You might have seen the commercials, or heard about them... Vonage is one of, if not the, biggest Internet phone company.

They work great and the price is fantastic. Its about $25 for a residential line and $49 a month for a commerical line (which gets you two phone lines, one for talking and one for fax).

Many of the plans offer unlimited US/Canada calling -- it's all one zone. No "local" and "long distance" rates. And if you have an allotted minute plan and go over, its only 3-4 cents per minute. International calls are extremely cheap too.

The best features about Vonage:

* If you go to your local CompUSA/BestBuy or other computer chain, you can buy the Vonage hardware, go home, and install it within an hour. Also, once you have one line setup, adding more numbers or lines can be done in minutes through an online system.

* If you travel abroad, you can take the miniature Vonage box with you, or use the new computer software and a headset to have access to your home phone. If you live in NYC, you can travel to China, plug in your Vonage box (to a broadband connection) and get/make phone calls just like you are in NYC for no charge!

* You get ALL the features you would normally pay for, for free -- voice mail, caller ID, call waiting, transfer, call forwarding, multi-ring, you name it, they have it. It's all included in your phone package. Just adding those features to your regular phone would cost you $40-50!

* In most areas you can transfer your current phone number to Vonage

* It works exactly like a real phone -- you can even plug your existing phone into it and use your home wiring.

* For $5 a month you can add 800 service, or add a local phone # anywhere in the US/Canada and now I think the UK. So if you are based in NYC, you can have phone numbers all over the country for a low cost that all connect to your NYC phone!

The Negatives -- yes, there are a few:

* You need a broadband connection (DSL or Cable), which costs some money, but if you already have one you are all set.

* It can take weeks to transfer your current number to the Vonage service if you decide to switch -- so you have to keep your existing number in the mean time. I've done it, and it transferred fine, it just took a while. Hopefully they will improve this over time.

* It is not as reliable as a real phone -- I have been using it for about 3 years, it has its quirks. I like to say "it's 98% of a real phone". If your broadband connection goes down, or the power goes out, most likely you are going to lose your Vonage service. Also, you are at the mercy of the Internet. However, the cost savings definitely makes up for it if you can live with minor inconveniences.

* If you have a TIVO that dials out on the phone, it may or may not work with Vonage. Also, most security alarms that dial out on the phone will not work and some fax machines have problems.

* Vonage customer service is hit or miss -- sometimes you get right through sometimes you wait a little bit. They have improved -- they went through a huge growth spurt earlier this year and have been adding staff. However, on the positive side, you rarely need to talk to them. Most everything you need to do can be done online.

Definitely check them out -- you can signup and try them along side your current phone, and if it does not work out just cancel. I use them for business and love it -- the fact that I can add new lines in minutes is fantastic.

Vonage Website

-John

A lot of people are interested in donating to Katrina, which is fantastic. But you need to be sure you are giving to a reputable organization. I have read that you are suppose to find organizations that use at least 70% of the money to help the cause (the rest goes to running the organization itself). There are a lot of scam groups out there that keep way more than 70% and basically use it for profit purposes.

I found this article and a great website run by the Better Business Bureau that should help. The article provides you general information on how to avoid being scammed when donating and the website lets you look up any organization and find out whether they are "playing by the rules". The BBB Website is not very easy to use, but is great otherwise. Basically you want to click on the "Charity Reports" link on the left, then locate the charity you are considering giving to. Make sure that the page that comes up says:

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Evaluation Conclusions

{ORGANIZATION NAME} meets the Standards for Charity Accountability.

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If you do not see this or the name of your organization is not on the list, be weary!

Have cats? Read on!...

Well, I have two cats... my first two. I got them 6 years ago. I'm really lazy in general and I hate cleaning the litter box. Well, I who doesn't?

I have had the Littermaid auto-scooper for years and loved it. I think it is one of the more popular on the market. If you hunt around you can usually find it for just under $100. It has always worked well but it has a few annoying quirks. One of the biggest was that it gets "stuck" easily. I'm not sure how to describe it other than the automatic arm that scoops the litter out would not be strong enough to move through certain parts of the box (sometimes) and it would not be able to complete its task... this was annoying.

So I saw a new brand at the store the other day -- the Stylette Litter Sweep Ultra for $79! They also sell a cheaper one that does not "auto" sense for $59, the Litter Round Up. The woman at PetCo said that they have had some Littermaid units get returned by never had this new brand get returned... so I thought I would give it a try.

It's been about a week, and it works really well so far. It does take much longer to complete its task and it is a little louder -- it takes about 1-2 minutes to go through its cleaning process compared to the littermaid which only took about 20-30 seconds. However, it seems to be much more reliable and do a better job at evening out the litter. Basically its not as "finnicky". Combine that with the cheaper price and I highly suggest it.

Oh one other thing! The littermaid unit requires expensive plastic containers. This unit uses much cheaper bags -- they resemble hair nets you would use in the shower (they might even be hairnets!). So over the long haul you will save money as well.

The PetSmart website sells it here.

Robotron was an arcade game that came out in the early 1980's. I believe it is fairly well known, but I don't think it was very popular. The reason is that it was extremely fast and difficult for a new player. If you didn't know what you were doing, the game would last 2 minutes -- if you were lucky.

The year is 2084, and the world has been taken over by robots. You are the last hope -- you must save the people from the evil robots before they destroy you. Unlike todays 3D games, this takes place all on one screen -- no scrolling. On every level your goal is to destroy all of the robots, and for a bonus you save the humans before the robots destroy them. Even though destroying the robots (and not rescuing the people) will advance the game another level, it turns out "being greedy", as my friends and I call it, is worthwhile in this game. Meaning, you want to rescue as many people as you can. The reason is that the people are worth a large amount of points, and every 25,000 points gets you an extra life.

The reason I hated this game in the 80s was that it was so hard -- what we called a "quarter eater". When you are a kid and you have $1 to spend, you don't want to lose it all in 5 minutes.

Now that you can buy Robotron for most home machines and basically play it for free... It has become one of my favorite games. If you play 5-10 games of Robotron, it's like drinking 5 cups of coffee. It's an amazingly fast paced game. The other interesting part of this game is the controls. The original game actually had 2 joysticks -- one for moving and one for firing. So this game has your minds full attention.

Definitely check it out and give it a chance if you like old games.

More information can be found at this site.

You can play Robotron online here. (It's just like the original except harder since you don't have the two joysticks)

This has been around for a few years, but if you have not seen it yet, check it out.

It is a free software program for your PC or Mac that allows you to "emulate" (play) old arcade games from the 80's and 90's. It actually lets you run the original game exactly as it was written!

A great site for this is Arcade at Home. You can locate the latest Mame code there and then you just need to hunt the web and locate "rom" files. These are the software code that makes the original games work. You can play virtually anything: PacMan, Ms Pacman, Missile Command, Centipede, DigDug, and even my latest favorite... Robotron. I'll write about that later. :) They even have extremely rare and old games that you may have never seen... there are THOUSANDS of games this program can run.

People who really get into it have converted old arcade cabinets into Mame machines. Remove the old hardware of the cabinet and hide a computer inside.. then hook up the joysticks to the computer (they sell interfaces to do this). You can find people selling these on EBay, just search for "mame" or "mame arcade".