I am one of those who’s been paying about $40/month for traditional long distance phone calls here in the US. I have long known the benefits of VOIP but the cost difference wasn’t that big for me to leave my convenient setup with AT&T - DSL + Long distance phone. Plus, I was just plain lazy to switch.

Recently, when I heard about MajicJack’s VOIP service I thought it was one of those shady deals that I’d end up getting swindled. It was the price of the subscription which is a ridiculously low $20/year that made me wrinkle my eyebrow and say ‘Is this for real?’

With that information in hand, I just found out that AT&T offers an Internet-only DSL or naked DSL as opposed to a DSL service requiring a phone line. So, I immediately jumped in to try out the obviously cheaper alternative, MajicJack to see if I can really save some money. I have been testing this out for a couple of weeks now. I am impressed enough with MajicJack to share it with you.

MajicJack Overview

• It is a TicTac sized box with a USB connector (with 1ft extension cord) on one end and a phone jack on the other end.
• Costs about $40 for the first year to purchase the MajicJack box including a years subscription and $20/year thereafter
• Unlimited long distance calls to US & Canada but no international calls yet although I have been seeing 2c international call ads in the dialpad, I can’t find further information at the time of writing this.
• Self-installing software from the MajicJack device itself. No CDs!
• Software runs on Windows XP & Vista only. No luck for Mac/Linux users at the moment.
• Phone numbers available in a lot of area codes in the US
• You provide your address during setup to get a phone number assigned to you as well as have e911 configured.
• Just plugin your home phone to the phone jack on MajicJack and you are all set with a new number.
• You get a dialpad as well in your computer should you want to use it with a headset.
• You get all the features like call waiting, caller id, voice mail, voice mail by email, etc.
• You can get your current number ported to MajicJack as well but the information on how to do it could be better.

My Impressions

• The call quality is not bad with my 1.5Mbps connection but if I am watching streaming video, the voice does break. But, this isn’t MajicJack’s fault but limitation with my available bandwidth. I am thinking of bumping my Internet speed to 3Mbps by paying $5 more per month.
• For MajicJack to work, you have to have your computer on but if your computer is turned off, the voicemail still picks up the call and sends it to your email. I think this is acceptable that if I am not at home or have the computer turned off at night as long as I get the voicemail but we leave the computer on all day anyway.
• If you don’t get a phone number in your area, using a GrandCentral number is an option.
• If you installed MajicJack in your laptop, you can take your MajicJack phone number anywhere you are traveling as long as you have a broadband connection.
• I have read reports of people plugging MajicJack into their home’s phone jack in the wall and have all the other phone jacks activated to be used with other jacks including faxes. But, it seems you need to have your landline disconnected before this can work as the additional pulses in the line will interfere. I haven’t tested this yet as we are yet to disconnect our landline.
• At the moment, you could potentially get a second MajicJack number and ship it to your family/friend abroad and make US phone calls for free! I am not sure if it’s legal so don’t quote me on it if you try it.
• Love the ease of use and the plug and play nature of the device making it very portable.
• It’s hard to find much information about it on their website but you can get a pretty good idea about the service here at DSL Reports forums. And their, free trial numbers is a joke as you can easily tell that’s fake!

MajicJack is not for everyone but if you are willing to accept a few limitations that’s inherent with many VOIP solutions, you could end up saving a lot of money in phone bills. It’s true that it smells like a service that could go under any time but to me the cost savings is big enough to switch to it. Mind you, my wife and I have our cell phones as well so our dependence on our home phone may not be the same as if your only phone number is your home phone.

Even if the service should fold in a month, I wouldn’t have lost anything by paying $40 for the first year as that is what my one month of landline phone service costs! And I bought it in a nice deal at 1saleaday.com for only $30.

Would you try it?

Hello newcomer, did I say welcome to ShanKri-la yet? Before you move on, just wanted to thank you for visiting and we hope you come back and see us again!

I use Craigslist a lot. I have found free boxes for moving, a couch, a car vacuum and many more things from my local sellers through Craigslist. In fact, my wife even finds some freelance web development/WordPress work through Craigslist.

Craigslist operates with the less is more motto. No web 2.0 graphics. No ajax. No poncy logo. They have managed to stay in the 90s with their looks but you cannot beat the power this simple site offers. It probably owes its popularity by making it easy to use for even the not-so web savvy folks as well. That’s a good thing.

