I’ve been a big fan of Google Voice since… Well, since before it was even Google Voice.

In fact, I’ve been using it since it was first launched as GrandCentral.

If you’re not familiar with Google Voice, it simply gives you a (new) phone number (for free), and let’s you forward it to another phone (or, phones).

Why is that so cool?

Here’s where the magic begins… You can have a separate number for your business, for example, and have it ring both your home and cell numbers. If nobody answers either, the caller will go to a separate (Google Voice) voicemail, which you can customize for your business.

And I’m just beginning to scratch the surface. You can set Google Voice to not ring certain phones at certain times, have it screen your calls… Oh, and you can have it email you a transcript of missed calls.

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When does “a penny saved” become “a buck & a half lost?”

I was scanning some local classifieds the other day, and came across an ad from someone looking for some pretty solid web development skills for a “simple project.”

The ad clearly stated that he would pay exactly $10/hr., because everyone who works for him “makes $10/hr. NO EXCEPTIONS!”

Seeing that made me chuckle, and recall a story from a few years ago, when someone asked me to do a “simple project” for $10/hr.

I (naturally) declined, thinking to myself that was less than my Dad paid me to mow the lawn when I was a kid, and that was longer ago than I’d care to remember.

Some time later, I ran into the guy again, and asked him how it worked-out. He said, “Well, it doesn’t look as good as your samples, and there are some bugs, but at least I didn’t have to pay a king’s ransom.”

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Have to admit, I’ve been enamored with the cool GPS products coming from Garmin, Tom-Tom, and the like.

The iPhone held the promise of something similar, but in true Apple fashion, the Mac guys blocked all Google attempts.

So, when Google finally said, “The heck with them all,” and released a (free) turn-by-turn navigation system, I was intrigued.

I have to say , the free Google Navigation System is pretty awesome… The speech-driven, turn-by-turn interpretation is amazing, and the data is “live” (constantly updated via the cloud). (more…)

A new report from Forrester research demonstrates that switching-away from your current email & calendar system, and moving to Google Apps for your Domain can save you a significant chunk of change. In fact, they indicate that you can slash two-thirds of the cost of running email simply by making the switch (but read-on, we can save you a whole lot more)…

If you’re not familiar with Google Apps, it’s the enterprise version of Google’s popular email, calendar, and shared document tools (on steroids).

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