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How to Sign-Up Google Voice outside USA

Google voice is one of the most anticipated services offered by Google and it is still not open to everybody. This service allows you to make free calls allover US and Canada and allows you to use one phone number for all your existing numbers. The call lands on your Google number and all the phones that you have configured, will ring. You can have different settings for different users and so on. I will write a different post on Google Voice features later.

Today I’ll let you know, how you can sign up and use Google Voice outside USA. Following are the steps.

Step 1 –  Request Invite
This service, as I said still is’nt open to everyone yet and is available to those who have been invited by Google. To receive an invite, you need to request for this invitation. Simply go to https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/ and request an invitation with your email address. This probably the longest step because you may have to wait for several days, even weeks for the invitation to land in your inbox.

Step 2 – Get a US phone number
If you are reading this, the chances are that you dont live in US and dont have a US phone number. Why am I talking about this? Whenever you receive the invitation and you try to sign up, google will ask you for your US telephone number to link with your Google Voice account. You need at least one such number. All the calls you make using Google Voice will be directed to that number. To get such a number you can use one of the following services:

Make sure you buy a number that is US based only (starts with +1)

Step 3 – Make Google Voice account
The email that you receive as an invite from Google will contain the link. Click that link and accept the invite, make an account. While signup process, you will be asked for your US number, give the number you bought in step 2. You should be ready to use Google talk in no time. 🙂

Now all your calls to your google number will land on your virtual phone line number or on your skype. All your SMS will land in your google.com/voice inbox and you have all the features of Google Voice running like a charm.

Let me know how did your experience go.

Is Windows XP the right OS for ATM machines?

ATM machines running on Microsoft Windows based machines have been causing issues to customers. Windows are not 100 percent reliable and by nature they are interactive software. Mouse and keyboard are assumed essential UI devices . This atm also shows some error on screen that cannot be responded to without a mouse and leaves this machine unusable.

200 Posts on Basitali.com

When I started the blog, I didn’t know I’ll go that far but today I’m celebrating the 200th post here. I want to thank my readers for reading my blog and keeping me motivating enough so that I keep writing. We have a different direction on this blog during 2010 and in addition to normal stuff I keep blogging about, I will keep blogging about green computing at home and enterprise.

Stay tuned, keep reading and your ideas are always welcome.

All new BlackBerry web-kit browser – Video

I’m waiting for this browser to be out soon. Though BlackBerry browsers have grown significantly decent in terms of performance and capability, web-kit browser show in this video is a big leap both in terms of performance and capability. Obviously RIM has a tough competition out there 🙂

Source: http://www.blackberrysoftware.us/

Google gives eyes and ears to mobile search

I know I’m a little late in posting this but for those who still haven’t tried them, here we go:

Eyes and Ears for your mobile web-searching experience

All of us have been using Google search and many of us do that over mobile phones as well. Recently, Google has given eyes and ears to its search service if you are using a mobile phone to search the web.

Voice based web searching
Google’s Voice based search is available on many handsets that allows users to simply say what they are searching for and Google brings the results for you. Google Voice based search is part of the Google Mobile app which runs on most of the popular handsets including iPhone, Android etc. I’ve been using the voice based  search on my Nokia N82. The voice search recognizes what you say and searches for the results accordingly. In addition to voice recognition, they use your location to optimize the searches as well. See this video to know what I’m talking about:

Image based web-searching
That’s not it guys. The cool part is yet to come. Google search has got some eyes too. I’m talking about Google Goggles. Google Goggles is an amazing app that uses image recognition, pattern matching, topped with location information to search for the things that you see through the camera of your smartphone. Simply point your camera at an object, landmark, shop or book title to get information about it. Unlike Google app, it is not available for a number of phones and is available exclusively for Android phones only.

See Google Goggles in action in this video:

Monitor Power Consumption – CRT vs LCD

This is a known fact that CRT monitors take more  power as compared to the LCDs.

If you have a CRT monitor, the big monitor with the bloated tail and a few KGs weight, you are consuming the most power. The power consumption of a CRT monitor ranges from 100watts to 300 watts depending on the size, model and make of the monitor. Typically, the older models used to consume more power and newer ones are better in terms of power consumption.

If you have a flatter variant of a screen that could be a TFT, LCD, LED or Plasma screen, you are using less power as compared to the CRT monitors. Most of the laptops, hand held devices like pdas and mobile phones are using this kind of displays these days. If you are using LCD, TFT or LED monitor for your computer as external display, your typical power consumption is somewhere between 50 watts to 200 watts depending on the size. For example this 15” LCD I have consumes 55 watts. There can be screens that take even less power.

This worksheet provides a more quantitative way of calculating your poswer consumption depending on different monitors you are using.

http://downloads.techrepublic.com.com/5138-10589-5698031.html?tag=content%3bleftCol

See more articles on Green Computing at home and office.

How much power does my computer consume?

This is a typical question every eco friendly minded person asks himself. I cannot tell you exactly but here are a few general guidelines that will tell you how much power your computer generally consumes.
Keeping it very simple, there are two main components of a computer that take most of the power. A screen and the CPU box (that contains most of the electronics of your computer).  So we will have different power consumption ranges for these two components.

Power consumption for Computer Screens

In general, the power consumption is higher for CRT monitors. The older fat monitors and TVs are all CRTs. You can read more about the CRT here. The flatter, thinner and lighter monitors take lesser power and are eventually more green and eco friendly. These could be LCD, TFT, LED or Plasma monitors and have their own different properties, but in general they consume power lesser than a CRT. Following is a very general comparison:

Typical consumption of a 17 inch CRT is on average consuming 100 Watts

Typical consumption of a 17 inch LCD id on an average 30 Watts

So an obvious option is to ditch your CRT and move on with a lower power variant, most popular are the LCD monitors.

Power Consumption for CPU

If you have a desktop computer, your CPU will comprise of several parts and all these parts will determine how much power your PC will consume. Moreover, what operation you are performing on the computer will also determine the power consumption. As a rule of thumb, a typical desktop computer consumes around 300 Watts. If you want to know about your desktop, try to find the power supply inside your CPU box and the sticker will show the total power of the machine as shown in the image below.

Following is an example of a typical 300 Watts desktop power-supply side sticker:

In case you have a laptop, the power consumption is much lowe. I’ll be posting something about it in my next post.

Go green – Guides to green home computing and Green SME computing

This page will serve as an index to our environment friendly posts focused on green computing.

Power saving for green computing

Green computing is about environment friendly ways of computing including materials used in construction, ways of use to improve power efficiency and conserve resources and once the divce has reached the end of useful life, dispose It off or recycle it in an environment friendly manner.

While we will discuss other aspects on the blog as well, we will continue to emphasize on power saving for home computing and computing in small to medium enterprise. In larger organizations, the power conservation is based on the similar principals but will need different equipment.

We will keep a close eye on power consumption of different electronic equipments around you especially equipment related to home computing including monitors, CPU boxes, network equipment, speakers etc.

So stay tuned for power efficient computing and other related posts on basitali.com