Got My Invite For Google Voice – PURE WIN!

A few days ago on the 7th I finally got the all coveted email invite from Google to use their Google Voice service! I signed up for it about a year ago when I first heard of it from one of my college instructors.

First off the bat, users cannot give out invitations themselves at this time. At least, I can’t find that option anywhere when I login. So please don’t ask me for an invite. If I could give them out, I would totally do it in the form of a contest!

So I logged in for the first time, and it immediately asked me to enter the area code for the number I wanted, then it asked to enter a four letter word to see if it was available. I entered 619 for San Diego, and TECH because I am into techy stuff. Bam! It gave me about eight available numbers all with the TECH extension. If you jokers want to give me a call you can now reach me at (619) 630-TECH!

Once logged in, the interface is rather familiar. It resembles Gmail in a lot of ways, which is good because it makes using it pretty intuitive. Here is a screen shot of it:

I’ve only been using it for a few days, but so far I like it a lot. Here is a list of my favorite features and why:

• Free nationwide calling – My cell phone reception at home sucks, but I am only paying for local service on my home phone. Now, with Google Voice, I can call long distance on my home phone without being charged
• Online text messaging – I can send SMS text messages from within Google voice, and it shows up on the recipients phone with my Google voice number. When they reply back it goes to my cell phone. When I reply on my cell it still keeps the Google Voice number on the recipient’s end.
• Free voice to text – When users leave a voice message, if you enable this feature, the messages automatically get transcribed to text format. Now I don’t have to call my voicemail box, I can just read it in an email. This feature still isn’t 100% yet, but it’s good enough.
• One number – Now I have one, simple to remember number that I can give out to everyone, and they can reach me no matter where I am.

Now, there are many more features, but so far the ones above are what I have used, and what I like. For a full list of features click on this link: (Google Voice Features)

Do you have a Google Voice account yet? What are your favorite features? What don’t you like about it? Let us know in the comments.

Technorati Tags: google,voice,invite,invitation

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Sundance Gets a Mention on Diggnation!

As many of you know, earlier this year Sundance and I made new years resolutions to become power diggers on Digg.com. We succeeded, and actually were able to get quite a few articles to the front page. Our only problem? We couldn't get anything of our own to the front page.

We started off submitting cool stuff we found, and worked with others in our networks to drive some stuff to the front page. Our goal of course was to get consistent at that, then we should be able to drive our own stuff to the front page. Well, it turns out that it doesn't work that way. Digg's algorithm works pretty hard to prevent stuff like that from happening.

Anyway, enough rambling about that, and back to the point. The point is that one of Sundance's submissions not only went front page, but was also popular enough to make it on Diggnation!

I told Sundance that if one of his submissions made it on Diggnation, that I would re-post it here on Bauer-Power! Here it is, Sundance's (Popflyking) mention on Diggnation!

Did any of you see that episode? Did you see that story on Digg? Pretty cool right?

Congratulations Sundance!

Technorati Tags: sundance, digg, diggnation, google, atlantis

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Microsoft is Laying People Off. WTF?!

I was in a meeting yesterday at work, and I looked down to check my Twitter timeline on my Blackberry, when I noticed a tweet from my friend (@biggeek) saying that he had just been tweeted himself from a friend who works at Microsoft. That friend on the inside said they had been escorting people out of the building all day.

I sent him a direct message back asking him how many total are getting laid off, and he said 5,500 employees are slated to be laid off! WTF?!?! Turns out, only 1400 were laid off yesterday, but still.

A quick check online said that this is the first layoff in Microsoft's history! Crazy stuff! This is from the New York Times:

"Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., plans to lay off 5,000 of its 94,000 employees over the next 18 months, including 1,400 people on Thursday [yesterday]. The company disclosed the cuts as it released second-quarter results, which reflected an 11 percent drop in net income, to $4.17 billion, from $4.71 billion in the period a year ago."

This comes not very long after a recent notice I read about Google laying off people, of course not as many, only 100 compared to 5000 or so. This is from Silicon Alley Insider:

"Google has announced layoffs. Not contractors. Not hourly workers. Googlers.

Not many, thankfully--only 100--and some may be able to find jobs elsewhere in the company. But they're all in HR, which tells you something about how quickly Google has scaled back its own growth expectations."

This economy is seriously affecting all markets. I work in the Real Estate Market, and we have been hurting for over a year now, and have gone through three sets of layoffs our selves. It's certainly a scary time for everyone.

My recommendation: Make sure your resumes are up to date!

Have any of you been affected by layoffs? Know of someone that has? Share your stories in the comments.

