Chaining technologies?

I love exploring technologies and figuring out how to leverage the free (or very cheap) ones. 

SHAMELESS PLUG: At the Hawaiian Islands Ministries Honolulu 2010 Conference, March 4-6, I will be leading a breakout session on the use of technology and social media for churches. Be there!

My latest quest is trying to figure out how to chain and combine a few telecom systems. 

Google Voice provides an inbound telephone number you can pass out to everyone. That number can be configured to ring your cell phone, your office phone, your home phone, or any combination of those... it can ring all three at the same time, if you'd like, and much more. http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html

Skype is another, different, communications system that I like and use. It is a computer-to-computer voice & video connection, but adds the option to place phone calls to landline or cell phones. 

So here's the scenario: next April I will be in Korea for a couple of weeks taking some classes and participating in a leaders' meeting. Using my iPhone in Korea presents some technical issues, not to mention the possibility of a whopping ATT bill from downloading the hundreds of spam emails I get each day. What I would love is the ability to chain my Google Voice number to my Skype account, which would allow people to reach me in Korea any time my computer was on by calling my Google Voice number (which has a North Alabama 256 area code), and the call would seamlessly transfer to my Skype account, and "ring" wherever I was. Good idea, isn't it?

Except that the two services operate on different protocols, and don't play well together. If there is a way to make it work, I will find it, and I will post step-by-step instructions. (If you have a work-around, let me know!)

Posted via email from Kahu Gary's posterous

The complicity of the media perpetuates evil

via mrc.org

"The record compiled over 22 years by the Media Research Center demonstrates how some liberal journalists utterly failed to accurately depict communism as one of the worst evils of the 20th century, and often aimed their fire at those who were fighting communism rather than those who were perpetuating it."

Posted via web from Kahu Gary's posterous

Black Friday madness

Back when our children were young we planned our shopping excursion on the day after Thanksgiving like a military maneuver. We strategized the likelihood of which stores would have sufficient stock and the smallest crowds, drove all over the island of Oahu from sale, starting in the wee hours of the morning and ending at sundown... or way past sundown.

With no children in the home it is different. Our son, Josh, is married and living in Alabama and our daughter, Tori is 21. She lives at home with us, if you can call showering, changing clothes and sleeping here "living at home." Regardless, there are no desperate searches for the toy-of-the-moment, so shopping is far different now.

We look for one or two items we hope to find deals on, and hit one or two stores. Period. The early leakage of all the major ads for Black Friday make it so much easier. I'll save you the time: I GOOGLED so you won't have to!

Here are links to most of the major sites featuring Black Friday Ads in advance, along with some pre-BF sales and deals.

http://www.black-friday.net/

http://bfads.net/

http://www.2009blackfridayads.com/

http://www.dealtaker.com/blackfriday.html

http://www.blackfriday.info/

http://www.blackfriday.fm/

http://black-friday-sale-specials.com/coupons/

http://www.bfreedom.com/

http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com/

Posted via email from Kahu Gary's posterous