I tried Google 411 today and it seems to be amazing. OK, you are on the road, or may be not, and you don’t know the phone number of the business you want to call. If you call 411 from your phone your phone company is going to bill you. So, that is where Google’s free service comes in. Here’s what you do:
Call 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-4664-411) toll free from your phone. You will be asked the name of city and state where the business is. Next, you will be asked what type of business, or name of the business, and depending on the number of results, you will be connected right away, or given a list to choose from. For example, I wanted to make an appointment for an eye exam. I called the number, stated the city and state, and then the name of my optical store. I was connected right away. If I need the number, I say DETAILS. The voice recognition capability of this service seems to be better than any other system I have tried so far, but in the event of the system not hearing you right, or if you just changed your mind about what you want, say START OVER.
If you are calling from a cellphone, you also get the option of having a text message sent to you with the details. Or, if your phone is web enabled, you may get a map link sent to your phone. Here’s a list of all the voice commands you can use, and here’s a short (one and a half minute long) video from Google demonstrating the service:
I figured one could also use the service to save long distance charges in some cases. Let’s say you want to call the hotel you will be staying in, in another city. Use GOOG-411 instead of calling long distance.
Looking at the comments to the above video, it seems there are concerns raised by people over the nature of this service - one being that Google is using the voice samples to better their voice recognition capability. Well, I for one don’t care. They also talk about another service, which they claim is better: 1-800-411-SAVE. Gotta try that one too.
I had been facing this problem for the last few days. Every time I clicked on a YouTube video embedded in a web page, even on a google page, it would play without sound. When I clicked on the YouTube logo to watch the video on the YouTube website, it played fine. This situation wouldn’t work for me, because one of my blogs is comprised of song videos, and I didn’t want visitors to leave the site to watch the video. Well, after searching around, this is what turned out to be the solution:
Open any video on YouTube and right click on the video. Click on “Settings”. Then click on “Advanced”. This will open a webpage from macromedia.com in a new window, that will help you edit your Macromedia Flash settings. From the table of contents in the left column, click on “Website Storage Settings Panel”, which will open a screen like the following:
Click on “Delete all sites”. Now, close your browser. When you restart your browser, the problem should be solved.
Another thing that I saw being recommended was to click on “Global Storage Settings Panel” and check “Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer”. This didn’t work for me, because it was already checked, and I still had the problem. Maybe it works for you.