Nice Onesuite surprise

     Believing my Onesuite account about to expire, I logged in to add
time and noticed the expiration date is 1/10/2010, six months from my
last use, 7/10/2009. Yep in addition to other qualifiers, Onesuite
expiration date automagically extends to six months from last use. So
all a person really needs do is make at least one L/D call per six month
period to keep his account active and retain his balance. "I didn't know
that...." DW&I use very little L/D; had I actually _read_ the fine
print, I'd have kept 20-some dollars in my pocket because the account is
now paid way-y-y ahead.

 
"20-some dollars"?
I never added more then ten dollars at a time.

Another pleasant surprise is that you can also call from OUTSIDE USA!
Compare the rates at https://www.OneSuite.com  No monthly fee or
minimum.
Use Promotion/SuiteTreat Code: "FREEoffer23" for FREE time.

 Balvenieman wrote:

And now with Google Voice, if your calls are within the continental
USA even Onesuite is overpriced.  I may not ever use up the few dollar
balance that I've got with talkloop.

Dave

 

    I'm afraid that I don't understand what Google Voice is but I
suspect it to be best avoided. I am no fan of Google. If Google Voice is
a VoIP service in the same vein as, say, Skype, unless they've
eliminated the transmission delay when interfacing with the "real" phone
network, it is useless to me: The delay is unacceptable and I don't know
a living soul to call directly via VoIP. As a rule, DW&I don't make
enough calls even to keep the OneSuite account active. Now, though, all
I have to do is remember to use it at least every six months: No easy
task ;-)
    More importantly to me: Google is an advertising leviathon that
doesn't do anything for nothing and, just like Sun, Micro$oft, etc.
wants to "dominate" the Internet, whatever that means. Just because no
fee is charged for a product or service doesn't make it free; Google has
its own agenda for roping in users with its online applications, gmail,
googlegroups, etc. Even a casual read of Google's TOS is enough to
dissuade me. I am no fan. Hell, I even use the Scroogle Firefox plugin
for Google searches!
    Having said that, though, I will confess to having tried Google's
online word processor and to having listened to my wife attempting to
use the spreadsheet: "Silly" comes to mind when comparing either to
M$Office or even to IBM's now free "Smartsuite". Besides, what sort of
person would leave his documents online with a third party which,
because its service is "free", has no duty to keep them -- much less
safeguard them from intrusion, including its own. I do install and use
Sketchup, from time to time, but block its access to the Internet and
remove it when I'm done.

 Balvenieman wrote:


Google Voice is still in testing but if you google on the phrase,
you'll find it (and the waiting list seems to be no more than a week
or so).  It's _probably_ VoIP (there's a bit of delay) but I don't
know for sure.  They give you a (normal, but virtual) telephone number
in your (or some other) area, but the calls are via your "real"
telephone.  You can make an outgoing call either by initiating it on
your computer (then your phone rings, you pick it up, and it rings the
called party) or by calling your own virtual telephone number from
another phone.  Free calls within continental US, rates to other
countries comparable to a good calling card.  And (aside from that) it
doesn't cost anything.

The other attraction is that incoming calls to your virtual number
ring on whatever real phone(s) you designate and/or go to voicemail
(and you are then emailed a text transcript of the message).  And you
can create rules so that different callers are treated differently
(ring on a particular real phone, get sent directly to VM, depends on
time of day or day of week, etc.)  You can listen in to the answer
(like with a physical answering machine) to screen.  Maybe some other
things.


Yes, that's the other side of the coin. I've gotten a virtual number
but am not really giving it out to anyone until it becomes clearer
just how Goog plans to monetize it.  It seems to me that the actual
cost of providing this must be significant, even if Google has its own
private network in place already to route the calls over.  (The main
speculation is that it will be by ads appended to those VM messages,
but there probably is be some profit in those charges to non-US
destinations, and the float on the prepay money for them.)

I share your other reservations about Google but still use them a lot.
 (I use the CustomizeGoogle FF extension to anonymize my Google ID and
block Google Analytics, and TrackMeNot or SquiggleSR to generate a
flow of random searches, so that looking at my search history is
pretty much worthless.)

But if we're talking "frugal", it's hard to beat "zero" on a cost basis.

Dave