These have happened in the last few days, so it merits a post, imo.
YOU KNOW YOU’RE GETTING OLDER WHEN…..
— you realize that the clarinet you are using to demo for the student is older than the student’s mother who brought student to the lesson.
— a friend posts about being in a type of medical office of a type you’ve never heard. …. but then that friend’s friends are talking about their experiences with that type of doctor.
— you make a pot of coffee and forget to go back and get a cup.
When I started my VirtualMusicOffice, I wanted a phone number other than my home or cell phone. I didn’t want to add a monthly phone bill. I wanted to screen calls and take calls on either my home phone or cell phone, and to know before I picked up that it was a business call. If I missed a call, I wanted a professional voice mail message for my caller and a way to have immediate access to the message from a variety of methods that would
Google Voice logo
not require listening to it on my phone. Because I conduct my business virtually anywhere, but including locally, I wanted a local phone number. From several options, including subscription and free, I selected Google Voice.
In the signup process, I was able to search for phone number options by area code and zip code. I wanted a local phone number and was able to get a prefix from a small town 5 miles away from Huntington. Some of the calls I get are because people recognize the prefix.
I set my account so that a call would ring simultaneously to both my home AND cell phone. Prior to answering the call, I can see that the Caller ID indicates it is a Virtual Music Office (VMO) call. Google Voice prompts the caller (option) to say his/her name, so the first thing I hear when I answer is,
“You have a call from…..”
…and then I can choose to take the call or not.
Voice Mail and messages. The caller hears the message I recorded for the VMO call — NOT the messages on my cell or phone phones. That’s a good thing.
Message notifications. I have my account for multiple notifications:
…text to my phone that I have a message with a transcript. So I can SEE the message without having to listen to it. That is handy if I am in a meeting or somewhere phone use would be a distraction.
…email to my Gmail address. From that email I can read and/or listen to the message. (Sometimes, especially if the caller fails to speak clearly, the transcription might contain nonsense word(s).
…Google Voice account. From the list of messages I can edit the transcription to fix any nonsense words. From this list I can….
Call. The system calls your phone and then connects you to the caller, so they don’t see your home/cell number.
Text. Again, the text comes from your Voice (not your private) number.
When it is time to renew your domain name, you might want to research options to get a better price.
I’ve experienced enough that I can see a pattern.
One of my clients, huntingtonbaptist.org, had a domain renewal coming due at and the price was going to be over $37. I contacted my current hosting provider and their price for every year, was under $17. So, I contacted the domain registrar and started the process to transfer the domain, which required gaining access to the client’s account. And THAT required updating some information and THAT required sending in utility bills, a photo id and more…. Okay, access gained. I started the process to unlock the domain and request an authorization code.
THEN….I get an offer to renew the domain for 1 year for $10. DONE!
Having learned that, when I got notice from that one of MY domains (virtualmusicoffice.com), that cost me $38.xx last year was up for renewal, I started the process to transfer. Suddenly my price drops to under $16.
“Burn me once…..”
So I continued the process to unlock, get auth code and start transfer process to my $17/yr host. DONE!
While I was in the transfer mood, I went to the registrar for qdpcorp.com and went ahead and transferred it to my current host.
Conclusion / Recommendations:
Service providers involved included: Tucows, Network Solutions, Hostcentric, Register, and iPage.
The initial price is only for those who auto renew. The LOWER price is for those who might leave.
If you have a domain up for renewal, instead of automatically renewing, call to START the process to transfer it to get the super-duper 1-year-only discount price. [Then be sure to do that again next year].If you don’t know how to do that, proceed to step #2.
