Hey everyone, Dave and I are hosting a giveaway. We’ve recently stumbled upon a large number of Google Voice invites and we’re prepared to give them away. Because honestly, we’ve already used a large number of those on ourselves, and neither Dave nor I can keep up with twelve different numbers.

The GiveAway

So here’s the deal, we have ten invites and we’re doing a sort of lottery system. Every two days, we will pick one person that is subscribed to our site through Feedburner and we’ll send them a nice welcome package:) All you have to do is subscribe, and then when we send you our welcome package, just report back, comment on our “GiveAway” post (there’ll be a new one for every winner) and we’ll send you another e-mail with the invite.

subscribe

Use this subscription module in the right side-bar. You’ll have to active your subscription as well otherwise your e-mail won’t show up on our FeedBurner account.

This will go on for almost three weeks.

RULES:

1. You have to subscribe through feedburner. If you subscribe through RSS, that’s alright but we won’t be able to see your e-mail address then
2. You have to comment back to claim your prize, otherwise we won’t know if the e-mail was fake, or if the winner wants the invite
3. You have to agree to let us pick on you in one of our articles haha (okay, that’s not a rule, but we’ll write an article about you anyways)

The GiveAway:

1. The give away features a single unactivated Google Voice invite
2. We are in no way responsible as to what you do with that invite
3. If Google Voice doesn’t work in your country, sorry, but there is nothing we can do about that.

GIVEAWAY CALENDER

Our first giveaway will be on Tuesday, the 10th of November, 2009.

What is Google Voice Anyways?

Google Voice Sidebar

Google Voice is a Google service that allows you to connect several phones together under a single number. For example, my phone has a number X, my home phone has a number Y. If you call my google phone number Z, both my X and Y phones will ring. You can also block people with the service, create your own custom voice mails. You can send texts from your new Google Phone Number, you can call people with it and do all sorts of crazy things.

On the left here, is part of the google voice website, the sidebar. Here, as you can see, you have tons of options.

1. the inbox is where all your text message conversations are recorded (don’t worry, you can delete them) but it’s nice because you can keep track of numerous conversations and save important texts you received. Also, if you’re like me, it happens sometimes that you accidentally delete the SMS messages on your phone and here’s where you can view them. You can also reply to text messages.
2. The Starred messages are just your favorites or bookmarked ones.
3. History as far as I can tell, works the same as inbox, denoting sent and received SMS messages
4. Spam and Trash are self-explanatory
5. Under Contacts, you can save different numbers to use online for texting or placing calls. Note that when you place a call, Google Voice connects your phone and the dialed phone number, it’s not skype. Also, when you get a text message, the text message will have the senders number there. If the sender is in your contact list, their number will be replaced by their name
6. Voicemail will show you, guess what?, your voicemails. There will be a transcribed version as well as an audio recording of the voicemail
7. SMS works just like the Inbox, as far as I’m aware, only filtering out any voicemail and call information
8. Recorded houses all your recorded calls. Just press “4″ during a convo, and the recording starts
9. Placed, Received, and Missed are self-explanatory, they refer to phone calls.
10. Calling Credit: Now this is interesting, the google voice service charges when you call out of country, but ridiculously small amounts. You can set up billing and such and make international calls. Have fun with that.

One great thing about Google Voice is that you can TEXT online and receive the messages as well. Whenever you make a call, Google Voice will connect your registered phone with the targeted caller. You can’t use it like Skype, no online voice chats or anything.

More Features:

Google Voice Settings

Phones: You can change your Google Voice Number, it costs $10 which is honestly not that bad. The initial number is free, so choose wisely. What’s great though is that you can choose any number you want that is available. It doesn’t matter what area code your current number is in or where you live. I have google voice number with a California area code. You can also choose if you want any particular letters, numbers, or words in your number and Google will search its available number list. My number, for example, ends with OMFG (6634) which is pretty cool.

Google Voice Settings Voicemail

Voicemail & SMS: Here are a number of great options. You can record your voicemail greetings online, record your own name that people will hear when they call. You can also get voicemail notifications over your email. There’s an option to choose which phone number to send the text messages to (in case you have multiple phones connected to a single Google Number). There’s an option to forward texts to your e-mail. You can change your voicemail pin (used to access voicemail through your phone) and you can choose to have voicemails transcribed. Simple enough, eh?

Google Voice Settings Call

Calls: Ah, my favorite part about Google Voice. You can screen calls. Whenever a caller dials your Google Number, they will be asked to say their name. Their name will be recorded and once the call reaches you, you’ll hear the recording and chooce whether or not to pick up. You’ve a couple options about the screening. The Call Presentation is just exactly what I’m talking about, when you pick up your phone, you’ll either get a menu with options (whether or not to pick up etc) or you can pick up the same way you would with your regular number. Caller ID is self-explanatory and the “Do Not Disturb” feature will tell the caller not to disturb you and send them straight to voicemail. Neat, huh?

Groups: Here you can filter the previous settings according to your contacts. You can place your contacts into distinct groups (family, friends, work etc) and each group can have different settings.

Call Widgets

Call Widgets: They are, simply put, shortcuts you can put on your website that will connect the users with you. Automatic dialing etc. It’s pretty cool and I might put one here, later.

Billing and Account: self-explanatory Billing is used to add credit to your Google Voice account, and Account has all your password info and stuff

And that’s about it for Google Voice. Don’t forget to Subscribe by E-mail on your page.