Scott McLaughlin

Ya i know i haven’t posted for awhile and I never use the evil called Facebook, but so what….you wanna fight about it!

Anyway, I had to post this because not only is xkcd the best cartoon strip ever (well Get Fuzzy and User Friendly rank up there too, all good stuff for your RSS feed) but this just made my day funnier.

I’ve been messing around with Google Voice the last few days or so. I finally got “accepted” by them since its not released and requires an “invitation”. I feel so honored that google has accepted me into their all mighty world….meh whatever.

Pretty cool concept over all. Just like owning your own domain name the idea is you can have a phone # that you keep forever no matter where you live or move to. Even if you change your cell phone number or your home number for some reason, your google voice number stays the same.

You can have your google number forward to any combination of other numbers, it will even simulring phones for you. It also has a voicemail system and the web interface for VM looks just like a Gmail login. Voicemails are converted to text as well and left as messages in your inbox. You can also listen to the original audio.

When you first sign up you get to pick your phone number. They have a really cool little tool that lets you find a phone number thats available in any area code either by selecting part of the digits you want to use or you can even select letters. For example I could put in LODOC and it would find any number in any area code where LODOC appears in the phone number. Of course I found a bunch of those in southern state area codes.

For some reason I really wanted a 360, which makes very little sense, because long distance is mostly irrelevant these days. Anybody with IP phone services or cellulars doesn’t pay any attention to long distance. Only losers still using analog copper POTS lines for their phone service are dumb enough to pay for any sort of long distance. So I could have gotten exactly the phone number I wanted in some other area code, but I found myself stuck in being upset I couldn’t find it in 360. I did end up settling on a 360 number that contained my initials and some easy to remember digits. Dumb of me.

Its interesting when you call the google number, google systems answer and ask for your name, they then pass your call through to the number you listed in your configuration and when you answer they say “Call from” and play back the recorded caller name. At this point you can answer the call or dump it straight to voicemail.

Now thats cool stuff for stopping solicitors and phone spammers, although somewhat annoying for regular friendly callers. Not sure what the configuration options are around that feature, I’m still messing around.

There’s also a bunch of SMS based features I haven’t stabbed at yet. Guess once I poke around some more I’ll post an update.

Well its been like a month since I posted anything…kinda lame I suppose but to be honest, there hasn’t really been a lot going on. Why post when there’s nothing to say.

I did head to the beach with a couple friends, Shane and Rick two weekends ago. Rick has a house in Ocean Shores. The three of us are working on a project, of which I can’t speak of just yet because A) we may never get it done and B) you might steal our idea, thats right I’m watching you! More on that project as it progresses. Was a fun trip though and since I can’t seem to get my house done in Ocean Park, it was nice to have a place to go hang-out. I’d link some pictures of the trip but they are related to the project, so they are tucked away in a gallery.

Had a nice 3 day weekend over the holiday. Was so busy I didn’t even get on the computer much and even ignored my cell phone and work completely. Spent the fourth at a friends for a nice evening of beers and explosives. Went and saw the movie HangOver with Rick, pretty freakin hilarious.

Saturday I actually started tearing into my 1996 328i BMW. It was due for an oil change so I decided I’d just convert it over to Amsoil finally like the other cars and change its oil and filters rather than continually dumping money on someone else to do it. It also has a problem with the drivers side windshield sprayer so while I had it in the shop on jacks and hood open I tore into that. Which required some hood disassembly. Turned out to be a faulty windshield washer check valve on that side. So I dug around and found two really awesome web sites that can get all the parts for those 1992-2002 BMW’s. Even the weird little parts you wouldn’t think you could find. All parts are new, some are even BMW. I can’t imagine what I would have paid to have my BMW guy find and fix that simple problem. The part cost me $4.55

In digging around online looking for parts I found a really cool book called 101 Projects for your 90′s BMW 3 Series, I ordered the book, although a bunch of it is online. The more I read about that thing, the more I realized I can do a huge amount of the work on it that I’ve been paying someone to do previously. In ignorance I’d figured because its a sports car and computerized I couldn’t do much to it….oh contra-re

Anyway, I ended ordering some cool add-ons for it, like the keyless entry system for it, which is after-market but plugs straight into the existing pre-wire for that module, should be about a 10 minute install. The car has power locks and windows but no keyless entry or alarm…but it will soon. The system even remote controls the power windows.

Seemed like fun to have a project car again. I have a huge Chilton style manual for the 3 Series, so I dug through that a bunch as well as I was fixing and replacing various things in the car over the weekend.

There’s a bunch of easy, relatively cheap performance modifications for it I might attempt. One replaces a majority of the exhaust system, that sounds like a super fun project, so more on that if I start doing some of it. I miss having a project car, and since I can’t find or afford a mid-sixties GTO like I want, this will have to do.

Well somewhat of a big ass post, I guess I should post more often than every four weeks.

And now back to digging around for government contracts and focusing on side businesses so I can quit working for the man! If i was getting paid hourly for the amount of time i was dumping into side businesses I’d already be retired.