Here’s how I have it set up:

I use Vonage for my home phone and Google Voice for my business. What this means is I give out my Google Voice number as my “business” number. When someone dials my Google Voice business number, the call is automatically forwardd to my Vonage number and cell phone. And as of just a few days ago, the call can be answered via Gmail!

When I want to make an outbound business call, instead of just picking up the phone and dialing… I use Google Voice to place the call.

You see, Vonage only bills for outbound phone calls. This means, if I use Google Voice to dial my home phone and connect me to the number I want, THE CALL IS FREE! Not only that but the person receiving my call sees my Google Voice business number as the caller ID!

So when I want to make a call, I use the Google Voice Chrome extension. This way, when I want to call someone, I don’t need to visit the Google Voice page. What I do is click on the little Google Voice icon in the upper right hand corner of my Chrome browser and dial the number. My Vonage phone rings. I pick up the Vonage phone and Google Voice then calls the number I dialed and patches us together. The person I am calling has no idea that I dialed the phone from my browser. The best part? THE CALL IS FREE because Vonage considers it an inbound call! (GOOGLE CALLED ME!)

Firefox has a similar Google Voice Extension. And if you don’t want to use an extension, you can always just use the Google Voice page.

This morning I went to work troubleshooting the issue. FINALLY I found the answer:

1. In Google Voice, navigate to Voice settings under the Settings link.
2. In the Phones tab, click the check box next to Google Chat.

That’s it! As soon as that check was in the Google Chat check box, everything suddenly worked! Now I can see who’s calling me and I can choose to answer via my computer OR my telephone.

Hearing their woes got me thinking… we back up our hard drives, why not Facebook? I did some searching and found an application that backs up Facebook! It’s called Social Safe.

And the best part? It only costs 2.99! How can you say no to that?

I downloaded it and it worked like a charm.

Once it’s installed, a window pops up. You click the little download button and immediately it slurps up all your photos, friends, wall and profile:

Once it’s all downloaded on your computer, you can access all the backed up data from this panel:

Here’s one big caveat… there is no restore button. They apparently plan on offering one soon. So even though you are backing up, there’s no easy way to restore this information other than manually doing it. BUT AT LEAST YOU HAVE RECORD OF YOUR INFORMATION! And that’s better than not backing up at all.

Note: The links to SocialSafe are NOT affiliate links. I do not get anything for recommending them.

Watch my short video to learn how to update your security settings so you don’t find yourself sharing too much information with the world.

No one seemed to be aware that this was possible.

Here are the steps to those who want to start hiding people, pages and applications from their Facebook newsfeed:

At any rate, Yelp sends out great newsletters and the one that came in yesterday had some amazing demographic information on their users that I had to share with you:

…when it comes down to a prime demographic for businesses, the numbers are pretty sensational.

• 54% of our users are between the ages of 25 and 44.*
• 68% have at least a bachelors degree,*
• 21% have graduate degrees.*

By its very nature, Yelp is a transactional website (few would type “dentist” near “Chicago” for fun). Simply put, these folks have money and are on the site to decide how and where to spend it. Moreover, 62% of Yelp users make over $60,000 annually (and 35% make over $100K!).

So, who uses Yelp?

Affluent, educated adults – just the kind of customers you want to attract to your business.

*Source: Quantcast

So what are you waiting for? Go and claim your Yelp listing!

Date: Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Book: “Groundswell – Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” by Charlene Li and Josh Bermoff

When:
from Tuesday, September 14, 2010 – 07:00 PM
thru Tuesday, September 14, 2010 – 08:30 PM

Where:
Emilie United Methodist Church
7300 New Falls Rd.
Levittown, PA 19055

For more info:
Terri Moran-Hagan
215-943-7400 – tmoranhagan@lbccc.org

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