im-roberto

If you have not yet heard of google voice its basically a service that provides you a phone number that you can use to make phone calls, and send and receive text messages through google. In any case the best way to find out about the service is to simply watch the videos posted on the website at http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html.

Google Voice is a very convenient service because it can save you money on your cell phone bill by no longer needing to pay the extra $15 for unlimited text messages all you need is access to the web. This service is easily available on any phone that uses the Android OS. Unfortunately Apple did not approve the Google Voice app on the iPhone appstore and therefore there is no easy way to receive push notifications to your iPhone when you have received a text message or voice mail on your google voice number. The closest thing you have is the ability to receive e-mails that are forwarded to your phone (if you have your e-mail set up on your phone).

Luckily you still have some options if you are an iPhone owner. You do need to jump through a bit of hurdles if you wish to get this done though.

Things you will need:

1. An iPhone.. Duh!
2. Prowl (iPhone App)
3. Either an account at: http://googlevoice.ub3rk1tten.com/voicegrowl/ or with https://www.gvmax.com/

I have used the Voice Growl service in the past and works quiet well, with the exception that at times the service does go down for a few minutes. I have not tested or used GVMax but it does sound promising and the software is now open source as well which may be something you Java nerds may like to take a look at.

Sadly enough these services provide you with a means to receive Push notifications to your iPhone when you receive a message but still does not provide you with an easy means to reply back. You can simply use googles renovated google voice mobile site which works well but depending on how fast your connection may be can slow you down. Or if you have a jailbroken iphone you can always give the app found in Cydia.

If you are one handy developer there are also many libraries written in various languages that you can use to your advantage for receiving and replying to messages. Prowl has various 3rd party libraries you can use to send notifications to your iPhone. I have found the php library found at github to work well for all my needs http://github.com/Fenric/ProwlPHP. Aside from that there are also various third party libraries for Google Voice (aka unofficial google voice api) in many languages all you need to do is perform a google search, I currently use the PHP library found at github http://github.com/aaronpk/Google-Voice-PHP-API. If you are a developer with a little creativity and a bit of time you can come up with a good solution for your iPhone Google Voice needs.

I will soon be posting my own code as well as I currently use Google Voice -> My Dreamhost Procmail -> Prowl & Gtalk to receive messages and currently working on an XMPP format to send messages back.

A few weeks ago I attended my first LA Ruby meet up. Basically it’s a group of Ruby enthusiasts getting together and talking about Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I was rather surprised the community was more of an older mature crowd than. I would have expect various to be young web entrepreneurs or something of that liking. There was a speaker at the meetup from Heroku showing off their product and how awesome their dynamic cloud services work. It’s basically a cloud within a cloud which makes for interesting ultra dynamic services. Along with Heroku we also had another guest speaker who spoke of marketing and pitching your web product to the masses. It’s been a while since I blog and thought id share my wonderful experience with the LA Ruby group earlier this month.

Lately it has been my passion to really try to get out and travel as much as I possibly can. I’ve actually been considering a long backpacking trip in the middle east and end somewhere in Asia be it India or Thailand. Watching this really beautiful video of Egypt and all of its ruins makes me want to leave on my trip as soon as possible. Although there is much left, I’m only at the stage of brainstorming and seeking information I have been moved and motivated on my travel idea.

It seems like lately I’ve found Vimeo to the home of most of my entertainment seeing that the videos found on the site have far better quality than the videos found on Youtube. Aside from that I have found many gorgeous travel videos from a span of various places across the world.

I took a rather short vacation in late May early June to Seattle. It was a long time since I last get to see a few old friends whom I actually met online (that story is for another day). We went out camping to a salt water lake or canal area a few hours outside of Seattle. There I met some new people, had a few drinks, ate tons of new foods to me, and just plain out had a blast. It has been over a year since I really take any time off and get to really travel and explore another country. I still aspire in getting to know the world. Hopefully that will come in time, be it traveling in luxury or vagabonding my way through the world.

http://www.vimeo.com/5606758
Ever since Canon showed off some of the sample videos recorded on the 5D Mark 2 camera I fell in love. The quality and clarity is amazing. This video was recorded in Japan in Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium. This Aquarium has one of the worlds largest tanks, holding whale sharks and various other rare sea species. Seeing that one of my friends is going to be studying Marine Biology and watching this video I begin to understand what she finds so fascinating about sea life.

It’s best if you watch it in HD on full screen mode to really appreciate it:
http://vimeo.com/5606758