Using Google's Digital Switchboard

From PC World: Having already conquered a large portion of online communication, Google decided to branch out and try its magic on good old-fashioned telephone calls. Google Voice is a free service that acts as a convenient hub for all of your existing phone numbers, giving you typically Googlesque control over your incoming calls, voicemails, and text messages. (Still confused? See "What is Google Voice?")

When you sign up for Google Voice you get a new phone number that works as a virtual switchboard for all of your incoming calls, whether they're going to your work phone, home phone, or cell phone. Making and receiving calls with Google Voice is easy, but setting the service up requires a bit of time and commitment.

The Google Voice Web interface will look familiar to Gmail users. You'll see Inbox, Starred, History, Spam, and Trash sections above a contact list. From the main screen you can view and organize your voicemails and SMS messages, as well as send texts messages and make calls. Customization options for Google Voice are available through the Settings menu in the upper-right hand corner of the Web interface. This is where you organize contacts, set-up call forwarding, and configure your voicemail and SMS preferences.

Your text messages and transcribed voicemails are stored in your Google Voice inbox, where they are organized with advanced searching, archiving, starring and filtering options. You can respond to each text directly from the Web interface and Google will save all of your conversations, so there's no more deleting voicemail and texts when your phone's memory is full.

Google's voicemail transcribing is an incredibly useful, if amusingly imperfect, feature. When Google is less certain about what it has transcribed, those words appear in a light gray. Words it thinks are correct appear bolded. Even with a few words off, you can instantly see what a person what trying to say at a glance without wasting time waiting for them to get to the point on a long rambling voicemail.

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