I like most other users LOVE Google Voice and have found some useful apps that I would like to share with other Google Voice users.

1) Firefox Google Voice Add on
This is a nice little app that makes it possible to make phone calls, and text messages from your Google Voice account with out having another open window.

2)Send one message to multiple contacts with ContacTexter

This is a neat little app that was written using Java so it’s cross platform. The interface isn’t too pretty, but it works, and it’s FREE!

3) Get the BEST number on Google Voice Script
This guy figured out how to access google voice number search via a script, and run queries to grab the JSON file. This is definitely worth taken a look at if you are a developer/programmer of any kind. Unfortunately it is a script that was built for OSX 10.5 but is possible to modify and run in 10.4.

4) Scott’s SMS via Python for Google Voice Script (Everyday Scripting)
This is a neat little script to send text messages using Python.

4b) Scott’s NEW AND IMPROVED Python Script for Google Voice (Everyday Scripting)
This script allows you to send mass sms or mass call in an iterative fashion. Keep up the good work Scott!

5) How to write a Google Voice App
Well not exactly, but does give some insight in how Google Voice works since there is no API as of yet.

6) How to use Google Voice as your voice mail instead of your cell provider
This is basically instructions on how to forward your voicemail to google voice. This should help users with the Google Voice Transition.

7) How to enable Google Voice push notifications on iPhone 3GS

8 )One click International Calling with Google Voice

9) Another Google Voice Python Script
pygooglevoice brings the power of the Google Voice API to the Python language in a simple, easy-to-use manner.

10) Using Google Voice with Fluid (OSX Only)

11) Google Voice Grease Monkey Growl Script

12) Place Google Voice Calls directly from contacts on iPhone (Apple Script)

The script works by adding numbers to contacts in Address Book that dial your contact via Google Voice. The new number is prefixed with your Google Voice number, your pin, and the number two. It dials into your Google Voice number and places the call to your contact.

13) Google Voice Bookmarklet Generator (iPhone or iPod Touch)
Those of you who follow tech news know that there’s been quite a dust-up recently over Google Voice apps on the iPhone. First they were allowed, but now they’re banned. So until they work things out, or Google comes up with a more elegant web-based solution, placing a call using Google Voice on the iPhone is a long and drawn-out process. So Ironic Sans came up with this solution.

14) Google Voice Mobile Web Version
This is the mobile web version of Google Voice. I figured it would be good to note on here.

15) Import Facebook Contacts into your Google Voice Contacts (Script)
Facebook’s API + FBConnect is great but it has some severe limitations. Notably, it doesn’t expose all the functionality available on the Facebook site. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to copy a dump of my friends’ names and phone numbers off the site to load into a fresh cell phone. Unfortunately, looking at the API this isn’t possible. Never fear – Greasemonkey provides enough of a hook into Firefox that it would be possible to write a UserScript to accomplish this.

16) Turn Google Voice into a OSX Friendly Application
Google Voice’s web site is nice, but keeping it open in a browser tab can be cumbersome. Mac users, however, can get Growl notifications, complete with transcript previews, and app badge updates with the handy Fluid app. Unfortunately the Fluid App is only available for 10.5 and greater. This was enough reason for me to update, so maybe you should too.

17) Google Voice Dashboard Widget for OSX
Are you looking for an easy way to call or send SMS messages to your contacts using your Google Voice number right from your fingertips? GV Connect is your answer: a Google Voice widget which allows you make calls and send SMS messages from your GV number to your Address Book and Google contacts right from the Dashboard

18) Google Voice Notifier Windows and OSX
A simple system tray notifier for Google Voice. Lets you know when you have unread text or voice messages. The project is written in java and uses Google Voice’s REST service calls. This notifier will work on any platform that supports the java system tray icon.

