VoIPPlanet published this article last month but I missed it somehow. Anyway, they discuss Vumber which, as near as I can tell, is GrandCentral with fewer features for $4.99/month.

Both GC and Vumber let you customize the handling of individual numbers — including always sending a call from a particular number straight to voicemail or even playing a “Not in service” message. GrandCentral lets you ring multiple phones and, to a certain extent, even customize which inbound calls ring which numbers; Vumber only rings one number. When a call comes in, you can request that GC show you DID (so you know it’s coming from GC) or the caller’s ID; Vumber always shows the original caller’s ID. When you answer your phone, GC lets you select to take the call, send the call to voicemail, send the call to voicemail and listen in or send the call to SPAM; Vumber lets you take the call or send it to voicemail. They share other features and differ on yet others but I’ll stop there. Email me if you want more details.

Why would you choose Vumber over GrandCentral? GC is owned by Google so it’s probably fairly safe to believe it’ll be around for a while. Call quality is good to excellent and outbound calls through GC are free so the only reason I can think of for going with Vumber is that you’d want to go with a commercial provider. Think about it.

FYI, I’ve been with GrandCentral for almost a year, now, and, while I have a few complaints, I’m incredibly well satisfied with their service. Yes, I’d pay $5/month for it.

Update, Feb. 19, 2008: Got an email from the folks at Vumber with the explanation that their service is really about privacy and the speed of setup — from your control panel you can change, add and delete vumbers; with GC, you’ve got one number and you’re stuck with it. Vumber says number set up is “immediate”. Of course, I didn’t give the whole story on Vumber.com. For that, you should really go to their site and check them out.

I’ve been using AirSet and Soonr to get to my email and calendar from my mobile device while away from work. Why don’t I use a Blackberry? Been there, done that and have long since switched to a Windows Mobile platform. Since it my personal device, I’m not really interested in mixing my personal data with my professional.

So, now I hear that both AirSet and Soonr are is gonna start charging and Soonr is going into a private beta so what do I do? For calendaring, I tried Google Calendar. With OggSync I can synchronize my work calendar with it and, while it will send me a daily agenda, it won’t reliably send me reminders of upcoming meetings. OK, that’s out. What else?

Yahoo Calendar seems to fill the bill. They’ve got an autosync client that will watch for changes to my schedule and upload changes, it reliably reminds me of upcoming meetings but it doesn’t look like it will send me a daily agenda on its own. To solve this last little big, I think I can probably cobble something together, maybe with Yahoo Pipes.

And email? I think one of my previously posted browsers will give me OWA. So, if I can get OWA, won’t that address my calendaring needs as well? In truth, I really need an offline copy or daily synopsis of my calendar so I can plan even when I’m offline whereas email is more immediate and that’s is why I believe I need something like OWA. eMoze may give me email without my having to launch a browser but I don’t yet know how it integrates with Pocket Outlook. I’ve sent them questions and, once I get answers, I’ll be able to tell you more about that particular solution.

This Mobile Gadgeteer entry discusses (and has pictures and a video) of eInk’s Polymer Visions e-Ink Readius mobile reader. Way cool!

I got my invitation from Skyfire last week so I downloaded and installed their mobile browser and have been playing with it off and on for the past few days. Today, I see over on Engadget that Torch Mobile has made their Iris Browser beta available to phones running Windows Mobile 6. OK, I’ve downloaded and installed it. Time to do some comparing. No, I won’t forget Opera Mobile.

More later.

Raketu has a Windows Mobile client that combines (among other things) instant messaging, video on demand and VoIP calling. Here’s a review from 2006 and here’s another review that’s from a few weeks ago. Both are similar in that they don’t particularly like the user interface but the PC World article is a bit more harsh, which indicates to me that it was done by someone who’s not a phone geek 🙂

Personal preference for my mobile use? I’ve got a couple of AIM accounts, some Yahoo! IM accounts, a couple of MSN Mobile accounts, several Google Chat accounts and a few others that are pretty obscure. On each service, I maintain separate IM accounts for work and personal use, I prefer Palringo for instant messaging because I can sign in to all of these services and also be simultaneously signed in to the same IM service with multiple ids and send and receive both work and personal instant messages at the same time. I read RSS feeds in my web browser with Bloglines. Their mobile version looks great on my phone’s browser. Since it’s web-based, it can be a little slow but I don’t have to worry about keeping my RSS feed in sync. Long distance is included in my mobile calling plan, I don’t really make too many international calls and I use GrandCentral to aggregate inbound calls (including my VoIP lines) and ring all my phones so I don’t have much reason (yet) to use a VoIP client on my mobile phone.

Still, it’s an interesting client and no doubt helps advance the industry as a whole so it’s worth noting.

This nice, short article from Wired reviews AutoNet Mobile. They have a wireless router that talk on both the Sprint and Verizon networks, plugs into your car’s cigarette lighter or into an AC adapter (in your hotel room, for instance) and gives you relatively high-speed Internet access (600kbps-800kbps, typically). WEP encryption but it’s better than nothing. No pricing on the site but you can get it for about $11/day when you rent a car from Avis in their Avis Connect program.