Google Voice for your Building Intercom

This Apartment Therapy post has a pretty good and simple overview of how you can use your Google Voice # as the number you give your landlord or condo association for your entry in the security phone system. We've never actually had a landline, so we used this for our front door buzzer solution for a good long while.

Why not take it to the next level, though? Instead of having our cell phones ring when somebody buzzes our front door, why don't we fake it to the max and pretend we have a home phone? Back in August, we bought this thing -- an Obihai OBi 100 VoIP Telephone Adapter. What does it do? It connects Google Voice to old school wired telephones. If you've ever know anyone who has Vonage, this is the same kind of deal. A landline phone plugs into this box. You also connect the box to the internet. Log in and enter your Google Voice username and password and boom, you've got a fake landline. Pick up the phone, get a dialtone, dial it like normal, and everything seems to work.

Now when somebody buzzes us from the front gate, our actual landline telephone rings. And when we miss somebody's buzz, we get an email from GV saying "Missed Call from Front Gate." It works pretty slick. We've actually got it connected to one of those cordless phone systems that has multiple handsets, so it gives us a landline phone both upstairs and downstairs.

Krunch Kretschmar: Over the line!

So this guy Krunch Kretschmar, whom I've never met, is being sued by a woman for allegedly creating a fake blog purported to be written by her, and posting awful things to it. Things about her being on drugs and supposedly embezzling from her employer. He supposedly said to her, "Now every time a company for a job or someone searches YOU on google they will read my side of the story."

So, OK, here's my tiny little tribute to Krunch Kretschmar. Maybe when people search for him online, they'll find this post.

Read more at Boing Boing, or CBS Chicago, or the Sun Times.