[pr1ncessprudence]

try http://www.grandcentral.com for a free phone number, voicemail, forwarding etc

try the gizmo project download as an interface to get free incoming calls on your pc. also free calls between gizmo customers. this can be paired up to your free grand central number.


(grandcentral may still be a "by invite only" service)

i use grandcentral number as a local number near my folks. then all my relatives back home can call a local number for them & it rings to me with no toll charges.

i also set one up as a local number here that i dial to reach my parents back home. (if you have it ring to someone else they will need to accept an initial automated confirmation call & then press 1 to accept the incoming calls. my folks thought it ment it was a collect call. had to explain that its not. once they did it a time or 2 they didnt mind pressing 1 when answering my calls to save me money)



this free service is great. enjoy!

[adamcohen]

Well, there's a way around the Gizmo invites. See, Gizmo is free to anyone who uses LiveJournal, and to make a journal over there, it's free. Soooooooo... :)

[pr1ncessprudence]

adamcohen, on Nov 24 2007, 03:29 PM, said:

Well, there's a way around the Gizmo invites. See, Gizmo is free to anyone who uses LiveJournal, and to make a journal over there, it's free. Soooooooo... :)

sorry adam. i update my listing to reflect that grandcentral may be an invite only service. (my guy yelled from the other room & i misunderstood earlier).

thats cool that livejournal uses gizmo. good to know.

[adamcohen]

yeah, i just saw that with grandcentral when i tried to sign up for it...

i think it's sorta cool that they're doing the "visual voicemail" thing too, which helps "take the edge" off of the iPhone, if you ask me :)

[adamcohen]

Speaking of GrandCentral, I just got in on the Beta testing... I'll let everyone know what I think of it as soon as I can figure out if I like it or not. Essentially, its like PrivatePhone but it's different in the regards that it "masks" your phone number for whatever phone you have it set up on...

I have 10 invites if anyone wants them. Message me, and I'll share accordingly...

[adamcohen]

Okay, here's my review of GrandCentral:

LOVE IT!

Here's how it works: Once you set it up, you can choose how the number will appear on your caller ID. For my intents and purposes, I have it show up as the GrandCentral number, and I have it saved like that in my phonebook on my cell phone.

Incoming callers here a prompt: "You are calling ____________" (You've recorded your name, so it tells the caller it there), "Please state your name at the tone." Then you say your name. It then calls whatever line you've designated for it. When you pick up the call, you hear "You are receiving a call from ______" (The name they recorded). Then you have a list of options from, answering the call, sending to voicemail, sending to voicemail and listening to the message as they leave it, marking as spam, etc. It lets you do each and every one of them as you receive the call. And, if you just let it ring for long enough, it'll automatically send it to voicemail (like 6 rings, I believe I noted). So it's like PrivatePhone, and then some.

And whats cool is the "visual voicemail" feature. If you're on a web enabled phone, you can go to m.grandcentral.com and access your inbox online, so you don't have to listen through the messages that you're receiving and such.

There's another option to show you the caller ID of the incoming number as they're calling you, but I didn't want to confuse that and the regular calls from folks, so for me, I just chose GrandCentral as my outgoing notification. You also can receive SMS and e-mail messages whenever someone leaves a voicemail. But it's reassuring to know that even with it being a call to my cell phone with its own voicemail, it automatically uses the GrandCentral Voicemail that I set up, so I can keep all calls separate between my cell and GrandCentral.

I definitely rate this a great freebee, and for anyone who's interested in a beta invite code, message me and I'll be sure you get it.

Random side note: I wanted to make sure that there was no "switcharoo" on GrandCentral, and according to their FAQ: "Our current plan is to offer a free service with as many features as we can and later add paid features at a very affordable prices. During beta, all available features are free." So presumably at least the incoming number will always be free and some of this stuff might eventually be paid, but at that point, it's something to worry about then. For now? If you can get in with invites, go for it, I say. :cheers:

[mryounkin]

I have 5 invites left... If anyone is interested, pm me!

[lifesaver17]

wow. GrandCentral is unreal! actually better than I thought it'd be.

being the kind soul that i am, ;)

:emot-dance:

[adamcohen]

Nice, man... Did you final get into the Beta or get an invite code? Sorry that I couldn't get you one earlier... I'm waiting to hear back from folks who told me they wanted invites who are close friends before being able to give out to forum members here...