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Regretting Migrating Feedburner to Google

On Friday I noticed a link when I logged into Feedburner asking if I wanted to associate my feeds with my gmail account. I like things simple, so why not right? I fell for it hook, line and sinker!

The very next day I noticed my subscribers stats plummeted! I went from having 283 subscribers to 78! WTF!?!?! I know sometimes I can be controversial, but come on! How can I have lost that many subscribers overnight?

If you subscribe to Bauer-Power, but you haven't seen your feed updating, you may want to unsubscribe, and re-subscribe using the following link: (New Feed Address)


If you all had any interruptions due to the move, I apologist. Hopefully everything in "stat-land" over at Google will get straightened out soon.

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For Those Too Lazy To Google It Themselves

I was pumping some serious iron last night on my Total Gym while watching a little Diggnation on my Tivo. In the episode, one of the most Dugg items was a website that is perfect for those people that are just too lazy to do a search on Google. So of course they come to you! That website is what this article is all about.

If you are reading this, and you are not in the I.T. industry, let me tell you a little secret... Bend a little closer... a little closer now...

WE I.T. PEOPLE LOOK UP EVERYTHING ON FRIGGIN' GOOGLE!

For those of you reading this that are in I.T. you know what I'm talking about. You get those people that come to you and ask you various questions because it is easier to go to you than it is to do a quick search on the all knowing Google. Or at least, that is what they think.

Well, here is the perfect site for both the lazy people, and those of use stuck Googling shit for everyone else. It is called Let Me Google That For You.

If you are the lazy person, you simply type your question in the box and click Google Search. That creates a link that will take you to your new Google butler that will do your Google search for you, and provide you with the answer to your question.

If you are the I.T. person doing the search, you do the same thing as the lazy person, and copy the link that it creates and you email it to the person who originally asked you a question. When they get it they will see a recreation of your original search but will provide the person whom you sent the link to with valuable step by step instructions on how to use the site such as:

1. Type in your question
2. Click the search button

When they click Search a message displays saying, "Was that so hard?" then it eventually takes them to the Google Search results. Here is a screen capture I took of me doing it:



Yeah, it is sort of an asshole thing to do, but seriously, people need to start Googling for themselves. It really does save everyone valuable time so they can be doing important things... Like Blogging.

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Google Fighting Malware

Today must be Google day. I just finished posting an article about using Google as a password cracker, and now I am posting one about the good side of the internet giant.

This one comes from Download Squad. They are reporting that Google has actively cleaned it's database of hundreds of thousands of malware redirect sites. Many of these sites earner high Google rankings by using bots to spam forums, and comments to artificially build up their back links.

According to Download Squad:

Google has cleansed more than 40,000 of these hosting sites from their index, so for now - it looks like the biggest source of this sort of attack has been taken offline.OK - you might be thinking, spam search results show up everyday - why is this a big deal? It's a big deal because the techniques used for these attacks was more clever and thought out than the typical SEO-poisoning. It's also a big deal just based on the sheer scale of sites and domains dedicated to hosting these links and because of the malware involved.

Great job Google! That will certainly help to reduce the number of spyware, trojans and virus calls I get on a daily basis.

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Cracking Passwords With Google

My buddy Karl over at Ask The Admin found this, and I just had to repost it:

A website we read Hackaday posted this interesting piece last week on how to use Google as a password cracker.

If you don't know what md5 hashed passwords are then this isnt for you and you should stop reading (Check back in a bit for a piece of password cracking) or see what they are here.

But if you are like me and need to um recover passwords on a system you have physical access to you know you can dump passwords from the local sam database as hashed passwords.

Using a program like l0pht crack (LC5 to those in the know - more on this later) to decpypher them is time consuming but acording to this post you can simply google the hash - if it is even a fairly common password google will return the answer. How fucking cool is that?


In the following example they use it after a machine was hacked they wanted to be able to login as that user and spy on the enviroment for some forensic goodness.

"Usually we're into hardware hacks, but once in a while I run across something that's just too good. [Steven]'s blog was cracked a while back, and while he was doing forensics, he was trying to crack the md5 hashed password for the unauthorized account. Eventually he slapped the hash into Google, and guess that it was 'Anthony' based on the results that came up. Thanks to [gr] (Yes, I know it was on Slashdot a few days ago, but I don't care."

I missed it on slasdot so thanks hackaday.com! This will be a big time saver for me in the future.

Originally Posted on Ask The Admin By Karl Gechlik

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The End Of Operating Systems As We Know Them.

The end of the Operating System as we know it is at hand.


Well actually, not quite at hand but the blueprint has been laid down and the race is on to see who can make the future happen. I happen to know three entrepreneurs in the valley who are actively working on making this happen.


