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The new Google Voice feature is such a good service. However, I really didn’t want to tell all my friends to call me on a whole new number. So, I’ve figured out a way to use the Google Voice as if it was my cellphone’s voicemail service:

1. First thing you want to do is get a Google Voice (or Grand Central) account, if you don’t already have one. If you haven’t been able to update to Google Voice, you can still do it with Grand Central.

2. Add your cellphone number to Google Voice (GC)

3. You then have to forward your calls for when you don’t answer your phone to go to your Google Voice number. You will have to check your phone’s manual if you are able to do this and how.

More about conditional forwarding:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_forwarding
• http://wiki.howardforums.com/index.php/T-Mobile_Conditional_Call_Forwarding
• http://www.arcx.com/sites/GsmFeatures.htm

4. Lastly, you will now want to make GV not call you a second time. To force all calls to your GV number to go straight to voicemail you have to set Do Not Disturb for all incoming calls in Google Voice.

You phone will now use Google Voice as your cellphone’s voicemail service. You can call your GV number to listen to your voicemail, visit the mobile site (http://google.com/voice/m), or even receive text transcriptions by text message. Much better than the voicemail your phone came with.

As a follow up from the 18 year old list I’ve decided to create a list of the things that you can do when you turn 21 that you couldn’t do before.

- Buy and drink alcohol
- Go into any bar or club that serves alcohol
- Gamble anywhere, like Vegas
- Get a  flight navigator’s,  flight engineer’s, or an airline transport pilot’s license
- Supervise a driver with a learners permit (if you had a full license for at least 3 years)
- Adopt a child
- Become mayor
- Become a bartender
- Purchase a handgun in some states
- Become a police officer
- Book a hotel anywhere
- Be in a cabin by yourself on any cruise ship
- Haul hazardous materials (with the right license)
- Get a commercial driver’s license
- Get a UK marriage visa

Bonus:
At age 25 you can rent a car at a lower rate.

Am I missing anything?

Just a reminder. For those who watch doctor who, the christmas special is going to be on, well.. Christmas! 6pm on BBC ONE overseas. Which is 1pm EST over here. Then of course you have to take into account the time it will actually come to torrents and downloading it for those in the USA, it’ll be around 3pm I’d say. Awesome!

My brother turned 18 today. Happy Birthday Jon! So, for his birthday, I’ve decided to make a list of all the new things he can do now that he is 18 years old. This is what I have come up with so far:

- Get the water bill in your name
- Lease an apartment
- Rent a house
- Finance a car
- Deliver newspapers for the Tampa Tribune
- Serve (not pour) alcohol in restaurants.
- Sign yourself out of school
- Work practically anywhere
- Start your own business in your own name
- Cash a savings bond
- Buy nitrous oxide
- Give a lap dance
- Rent a car in New York (and some mom and pop rental places)
- Get a lap dance
- Rent a post office box
- Drive a company vehicle
- Drive an ice cream truck
- Buy a house
- Breaks at work are no longer required
- Start a 401k plan
- Apply for benefits at work
- More stress
- Pay taxes
- Get a PayPal account
- Star in an adult film
- Get a passport without parental consent
- Buy over the counter medication
- Get summoned for Jury Duty
- Get a medicinal marijuana card in California without parental consent.
- Buy tobacco products
- Change your name
- Get a tattoo
- Get a piercing
- Buy spray paint
- Work more hours
- File a lawsuit
- Be sued
- Pawn something
- Get married
- Get divorced
- Adopt a child
- Be on Jerry Springer

- Book a Cruse on some Cruise lines
- Buy a lottery ticket
- Get a hotel room
- Call some “900″ numbers
- Go to a 18+ night club
- Get a Sam’s club membership
- Skydive
- Sign legal documents
- Gamble at some places, like Indian Casinos in Oklahoma and card clubs in Minnesota
- Gamble online
- Get a blockbuster membership
- Get a loan
- Go to most comedy shows at The Improv and other stand-up joints
- Buy insurance
- Donate blood (without parental permission)
- Enlist in the military
- Rent a movie
- Get a non-prepaid cell phone contract
- Sign a legal contract
- Begin earning credit
- Smoke a cigarette
- Chew tobacco
- Move out of your parent’s house
- Get paid more
- Go to an adult jail
- Go to Hookah lounges
- Be convicted as an adult
- Become an undercover cop
- Work full-time
- Become a flight attendant
- Purchase Nicorette gum
- Purchase “the patch” , and “the pill”
- Drive any time of day
- Visit a porn site
- Visit a porn store
- Become a stripper
- Work in an alcohol serving establishment
- Work in bar
- Take bar-tending classes in Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Some cities in Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Some cities in Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virgina, Wisconsin.
- Get a business license
- Go to a strip club
- Work in a strip club
- Work in a night club
- Vote
- Pay a utility bill
- Open a savings account
- Open a checking account
- Obtain a credit card
- Enter a contest
- Enter a sweepstakes
- Buy a monkey (w/ a license)
- Open an eBay account
- Buy a Gun
- Carry a weapon (w/ a license)
- Order something off T.V. (like a ShamWow!)
- Write a check
- Operate some machinery at work
- Become a mentor with Big Brothers, Big Sisters
- Go bungee jumping
- Work at a gas station
- See a doctor on your own
- Sell Tobacco Products
- Get a different type of driver’s license
- Rent a port-a-potty in most states
- Get drafted for the military
- Date men or women as old as you want (over 16)
- No curfews apply in the US
- Become a ride operator at theme parks
- Buy “M” rated video games
- Buy the CDs with the parental stickers on them (leaglly at least, i think)
- Go to bars and drink in Mexico and most of Europe
- Buy stock

[Edit] According to the comments there are a few things that could bee added…

-Buy white out
-Buy rubber cement
-Buy dry ice
-Go tanning at a tanning salon

Is there anything I am missing?