Well, this weekend I decided to do a redesign my blog. My old theme was a modified Green Marinee Wordpress theme that I found 3 years ago and was looking pretty out dated. I hope everyone likes this new theme and feel free to leave comments. I can’t seem to figure out how to get rid of the underline styling on my Flickr images in the sidebar. I’m no CSS master and after tinkering for 10 minutes, became frustrated and said screw it. I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween, I know I did. Katy and I went to Goshen friday night and brought some friends with us to a Goshen College party. Besides having to break up a fight due to my dumb ass friend, it was a pretty good time. Note to self: Do not allow a friend to pee on a stranger. Cheers!

I recently built a new website that wasn’t getting much traffic which I was using analytics to track the traffic for. I found that while testing the site I was skewing the data which I had not accounted for initially, so I couldn’t tell who was visiting the site at first. Well I did some digging and found that I could set up a filter to not track certain IP addresses. I didn’t think this was a good idea since I knew that verizon’s DSL IPs were pretty dynamic and will switch about once a month or so. With some more research I found that I could set a cookie with a specific value and set a filter up in Google Analytics so that if the browser had the specific cookie it wouldn’t track it. Here are the stops to set this up:

1) First create a page called no_track.html or something memorable with the following code. Make sure to change the (“UA-XXXXXX-X”) bit to your Analytics account number for your domain.

<html>
<head>
</head>

<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write("</script><script src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'>< /script>" );
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = <em>gat.</em>getTracker("UA-XXXXXX-X");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>

<body onLoad="javascript: pageTracker._setVar('no_track');">
<p> Welcome, your computer will not be tracked on this site as a cookie has been
set to exclude it.</p>

</body>
</html>
---------------------------------------------------------------


2) Create an Exclude filter to remove data from visitors with this cookie. Follow these instructions http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55494
to create a filter with the following settings:

Filter Type: Custom filter > Exclude
Filter Field: User Defined
Filter Pattern: no_track
Case Sensitive: No

3) In order to set the cookie, visit your newly created page from all computers that you would like to exclude from your reports. Please note that if you clear your cookies on your browser that you will have to visit this page again to re-set the cookie.

A free 10-week “AJAX Programming” online course is about to start from August 4th, 2006. This course is for anyone who wants to learn AJAX for the first time or increase their knowledge on AJAX. In this 10-week course, students learn basic concept of AJAX as well as how to use various AJAX frameworks and toolkits….

Free AJAX Course

More Free Courses

I have recently discovered a neat PHP and AJAX powered, Web 2.0 standards compliant, Non-Intrusive shoutbox called YShout. It’s open source and anyone can download and install in onto their PHP supported webserver. Since the Yshout is AJAX powered you do not have to refresh the page, it’s dynamic! I just need to figure out how to format in to be in my sidebar. Anyway feel free to check it out on my site HERE.

I have changed the ability to see the persons IP address in the chat so that a person can not spoof another persons nickname. I also changed the log file extension to .html rather than .txt so that you can view the file correctly in a web browser. Here is a copy of my modified YShout: Modified YShout

To install all you have to do is install the yshout folder onto your webserver and it’s ready to go. Just point your browser to the folder and there you have it!

Ok, so if you made it past the title, you’re doin’ good. The 16F877A is a microcontroller made by microchip, and I just happen to be using it at work.

Pulse-width modulation is a way of controlling the brightness of an LED, not through resistance, but rather through its duration of being lit. For instance, an LED at half brightness would be on for exactly 1/2 of the time. Basically, it would switch back and forth between on and off at an even pace.

Last night, I had to find a way to control the brightness of a strand of LEDs based only on a 0-7 value off of an analog potentiometer. By design, the maximum brightness for the LEDs will be 1/8 of their maximum ability. This was to reduce heat and fire hazard.

With PWM, since the LED’s on-time is inversely preportional to its off-time, the calculation was rather simple. At the maximum setting (7), the LEDs are on 1/8th of the time. So I made the total duty cycle 56 clock cycles. I then assigned ON_TIME = Knob_Setting and OFF_TIME = 56 – Knob_Setting. This created a whole duty cycle where the LED was on and off evenly with the knob setting.