Realty World Northern California & Nevada

Google announced on Wednesday of an integration with Google Voice into Gmail. What exactly does this mean?

First it’s important that everyone be familiar with Google Voice and it’s features. Google Voice launched over a year ago as a beta program which was only available on an invitation only basis. On June 22, 2010 Google opened the doors for everyone to signup for Google Voice and provided a phone number which can be configured to ring all of your phones at once, whether it be your home, office, cell, etc. You can setup calls to forward to some or all of your phones and with restrictions given the time of day or day of week or groupings of contacts. You can even block calls from specific numbers.

The voicemail configuration is full featured and allows you setup and save multiple recordings for different contact groups. Think of the advantages and possibilities this enables. You can setup a greeting for your friends to hear that may be in a friendly or relaxed tone and a different greeting for family members, all while having a professional greeting for business contacts and unknown callers. In addition, you can have your voicemails sent to you email as an attachment and you can even have your voicemails transcribed to SMS text messages.

Google Voice offers call a screening feature which can require callers to announce their name and lets you listen as the caller leaves a message. There is also a “Do Not Disturb” feature where you can set the number of hours for the “Do Not Disturb” status it to last for.

Lastly, Google Voice offers a call widget that you can place on your website or blog. You can setup the widget to call you at any or all of your phones, have a custom greeting set and you can set call screening as well.

So far everything sounds great. You get a telephone number and a ton of options for inbound phone calls… but what about outbound calls?

Outbound calls can be made in several different ways. The first way is from your mobile phone. Android and BlackBerry phones can download an application from http://m.google.com/voice while iPhone, Palm WebOS, Nokia S60, and Windows phones will have to open a web browser and go to http://m.google.com/voice. I tested using my iPhone and after entering in my login information I was taken to a keypad dial as the main screen. Enter in a number and hit “Call” and I was prompted to accept the dialing of a different number. This different number is how Google connects my call to the number I originally dialed and sends my Google Voice number as the caller id to the person I am trying to get a hold of. After clicking the call “Call” button my call was connected and the person I called saw my Google Voice number as the caller id.

The next way to dial numbers using Google Voice is new with yesterday’s announcement of Google Voice integration with Gmail. As of yesterday, my Gmail now has an option labeled “Call phone” directly below my Google Chat status. After clicking this new item a phone keypad pops up and allows me to search for names or numbers in my contacts or the number directly. Using this method requires you to have on your laptop, or computer, a microphone and speakers. The call gets connected using your computer’s Internet connection. This is very similar to numerous other services, Skype being one of the largest names out there. However, Google Voice differs in that Google Voice is free to call not just other Google Voice subscribers but to any number in the US and Canada. In addition to free calls, Google Voice allows for text SMS messages to be sent and received at no cost as well.

How popular was Google Voice integration with Gmail on its first day of launch? According to a tweet from Google, users seem to love it and more than one millions calls were placed in the first day. Not too bad!

Following are some videos that go over the features. I hope you enjoy!

Facebook joins the so-called “location war” with the launch of Facebook Places. Places is currently available for Apple iPhone users (with the newest version of the Facebook App) and mobile users accessing touch.facebook.com and allows users to “check in” using their mobile phones to inform friends of where they are. In addition to checking in their own location, users will be able to “tag” friends that are with them as well. Users will also be able to see if any friends have chosen to check in nearby.

Places is currently rolling out to all US users. However, when I first downloaded the iPhone App it appeared as if this new “feature” was not fully ready and available. The new icon “Places” appeared in the app and after clicking on it only to display a message stating “This feature will be available in your region soon.”

By the time I was done writing this article it appears as if Places became available for me to access. Following are some screen shots of the iPhone App.

Places is looked to be picked up by younger and socially active individuals. Maybe someone is at a bar or restaurant and that person checks in with Places and views if anyone else is nearby. Communication can then ensue to meet up. You can also leave comments with your check ins. Maybe it is positive comments about a restaurants food or service. Places will also allow users to identify hot spots in their area and new area to check out.

With all of the geolocation services in the news recently and the rising concern of privacy, is Facebook Places something to be concerned with?

Facebook has made a solid attempt to alleviate concerns of privacy by adding privacy settings and setting up the default setting with a fairly conservative approach. By default, if you are a Facebook user, Places will have very minimal impact to you. First of all, a user would need to initiate an action of "check in" for Facebook (and users) to see where you are. So Facebook is not looking at where you are and posting it without your knowledge.

