Nef

(with one 'F')

I hate being the last one to know

You know that feeling when you get a really cool toy and you go to show it off to someone and they just tell you, “yeah, I know, I got that a couple months ago”.

I hate that.

And it happens to me all the time. Unfortunately, it’s just in my nature to be a braggart. For instance, if I extend my analogy to cover the situation where you show it to a person and they don’t like it or think it’s dumb, that doesn’t bother me at all as long as I showed it to them first.

This is why I like to show off my computer. (Don’t ask me right now though, because I hosed the graphics drivers… But just trust me when I say it was sweet.) For this reason I beg your indulgence as I show off some toys.

Grand Central

The latest toy, that all my tech friends had before me, was this service, Grand Central (acquired by google) that gives you a phone number anywhere in the U.S. (and maybe Canada). The number is a local number (mine is in the 951 area code), so my wifey can call me whenever, and for free from a local phone, because this number essentially forwards calls to any phone lines you want. By calling one number, I have 3 phones ring at the same time (house, cell, work), which almost guarantees that you’ll get me.

There are some other neat tricks that you can do with it, including all the awesome features that come with having a voice mailbox online (email, download, forward your messages), you can record conversations (both parties are made aware), and you can make free long distance calls too. This last feature is kind of neat, and it’s set up a lot like the button below. You click the phone number you want to call and then it asks which phone to send it to. The service calls you, you pick up and it dials the other party. If you want to see what it’s like, click this button, enter your number and then after your phone rings, leave me a voicemail.

Editor’s note: broken.

Firefox 3

I’ve been running the nightly builds of the latest firefox for awhile, and the next version is great! Everything is much faster and responsive which makes me happy. Also, in the beta you can see this humorous easter egg.

 

 

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Brent

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Comments

9 responses to “I hate being the last one to know”

  1. Krystal Avatar
    Krystal

    Hey! Ooo, well, don’t mean to burst the told ya first bubble, I was just going to haply tell you that my mom has started our family on a conference call thing using either that system or one like it and we all get to talk to each other for free and it is all recorded for posterity’s sake! So cool!

    Reply
  2. Tami Avatar
    Tami

    Ha! Krystal already knew…. that’s funny. I really should try calling you on that number – sounds neat. Though what you forgot to mention is how it’s annoying to me here at home when the phone randomly rings like twice and then I pick it up and no one is there…

    Reply
  3. Brent Avatar
    Brent

    Let’s be fair though, Grand Central isn’t a conference calling thing at all. It’s main functionality is having a single phone number for all your needs. The single phone number aggregates all your disparate voicemail/messaging systems into one. Much like the gospel and truth. Okay, was that blasphemous? Maybe I should put that analogy into the post…

    Reply
  4. Jeff Avatar
    Jeff

    Brent, I have never heard of any of these… so you’re still cool in my book.

    Reply
  5. Ryan Avatar
    Ryan

    Brent, I also hate to burst your bubble, but phone numbers have been around for like a hundred years or something… I clearly knew about phone numbers before you.

    Reply
  6. Brent Avatar
    Brent

    Ryan, you’re clearly jealous.

    Reply
  7. Ryan Avatar
    Ryan

    I actually am, cause I just tried to sign up and it says I have to wait!!! What the heck, Brent?!?!? I need assistance.. do you have some invites (like gmail or something?)

    Reply
  8. Kurt Avatar
    Kurt

    Ok, so here’s my big question about FF. You know how they update about every other day and it takes you a while to get your favorite plugins working again? What does one, such as myself, do when the plugin creator is no longer around and there are SO many interdependencies that I can ONLY use one version of Firefox? I wondered if there was such a thing as a “Firefox Version Switcher” out there that would do this easily… I have something for Flash versions now, but not Firefox Versions. I assume the beta isn’t intrusive on this front so it’s more for the dot updates.

    Reply
  9. Brent Avatar
    Brent

    Kurt – If you’re talking about how firefox’s versioning prohibits old extensions from installing even though they most likely work perfectly well… I have a solution. I use the extension Nightly Tester Tools even when I’m not testing. It gives you the option to disable the version checking with some other snazzy options. (Alternately there is a key in about:config that does the same thing, but I seem to remember having problems trying it that way.)

    Reply

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