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!

Are you annoyed by those calls from 1-800-number missed calls when you come back from work and wondered ‘Who called us?’.

Wonder no more. There really is a website named Who Called Us where you can enter the number you want to look up.

It is also interesting to see the most frequently reported/called numbers and most called states as well. California sits at the top of the list there.

For any particular number, you can see all the comments for that particular number a map overlay of how the calls are spread out throughout the US. You could not only figure out who called you, also most often what they wanted from the comments.

The lookup is not limited to just 800 numbers as a lot of marketing people these days use regular numbers as well.

Next time you wonder about the number on your caller ID, you know you’ll use this bookmark.

Ever forget to print and take directions and a map with you while traveling? It’s not fun getting lost in a big city. Even if you are well prepared, plans might change and you might need to go to a place that you didn’t get directions for.

No worries. Just dial ‘DIR-ECT-IONS’ (347-328-4667) from your mobile phone to get directions to where you are going via SMS. You just call this number and say where you are and where you want to go. You will get turn by turn by directions to your mobile phone by SMS.

Quick Facts about Dial Directions

• It’s free but the SMS message will be counted in your cellular plan.
• You can specify an address of intersection for your location
• You can specify an address, or a business name or an event listed with Dial Directions.
• No prior registration required. Just dial the number.
  
• It is available right now in beta in 15 major metros in the US - Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, Sacranemto, San Fransisco,  and Washington D.C.

Google 411

Google 411 offers a similar service where you dial 1-800-GOOG-411. You will can get the address and phone number of the business you are interested in. You could optionally choose to get this information sent to your phone by SMS. The SMS has the name, address, phone number and a link to Google Maps if you have internet enabled in your phone.

Microsoft LiveSearch 411

Microsoft has a similar 411 service where you dial 1-800-CALL-411. It is similar to Google’s service but you could also get weather, travel and movie information from here. You could also opt to get this info by SMS as well as have it shared with a friend. This will be awesome if your friends are on a different car and you can send this info to them as well.

Traveling can sometimes have its antsy moments when you are lost are trying to find a place. Having these free services at your disposal would definitely help ease such moments. I will be giving Dial Directions a test drive when I am in Las Vegas next weekend.

Have you ever been lost in a big city? How did you manage to find your way back? Let’s here some interesting/funny/scary stories.

Mofuse is a web service that lets you instantly create a mobile version for any blog or RSS-enabled website.

Quick facts about Mofuse

• You can track visitors to your mobile version
• Anyone can create a mobile version for any RSS enabled website or blog
• You can Brand your site with custom logo
• Option to integrate Google Adsense or Admob to monetize your mobile site
• Very nice Dashboard
• Ability to create pages and ability to reorder with easy drag and drop.
• You can create an auto redirect to your own mobile domain site
• I was able to create a mobile site for ShanKri-la in under 5 minutes
• It’s free

Introducing ShanKri-la Mini

For those with iPhone or any web enabled smart phone, you can now read ShanKri-la directly from your mobile phone. Simply go to

http://shankrila.mofuse.mobi

I have opted to use Google Adsense in ShanKri-la Mini but let me know if it is too obtrusive. I don’t have an iPhone or data plan to check this out but I will remove this option if you tell me you hate those ads.

I am looking for a good placement for the following chicklet for anyone with an internet enabled phone to grab the mobile friendly URL for ShanKri-la.

Previously called CraigsNumber, Numbr offers free, disposable phone numbers that will automatically forward calls to your mobile or landline number.

Quick facts about this service

• Auto-expiring and callers don’t see your home or mobile number
• Service is free but is in Beta
• If you are not from one of the major cities, you may not get one in your area code
• Allocated numbers and unique and will not be reused.
• The default expiry date is one month but you can extend it indefinitely
• Set call options like screening calls between set time period, blocking calls from blocked caller ids, blocking calls from suspected telemarketers.
• You can get your incoming call history emailed to you.
• You can also get a FREE numbr by calling (415) 234 5678
• You can see the various options you can set in this screenshot.

A few reasons why this number could be useful to you

• Use it when you put a flyer out to sell something
• Use it in Craigslist
• Use it in eBay
• Use it in your blog or website

I grabbed one even though I have a GrandCentral number. This could come in handy when you really don’t feel like sharing your phone number with someone. Are you getting one?

We have talked about GrandCentral here and it’s recent acquisition by Google here. However, if  you had tried to get ‘one number for life’ you would have been turned away by the private beta message.

I have 10 invites to GrandCentral with me and I would like to give it to the first 10 commenters here at ShanKri-la. If you’d like a GrandCentral invite, just drop a comment in this post saying so and I’ll hook you up with one.

More Spock invites available

Last week, I signed up with Spock and gave away a few invites and now my inbox have been filled with more invites to share with anyone who’d like one. So, let me know if you need one.

If you are a AT&T DSL subscriber like me with a 3 mbps or higher speed connection, you can get free wi-fi access to over 10,000 hotspots in US. For lower speed subscribers it costs $1.99 for unlimited access which isn’t bad if you travel a lot.

This is especially good news for people who just bought an Apple iPhone with AT&T and already have AT&T DSL. AT&T’s EDGE network crashed earlier this week and when it works it is just a tad faster than dialup. With iPhone’s Wi-Fi capability, it just becomes easier for AT&T DSL subscribers to get free Wi-Fi access when they are on the move.

Good move by AT&T and they might as well make it free to all their DSL subscribers regardless of their subscription tier. GigaOM suggests that AT&T should provide free Wi-Fi to all iPhone customers which might ease the load on their EDGE network.