What Is The Best Free Service?

[Jon Westfall]

Many moons ago I decided to try almost every free service I could get my greedy little geek hands on. It is for this reason that my eWallet overflows with Usernames &amp; Passwords to services that do everything from deliver news emails to give me <A HREF=http://www.logmein.com" target="_blank">remote access</A> to my machines. I'm sure I'm not alone in this - and that many of you have your favorite free service that you religiously use. The goal of this thread is to share these services and give others some great time-wasting activities for today (After all, ya gotta try them all ;) )<br /><br />So what is YOUR favorite free service? What makes it so great? How often do you use it? As for mine.... I suppose I'll tell you if you read on<br /> <!> <br />CallWave is an interesting company in their offerings. One of the best services they have is known as <a href="http://www.callwave.com/landing/cfc2offer.asp?ct=corp_cfc"> CallWave For Your Cell Phone </a> (A subset of CallWave Mobile). This free service (With an optional $3.99/mo upgrade that I haven't had need for yet) was posted on our frontpage a number of months back, and I enthusiastically signed up that day. If you're not familiar with it, it is a voicemail service that replaces the voicemail your wireless provider gives you. It adds a number of features, including<br /><br /><br />* Voicemails &amp; Missed Call Notices (With Caller ID) sent to your email.<br />* Option to transfer call to landline<br />* Option to listen to your callers <i> as they are leaving a voicemail</i> and optionally <i><b>interrupt and answer the call</b></i>. This feature alone has freaked out many a friend whose call I just missed.<br /><br />For free, they give your callers the option to leave up to a 1 minute message (In practice, anyone who leaves longer than a 1 minute voicemail deserves to be hung up on in most cases!), and you can interrupt and talk to the person for up to 20 minutes on Callwave's dime (Certainly enough time to tell them to call you back, or to call them back!). For the $3.99 upgrade, your callers can leave 3 minute messages and you can talk to them for an unlimited time. As I said, I haven't had need for the upgrade yet, but it's nice to know it's there. CallWave also allows you to assign nicknames to people's phone numbers, so my alerts (Which can be configured to go to Email or SMS or both) can say "Mom called and did not leave a message" vs "44x-3xx-9xxx called and did not leave a message". Quite a nice touch. <br /><br />Now that I've shared with you, it's only fair you share with me - what free service do you love. There are others in my list of favorites, see if you can guess the others or (better yet) give me one that I haven't used yet!

[CTSLICK]

Does Skweezer (http://skweezer.net/) count as a service? I use Skweezer all the time when bashing around the internet on my PDA (tethered cell phone connection). It does a pretty good job of "mobilizing" sites and helps speed up browsing overall. Things like personalized bookmarks and pop mail checker are nice too. The free version is ad supported but its not intrusive enough to bother me.

[Vincent M Ferrari]

Bloglines.

I have been a blogger for about 4 years, and I read quite a few blogs and news sites. The best part of Bloglines is that it keeps my RSS together from device to device. Wherever I go, there are my feeds, and they have a great mobile version that works on every mobile device I've ever tried it on. The fact that I don't have to remember what feeds I added to what device makes it a must-have service and I highly recommend it to anyone suffering blog or news overload.

[servoisgod]

ORB!!! http://www.orb.com. Probably the best and easiest home media access that I've ever used. And yes...FREE!

[paqguy]

Logmein.com - FREE remote access to your computer. Very similar to GoTOMYPC but free. Love it - especially nice for helping friends and family. I have them all load a small client on their machines and i can connect anytime i need to.

I also use AVVENU and FolderShare for accessing my files remotely. Avvenu works nicely on my Treo!

[Darren Behan]

I second logmein.

Very useful and my job hasn't blocked it yet 8)

db

[pivaska]

Skype with video. I call South Africa at lest 4 times a week because of an affiliation with a not for profit organizaiton and we talk about 45 minutes each time. I save hundreds of dollars in phone bills.

[Vincent M Ferrari]

Are you using Skype on your Pocket PC? If so, since you have the same one I do, do you have to overclock it to run? I'm curious to know how well it works for you.

[pivaska]

Yes I have skpy on my PDA. I don't use it all that much but when I do I do not have to overclock it. I have comcast at home with a 6meg line and I have comcast business at work with a 10meg line. Needless to say it is still 801b. I have also used the I have only experienced problems when there were problems as well with my pc connection and the call might get dropped but it hasn't happened for quite a while now. The worst thing is having to use the pda upside down like a phone. I haven't heard of a good BT headset that is small and yet works like it should. I sometimes use the Socket CF ethernet card when I want more stability instead of wireless.

[jhat3k1]

This is BS, they list sprint as a carrier choice but after you fill out everything they tell you sprint is not supported. This would be a great service.

[mangochutneyman]

I have three I regularly use:

-Free 411
http://www.free411.com/

I use this regularly instead of my carrier's directory service!

-Avvenu
http://www.avvenu.com/
No device client needed for remote destop access. Just use browser interface and it's free too!

-Skype...works flawlessly on my x50v! ;)

[Phillip Dyson]

I have to second LogMeIn.

CallWave sounds like a potential solution for my post here.
I'll have to check it out.

I guess that was gross self promotion. Sorry .... :devilboy:

Does this work with Windows Mobile Phone Edition or Smartphone? There doesn't seem to be much detail on the site.

[superfire]

Skype with video. I call South Africa at lest 4 times a week because of an affiliation with a not for profit organizaiton and we talk about 45 minutes each time. I save hundreds of dollars in phone bills.

Do you use the skype with video on PC? or pocketpc? If you are using the skype with video on pocketpc, can you tell me where to download it?

the skype for ppc from skype.com is voice only thou.

[pivaska]

I use skype with video on my pc. I have a creative cam that I bought for around $50 and it works great. Once in a great while there is a bit of pixelation. Voice and video are in sync. Of course the better the web cam the better the better the pic. I haven't heard of the video for ppc yet. You would need some type of CF cam and I don't know if 801b would be fast enough for good video or not. Like I mentioned before sometimes I use a sockete CF card for hardwire connect but then that would only leave an SD slot for the camera. Probably another reason that it would be great for a USB port

[Phillip Dyson]

Jon,

Since you're using CallWave, can you give some detail as to how it works? Could I use it in conjunction with a WM Smartphone or WM Phone Edition?

thanks

[Jon Westfall]

Jon,

Since you're using CallWave, can you give some detail as to how it works? Could I use it in conjunction with a WM Smartphone or WM Phone Edition?

thanks

Callwave basically walks you through re-programming (Using USSD codes you simply punch into your phone dialer and press "Send") your cell network to redirect calls that would normally go to their voicemail to Callwave's voicemail number. Callwave then takes those calls for you into their voicemail service which (if you select) will simultaneously dial you to let you screen the voice mail (this is great if you just missed the call while fumbling for your phone), email you and SMS you alerts, and email you the voice message as a WAV file. I've had no trouble with this service on T-Mobile, although some are saying that Verizon / Sprint are a bit trouble-prone, so you might want to note your settings with them first in case you have to revert back. It works with any phone, including Smartphones &amp; PPCPE's. Since this service happens completely away from the cell phone (the handoff &amp; transfer is done at the network level, all your phone is involved in is simply notifying you of an incoming call at the network level), then the make/model/type doesn't matter.

Although it is a nice benefit with Push email that it can be quicker to listen to my voicemails as WAV files than call the Callwave voicemail up!

Jon.