Black Friday, Out of Business Saturday

What is happening when businesses send you an e-mail on a Saturday to tell you they are going out of business? This Saturday, it happened to us twice. Should they be enjoying the weekend and leave reality for weekdays?

First, we received a notice from Jajah, a telephone service we have been using for years. They are shutting down operations as of January 31, 2014. If we had a cash credit, we had to request it be refunded. The service was great, but my guess is that Skype did them in. The concept was similar, but the execution was different.

You signed up for free with Jajah, but there was nothing to download or install on your computer. You registered your phone number or numbers. 

When you wanted to call someone you signed into your Jajah account and placed your call for very inexpensive rates to anywhere in the world. The funds were deducted from your credit that you added with a credit card. It was on a 'when you chose' time frame and not automatically recharging your account, though you could opt for that too. 

There were no monthly fees or service charges. If your calling recipient also had Jajah, the call was free. Besides not having any software on the computer, you were not tethered to one either. With Jajah, when you called someone, your telephone would ring. You would then hear "Please wait while Jajah completes your call." This gave full mobility if you were on a cordless phone, something Ron loved. He calls his family on a regular basis. It is going to be difficult getting him to sit still with a headphone on while using Skype.

The same day, I received another e-mail from NeoWorkx informing me that the individual who ran the company was calling it quits. He confessed that with so many free services, his business was shrinking to the point of not being able to pay the server fees any longer. The service NeoWorkx provided was a graphic site meter for our bed and breakfast website. Each time we had a visitor, it would show in a scroll bar on our website with the national flag based on their IP address. In addition, I would receive an e-mail with the city and country from which it came. This was a nice additional visual to show others of the popularity and where the visitors were coming from.

Two services that I will miss. Sorry to see them go!

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Hello, Hello? And Google Does it Again

Google announced a new service, calling for free for the US and Canada. My excitement rose, fell, and then stabilized when I remembered the last service did not work from here. They have a SMS from your Gmail account, but the service only works for the US, Israel, parts of Palestine, Ghana, and other remote unlikely locations. I had not hope of seeing this new service appear in my Gmail account. BUT it did. It took two more days for it to make an appearance in Ron's account, and it has finally arrived in my other accounts. 

Up to now, we have been devoted Jajah users. There is nothing to download or install on your computer. All you need to do is register. If the people you call are Jajah users, the call is free, up to an hour a month. If they are not users, you put money on an account. We generally put $20 on it and it lasts for 6 months or more with Ron calling family twice a month. The advantage of Jajah is that you use your regular phone, not a computer headset. You are free to roam around when you talk. One friend called me from Las Vegas as she was traveling to work. We have a Jajah button on our B and B website, so others can call us and we pay the bill. It is nominal.

Skype is what everyone is most familiar with. We had tried it in the past, but Ron could not hear his sister and had to scream for her to hear him. Even the best earphones and mic did not persuade him to continue using it. It has only been after years, a number of upgrades and everyone asking if we had a Skype account that I waved the white flag and downloaded it onto the computer creating a BudaBaB account. Unlike Jajah, things need to be downloaded onto the computer and I am stuck at the computer with a headset on to use it. 

If you have a Gmail account, open it and on the left under the chat list there is Call Phone. If you click on it, a box opens with a numeric keypad. It is set for the US already, so you only have to click on the numbers for an area code and the 7 digit phone. Ron gave it a test drive to see if it really would work from here. It did. The only thing that we had to download was a small piece of voice activation software. He spent forty minutes speaking with his sister in Colorado. I did not hear him scream at her or to her once. When he finished, he said the connection was excellent. His only complaint was being stuck in front of the computer having to wear earphones. He has a habit of wandering around when he speaks on the phone. Not possible with Gmail calling.

Calling other countries are on a small fee for service plan, similar to Jajah or Skype if the party being called is not a member of the service. Google says the US and Canada will stay free through 2010, so get your calls in.

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