Make and receive calls in Gmail

Google Voice lets you manage all your phone communications  and receive calls on any of your existing phones. But what if you don’t have your phone with you? Or what if you’re in a place with poor cell phone reception, or you’re travelling internationally and don’t want to incur expensive roaming charges? Wouldn’t it be great if you could use your computer to make or receive calls?
               Starting today you can use Gmail to receive or place Google Voice calls.
To get started, check the box next to Google Chat in your list of forwarding phones and the next time someone calls your Google Voice number, Gmail will notify you of an incoming call. You can take the call or even listen in as the caller leaves a message, in a single step right from your computer.

Fake Flash Firefox Update

Seems like over the past few days, there has been a new fake Flash update scam going around, trying to scam Firefox users.  It tells users that they have just updated to the “latest version of Firefox” but the hook here is it says you have an out of date version of Adobe and tells you to download it.

Then, the download box will automatically appear

Then, the download box will automatically appear asking you to save the file, “ff-update.exe” or something very similar to it.  If you do that, then you have successfully installed the virus.
It looks like virus and malware authors are targeting Firefox users, as they would bank users – trying to make you feel like your on a safe place with a page that looks like it belongs to Mozilla.
So be safe out there, and make sure to check and double check anytime your dealing with downloads in any browser out there...

Google Earth Now Shows Rain and Snow in Real Time

Google Earth is one of the great "wow" applications in Google's stable, especially on touch devices like Android smartphones or the iPad, whether it's showing undersea formations or cities in 3-D. It's also surprisingly useful, and Google's always adding elements to it to give it more utility and/or fun.
The newest is the clouds layer, which now shows rain and snow in real-time weather patterns, across the globe. After enabling the clouds layer, you can just zoom in to any location you want, provided Google has supplied the layer for the part you want to see. So far, that's limited to just parts of North America and Western Europe, but that includes some of the rainiest places I can think of, including the Pacific Northwest and the U.K. By enabling the radar layer, you can see where the precipitation data is available.
Maybe the coolest thing about the new feature is that it's in real time, updated as it actually happens. That means you can track weather patterns, storms (including scary ones like hurricanes), and watch them as they move across the map. It's potentially pretty useful, as the image above shows--that's Hurricane Alex, passing into Texas. Steer clear of there!
You can find the latest version of Google Earth here.
Download the trial version  http://earth.google.com..

BRABUS iBusiness Is an Apple Fan’s Dream Mobile Office..

The iPad has become a valuable tool for the mobile professional. It can be more valuable still, however, when swaddled in leather, partnered with a Mac mini and other Apple goodies and wrapped in a Mercedes-Benz S600, as Mercedes tuner BRABUS shows us with the iBusiness.

The iBusiness is most definitely “the business.” The German-engineered, four-seater luxury sedan is the type of car for people who have drivers, and that’s a very good thing, because there’s no chance you’ll be paying much attention to the road in one of these babies unless you’re being paid to.
Each car comes packed to the gills with outstanding multimedia capabilities, including two iPads in the rear seats with matching Bluetooth keyboards for each. The iPads are capable of controlling every aspect of the S600′s COMAND system, including the radio, navigation system and telephone, in addition to BRABUS’ own custom multimedia functions. Don’t think you’ll be limited to offline or 3G use, either, because the car boasts its own wireless internet via UMTS and HSDPA connections.

As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a Mac mini in the back seat that uses a drop-down 15.2-inch TFT display, Magic Mouse and USB 2.0 ports accessible to both passengers for real computing power. Finally, because you wouldn’t want to use iTunes on the Mac mini or the iPod apps on your two iPads, there’s a 64GB iPod touch in the center console that also controls the whole shebang using a custom BRABUS iOS application.
I couldn’t find any info with regard to pricing, but you can bet it’s going to be more than most of us can afford. The good news is, if you already have a Mercedes-Benz s600, BRABUS will install its custom iBusiness package for you, at a fraction of the cost, but still well beyond the reach of most ordinary mortals. So, anyone picking one of these up?