Crgslst comes to offer an alternative interface to Craigslist users. I for one welcome Crgslst with open hands for the excellent features it offers to the goldmine of Craiglist data.

Crgslst Quick Look

• A simple Ajax interface with the search form to the left
• A way to save your favorite locations and keep them visible for easy access - very useful for me as I tend to search different locations for different things. For eg: when I am looking for a furniture I will be looking for something close for easy transportation and when my wife is looking for some freelance gig, distance wouldn’t matter
• It also shows your past searches - great for quickly searching the same item day after day. There’s a clear button if the list gets too long or if you don’t want it
• The search results are neatly displayed sorted by the date of posting and the actual title of a Craigslist post.
• Another great feature I like is that you can ‘remember’ the results you like for easy access later. Right now it shows a serial number for the post in the items that remembers and it’ll be helpful to see atleast the first few words of a title instead. I also like that it highlights a whole listing in yellow if you have already saved it to ‘remember’.

Crgslst is in beta and are saying that they are adding more features soon. I am really looking forward to seeing those but I will be content with just the functionality they have given already. It just has made my Craigslist surfing 100x faster.

There have been a couple of attempts such as this in the past but were shutdown because they were burdening Craigslist’s servers. I am not sure how the earlier attempts worked but Crgslst say they are working off of existing Craigslist feeds to show us the information and they don’t serve multiple city search at the same time so they don’t bring down Craigslist’s servers.

When you click on a Crgslst result, you still see the original post in Craigslist so I don’t see the harm of this new service to Craigslist.

What do you think of Craigslist alternative, Crgslst? Can you think of a reason why Craigslist might get pissed off by this new service?

[via Download Squad]

My wife and I were looking for some information recently to open a checking account for her. Although I am happy with the place I bank at, we wanted to see what other options we had to open an account for her. We were interested in looking for one that offered services like Debit Card rewards program & one that didn’t charge for using other bank’s ATM.

When I opened my current bank account, I just went to the bank websites which I knew were in my area and looked for some information about various accounts they offered. Sometimes they were easy to find and sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes I would call the local branch to get information on their offerings. I didn’t know that some banks had so many branches around town just because I hadn’t noticed them at all.

This time around in our search, we came across a pretty cool tool at Find Better Banks. You can get a nice comparison of banks around you and their various offerings by answering a few simple questions. Here are the steps you would go through to find information on potential banks you could go with:

Step 1: Location

You just give your street address and zip code and choose an optional distance you want to look up banks in.

Step 2: Features you want

Here you get to specify what kind of features are important for you and you have three options to choose from - Don’t care, Nice to have or Must Have. You can influence your results by choosing an appropriate answer for each feature. It also has helpful description if you aren’t sure of what something is.

• Interest on balances
• Overdraft protection
• Online Bill Pay Services
• 24-hour automated telephone banking
• Email alerts
• Mobile banking services
• Download activity to Quicken or MS Money

You could even choose to find discounts & freebies such as

• Unlimited check-writing
• Debit card reward program
• Non-bank ATM Fee Rebate
• Free additional linked deposit accounts
• Free or discounted check printing services

Step 3: Estimate your fees

Depending on your usage and teh type of account you have, you are probably incurring some kind of fees annually. This step helps estimate the fees you spend usually and compares it with the other offerings. Some of the things that influence the fees you pay are:

• If you direct deposit your paycheck
• Your lowest daily balance
• Number of times you use ATM in a month
• How often you find yourself using another bank’s ATM
• In a year, the number of times you overdraw
• If you want overdraft protection

Step 4: Compare Bank Features

Now you are taken to page that lists the banks that matches your selection criteria sorted by estimated annual fees. It also shows how closely every account matches your preferred features in percentage. It also shows how far the closest location is for you as well as shows the number of locations within 10 miles of your address.

If you’d like to see individual features and fees for the banks listed, there are a couple of tabs at the top of the table to easily switch views back and forth.

Step 5: Choose a Bank

On choosing a bank of your interest, you’ll see extensive details about taccount you are looking at and contact information. It even has a Google Maps link showing the closest location in a bank.

With this cool wizard, it was easy for us to see which account matched our needs the closest and made our decision-making in a usually painstaking process, a breeze.

With more banks being added every week to this tool so with time I see it as being an authoritative entity in this niche. This is a simple and effective tool that answers a most sought question by most consumers shopping for a bank account.

The interface is not your flashy web 2.0 kind of look and does not have a funky logo but it is designed to be easy to use and it does the job very well.

