So now I’m using Google Voice and love it 10x more. What is Google Voice you might ask? It’s a one stop shop for all your telephone numbers, custom greetings depending on who’s calling you, free SMS and low international calling. Basically they give you a new one-4-all telephone number and if you have a office phone, cell phone and home phone, you can have them ring at any of the three places, no places or all places. This is great for when you’re on vacation or you need to make sure that important business call doesn’t get missed. The only downside is you have to give them your new number. Your old numbers still work the same. Google does however let you customize your number based on numbers available. So I made one that ended in NEK-KIDT for my t-shirt company.

Ever been in the situation where you were headed out with friends or a client to lunch but just couldn’t because of an important call you were waiting on at the office or house? No problem, just tell your house phone to ring your cell phone!

Another great feature that really sold me was being able to have custom greetings for each person that calls and there is another feature to block unwanted callers!

If I get some invites such as I did with Google Talk I will give them away here. So check back often.

SwiftReply allows you to setup auto responses for people texting or calling you via cell phone when you are busy or maybe just don’t want to be bothered.  All you have to do is setup a few responses which you customize 100%. Here is a few of mine.

• Sleeping
  Auto Reply: Sorry I am currently sleeping.
• Meeting
  Auto Reply: Sorry I am currently in a meeting.
• Not Accepting Calls
  Auto Reply: Sorry I am currently not accepting calls at this time.
• Movie
  Auto Reply: Sorry I am currently watching a movie.
• Mars
  Auto Reply: Sorry I am visiting Mars. Please try back later.

Not all that text is 100% what I typed. You can have it say anything and the words Auto Reply was also added by me.

This is a paid application but they do have a free version. The paid version removes the copyright notice that the message is powered by SwiftReply. I think it was around $4.99 but I can’t remember.

Easily attach sounds, music, audio files, backgrounds, videos, pictures and camera pics with a couple quick taps. I wouldn’t use anything else. Also comes with threaded view and iPhone layout look along with a few other themes.

iStock Manager also pulls in your watch lists and allows you to add additional stock symbols which are saved on the device only. I absolutely love this application.

Just don’t tell your friends because they will hound you for new music

I have several other music apps installed but this one is 100% professionally laid out and easy to use. I recommended this one over all others at this time.

Enjoy.

1. First problem I ran into was that the bottom left corner of my touch plate was loose. It wasn’t enough of an issue that I felt the phone needed to be returned. Once I added a case to my Droid it reduced the amount of looseness enough that I hardly noticed it.
2. The next problem I had, which I returned my phone for another one, was dust / dead pixels appearing on the top right corner of my screen. After much examination I came to the conclusion it was indeed dust. Another related problem to the dust on the inside of the touch screen was a small orange piece of who knows what floating around from time to time. It was about the size of a pencil lead. This piece would float around at random and I would have to turn the phone sideways and tap it until the orange piece went off the side of the screen. Because of this I decided to return the phone as I didn’t want to spend a large amount of time tapping something off my screen and also because of the dust that started collecting after only a few weeks of use.
3. The new phone came, well not new which is what annoys me more than anything about Verizon. If you buy a brand new phone from Verizon online and have to return it, they send you a “certified like new” phone. This means that you basically paid a large amount for a phone that someone else has returned for some other reason. Once I opened the phone I found out right away why it was returned by someone else. The top and bottom left side of the touch screen plate was loose just like my previous one. Only this time it was both corners. While it worried me some I decided to look up how many other people had this problem and found that it quite common. I decided to keep this phone as while it was loose, it still clicked and stayed in place.

As you can see those are the only problems I have had with the phone so far. I still love this phone over any phone I have ever owned. The dust getting under my touch screen is associated with the speaker hole near the top of the phone. I assume dust from pants pockets and etc could cause dust to go inside the unit at some point and then appear under the screen. If you google “dust under my droid screen” you will see that a few people have this issue. Some are worse than mine. One tip to help reduce the amount of lint in you pockets is to wash your pants inside out. I also carry a microfiber cloth with me in the same pocket at all times.

Other than that I have not had any issues. If anyone has questions please feel free to ask me here.

I’ve installed probably a few hundred apps, bought 20-30 paid apps and played which this phone day and night. It rocks. I will (after the holidays) compile a list of features both good and bad along with a list of recommended apps for daily life in a digital world.

Stay tuned!