I have a Google hosted mail account for my remodeling business. I signed up before they started charging people through the nose for the service so I am lucky enough to not have to pay for it. It allows me to check my email through a gmail interface and email people from my remodeling domain no matter where I am, it works great with my Droid phone, too. The problem is I also have a gmail account and with the roll out of Google+ I gained some great features, but I lost the ability to log into both of my accounts at the same time in the same browser. I was switching back and forth for about a week until I decided to run Chrome on another screen so I could see my remodeling email account as well as my gmail account (in Firefox). I’m not sure how this problem slipped by Google, but it did.
Well, it would appear they have finally fixed it after several months. Simply clicking on your email address in the upper right and then account settings you will see an option for “Multiple Sign Ins.” Select it and agree and you are good to go. You will have to do this for every account that comes through Google (ie.. multiple gmail accounts, or app accounts).
Hopefully this will help someone else out.

It has happened before, the rapid upheaval of the telecom industry. Many companies didn’t make it such as MCI, Nortel, Frontier… Its about to happen again. Cell phones are as ubiquitous as landline phones were 20 years ago. Everyone had one, if you were well off you had 2 with call waiting. But, they were expensive and long distance was ridiculous, a quarter a minute or more in many cases. I remember getting 200- 300 dollar bills calling Dallas from Houston. What a joke that was.

Don’t think AT&T and Verizon aren’t plotting a way to keep people from dumping their $140 a month phone bill, but history has shown that technology always wins out. The question is when, 5 years? 7 years? I think it will be start happening next year with Techies like me and mainstream a few years later.

What am I talking about? VOIP, or skype or google voice or what ever comes along next. Think about it, the only reason you can’t skype everywhere and ditch your cell phone is the internet and bandwidth doesn’t exist everywhere. But with 4G and LTE coming onto the scene, there will be no more need for the cell phone. You want to talk on your ipad, itouch or laptop with 4g, its going to cost under $50 a month. Verizon looks like they are going to offer $29 a month plan.

But what about your phone number, you ask? Well, that’s the tricky part that has to be worked out. Currently Skype doesn’t support the porting of numbers from another carrier, but they will have to eventually or they will lose out. Google, which is my carrier, does allow Sprint numbers to be ported over, but I am not sure what would happen if I cancelled my sprint plan.

Since I have switched to Google Voice the world has opened up to me. I now do most of my texting on my computer with a keyboard, I make calls from my bluetooth headset which is connected to my computer, and of course I manage all my voicemails through google voice which looks like email. When I get calls my computer rings 5 seconds before my phone. so I have plenty of time to react. I have found I look at my phone half as much as I used to, and I am currently connected anywhere I have wifi. All that is missing is mobility. If I had a reliable wireless WAN like LTE, I would no longer need the phone or data plans that come with it. It is just that simple. And the cost savings is staggering. I currently spend $120+ a month for Sprint unlimited, switching to a data plan would cost $30-50 a month for an annual savings of around $850 to $1100 a year. That is no small potato, and one everyone will be deciding on in the next few years. I likely will switch in the next several months and reduce my sprint service to a shell account which is $29 a month for 200 minutes. Then use my computer and touchpad to make calls.Your decision gets easier if you are always in a wifi spot at work and home. You could just have a mobile phone with purchased minutes just in case.

I know a lot of you chatty Cathys out there don’t want to give up your car phone talking, but I am sure it will be illegal in all 50 states within a few years considering research has shown that drunk drivers have better response times than people on phones.

Of course, I expect AT&T and other ISPs to fight back, likely charging more for their DSL plans or metering your home connection, much like they started metering cell phone data plans.

If you just browse the web to look at sites, read the news and find info or products you are really missing the boat. The web is the great equalizer. What am I talking about? Digital real estate, that’s what. If someone had told me 5 years ago I would own 80+ websites and be making a living off of them I would have thought they were crazy.  But, that is exactly where I am. I’m not going to tell you I’m rich and its easy, but frankly it is something anyone can do, if you have patience and persistence. I started on the web in 2002 with my remodeling website and then decided in 2007 I wanted to grow my on line presence. I was lucky enough to do it before real estate went bust along with my remodeling business for the next few years. Otherwise, I would have been living under a bridge. But, anyone who knows me, knows I am a survivor and can’t be kept down ( I am also horrible at punctuation, tit for tat, I suppose). During those dark recession days I spent hours learning web design and building my portfolio. It has taken me this long to reach a point where I can pay the bills and I don’t have to worry about that next bathroom remodel, which is nice . How do you do it?

Blogging is always a good start, get the creative juices flowing and write about what ever interest you. Ad Google adsense to your site. Create a new site focused on your business interest. If you sell real estate, talk about the market, if you make pencils poke your eyes out and talk about lead. Get people to link to you and build your presence. This takes lots of work and comes slowly but it can happen.Sell stuff on line, sell links, affiliate advertising. The list is endless.

My point is this, if I hadn’t started to put one foot in front of the other in 2007 when I decided to do this I would be doing this from my mom’s closet. And if you know my situation with my mom you know that would suck ash.