How would you go about hunting for a bank account usually?

We bought a house earlier this year. We spent quite a bit of time looking at potential houses before we zeroed in on ours. One of the ways we scouted for houses was by driving through neighborhoods that we were interested in and looking for ‘For Sale’ sign.

We would note the address and the realtor and go back home and check the property details online. I so wish I knew of a service like HouseFront that would have made house hunting so much easier.

HouseFront

HouseFront has taken SMS (text messaging) to a new level. In their words,

At HouseFront, we’re taking the power of text messaging and applying it to real estate. We’re bringing accurate, immediate, easy residential real estate values directly to your mobile phone. And, with our extensive databases, we compile accurate value estimates as well as specific property details for over 100 million U.S. homes. Imagine the possibilities!

With HouseFront, while I am driving through a neighborhood and come across a house that I am curious about, I just need to send a text message with the house address to HouseFront. And I will instantly get back these information about the house I am looking at:

• House’s estimated value
• Number of bedrooms
• Number of bathrooms
• Square footage
• Lot size
• Year Built

The convenience of knowing all this in a moments notice while I am looking at a house wants me to go out check out some homes even if I am not going to buy it. This saves so much time of driving back and forth when you can decide right there if the house has fewer bedrooms or more bathrooms you like.

But, that’s not all. HouseFront also saves all your queries by SMS under your mobile number. So, after your stroll through your favorite subdivision, you can come back to our computer and look at all the house details listed neatly in one page.

It doesn’t end here either. Now, you can look at the house’s taxable value, estimated value, value range, recent sales history, comparable properties and a nice Google Map’s satellite view.

If you are on the lookout for houses, this site could come in real handy. If your friends are, tell them about it and they will love you to death. I did use sites like Zillow, HouseValues shopping for a house but something like HouseFront would have been just awesome.

What do you think?

I had this written to be posted on Friday but as my luck would have it I spent Friday night at an emergency room with a sprained ankle (from volleyball) that was swollen like I had couple of baseballs in there. Luckily, I didn’t break anything. Thanks to my friends, the 6 hours we spent there wasn’t all that bad.

I got this cool LED Faucet Light at ThinkGeek.com with a gift certificate I won in a T-shirt slogan contest. That’s right not a wet t-shirt contest but a t-shirt slogan contest. My winning slogan: RSS Feeds. I’m Hungry! If you have seen someone wearing this, now you know the brilliant person behind it. Heh.

LED Faucet Lights

Now let’s talk about the LED Faucet light. It has a temperature sensor and the LEDs turn blue if the water is cold and red if the water is hot. Unlike other product pictures, these LEDs are really bight and you clearly tell the colors even in bright day light. We have made a few of our guests jump at night, when we made them turn the faucet on in total darkness.

It’s very functional in kitchens and bathrooms. Plus, as the description at ThinkGeek says it looks like a futuristic alien mouthwash! They come with universal adapters & spare batteries.

This is not a sponsored post. So if you buy it, you just end up with the keenest faucet on the block.

Cool MP3 & CD Player

I came across this cool innovative design for a device that plays both MP3 & CDs at The Unprotected Blog!

Whoever said innovation is slowing down?

Just what I was looking for to track my car mileage! I drive a 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse with over 100,000 miles on it. It is running well and I try to guess its mileage with every fill up by setting up my trip meter with every fill up and making a mental note of the number of gallons I put in.

The problem with that is: I kind of know what the mileage is but I don’t know for sure. I could have kept track of it in a spreadsheet but that wouldn’t be cool would it. With my love for web applications, Mymilemarker is just what I needed.

Quick Facts

Mymilemarker is a simple web application and it offers

• Quick and easy signup
• Name your car or cars if you have multiple
• Enter date, odometer reading, the number of gallons you filled and price per gallon.
• It gives you a nice projection of miles that you will drive in a year, projected costs and average mpg based on your history.
• You can change the forecast time from the default one year to whatever you want, say, like 6 months.
• You can add every fill up using your Twitter account.
• You need to fill-in data about atleast 3 fill ups before it will start spewing numbers and projection graphs at you.

I like the simple approach taken by Mymilemarker. It just tracks my mileage data as well as my driving habits. Looking at projections out for a year could be very helpful for someone like me driving a car with over 100,000 miles on it. I have to plan for a replacement sooner or later. I think this little web application is going to come in handy for me.

