Google Voice Tips.

Considering that having a telephone is such an important part of looking for a job and so many can't afford one right now, I figured this might help.

If you have a gmail account and set up a google voice account, you have the option to choose a google voice phone number. During setup you will be asked to give a phone number for forwarding. All you need to do is give a friend/family members number, have them verify it and after set up go into settings and uncheck the forwarded phone and check 'forward to google chat'. After that one simple step, every time someone calls your google voice number, you will be alerted on your computer and have the option to answer the call. If you don't answer, it'll be forwarded to voice mail and you'll receive an email transcript of the voice mail. Free phone! It works great.

There are products like this:

http://www.amazon.com/OBi110-Service-Bridge-Telephone-Adapter/dp/B0045RMEPI/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

...that you can use to hook a regular phone up for google voice, but it's not necessary. Just get yourself a headset or use your built in speaker on your computer.

Questions? PM me.

Thank you for posting the information. I've just started playing around with google voice and skype. It would be nice to hook a regular phone up to the computer.

Another good one (if you have high speed internet ) is Magic Jack , $40.00 to start , $20.00 a year after that , thats about $1.65 a month, once you get it just plug it in to a usb port and follow instructions, had one for 3 years now , no problems

I've been playing around with google voice just on the computer in case the time comes that we lose our cable. It works flawlessly every single time and once you forward your calls to gchat, you can actually receive and answer calls right from your computer and it's absolutely free. You have the choice to forward an incoming call to voicemail as well. The only downside is that you probably won't hear the alert in another room. If I had the extra fifty bucks I'd definitely purchase the Obi and I'd probably never go back to paying for my phone service again. Unless google starts charging.

This is the product website for the Obi:

http://obihai.com/googlevoice.html

Looks like you hook it into your router, don't even need to hook it up to your computer. Hook it up, link it to your gmail account and free phone.

Thanks! Just set it up and it worked! That was too easy. I have a Safelink phone, so even though I can't by the Obi now, I can make routine calls from my pc without having to use the minutes I get each month from Safelink - I can save that for job searches only!

Exhausted99er wrote:Thanks! Just set it up and it worked! That was too easy. I have a Safelink phone, so even though I can't by the Obi now, I can make routine calls from my pc without having to use the minutes I get each month from Safelink - I can save that for job searches only!

That's very nice!!!

You can also use your google voice number to send and receive text messages. Sorry I'm geeking out a little over this, but while I've known it was out there all along, I've never messed with it before. I've been playing with it for a few days now and it really is an awesome free service.