14 Nov 07 GrandCentral and Visual Voicemail

So, I’m on GrandCentral. (If you need an invite, let me know. I don’t know how many of them I have, but … )

The one problem? I really don’t have a use for most of its options, as I’ve had my telephone number for years and there’s no way I want to go through the hassle of changing my number in 500 different places.

However, I’ve just figured out how to do what I really wanted to be doing … which was using GrandCentral for my current cell phone number’s voice mail.

I stumbled across a feature called Conditional Call Forwarding. (Despite the “T-Mobile” prefix, I think this concept exists on pretty much any cell phone.)

Using this, I programmed it to redirect to my GrandCentral phone number
(**004*1[area code][my GrandCentral number]# and then the “call” key on my keypad); then, I went into GrandCentral and told it (a) not to call screen at all and (b) not to ring any numbers.

Now, when someone calls me and misses me, they get redirected into GrandCentral’s voice mail.

Why go to all this bother? Well, namely, I’ve found that historically I far too rarely check my voice mail. This makes things hellaciously more convenient for me without necessitating that I buy an iPhone …