I've been using GV (since GC days actually) with Gizmo as a landline at home , mostly as a number to give businesses that want my phone number (think cable/gas/credit card companies) and it's been swell. I've got an ATA to handle the SIP so I even got a traditional cordless handset from my landline days hooked up to it.

I want to get friends set up with something similar and want to play around more with GV with a cellphone + SIP as well but since folding Gizmo in, Google has closed off signups (you can find gizmo accounts being on auctioned off on ebay!), it's been a waiting game. I've tried other SIP providers but they never work as well (more lag, usually).

Besides, I figure they are working on something pretty awesome. I mean, if I can already rig up a free landline as it was, I can only imagine what actual integration with Gizmo technology can lead to. Death of the phone companies? One can dream right?

So hurry up Google! I want to see what you've been working on with this stuff for the past 6 months!

I suppose if you like fiddling and want to tweak, then building your own is fun and all but if you just want something that works, is most likely quieter and uses less power than one you build yourself, then I say a standalone NAS unit.

I have a QNAP which I love - Synlogy, D-Link, Thecus, Buffalo, etc etc there's a lot of choices out there in 1/2/4/8+++ drive bay sizes. They will typically have various RAIDing options, spiffy web management interfaces, etc that make 'em pretty plug and play.

Just make sure to get one with DLNA support if you want to do streaming to entertainment systems.

I've been playing around with duckduckgo and it does something like this. For example, the query for "saturn" at http://duckduckgo.com/?q=saturn starts off with

Saturn can mean different things. Which one?
(Some meanings grouped into sections Aircraft, ships and other vehicles, Arts and entertainment, Computing and electronics, Fiction, and Other.)

I'm sure coverage for something like that is hit-or-miss at best, but it's pretty cool

> Isn't the whole point of Facebook to share user information.

I think this gets at a key point in the discussion at hand: there is a fuzzy area where "communication" and "sharing" overlap. I personally think of Facebook as a tool to communicate with people I've chosen to communicate with. As such, sharing my personal information to other 3rd party business appalls me[1].

I think others may think of Facebook as a tool for sharing information, and perhaps they aren't so bothered.

-----
[1] I don't actually have a Facebook account - I closed it out after the 3rd or 4th (15th? 87th?) change to their privacy terms, which broke *that* camel's back.

> He is saying that we have more capacity and usage then even Japan, which wouldn't surprise me as we have about 100X the number of people.

100X???

2009 estimates from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population:

USA : 309,023,000
Japan : 127,380,000

If you think the only problem with viruses is that they slow down *your* computer, and that since they slow it down less an AV solution it is preferable, then I wish you'd unplug from the Internet.

They *were* doing that - their twitter feed was full of "@so-and-so did you know you are telling people you're not home" messages (something close to 2000).

That was yesterday. Today, it seems that twitter feed has been suspended, probably since this story hit and got everyone's attention.

Coincidentally, I recently came across this independently surveyed coverage for the big 4 across the U.S. It's done by a group called Root Wireless, who I'd never heard of before, and can be interactively viewed here:

  http://reviews.cnet.com/coveragemap/

It looks like they are going use users/customers to gather data for them (I sure would participate) but for now, the voice coverage map is pretty thorough while the 2G/3G ones are a little light (this is in the part of Los Angeles where I live that I looked). It jibes pretty well with my experience in the area, and it better than any coverage map that I've seen from the carrier themselves (that always shows excellent coverage :p ).

Also (and this is only partially relevant) : Gizmo *is* GV now ;)

I was addressing the question of whether one could go data-only and not need a voice plan. I believe the method I outlined fits that model. Whether it's fits certain definitions of VoIP/sip or not, I don't know, but I don't think that's relevant to the topic at hand.

Well, unless I'm mistaken, you can hook your GV number to Gizmo account and use a SIP client on your phone. That way would not require a voice plan.