Do you attempt to track your mileage? Do you know how much you will be spending on just gas alone in the year to come? You might be in for a surprise and I am hoping this will make me change my driving habits for the better. I will post an update after 2 more fill ups on the promising usefulness of this service.

[via SolutionWatch]

Dig this: It’s a balmy summer’s day, in a very picturesque house by the beach, on a outdoor patio with a thatched roof, with flowing cotton curtains, a tall Brazilian model with extra long legs, a hulk of a guy with an oiled up body, a bubbling Jacuzzi foaming up steam, a bottle of champagne on ice and the couple getting cozy.

The girl says, “Honey, would you help me wax a bit?”

“Oh sure baby…I would love to help you with the wax” says the hulk.

Freeze! Cut! Cut! Cut!…Visual over.

Reality: My wife asked me to help me out with the waxing. And, I agreed. Though it may sound romantic and intimate, interestingly it is not so. She bought a tub of wax and a wad of waxing paper. She wanted me to help. I wanted to help her so that I can get out of the house for a guys-day-out trip. And I had very little time to start with. Unfortunately, waxing on a short fuse is a very bad idea.

We have quite a big bathroom where we could have done this. Having never done this in life myself, I said, “Come on, why don’t we sit at the dining table” (A decision that will haunt me for the years to come).

The inner hurry in me manifested as enthusiasm. I wanted to do everything fast. The tub of wax said, “Microwave this for 30 seconds”. The zeal in me prodded me to enhance the entire process, and so I microwave-d on high for 60 seconds. Apparently, wax, not only has a melting point but also has a boiling point. And, boiling stuff doesn’t go well with the skin as well as with the mental stability of my pretty wife who is lying on a mat with sliced cucumber over her eye lids.

I said to my wife, “Relax! Let the master do his work”. I scooped some honey-looking wax and looked at my not so waxed-looking honey and went for the easiest part, the shin.

I gently dabbed. “Eeeeeowwwwww..what the f#[(< was that!” screamed my wife.

It blistered almost.

“The wax is damn hot you idiot”, she said.

Romance was starting to wane at that point.

I brought her some Aloe Vera, soothed the burning sensation, and apologized. I cut four big cucumber slices now, had two and gave here two to get her to relax. I cooled the wax a bit and the applied a clean rectangular strip on her calf. I put the waxing paper on top of that.

Now, the moment of truth.

Since I have already hurt her with my aggression, I wanted to be very gentle. I tried to peel the wax strip in slow motion.

Again she yelled, “Eeeeeeoowwwwww.. what the f#[(< are you doing?”.

I said, “I am being gentle”.

Apparently, the technique is to pull the strip off in one quick motion.

I learnt it. I was doing Strrrrrupppp! Strrrrrupppp! Strrrrrupppp! But the wax is a bad thing to work with. It made my fingers stick. Oh it’s icky. Whatever I touched got stuck to my fingers. I am a hairy guy. My decision to wax without a shirt was a stupid idea. The wax wouldn’t drip clean. High viscosity, I guess. The strands of wax fly about and have an inclination to stick to my chest hairs. The natural tendency to pick the fuzz complicates the issue.

We went through a lot of stick and goo and ick and ooh. Mess on the floor, stuck eyelids, twisted moustache, striped legs, flaring rage, foul language, kicked privates, clawed face. Yeah, my wife is such a pussy cat.

Finally, we both agree, it is more than justified if a salon charges $100 for this work. If my wife does want to pay them, I would gladly do.

My wife is all red, smooth, and melting at the same time. Now, guys, the visual is like a zombie with rotting skin walking. She is furious and doesn’t want to be in the same room as me. She barks at me “Clean this mess”. She rushes upstairs to the bathroom.

Now, the moment of temptation.

All hairy me (1-inch long hairs in my shin), wax and strips. Should I or should I not? I just wanted to know what the fuss is all about. I brave it. I dab a dollop of wax on my calf (my idea of obscurity). I plaster the wax paper clean and square on my calf.

Now, I am scared.

I ask my son to reverse his toy ride-able Jeep. I took a clip-on wire and clipped one side to the waxing paper (Yeah the one on my calf). I tied the other end of the wire to his jeep.

I prayed.

I say, “Gentlemen! Start your engines!”

My son yells “Green!” and steps on the gas.

“Eeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoowwwwww!”

I understood that there are some things in life that can put a grown man in tears. Wax is one.