Best Tools for communication in my nerdy opinion

I think there are many great ways to communicate. There is chat or sms text for very short communications, email for more verbose communication or voice for that personal one-one communication. Well the last two years in my travels I have tried many forms of communication.  Below are the tools I use. I know there are many reasons to use others but this is my list:

Prerequisite - I use a Blackberry (BB 9700 as of September 2010) with T-mobile and International BB plan.  Data is free and unlimited in the US and abroad, International voice  calls are .45cents a minute and International SMS text are .45 cents each. My current Blackberry allows me to tether (use) my phone as a modem for my company T400 laptop.  It works fine for syncing email and chat but that is about it.  Not fast at all. My personal Macbook has many of the tools listed below as well.

With that said no T-mobile voice or SMS for me when I am international!


 Text while International - - I loaded Google Talk on my BB and Sally's Android powered phone.  This allows us to text for free.  Google talk is also incorporated within Gmail so if either of us are on our laptops we can chat there as well. Again no charge since this is going over the data plan.

Voice --  Again Google Talk on a laptop using Gmail or stand alone Google Talk has video chat which Sally and I have done a couple of times.  I even did video chat with my mother back in Statesboro. Skype is a great alternative but we always seem to be on  Google Talk before we decided to do a video conference.  My travels take me into the middle of oceans so bandwidth is a challenge.  If I am at sea or tethering my BB I cannot do any form of video conferencing.

UMA-- is a feature that T-mobile and BB have that allows voice calls to go over a wifi network. The call is then free. I love this feature and if AT&T had implemented it on the IPhone  their network usage and bad publicity would have been reduced.  At home I have a T-mobile router that is allowing me a home phone number for cheap and then my cell phone calls go over the internet.  {in 2012 after the Fantasy launch I plan on dropping this and build my own Internet SIP route for increased savings)

I went the route of Google voice but since Google has not implemented the SIP functionality there still is a charge associated with using it. I use a Google voice number for my personal cell phone number it allows me freedom to get calls at different places but it is not really saving me money.

Social Media -- You can stay in touch with a lot of people using Social Media sites.  I am on FaceBook, I have a Twitter account but do not use it that often. We use Yammer at work but like Twitter (fjwagg) I do not use it much. This Blog is another way I show my family what I am doing and where I am.  Speaking of where.... Foursquare is a mobile application that allows you to "Check-in" places. I was a late adopter and not many of people use it but I find it fun.

Where am I-- nothing beats Google maps although the latest version of the software on my BB is driving me mad.  I can walk all around a foreign city and get around without a map.  So what if I look like a total nerdy geek staring at my phone as I walk but I am getting somewhere!  Google latitude allows near real time location beaconing allowing Sally and Mom the ability to see where I am.  It seems to be a challenge with dropping them as friends. Also the GPS on android devices wears the battery down pretty fast. 

Well if you need to get a hold of me and know me shoot me an email because in reality I prefer to respond when it is convenient and email can provide a relief from my constant crack-berry addiction.