Picking an email service took me several years.  I've used tons of free e-mail services but it wasn't until GMail that I really locked in - sort of.  Even now I still maintain a Yahoo! account for tracking special types of messages.

I'm currently a Verizon subscriber, previously n at&t one, but who knows where I'll be in a few years.  While my cell phone is currently my primary phone, there are occasions where it's unreliable and I'm not just talking about reception wise - see I forget my phone at work or in the car A LOT!   For some time I've been thinking about getting a SkypeIn number to make myself more reachable but I worried about providing too many numbers to my friends.

Enter Grand Central.

Despite still being in beta Grand Central provides an incredible amount of tools for it's users. One of the most powerful utilities that Grand Central offers is it's call forwarding.  Once you've setup your free phone number you can set it up to forward to any other numbers you choose.  Mine, for example, currently forwards to my cell phone and home phone - I'll be adding my SkypeIn line soon I think.

In the beta version users have the option to set certain forwarding rules based on incoming numbers.  Users can also setup special ring tones and messages for their incoming calls.   Want your family to get one message?  Your friends another?  Grand Central makes it happen.

One of the major bonuses that I also consider a major selling factor was the ability to manage your Grand Central account right from your computer.   This is great for tracking messages and customizing some of the cooler features that are available.

If you haven't yet be sure to check out Grand Central and let me know what you think.

Here's a quick list of five plugins that are great for bloggers.

1. Search Status: I started using Search Status on the urging of Everton from Connected Internet. The plugin, essentially the Firefox equivalent of the Alexa Toolbar, gives you a look at your page (and everyone elses) Google pagerank and Alexa rank quickly and easily. Search Status also gives you a look at some of the more subtle SEO related aspects of each site. Since installing it my Alexa Rank has gone from around 420k to 360k - I've also seen my traffic nearly double.
2. AdSense Notifier: If you're a Google AdSense addict this ad-on is absolutely essential. Once installed and configured you get a small entry on your status bar that can display up-to-date info from your AdSense account. Mine currently shares my current Pageviews, Clicks, eCPM, CTR, and Revenue for the day.
3. HTML Validator: The HTML Validator is mostly for anyone doing theme design. The ad-on gives you a sense of how "valid" your site is which is essential. Having a site that is designed cleanly makes it easier for spiders and bots to crawl your content. Keeping an eye on how well your site validates is a good way to keep manage this
4. Stumble Upon: Bloggers make the mistake of thinking that Digg is the king of driving visitors to your site. The problem, though, is that there are plenty of folks on digg who bury things for no really good reason. StumbleUpon is a bit more forgiving of some posts and can drive traffic in a very powerful way. Using the StumbleUpon plugin you can drive traffic to your blog and also locate items you'd like to post about.
5. Del.icio.us: The Del.icio.us ad-on I use doesn't have many bells and whistles. Its beauty is its simplicity. After installing the plugin you get two buttons, one sends you to your Del.icio.us bookmarks while the other basically acts as a Del.icio.us bookmarklet. I use Del.icio.us for two things - I use it to bookmark items I for my "hotlinking" posts and to keep track of posts I want to write about later. If you're trying to promote your site this can also be a great tool.

Yes - Google's April fools jokes brought to light a relatively surprising shortage of new products from the search giant. Maybe Sunday's jokes were just a warmup because Google has just announced a new service called "Google Voice Local Search."

By dialing 1-800-GOOG-411 you can get connected to a directory of local businesses, get connected to those businesses or even send yourself an SMS message containing a businesses data all for free!

While the service is only available as a business directory and in English it's certainly a cool new addition to Google's lineup. I look forward to getting it linked to GMail so you can gmail yourself details (rather than SMSing them) or even Google Maps.

I just finished up my first Moleskine for 2007. While I managed to squeeze three months worth of lists, notes, and ToDos into the notebook I've already got some changes planned for my next one. At the top of the list is incorporating two new hacks that I just recently came across.

The first one comes from Todd at ToddStanfield.Com. Todd dropped me a line about one of his Moleskine hacks which involves using "photo corners" to hold blank notecards to the Moleskine's cover. Check out his post on the hack for more details as well as a nice writeup of Jott.

The second hack, from foo-gui, makes room for an 2nd gen iPod Shuffle right on cover. I'll have to tweak it a bit, because I prefer the reporter style Moleskines, but it's a sleak looking hack that I really digg.

Both of the above hacks have some great photo galleries associated with them so be sure to head over and check them out. If you have any Moleskine hacks or tips you'd like to share please let me know - below you'll find a list of related posts outlining previous hacks I've come across and if you click Moleskine Small Plain Notebook Writing Journals Book in the tag cloud you'll see even more hacks and mods for my favorite notebook.

One of my favorite Windows tweaks involves the creation of a windows shutdown button. It's one button you can click to shutdown your workspace ASAP. Besides being a dead simple shutdown - it's dead simple to setup.

Here's how it works:

1. Right Click your desktop and select 'New -> Shortcut'
2. When the 'Create Shortcut' dialog appears type "shutdown -s -t 0"
3. You'll then be asked to name the shortcut, "Shutdown" should work nicely. This finishes the Create Shortcut dialog.

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