Congratulations Google Voice loyalists. Your time has finally come. After years of languishing on the vine, Google has finally updated its phone service with a new look and some new features for its Android, iOS and web clients.

If you're on Telstra prepaid and you use voicemail, life is about to get a little more costly. If you're on the Cap Encore plan (the most heavily promoted of Telstra's prepaid offers), from July 31 retrieving voicemail will be charged from your recharge credit rather than your call credit.

Never manage to answer your phone before it diverts to voicemail? You can alter the length of time it rings by dialling a simple number.

It's become a mantra of tech-involved 20- and 30-somethings (and even teenagers) that you should only call when it's an emergency, otherwise texting is preferred. But what about voicemails? Should you ever leave one?

Voicemail is one of the hidden traps on many mobile plans, and can cost you quite a lot if you're a heavy voicemail user. We've rounded up the charges for every major player in Australia so you can avoid unexpected charges.

When Telstra announced it would offer visual voicemail on iPhones, we ran through an analysis of whether the service was worth paying for. Here's one specific scenario we didn't consider: retrieving voicemail when overseas.

Bad news if you don't fancy paying Telstra $5 a month for its newly-announced iPhone visual voicemail service and don't think Vodafone is up to the task: Optus says it has no plans for adding the option for its iPhone customers.

As we foreshadowed yesterday, Telstra is belatedly adding the visual voicemail feature for iPhone users -- but if you want it, you'll have to pay $5 a month for the privilege. Is that a worthwhile investment? The answer is "maybe", if you get a lot of voicemail from a fairly predictable group of contacts.

Telstra hasn't yet officially confirmed it online, but some Twitter users have reported that visual voicemail is now available as an option for their Telstra iPhone accounts -- for an additional $5 a month.

Voicemail is a tough cookie to crack. Some people love it, but as short text messages have overtaken quick communication on phones (SMS) and the internet (e.g. Twitter), voicemail has fallen out of favour with many.

Mobile phone plans are often sold on their total cap value and their general call rate, but the charges for texts, MMS messages and voicemail access can quickly mount up. Planhacker compares what's on offer from the major providers.

Ed. Note: If you've noticed how many people have voicemail messages that sound like they're gasping for air when they record them, this simple trick from reader Gregor Samosa will help you leave smooth radio-announcer-quality messages.

The good news? Optus is offering a voicemail-to-text conversion service. The bad news? It'll cost you $6.99 a month.

Windows only: Free record-and-compress utility JDVoiceMail might make you think twice about taking the time to send your parents a voice message, or make it easier to explain something in your own voice to a co-worker. Set JDVoiceMail to a high-compression codec like TrueSpeech, GSM, or MP3, and hit the red button to start recording. You'll see on-screen just how much time and space you're using. Set up email access, and your files get auto-attached to an email with its subject already set. You can also use JDVoiceMail to simply save a small voice file for your web site or other uses. JDVoiceMail is a free download for Windows systems only. JDVoiceMail

Need a phone line to receive a one-time fax or voicemails on a particular project, auction, or job search? Free service K7 hands out 10-digit Seattle-area phone numbers that can answer calls with customised voicemail greetings or accept faxes. You can access both the audio files and fax documents through your sign-up account, and the only restrictions are a 20-message/fax limit (the site starts deleting the oldest after that) and an account wipe out after 30 days of inactivity. Other than that, you've got a free bin to keep your personal numbers private and still get at your messages. K7

Web marketer and migraine sufferer Scott Clark is tracking all the daily variables—food, environment, activity, and the like—that surround his attacks with a migraine diary, and he's found text-to-speech services like Jott (original post) are the best hassle-free tool for the job. Not only will Jott (or ReQall or most similar systems) automatically record the date and time of the entries, but it's always accessible by cell phone, and one can create a dedicated "inbox" for migraines to separate the diary from productivity-related uses. For anyone looking to track a diet, health issue, or other things that happen away from the desk, it's worth looking into. Photo by robtxgal. Migraine Diary Creation using Jott

Mac OS X only: The latest beta 3 release of Yahoo Messenger for Mac adds voice and voicemail capabilities a la Skype. Using Yahoo Messenger, computer to computer voice calls are free, and you can purchase a PhoneOut and/or PhoneIn account to call land line or cell phones, or receive calls on your computer, or even set up call forwarding to land lines or mobile phones. (Rates start at 1 cent/minute in the U.S.) You can also send SMS messages with Yahoo Messenger, and get free voicemail; Yahoo Messenger delivers voicemail as an email attachment to the address you specify. Skype's had all these features for Mac and PC for some time now, so Yahoo's pretty late to the game—but it's still good to have options. Mac Version - Yahoo! Messenger

Free file-sharing drop box Drop.io has added a call-and-record service that makes the dead-simple sharing service even more helpful. Those signed up at Drop.io can call the number and extension listed at their page and record as long a message as they want—assuming it stays within the overall 100MB limit for free accounts. Very soon after, the recording shows up as an MP3 in your Drop.io box. It's a handy tool that helps create "ubiquitous capture," like Jott, and while it can't do as many things with your voice, it's certainly useful for podcasters and making verbal notes longer than 30 seconds.
Drop.io voice

In his productivity bible Getting Things Done, David Allen says that you should minimise the number of collection buckets for all the information coming into in your life. (Collection buckets include a paper in-basket, email inbox, voicemail box, feed reader—anywhere new "stuff" channels into your day.) You should have as many in-baskets as you need and as few as you can get by with... If you have too many collection zones, you won't be able to process them easily or consistently.A few different services and tools can consolidate your inboxes and collection buckets, from email to voicemail and even paper and snail mail boxes. Let's take a look.

Single phone number with GrandCentral: Ever since I switched my main number over to a GrandCentral number, I never looked back. You can ring all or any subset of phone numbers you've already got on a per-contact basis with GrandCentral, or send calls to voicemail or screen them as messages are being left. Voicemail notifications come straight to your email box (if you work primarily in email, like I do, this is priceless), and you never have to worry about giving out your number. See more on how to consolidate your phone lines into a single number with GrandCentral.

Single email address with Gmail and Google Apps for Your Domain: This may be the fourth Gmail post of the day, but what the hell. Since Gmail can fetch and send mail from any POP-enabled existing address, it's a fabulous way to consolidate old addresses into a single place. Don't want to give up your custom domain [email protected] address? Google Apps for Your Domain gives you Gmail without the @gmail.com domain in your address.

Send paper to your digital "inbox" with the ScanSnap: This one I haven't gotten set up for myself yet, but it sounds like the best instant, scan-paper-to-PDF solution on the block. Over at 43 Folders, blogger Ryan Norbauer describes his Fujitsu ScanSnap workflow for a paperless existence. Definitely giving this a try myself in '08 so I can ditch the paper in-basket and use the digital "inbox" folder on my computer exclusively.

Snail mail: Okay, so most people don't have the problem of multiple mailing addresses. But if you're a freelancer who moves around a lot—or you've got a small business you'd like to have its own address—I can't recommend getting a PMB (Private Mail Box) enough. Sure it'll cost you a couple hundred a year, but the freedom to give out your mailing address without worry and even move without having to change your address is awesome.

How do you minimize the inboxes in your life? Tell us about it in the comments.