How pray tell? I'll tell you. Not because I want to share a secret but because so far they no one has discovered a cost effective way to do it...It's pretty well understood that this is the direction we're headed in.

First, let's take a look at the way operating systems have evolved.

Earlier operating systems actually just came on the hardware because the computer age was in it's infancy.

Then came the age of the early computers with the large floppy discs (they were actually floppy). Next came the smaller so called floppy discs with earlier Windows PC's. Then came CD's and of course, here we are today with DVD's.

These models of O.S. were all based on an install process, based on the theory that you would have a piece of hardware called a computer and that this computer could start off as a blank slate.

You could then take your CD's, DVD's etc and install whatever operating system you wanted on this computer and (relatively) tailor the install to your own needs.


The new model is more interesting. It states that all you need is a web enabled terminal and a keyboard. The operating system is hosted by the particular company you choose and all you have to do is log in to your environment with a username and password. This is how you log into Hotmail or Yahoo now.


It makes sense. Nothing for the user to install, all they need to do is pay as they go. If you want office, you pay to add it and download it onto your OS module. If you want games, add them to your profile and there they go.


Also, since this O.S. is now a service as opposed to a stationary piece of software, who needs to take a laptop with them? All you need is your username and password and you can really work globally from any web enabled terminal.


So far, no one has executed this model perfectly. The hardware requirements are well...Googlish but the winners would rule the earth. Think about it. Ability to work from anywhere. To have the SAME EXACT desktop wherever you went.


To have access to all the notes you left in Notepad wherever you are. To have the same desktop background and colors. The same distracting programs that you love and the exact same feel as your "home" computer.


You would have the same exact footprint wherever you were.


My prediction is that Microsoft or Google will do this first. If I had to call it now, I would say Google would be my choice. They are BOLD, wildly innovative and know how to scale the sort of infrastructure required to pull off this madness.


Microsoft could catch up but they are burdened with supporting legacy operating systems. It makes the transition harder.


Anyone who has used a Citrix thin client sees this model coming. I predict this will be here in less than 5 years and will be highly disruptive technology.


I for one, can't wait.


Till next time.

Onuora Amobi




About The Author:

Onuora Amobi is the CEO of Nnigma Inc. and editor of http://www.Windows-Vista-Update.com. He writes a monthly article for the website that can be found at http://www.windows-vista-update.com. Windows-Vista-Update.com is the premier Microsoft windows Vista information portal. On this site, you can find news, information, tips, new features and updates about Windows Vista.

Article Source: thePhantomWriters Article Submission Service

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Now What's Going on With Blogger?

I posted yesterday about a problem I was seeing with Feedburner (Which I am still seeing today) and now I am having problems editing my site lay out with Blogger! Seriously, what is going on with Google's products?

What's next? Will Youtube crash today? Will all of your Adsense dollars go away? What can possibly go wrong next? (I know, I'm getting into slippery slope territory, but I don't care!)

Google! Hear me! Please get your act together! Wordpress is looking awfully attractive right about now! If only Feedburner had some competition, I might look into that too!

Am I the only one seeing this, or experiencing this? Let me know in the comments!

Your Ad Here

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Why Use Gmail?

The Google engineers put together this funny little video on why to use Google's email system, Gmail...



Before you switch over though, read my post on securing Gmail.

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Gmail Secure?

I am what you might call a little bit of a paranoid nut. I supposed it is because I'm in the I.T. industry, and have a mindset for security. Anyways, I am Gmail user. I love it, and everything about it. It was one of the first free POP3 systems to use TLS for e-mail clients as far as I know.

Anyways, when I was looking at my Gmail account today from their web interface I noticed that it defaults to http://mail.google.com and not to httpS://mail.google.com. What does that mean? You may ask. It means your e-mail is not secured. As you know, https is used for web based SSL encryption to protect your data over the web. If you are browsing to a website with only http, you don't have any encryption to protect you. That means that the "man" can monitor your e-mail traffic coming from your web browser to the web server, and that is not a good thing. Does Gmail support SSL encryption through their web interface? The answer is a resounding YES! Just browse to https://mail.google.com or https://gmail.com and login as usual.

One might argue that when they browse to mail.google.com for the first time that it does default to https. This is only true if you have not logged in. As soon as you login, you are transferred to http.

If you have any bookmarks, or links that you use to get you your gmail web interface, make sure you add the S, to make it secure :-)

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Add Bauer-Power to your Google Home Page!

For those of you who like what you see here, and keep coming back, first of all.... Thanks! Second, if you use iGoogle as your home page, you can now add my blog as a gadget!


Click the "add to google" button below to add Bauer-Power as a gadget to your Google home page!

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