The rapid growth of the Internet has made digital music quite popular. The majority of the music we listen to is digital, whether the music is on a CD, a downloaded mp3 album, or a radio station. This growth of digital content has created great opportunity and compilations for artists and record labels. The Internet has allowed many artists to get recognized and appreciated in an industry where the artist had to be discovered by somebody in the industry or get very lucky to become successful as a musician. The Internet has also challenged individuals and companies that want to protect there content against piracy and there distributive rights.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) was created in hopes that it would solve the issue of piracy and secure the ownership of the music. DRM is used by music stores to control how its customers use the music they buy. For example, Apple Inc. sells music with DRM protections that restrict its customer’s from using that music on more than 5 computers, and can only be played by Apple’s music players like the iPod. The main reason major record labels sell there music with DRM restrictions, is the fear of unauthorized duplication and sharing of their music, which reduces their sales. While these DRM restrictions are built to not be broken, there are a lot of smart people in the world with a lot of free time. All it takes is one person to figure out a loop hole to take the DRM restriction off of a music file, and put it on the Internet, effectively making the the DRM useless. Music store companies quickly learn of the loop hole then patch up the hole. This is why there are so many updates to music management programs like iTunes. This is a constant cat and mouse game that ends up costing the music stores and record labels a lot of money.

DRM music does benefit the record labels and artist. The only problem is how it is carried out, basically limiting the usage, and tying the consumer to specific products and operating systems. If DRM was executed perfectly so that the music could be played on any device the purchaser owns, DRM would work better than the current system. In the current system each online music store has created there own DRM management system, which is designed in the best interest of the company, for example music bought from Apple’s iTunes store can only be played on Apple’s portable devices and can only be played on your computer if you use Apple’s music management software, iTunes.

A survey conducted in Europe, in 2005, shows that 71 percent of people who bought music did not know if the music they bought had no restrictions and 63 percent did not know what DRM is.

There is a major opposition to the use of DRM on music. The Free Software Foundation , a major opponent to the use of DRM, has stated, “DRM is often written as ‘Digital Rights Management’, but this is misleading, since it refers to systems that are designed to take away and limit your rights. So, we suggest you use the term “Digital Restrictions Management” instead.” The restrictions that the Free Software Foundation is referring to is the rights customers lose when they buy DRM protected music from online stores like Apple’s iTunes and Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace. When you buy music from stores like these, you are restricted on what devices you can use your music on. For example, if you buy DRM-locked songs from iTunes, you will only be able to use those songs as long as Apple Inc exists, and you can only use those songs on Apple’s portable music players. This means that if your current iPod breaks, you must buy another Apple music device in order to keep using all of those songs you purchased, tying you to using Apple’s products for the rest of your life unless you are willing tho re-buy all of the music you already payed for.

A few bands, like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, who oppose the DRM restrictions, have been making public statements of this by either giving away full albums as free downloads or allowing consumers to buy the music for whatever price they feel is appropriate in addition to the normal CD sales in stores. Nine Inch Nails has also placed their own music on P2P sites like thepiratebay.org, effectively making there music impossible to steal. This may just be an experiment by bands, but the albums released under these philosophy have made multi-millions.

In early 2007, Steve Job, CEO of Apple, Inc., released a letter to the public stating his and Apple’s view on DRM Music. He interestingly noted that “In 2006, under 2 billion DRM-protected songs were sold worldwide by online stores, while over 20 billion songs were sold completely DRM-free and unprotected on CDs by the music companies themselves.” This shows that the music companies are making a majority of there profits from unprotected music. He also said, “There appear to be none [reasons for still selling DRM music]. If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music.” Even though Steve Job released this letter in support of DRM-free music. Apple still sells a majority of it’s popular music with a DRM.

Many online music stores, especially in the last year, who sold DRM protected music, like Sony’s CONNECT, MSN Music,Walmart’s MP3 store, Yahoo Music, and many others, have moved to sell only DRM-free music, and shut down their DRM servers. While this change is supported by the majority of people, it has caused many problems to those who bought DRM music from them because these stores are turning off their DRM verification servers, causing the music purchased unable to be played in many cases. Most of these companies have released a statement similar to the email Yahoo sent out in July of this year, which informed it’s customers that they would stop supporting the DRMed music they bought and in order to keep there music they payed for they would have to burn their music to audio CDs then re-rip them back to their computer by September 30th, effectively and “legally” removing the DRM restrictions. For some this is not a hard thing to do, but for the many that are not as tech savy, this is a lot to ask, an many people will lose the rights to play the music they payed for.

It is quite clear that Digital Rights Management is just a phase in the music industry. Also, just removing DRM restrictions will not satisfy the music industry. The music industry still needs an alternative solution to support the artists, customers, and themselves fairly. In my opinion a good idea for the industry to replace DRM with creative commons.