Using Google Voice with Outlook’s Dialer
Microsoft Outlook has this very nifty feature where you can connect your computer to the phone line and use your Outlook Contact List to instantly dial someone’s number. Of course, when they created this they needed to add support for using a calling card, as long distance in the same country hadn’t even begun to be free.
Now if you use Google Voice, you can use this to your advantage with the simple addition of just a few seconds to the call.
Continue Reading for Instructions on how to Outlook up to dial through Google Voice
Oh Apple, You Amuse Me
Apple iPhone Game Center Icon vs. Microsoft Store Logo:
Oh Apple, has anyone told you lately that you’re CRAZY?
Y’all Don’t Love Me, Do Ya?
Remember way back in November when I created something so ridiculously awesome I had to learn two whole new web technologies to do it?
If you don’t, or if you just picked up on my blog, that very incredibly awesome something was called Google Voice OMS – It allows you to send text messages through Outlook using your Google Voice account, without having to pay a third party company per-message. Essentially making this very awesome feature in Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 FREE.
At first, I didn’t want to Open Source it. I wanted to keep it for awhile and sell it to Google or something if it caught on – but there seemed to be so tiny of a reaction to the post that I published it on Github. Do you guys seriously not like it? I asked for SSL Hosting or Donations three months ago and I haven’t received a single cent to pay for the cost (nor an offer to host).
Not that there was really anything left to add to it, but I’ve pretty much just let the project die. Nobody’s approached me about funding it, or providing hosting for it, and definitely not Google although it would be the best thing in the world to kick-start Google Voice for Businesses.
And I was even thinking of doing something cool like seeing if I could create a twitter client replica of it. But you know what? Never Mind.
Why Steam on Windows 7 Disappoints Me
This actually isn’t a post against Windows 7. In fact, you will find very few of those among this blog, if any at all. This is actually a post voicing my disappointment with the very popular Social Network Gaming Software, Steam.
One of the first things quickly and easily noticed is that it uses its own Window customization. This really isn’t such a big deal for me. Sure, it’d be nice if it could do the whole aero thing and fall back on this, but this looks pretty cool, so I’m not really going to fault them for this.
Next is actually mostly a good thing. Steam has this very nice jumplist for Windows 7, something not a lot of other programs have really taken the time to integrate just yet. You can see video games I have recently (attempted to anyway) launched from Steam, their own quick links to important parts of their client, and an optional (disabled by default) ability to change your current status from the jumplist.
The one problem I have with this jump list is that the tasks have no icons. You could easily find some sort of icon for each of their little tasks. A shopping cart for Store, a generic user-like figure for community, etc etc but there is nothing there.
Then of course, there is my ultimate pickle with Steam. As I’m sure you can tell from the above screenshot – Steam has NO PRESENCE in the Windows Games Explorer. This is awful! The Games Explorer has been around since Vista, and yet Steam has yet to embrace it.
There could (and should) be (at the very least) a high resolution steam icon under Game Providers. It’s not very difficult to make, and the “News” feed you see from Games for Windows LIVE is a simple RSS feed. They could either populate this with the news from their site, or just a list of new releases, creating a steam:// URI (if it doesn’t already exist) to open up links in their own client. Instead, they don’t even touch this.
As for games, I don’t know if they show up in the Explorer or not. I don’t have any spare cash lying around, so I haven’t been able to check for myself – but somehow I doubt that the games appear there (though, I could be wrong – can anyone vouch for this?).
Hopefully, these issues will be addressed in a future version of Steam, and embraced by Rival companies. (I’m looking at you On Live. Yes, I expect this from you as well).
What are your thoughts on the matter, anyway?
Google Voice in Outlook
If you’re a regular reader to my blog, I’m sure you read yesterday’s post about how Google Voice could gain a head in the business world. At that time, my dream of connecting Google Voice and Outlook via OMS was far from completion, with the only work I’d managed to accomplish being a simple reading over of the related technologies.
Well, late last night a certain gear clicked in my brain, and I spent the entire night awake and coding PHP on a local XAMPP server. But my end result was fruitful – I finished successfully coding an Outlook Mobile Service that allows the delivery of SMS through the Google Voice system.
Here is a video showing it off:
I’m not yet prepared to release the source code for this, though. (Messy, Messy, Mess! as Double D would say). There’s a lot in my mind about it, it took a lot of work and I’m not ready to see forks and duplicate services pop up. (Sorry guys =S). Be on the look out for follow up posts that describe some of the technologies I had to learn to make this possible.
Oh, also – If you’d like; Help sponsor this project (I can’t afford to make it public ATM) with either Free (VERIFIED) SSL Hosting for a subdomain of a domain I own [contact me], or the money to make it public using my current host ($62.40/yr) [donate through my host]. I would be most appreciative if you could offer either of these to get this thing up and running!
Connecting to Mac OS X via VNC
In the entirety of my house, I happen to be the only Windows user (and an Avid one at that! Macintosh can suck my Windows 7 Orb!), but for some occasions I too wish I could use the Macintosh. For such things as the local web server, and in the future possibly making iPhone applications.
Now, I don’t like going downstairs to use the best non-laptop Macintosh. Its hooked up to a High Definition Projector system, and it is simply a burden to try to get anything code-wise with it done, without either sitting up close to the screen, or using Apple+ to make it larger, so, I did what any geek would attempt to do. Get Apple’s Screen Sharing system working with my Windows Box.
I have to be honest with you. It was a hassle and it was definitely NOT worth it. Regardless of client side settings, VNC was incredibly slow over the Local Network.
However, as some of you may wish to try this yourself, I’ve included the instructions after the break.
Windows 7 Genuine Advantage
Should be aptly renamed to “Windows 7 Ungenuine Disadvantage.”
Why you ask?
Simply because a single simple hardware revision (“upgrading” your computer for example) can make it lose it’s mind.
Would you like to know the modifications I had to make to my computer to get “You may be a victim of software fraud” and “Activate Now” popping up all the time since the first time I activated with a serial code provided from Microsoft?
I had to make one: Attaching a second IDE hard drive that’s less than 20GB.
That one IDE hard drive freaked Windows 7 out like there is no tomorrow.
Luckily, since the Beta is free; I have another key; and have re-validated my version of Windows 7 as genuine.
Windows Live & Windows 7
There is nothing more noticeable by running the Windows Live Beta on Windows 7, then the fact that the two were made for each other. This shows most with Windows Live Messenger; and how it has tasks for everything and is built into the new taskbar perfectly.
All of the Windows Live programs that I’ve tested (excluding the hopefully nowhere near finished Windows Live Movie Maker) also now have high-resolution icons to represent their programs (instead of just the old 32x32 pixel images).
You have to admit though, Windows 7 looks beautiful.