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GrandCentral is a brilliant new web app that lets you consolidate all of your phone numbers into one number, meaning someone can call you on your GrandCentral phone number and all of your phones (cell phone, work phone, home phone) will ring. And then it gets interesting.

If you don’t want every one of your phones ringing each time someone calls your free GrandCentral number, you can set rules by friends, family, work, and others, defining where the calls should be directed. When a user leaves a message, you can listen to it online or directly on your phone. The remaining set of features on GrandCentral are a little mind-blowing, in that “I’d never thought of that, but how am I now living without it?” sort of way.

When you pick up a call that’s been forwarded with GrandCentral, you can choose to answer it, send it to voicemail (which will be done automatically if you don’t answer), or send it to voicemail and listen in on the message as it’s being left in real time (just like you’re listening to someone leave a message on an answering machine). You can interrupt a “ListenIn” message at any time and join the conversation by pressing star (*).

If you’re on a call and you decide that you want to record your conversation, just hit 4 at any time. You can also record personalized greetings based on contact groups and upload your own MP3s to be played in place of your ring.

How about the ability to ListenIn on a voicemail before answering it? I used to be able to do that in the 80’s with my tape answering machine. How and why did I lose that feature? That was the best feature of the answering machine! Why can’t I save a voicemail message on my cell phone for more than 2 weeks? Why is it impossible to download or forward a voicemail from my work or cell numbers? Why can’t I change the voicemail greeting my callers hear based on who they are? Should the telemarketer get the same greeting and priority as my wife? Why should I have to drive with my knees to find a pen and paper to write down a phone number while on a call? Wouldn’t it be cool to just hit a button on the phone and have the call start recording? Or better yet, when checking a voicemail from the phone, why should I have to try to remember the caller’s number, hang up and call them back. And then when done with the call, call back into my voicemail to delete that message and go on to the next? Wouldn’t it be better to hit a key from within my voicemail to call back the guy who called me and then drop me back where I was in my voicemail review when that call ends? Why should I have to worry about the wrong person getting my phone number and make my life hell? Shouldn’t I just be able to send that caller to SPAM like I do with my email? Why do I have to send out an email to everybody in my address book letting them know of my new phone number and email every time I change jobs, move homes or get a different cell phone? And if my friend doesn’t get the message or doesn’t update my contact info in his Outlook, then I may never hear from them again. Does that make sense?

All of this can be done with GrandCentral’s free account, though there are a few limitations to the free account (none of which severely hinders the service). As you can tell, after spending the evening playing around with it, I’m pretty impressed with this service.

I’m not ready to tell all of my contacts to start calling my GrandCentral number just yet, but I may in time. If you give it a try, let me know what you think about it in the comments.

via Lifehacker

The New York Times has a good article on what to do in the event you are bumped from a flight, and one of the tips that they recommended was this:

Call your airline or travel agent as soon as you learn your flight is canceled. This can help you jump ahead of passengers waiting in line to be rebooked on airlines that still reaccommodate passengers manually.

Most of us don’t know our airlines or travel agent’s number by heart, so in order to avert bumping disaster, program this information into your mobile before you head off to the airport - it could save you a lot of trouble (and get you another flight).

This is the first time I ever used a “Power Washer” and I’m floored by the results!! (pun intended) Click on the thumblinks for a better view, then click again to get back.

Just in case your wondering, No I don’t own a power washer but YES after this experience I will soon!

Thanks for the loaner Joanne!

My latest gaming obsession is the new real-time strategy game, Company of Heroes. It’s easily one of the best games of the year for the PC. And it’s quite possibly one of the best real-time strategy games ever made. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, the game currently has a 95% review average on GameRankings with 13 reviews, which puts it squarely on track to be one of the top 10 best reviewed PC games of all time.

The Company of Heroes demo is a whopping 1.8 gigabytes in size, but it offers a significant chunk of the game: unlimited, unlocked skirmish mode against the CPU and two single player maps.

Sure, the World War II genre has been done to death. But this is a real-time strategy game with incredible graphical detail, dynamic, destructible levels, and unparalleled unit intelligence and tactics. It elevates the entire real-time strategy genre to the next level.

Needless to say, highly recommended. If you’ve ever played and enjoyed an RTS game of any type, buy this game immediately. For everyone else, get the demo and try it yourself. I think you’ll be impressed.

Hint: Get to building tanks or AT guns as soon as you can. If not, you are going to be in a world of hurt when the first panzer comes rumbling down the road at your infantry.

Here’s a Preview:

Many times, during the course of a day, we have to deal with irate people. Whether we are in Customer Service and dealing with angry customers or school administrators dealing with angry parents, handling an irate person and being able to lead them to a more calm — and logical — state can be a very desired skill.

The most common mistake that people make is to assume that when someone is out of control, we should calm our voices to model the desired state we wish the person to have. The assumption is that the other person will match us and a calm and logical conversation can then take place. Unfortunately, this rarely happens. Instead, because of the calm demeanor, the complainant doesn’t feel heard. Their rationale is that since the listener is not as outraged as they are, they must not have been listening or they don’t believe what was shared. The result is no trust so the person remains angry and outraged.

A better approach is called “Pace and Lead”. The first step is to match the complainant’s emotional intensity. This is not agreeing with the person. This is simply responding with the same emotions that are being presented. If a person is complaining that the delivery person scratched the new dryer as they installed it and was outraged, the customer service rep would respond in an outraged fashion: “They what?!? You’ve got to be kidding! If that happened, it’s unacceptable!!” This is pacing. After matching the emotional intensity, the rep would begin to, slowly, de-escalate the intensity to a normal level, leading the complainant to a state that is more productive for dealing with the problem. This is leading. If at first the representative tries to lead, but the complainant fails to follow, the rep would simply raise the intensity level again and then try to lead the complainant back down again. This is repeated until successful. I’ve dealt with irate individuals in this fashion and am usually able to have them down to a productive level within 2 – 3 minutes.

This approach allows a complainant to feel heard and provides the best way to reach a calm and logical state quickly.

Via

Here is a hilarious parody of the Office Space movie shortened to 30 seconds and acted with bunnies (Warning, not safe for work).

This steam-powered RC tank comes equipped with a “3 channel radio control system: one for steering, one for engine’s forward and reverse / throttle, and one for the steam whistle.

Watch the video below.

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again: Who needs an iPod when you can listen to music that’s genetically engineered for your liking? I’m talking again of course about the free service called Pandora and apparantly so is Wendy Boswell over at Lifehacker.

Check out her 15 Pandora Tips!

Here is a link to my genetically chosen song list. (for your convienence, just in case it’s too far to click on in the upper right hand panel of Hiddenpcmaster’s Headquarters.)