Grand Central
The other day I made an appointment to have a service person visit my home. In the usual fashion, the service person would call me between 8 and 12 to let me know when he'd arrive. Which number should he call? Well, thought I, I can have him call my cell number, which will reach me if I'm at work or in transit. But my cell doesn't do such a good job in my house, so if he calls early, I'd rather he called the home phone. What to do?
This would have been a perfect application for Grand Central, a scheme recently acquired by Google and in Beta use right now.
What is Grand Central? "GrandCentral doesn't replace your phones; we just link them together and help them do more. How do we do that? We give people One Number...for LifeTM - a number that's not tied to a phone or a location - but tied to you.
"With GrandCentral, you can be reached with a single number, answer a call at any phone you want, seamlessly switch phones in the middle of a call, and even know whether a call is important before you take it."
So, had I been able to give the service my Grand Central number, it would have rung through to all my phones so I could have answered on whichever phone was most convenient.
You can listen in on messages to decide if you want to take a call; screen and block numbers; and more:
Right now, accounts are by invitation only. However, you can inquire and get on the list by visiting grandcentral.com.
The other day I made an appointment to have a service person visit my home. In the usual fashion, the service person would call me between 8 and 12 to let me know when he'd arrive. Which number should he call? Well, thought I, I can have him call my cell number, which will reach me if I'm at work or in transit. But my cell doesn't do such a good job in my house, so if he calls early, I'd rather he called the home phone. What to do?
This would have been a perfect application for Grand Central, a scheme recently acquired by Google and in Beta use right now.
What is Grand Central? "GrandCentral doesn't replace your phones; we just link them together and help them do more. How do we do that? We give people One Number...for LifeTM - a number that's not tied to a phone or a location - but tied to you.
"With GrandCentral, you can be reached with a single number, answer a call at any phone you want, seamlessly switch phones in the middle of a call, and even know whether a call is important before you take it."
So, had I been able to give the service my Grand Central number, it would have rung through to all my phones so I could have answered on whichever phone was most convenient.
You can listen in on messages to decide if you want to take a call; screen and block numbers; and more:
- Check your messages by phone, email, or online
- Keep all your messages online for eternity
- Record and store your phone calls (just like voicemail)
- Quickly (and secretly) block an annoying caller
- Click-to-dial from your address book
- Surprise your callers with a custom voicemail greeting
- Forward, download, and add notes to your messages
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