Which one are you using?

Sometimes it takes a little while to realize how huge the Internet possibly is.

A kind of backdated post. Nonetheless. I’ve been awfully busy with work and fixing a whole lot of things – like buy a house!

Anyway, from October 5 – 8 I was JAOO-ed at the JAOO 2009. It was my first JAOO and “ontzettend bedankt” to Google who gave me the Google Travel and Conference grant for the conference.

My first conference since I started work and certainly my first time in Denmark, and Aarhus – which I was told that it was one of the three “technical” cities in Denmark. Little known fact, the V8 engine which powers Google Chrome is actually developed by a small team of Googlers located in the building at the back of Aarhus University.

Overall I had a great time there listening to all the Agile and Java gurus. I also met a couple of new girls and Linda summed up my favorite lecture right here about Linda Rising and Fearless Change. Everyone (technical and not) should take a look at that.

Some more Vopium news…

We are proud to announce that Vopium WiFi is now available for Smartphones with Windows Mobile (OS 6.0 and up). Now, Windows Mobile users can call other Vopium WiFi users for free and obtain great savings on all their international calls both inside and outside Wi-Fi zones. You can also avoid roaming charges when abroad. Vopium automatically detects when users are connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot and routes the call over Wi-Fi. Outside Wi-Fi zones international calls are routed as a local call instead.

If you are already a Vopium user with Windows Mobile, simply log in to your Vopium account and download the latest version to your mobile by pressing the green “Get” button placed next to your phone number on your dashboard. If you are new to Vopium, start by signing up and installing Vopium on your mobile.

Just a short note away from my vacation. I’m going to be at the JAOO 2009 in Aarhus, Denmark so if anyone is going, could you just buzz me at summerrainx [at] gmail [dot] com I’m getting ready for some Java OO and .NET.

This one is funny. I wonder what do people think when they see Summerrainx….

I announce once again… this is my Warcraft nickname!!!

Vopium has come to the Android – G1 and Magic!

Yesterday, Vopium (Which I reviewed previously and which I used in London to call Singapore / Netherlands) had a press release for it to be released to Android Phones….

To download the application, users simply search for Vopium in the Android Market. Once downloaded, Vopium seamlessly integrates with the address book and intelligently recognises international numbers, automatically re-routing calls via the Vopium gateway. Using 3G, GSM, and GPRS networks, Vopium ensures that all international calls are made using the cheapest method available while also preserving the highest level of call quality. Users who download and register Vopium from Android Market will receive 30 minutes of free calls and 30 free text messages (SMS).

Which is very similar to the process for the iPhone… although I don’t have an Android. Maaike just bought one though, a white G1… and although its not as pretty as a white iPhone, I think its also a very girly phone – if you put a ton of Swarovskis on it!

Anyway, since I would recommend Vopium for cheap calls, and you just have to make use of the sign-up bonuses, you can check them out here.

Joy of Tech has a wonderfully funny comic since the rumor is always there that somebody (Read: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, whatever) is going to buy Twitter.

Today I saw a review on The Next Web about how Yunoo received the people’s choice award. Well, nice. Remember I said I would be trying it? I kind of gave up after a while, firstly because it was in dutch only and secondly because I absolutely hated downloading my transactions from the ABN website into a *.TAB format and then importing it into Yunoo.

Well, after checking out a couple of “financial and savings” sites, Yunoo was still the best bet.

- Mint.com was US-Banks only (It looked the MOST promising)

- Wesabe.com had some Dutch banks but it required a firefox plug-in and it always crashed mid-way and I never really got to see the imports

- There were also other things like Quicken-online, Yodlee which website did not appeal to me, so I decided screw it

So back to Yunoo. Quite unfortunately, unlike US Banks, Dutch banks did not have an API to connect directly, probably safer as well. However, this results in having to import your transactions which to me, was kind of a pain to do. Importing was fantastic though, because it did everything in an incredibly sleek way, although I did not know why my numbers did not add up. But since I was too tired to translate to English I gave up after 5 imports. (If you want an accurate number I think you need to import from the beginning of time).

However, once you get over the painful importing, the nice part comes, if you know Dutch that is. With your bank transaction, you are able to check and tag groceries (boodschappen), rent (huur) and everything so that you have an overview (overzicht) of what you are spending each month. Its sweet to see those figures, and it also made me realise how much money I was actually spending on eating out.

Anyway, Yunoo is really promising, and I even saw that some founders were actually from the university near here. However since it is in Dutch, not everyone can try it now, so wait for the localization. And you either enjoy the downloading the transactions (or not) because of the privacy (you don’t pass your passwords and the works to anyone). For me however, after searching through these budgeting things, I actually came out with another solution. Its called Cha-Ching, and I will review that in a bit as well.

Previously I wrote about Mendeley, and the next best thing I see in there is… Yunoo!

Seriously I’ve been watching Mint.com for a while and it totally irritates me that it is only based in the USA.

And using all variations of keywords I could not find something which led to an online financial / budget savings site with a nice UI. I’m going to review Yunoo later if it rocks, or sux. (That is back to Excel sheets / Google docs)

Unfortunately for most of you, it is in Dutch. Because the company is based in the Netherlands and it supports only Dutch banks like ABN, Fortis, Rabobank so far. Fortunately for me Dutch is my third language. Well, at least reading is the easiest part.