no replacement of Teleflip since the concept is pretty much the opposite, but with push email becoming more common, this type of service is probably unnecessary. However, the other way around would be useful; you can receive text messages on Google Voice number even though it is not a mobile phone number. Now, only if this feature would forward messages to your email account, I can really get rid of my text-messaging plans.

As I pointed out in my earlier post, you can use Google Voice and Gizmo5 to make free calls within the U.S. Now you can also make cheap international calls; maybe cheaper than Skype.

BTW, what do I mean by "Google Talk + Voice = Unlimited Free Calls"? Well, this is the case with Google Voice and Gizmo5 as of now. But will Gizmo5 be happy about this model? I doubt it as this brings traffic to Gizmo5 without any immediate revenue. If this becomes an issue, Google can always turn to itself, Google Talk which is it's own VoIP service. Then, totally within Google's own hands, it can provide a free VoIP (Internet-to-landline) service.

Leopard Update: 10.5.3 Released

Apple has finally released Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.3. Interestingly, this update adds a feature which you can sync your Address Book with Google Contacts; contact information in your Gmail account.

The catch is, however, that you need an iPhone to use this feature. I really wonder why this is the case. Technical reasons? I don't think so. Apple probably wants to sell you an iPhone if you don't have one yet, because you want to sync your Address Book with Google Contacts so bad...

And, don't get too excited. This does not sync iCal and Google Calendar. That's a third party's job.

GrandCentral Up-to-dates

As a "telecommunication 2.0" preacher, here are some updates regarding to Google's telephony service, "GrandCentral".

Click2Call Has Been Alive

I posted earlier that Click2Call may have been dropped, but Vincent@GrandCentral quickly posted a comment that it was not the case. And true, I am still able to use this feature; it may just have been a glitch.

Another thing was the lack of documentation regarding Click2Call. It doesn't mention this name, but it's now described in the help.

Forwarding Number Can Be Shared

Finally something new! One inconvenience was that a forwarding number could only be activated with one account, or one GC number. But now, a forwarding number can be used on multiple accounts, according to GC Blog.

Example:
My roommate and I each have a GC number. We want to forward that to the same home phone that we share.
Before, this was not possible, but now it's allowed.

My wife and I each had a GC number and was impacted by this limitation so I really have to try this out.

Other Help Documentation Updates

Some articles seems to be added in the help center including mentions about iPhone. This is good. At least this confirms that Goolge is putting some effort to make GC compatible with iPhone.

Although minor, it's good to see some updates so that we know Google is not ditching services after they acquire them.

Google Involved in Trans-Pacific Cable Construction

Google is a member of a consortium for constructing a new trans-pacific cable system named "Unity". This 10,000km cable system, connecting Tokyo and LA, has a capacity of up to 7.68 Tbps and is estimated to cost US$300 million. It's expected to be in operation by early 2010.

According to KDDI, a member of this consortium and a tier-1 provider in Japan, each member of the consortium will individually operate a fiber pair. Wow! So, Google is probably going to have its very own 960 Gbps hard link between its two offices across the pacific. I wonder what Google is going to do with this. Hopefully it's not just for TelePresence...

Interesting how a software company like Google can suddenly get deeply involved in a network infrastructure business. Of course this is nothing new; Wi-Fi access is another one Google is involved it and potentially wireless mobile services. More reasons for telcos to get scared of software giants.

Finally Google and AIM (AOL)

It has been a long time since we were speculating the collaboration of Google Talk, Google's IM, and AIM, AOL's IM. And this is finally here.

Unfortunately for me, the only person that I know who is on AOL world is myself. When will Google Talk connect with Yahoo! Messenger?

Google (Gmail) Now Supports IMAP

Actually, this does not seem to be the case for all users. I personally have verified this. One of my Gmail account still did not have the IMAP feature available. Nonetheless, this is something great to have and what many have been waiting for. Your Gmail will perfectly sync on your iPhone and any other computer/device you would access your email from.

On your iPhone, you will have to manually set it up by selecting "Other" instead of "Gmail" since the iPhone is still not aware of this change to Google. For detailed instructions, Google has a great help page with pictures.

I'm not sure what some accounts don't have IMAP available, but if this is the case, you will have to do with the old fashion POP3 style.