[lifesaver17]

oh for sure -- i hear ya. actually i got into the Beta service diectly from GC. took a while, but i guess 'patience is a virtue' (even when it's involuntary)

[adamcohen]

Great! I'm glad to hear it!

Yeah, seeing how fast I got in to the beta service, I'm just making sure that folks try that way first because I know they're definitely still letting people in. So it never hurts to try there first and then we can get our invites out :)

And I'm just curious what they'll make paid or have restrictions on when/if they make it a paid service. Because as far as I can tell, the voicemail and number will always be free, but from there on out, I think it's fair game for them in how they choose to make them into paid services... Time will only tell...

[adamcohen]

I would like to further affirm how awesome and amazing GrandCentral is.

Today, I made a purchase off of Craigslist. When I first e-mailed the guy back, I gave him my GrandCentral number and never my real number. When he called me back, I used GrandCentral to call him back on three separate occasions: two times of which I used the Mobile Portal and through the visual voicemail, I was able to place my call quickly. The whole time, he never had my real number but was able to reach me with no problems :cheers:

I hope that when it goes from Beta to regular that a lot of these features stay the same. :)

[str8nitro]

Sorry, late as usual but wanted to see if anyone had any grandcentral invites left. Thanks in advance everyone

[Goob]

Hey there str8, stick around and post on the forums for a while and I'm sure somebody will be able to scrounge one up for you.

[str8nitro]

will do, seems like a good place to be anyhow :)

[adamcohen]

And st8nitro, have you tried applying for the beta first? Of everyone whom I've known whose applied for beta, well, they've been invited within the first week or so of applying for beta testing and haven't needed codes from others?

[pr1ncessprudence]

yea, i signed up without an invite. took a day or 2 to get their email.

[lifesaver17]

str8nitro, on Dec 16 2007, 09:10 PM, said:

will do, seems like a good place to be anyhow :)

hey everyone! just got out of hibernation...
:laughup:

anyway, does anyone know if, when you send someone an invite, whether or not they get the xtra invites (like when you sign up directly thru beta)? just curious...

str8 - if you still haven't gotten one, pm me & i'll send one your way... i'd just hate to send you one and then find out that they don't give you your own invites to send out.

:emot-dance:

[adamcohen]

lifesaver17, on Dec 17 2007, 05:25 PM, said:

hey everyone! just got out of hibernation...
:laughup:

anyway, does anyone know if, when you send someone an invite, whether or not they get the xtra invites (like when you sign up directly thru beta)? just curious...

str8 - if you still haven't gotten one, pm me & i'll send one your way... i'd just hate to send you one and then find out that they don't give you your own invites to send out.

:emot-dance:

If you get an account with them, you get the invites. So if you get a beta invite from them direct (as I did when I requested one) or from someone else (as Goob did when I gave him one), you'll still have 10 codes of your own to hand out.

That's why I was telling everyone to try requesting through them first, unless its someone who you know will need it right away, I'd say. Works out best that way... And I've only heard of one or two people not getting in after 2 weeks or so of waiting. And hey, if you wait that long? Yeah, getting an invite from someone is well deserved. :cheers:

[mryounkin]

I have been using this and it is amazing. I have come across one question that I am hoping will get answered here.

I have been using my Grandcentral number as my email address in the freebies and then I have the emails forwarded to my "real" email address. I have yet to figure out how to send an email from my grandcentral account to unsubscribe me from the group emails...

Anyone got any tips/words of advice...

[pr1ncessprudence]

i dont know. sorry. ill see if my guys knows when he gets home later.

[bradr]

You people need to go to InviteShare and sign up. Then you can just add your email and get on the list really quick! I got mine in five minutes. Seriously.

[Goob]

Invite Share really is awesome, I've probably gotten around 15 invites to various sites through them.

[cara1127]

I have 10 invites to grand central. If you need one, send me a message with your e-mail address, and I'll invite you.

[cara1127]

cara1127, on Jan 28 2008, 05:48 AM, said:

I have 10 invites to grand central. If you need one, send me a message with your e-mail address, and I'll invite you.

I still have 10 invites to grand central!