No Home Phone? Try Skype

Many people are beginning to abandon their home phone lines because they simply don’t use them much any more.  $35 for a basic phone line plus long distance bills on top of that is expensive compared to the alternatives.  Almost everyone has a cell phone and will simply use that instead.  However, cell phone plans have limited minutes.  What happens when you need extra minutes?  That’s where Skype comes in as a great complement to the home with no home phone.

skype_logoIn case you have never heard of Skype, it is essentially a phone service that works over the internet.  A Skype user can call another Skype user for free but a Skype user can also call real phone numbers at an extremely low price.  Skype is also great for international calls.  It is even more valuable now because you no longer need to use Skype via your computer.  There are now mobile Skype programs made for many devices including the iPhone, PSP, and several mobile phones.  The iPod Touch can run all iPhone apps as well so those who hate AT&T can still use the Skype iPhone app.  All you need beyond that is internet access which almost everyone already has at home.

SkypeOut

One way to pay for Skype-to-phone calls is to purchase SkypeOut Credit.  Once you have credit on your Skype account, you can pay per minute.  There are various prices for each country according to this rate chart.  Calls to the US cost just $0.021 per minute.

Skype Subscription

If you plan on making at least 150 minutes of calls per month, a Skype Subscription will be by far the cheapest.  For just $2.95/month, you can get unlimited Skype-to-phone US calls.  If you have an iPhone and don’t want to use your AT&T minutes, just launch the free Skype app and make the call for free when you are at home where your iPhone is on your wifi.  If you pay for 12 months at a time, it is even cheaper.

Skype Online Phone Number

Without the Skype online phone number, when you call someone, the Caller ID typically shows a number with all zeros. With a skype phone number, you can get a number in any area code you like.  It will also give other people a way to call you without them needing to use Skype.  A voicemail service is also included with the phone number.  If you have a Skype subscription, you get a 50% discount on a Skype online phone number.

Skype Quality

While Skype is incredibly cheap compared to a home phone line, the call quality is not quite as good typically and may vary greatly depending on the quality of your internet access.  Dropped calls can occur as well as audio breakups.  Overall, in my experience, I would say it is on par with AT&T cell phone quality though.  For the price, it is a great value.

Swine Flu on Google Maps

There is now a Swine Flu Google Map at http://swinemap.org. Black indicates confirmed deaths from H1N1. Grey are unconfirmed deaths. Red are confirmed infections. Pink are probable infections. Blue are influenza-like illnesses. As of this writing, North Dakota looks like a good place to set up your post-apocalyptic compound while you develop an anti-swine flu serum.


View 2009 H1N1 Flu Outbreak Map in a larger map

Follow CDC recommendations and thoroughly gargle after kissing any pigs that have not yet been tested. Ok, their real information is at:
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/

UPDATE: This post has been updated with a new Google Map that has more information.

Conficker Arrives

ArmageddonIs it time to buy those boxes of ammo and head for the hills? We’ll see.

This Wednesday, April 1st the Conficker worm will do something. No one knows what. But it has security experts up late. It is believed that at one point Conficker was on 6% of the world’s PCs. This has been reduced dramatically by the work of Microsoft in issuing special patches for the worm. But hundreds of thousands of PCs are still estimated to be infected.

Early this month, Symantec’s security researchers began noticing that the worm was changing in order to avoid steps to interrupt the worm’s links with its hacker controllers. The first versions of the worm generated a list of 250 possible domains each day that could be used to route instructions from hackers. The new edition uses a list of 50,000 URLs in order to overwhelm security researchers.

Typically hackers use large botnets of computers to commit distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks against websites. The hackers will demand that large websites pay them in order to be spared.

If you are worried about your computers or those of people you love, you can read Microsoft’s alert and my earlier post on how to prevent and remove the virus.

Online Price Trends from Gazaro

The free site Gazaro allows you to look up products and see pricing trends. You can see if the product’s price has dropped regularly or if you are at a high blip. Gazaro also identifies products that have recently dropped significantly in price.  Sign up is required, but there is no fee.

This is an example trend chart showing that Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000 recently dropped in price at Amazon.

More Online Real Estate Tools

We previously mentioned several online real estate tools. Some other sites include:

HotPads.com

This is one of the few sites that also list foreclosures. The online foreclosure information is a bit of a racket. It should be easily searchable free information as it is provided by local courthouses. But all sites that offer foreclosure information charge regular fees. Even HotPads does so, but if you know a neighborhood, you can often determine the house under foreclosure using their detailed maps.

HotPads is good for market research, as it breaks down household income, population density, age, and rent ratio. You can see in this map that the very north of Arlington has relatively few foreclosures, while everything beyond it in Virginia is near or above a rate of 1 in every 150 houses under foreclosure. D.C. and Maryland have fewer foreclosures, presumably because state laws there have made foreclosures take longer for the banks.

Homesdatabase.com

Homesdatabase is another search site that allows you to search for MLS listed houses without needing a realtor.