Here’s the scoop: Philipp tipped me off to two amazing websites, one that will be relevant to you, one, not so much but the service it provides is amazing and will eventually make its way to the English.
1) http://www.jajah.com
Everyone has heard a little about Voice Over IP (VOIP). The whole phone over the Internet thing. Jajah takes it one step further.
You know how Skype can use a headset connected to your computer to talk to people? Sure, you can get an adapter for your phone and use that, but let’s be honest, that costs some cash and cash we don’t have.
Go and use Jajah! All you do is:
1) Type in your phone number.
2) Type in the number you wish to call.
3) Click GO!
Your phone will ring. You pick it up and there will be a voice saying “Please hold, we are connecting you now.” Then, it connects you to the person you wish to call!
UNBELIEVABLE! Phil and I were freaking out on Friday night after a successful connection to Vero. This is a service which caters to the general public – the ones who just don’t want to sit in front of a computer with a microphone. But hey, I can use my own phone without paying for an adapter? NO PROBLEM!
Is there a catch? Well, you can try it out for free for the first five minutes (just to test the service out). After that, I believe the prices was 0.025 cents a minute within North America.
Read that again. A quarter of a quarter of a cent. Perhaps we had a few beer in us that night and read the price wrong but someone should verify that for me (as I can’t check that site at work).
Plus, it’s free between jajah users.
2) onlinetvrecorder.com (or somethign to that effect).
If you’re into German television, you can go on this site, click through their TV guide and choose a show, have these guys record it for you for FREE. That’s right, FREE. When the video is ready, you download it to your computer.
How do they do this legally? Isn’t this the whole illegal file sharing movement? Well, not quite.
They encode the video so only you can watch it (or, decode it). So, only the Palmer would have the right decoder to make the video watchable. After that, I could share the video if I chose to do so, but then it would be my ass on the line legally. They are the equivalent to the friend who tapes you that Sam Roberts concert on television and passes you the videocassette.
We grabbed Rambo II in German and I hope Philipp will enjoy it when it’s done downloading!
I can see this service coming to North America VERY SOON. The best part about it is that you can get any TV show they are airing…we aren’t talking about the most popular shows out there…it can be an obscure one if you wish, such as The History of the CIA which Philipp downloaded.