UPDATE:
I noticed that the iPhone will by default put your sent emails to "Sent Messages". This ends up creating a label "Sent Messages" in Gmail and tags all your outgoing emails. To avoid this, go to your mail settings on your iPhone and you can change the "Sent Mailbox" to "Sent Mail" under "[Gmail]".

Google Finally iPhone Compatible

Yes, the iPhone has a full browser and that is its strength, but who wants to browse every single web site in full size? Zooming in, zooming out, scrolling up and down, left and right... This is the last resort, not the main way of browsing. And finally Google is iPhone optimized. Well, more accurately, they recognize your iPhone. I'm happy, but I can't stop from thinking why it took so much time. Anyways, try these familiar links on your iPhone; pretty convenient.

URL for Google Services

• Gmail – http://mail.google.com/
• Calendar – http://calendar.google.com/
• Docs – http://docs.google.com/

URL for Googe Apps

• Gmail – http://mail.google.com/a/example.com/
• Calendar – http://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/example.com/
• Docs – http://docs.google.com/a/example.com/

Again, for Google Apps users, don't forget to replace "example.com" with your hosted domain name.

Enjoy!

How to Access Google Apps iPhone Edition

I'm not sure why Google doesn't make this easy or provide instructions on their web site.

Previously, I posted an article on how to setup Google Apps' email on the iPhone mail application. This article is about how to access the web mail interface that has an iPhone specific UI.

Well, it's easy; it's just an URL you need to access from your iPhone.

http://mail.google.com/a/example.com/x/

Make sure you change the "example.com" to whatever domain name you are hosting on Google. This interface has already been available with Gmail. I just had hard time figuring out how I can easily get the same interface on Google Apps' email.

Google Adds Presentation to Docs (and IBM wants the buzz too...)

Google finally added a presentation tool for their Google Docs application.

I tried it out slightly. It's like a simple GUI type HTML editor; like what they have with Google Pages. As of now, I did not see any slide transitioning effects, but it will allow you to save it as a HTML/image file collection to play it on your browser offline. (Worked with IE and Firefox.)

For a basic presentation, I think it would work fine. Plus with the online collaboration tools Goolge Docs has, it may be good for people who work remotely with others.

Also, IBM released Lotus Symphony, another free office suite. This is an installed based application same to OpenOffice.org and actually supports their primary and open "Open Document Format (ODF)". Let's see how much buzz they get.

Now we have big organizations with their free office suite applications trying to go against Microsoft's expensive Office software. This situation is becoming a very interesting show...

Mail Setting on iPhone (Google Apps)

Of course most people are going to want to use Gmail on their iPhone. There must be lots of information out there on this topic. Plus, this feature is actually built-in to the iPhone.

But honestly, I personally do not like the experience. Gmail seems to be very slow on the iPhone and especially due to the fact that the iPhone communicates with Gmail in an unintelligent manner (Gmail is limited to POP3 access), its very unattractive. I recommend using with AOL Mail.

But on the other hand, I use Google Apps and this I do want it on the iPhone. How do we set this up? Click on the title above to go see Google's article on how to do this, but there is a gotcha. To avoid this, follow the directions below.

1. Login to your Google Apps email
2. Go to Settings - Forwarding and POP
3. Select "Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on" and click Save Changes
   
4. Now, on your iPhone, go to Settings - Mail - Add Account... and select Other
5. Select POP
6. Enter your Name and Address (your full email address)
   
7. Setup Incoming Mail Server information
   Host Name: "pop.gmail.com"
   User Name: recent:<email> (e.g., "recent:ken@example.com")
   Password: <password>
8. Setup Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) information
   Host Name: "smtp.gmail.com"
   User Name: <email> (e.g., "ken@example.com")
   Password: <password>
9. Hit Save

And you should be good to go. One other setting you also might want to apply if you are mainly using Gmail or Google Apps is "Always Bcc Myself". If you turn this on, when you send a mail from the iPhone, it will automatically Bcc you and you will always get a copy of the message in your inbox. Why need this? Different from AOL Mail's setup, Gmail uses POP3 and will not sync the sent items on the iPhone to your Gmail account. So if you want to keep a copy of what you send from your iPhone, you will need to enable the Bcc feature.

Enjoy!