When getting things done involves making phone calls, you want to spend the least amount of time and money on the horn as possible—and several tricks and services can help you do just that. With the right tones, keypresses, phone numbers, and know-how, you can skip through or cut off long-winded automated voice systems and humans, access web services by voice, and smartly screen incoming calls. Check out our pick of the 10 best telephony techniques for getting more done in less time over the phone.
Our pals over at Gizmodo have turned up a new gadget which could appeal to the anti-clutter mob over here at Lifehacker – the Skype Mouse. Like it sounds, it’s an 800 dpi optical sensor mouse, which flips open into a Skype phone. You can plug the mike and earpiece into the side of the mouse. But as Anna points out in her post – it’s dual purpose, not multi-purpose, so you can’t keep mousing while calling. And, the phone won’t ring while the screen is closed. So I’m leaning towards calling this a novelty.gift idea rather than a must have for the desktop. But I do love the idea of useful multi-purpose items. Got any favourites? Please share in comments.
There’s been all kinds of talk about the web-based, all-in-one phone management solution GrandCentral since we first heard about it, but it’s been closed to new users ever since Google acquired it. If you’ve been dying to see what all the hype’s about but didn’t get signed up for GrandCentral on time, today we’ll take you step-by-step through everything GrandCentral has to offer.
[via Make]The creator of this hack says you can use it to 3g-enable an iPod Touch or an iPhone. Given that we don’t yet have the option of an iPhone in Australia, it looks particularly appealing – if you have a Windows Mobile phone to act as a “bridge” for the Touch to use.
He recommends using a phone or PDA with Windows Mobile 5 or 6 to act as the mobile access point. You also need a SIM card and the (free) PHM Registry Editor program.
Cute hack which requires no hacking of the iPhone and just a registry edit of the Windows Mobile device. Without a microphone, of course, the Touch can’t be used for voice calls. But then, you have the spare Windows Mobile phone for that anyway. :)
Turn your iPod Touch into a 3G iPhone [Pyrofer's Projects]
