CompuDave: March 2005

GMail

In case you're interested I have a few gmail invites available and will give them to non commercial individuals if y'all ask nice. I'd prefer to see someone with daily journals or a blog to confirm that it won't be used for spamming. Send the request to me at my main page with a short note about yourself. (I retain the right of sole discretion.)

Hiding Behind Voice Mail

You all know what I mean. Why is it so many companies use voice mail instead of real people? No one likes it when they are the caller. It makes your customers unhappy. Now the megacorporations all use it because they don't really care. They've all come to treat their customers as cash cows to be milked. Try calling the phone company, or almost any utility. And they all like to start out telling you that your call is very important. Worse yet are individuals who always have a message that says, "I'm either on the phone or away from my desk". Yeah, right.

Now I'm not saying there are not legitimate uses of voice mail because I use it too. But I know that when you call me I'll answer the phone probably better than 80% of the time. If not I'm either on the phone or away from my desk.

Need Weather Forcasts - Google

Google can give you the weather.
Enter weather [zip code] or weather [city,st]
see the example in the picture

And this is what you get on top of the usual search result (click image for full size view)