There are several several new privacy settings for Places. The first new privacy settings is under the section "Things I share" and it is called "Places I check in." By default this setting is set to "Friends Only" which means that only your "friends" will be able to check in and see where you are. If you would like to have more privacy, change that setting to "Customize" and either specify which of your friends or groups can, or can't, see where you check in.

The second new setting is "Include me in 'People Here Now' after I check in." This setting lets others at the same spot know that you are there. It is important to know that the people who see this may not necessarily be just your friends seeing this list. By default this setting is disabled which means that in order for your friends, and others, to see you in the list of people nearby to them you would need to enable this setting.

The third new setting is under the "Things others share" section and is called "Friends can check me in to Places." By default this setting is not set and displays "Select one" in the drop down list. It is important to know that the first time a friend tags you through Places, you will receive a notification on Facebook and you will be given the choice to allow your friends to check you in to places or not. When your friends check you in, it is as if you have checked in at that place yourself. You also will appear checked-in to your friends. If you don't allow friends to check you in, then when they tag you at a place, your name will appear in the same way it appears in a tagged status update. You will not appear checked in at that place. Similar to photo tagging, you have the ability to remove yourself from Places check-in or tag.

The last privacy option is a bit tucked away and is listed under the "Application and Websites" section under "Privacy Settings." Click on "Edit your settings" and click on "Edit Settings" next to "Info accessible through your friends." The new settings is labeled "Places I've Visited" and by default is checked. This means that the Places you have checked in will be available to applications, games and websites when your friends use them. To disable this setting uncheck the setting.

Creating friends lists and why it is recommended

One final topic regarding privacy that many Facebook users don’t know is that you can create a list to organize your friends. Some suggestions for lists would be one for family, one for friends, and one for business. I’ve heard from some users that they have two separate Facebook accounts setup, one for personal use and the other for business use. I feel that not only is that incredibly difficult to manage, it really isn’t necessary. After you have these lists setup, you can modify your privacy settings to allow certain lists to see some things and other lists not to see other things. So for example you can modify your privacy settings so that photos and video that you are tagged in (which sometimes can be a bit embarrassing!) are excluded from “friends” listed under your business list to view.

I hope this helps!

On a PC there is a key sometimes labeled “Print Scrn,” “Prt Src,” “Prt Scn,” “Prt Sc” or “Prtsc” and is usually located on the upper right hand side of the keyboard. Regardless to the various abbreviations PC manufacturers use, they all stand for “Print Screen.”

The two most common questions or comments about print screens are:

1. What is a “print screen” and what does it do?
2. Why is it when I push the key on the keyboard nothing happens?

A print screen is where the computer’s operating system captures (in an image format) all of the items and open windows that appear on the computer’s screen(s). In Microsoft Windows, pressing print screen will copy this image to the clipboard. This captured image in the clipboard can be pasted in an editing program such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, or an image editing software. The pasted image is known as a “screen shot.”

In cases where you have more than one monitor setup, a print screen will capture the contents from both screens. In Microsoft Windows, pressing the “alt” key in combination with the print screen key will capture only the currently selected, or active window. This is ideally done when you want to only take a screen shot of a particular application or window, as opposed to all of the windows and applications that you have open and visible desktop items.

On a Mac there is no print screen key on the keyboard. Mac users can do a print screen and create screen shots by pressing combinations of the “Command,” “Shift,” “Control,” and either the number “3″ or the number “4.”

For an operating system that is supposed to be more “user friendly” it sure sounds more complicated to me. However, after a short while multiple times looking up the sequences, it begins to become second nature. Following are the default keys required to do print screens or screen shots:

• Command-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screen shot of a window and save it as a file on the desktop
• Command-Control-Shift-3: Take a screenshot of the screen, and save it as a file on the clipboard
• Command-Control-Shift-4, then space, then click a window: Take a screen shot of a window and save it as a file on the clipboard

On a Mac you can change and disable the ability to do any of the combinations listed above and change the default keys to creating print screens or screen shots. Additionally, I like the ability to create screen shots based on an area that you select using your mouse so it can be just a portion inside of a window. That particular feature comes in handy and is probably what I use the most.