jajah and linked in
So a few websites I want to tell you about.
Since getting rid of our cell phones, we have been trying to find a good alternative for long-distance phone calls. We first tried Skype, which is fairly inexpensive for calling phone numbers. At first, we liked it but we soon found that people had trouble hearing us. Also, there was a slight annoying lag time, and it wasn’t very convenient for us to always have to be at our computer to make a call. (Especially since the computer is in the same room as the TV.)
So Paul searched around and found a service called Jajah. It’s basically VoiP and it’s pretty cool. It’s a tad bit more expensive than Skype, but still at 2.8 cents a minute much cheaper than our prepaid cell phones (20 cents and 25 cents a minute) or using the landline (10 cents a minute)! Basically, you sign into their website and then you dial the number that you want to call. They then call your home phone, which you answer, and Jajah connects you to the number. I believe that it shows up as your home phone number when you call people – which makes me happy because a lot of people were confused with Skype showing up as weird numbers! So far the call quality has been great – as far as I know, people can hear us okay. I recommend this service if you’re looking for something like this. :-)
The other website I recently discovered is LinkedIn. It’s a social networking site for professionals. You can record your education history, work history, websites, etc. and you add connections (like the “friends” of Facebook). You can also write recommendations for your connections. This can be very useful especially for those who freelance or contract work, or if you’re job hunting. It’s great to see what resources you have available to you, if you should need anything in the future (i.e. a graphic designer!) I invited everyone in my address book who I thought might be interested so be sure to sign up and accept my invitation. :-) I love networking, and if/when the day ever comes when I need to freelance for some extra money, I’m excited to have something like this to help me.
Since I’ve signed up for this, I suppose I should work on my design website and get it up and looking nice. My portfolio is so old – it still has my maiden name! And an email address and phone number I don’t have any more. Yeah I guess it’s time. :-)