Personal Technology Tips in Plain English
Archive for January, 2007
How to turn off call waiting, caller id block, and other Verizon calling features
Jan 5th
It’s a such funny world these days.
Privacy is something many of us guard — like we have unlisted telephone numbers so that they are not printed in phone book. Or…Verizon also lets you set-up Caller ID block — where YOUR caller ID is blocked from being shown to the person you are calling.
Yet at the same time I’m sure a lot of people that use these privacy features also instruct Verizon to turn on “anonymous call rejection” — meaning, you won’t take their call if they do the same thing to you! You want to be private, but won’t accept others that want the same thing too! 
Once in awhile, the person you’re calling is smart as you and has turned on anonymous call rejection — which means that if you want to ring their phone, then you have to first TURN OFF your caller id block before calling them. But how do you do that? You run into this so infrequently that you forget the “* code” for Verizon to toggle this feature on and off.
Here’s how, plus some of the other popular Star Codes for Verizon:
|
IF YOU SUBSCRIBE |
TURN ON |
TURN OFF |
|
ALL Outbound Caller ID Block |
*67 |
*82 |
|
Per Call Outbound Caller ID Block |
*67 |
automatically turns off after you hang up |
|
*69 Call Return |
*69 |
*89 |
|
Anonymous Call Rejection |
*77 |
*87 |
|
Busy Redial |
*66 |
*86 |
|
Call Forwarding |
72# |
73# |
|
Call Waiting |
Click Hookswitch |
*70 |
|
Speed Dial 8 |
*74 |
|
|
Speed Dial 30 |
*75 |
|
|
3-way Calling |
Call 1st party. Click Hookswitch & get dial tone. Call 2nd party. Click Hookswitch after 2nd party is connected. |
Either of 2 parties can hang-up and remaining 2 parties will continue conversation. If call originator hangs-up, all conversations will end. |
Where’s My Passport?
Jan 3rd
We’re just back from our Christmas vacation, but guess what, it was so hectic, that now we really need a vacation.
So we’re looking forward to our real spring vacation in the sun. However, since we’re crossing our own borders, we found out that we all need a passport now…
Beginning January 23, 2007, ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling by air between the United States and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda will be required to present a valid passport.
That means that TONS of new passport applications and renewal request will be flooding the system.
But guess what? Uncle Sam is getting digital and customer-friendly!
You can check the STATUS OF YOUR PASSPORT APPLICATION online! No humans involved (except you!).
Bon Voyage!
Get Out Of The Country! (Wait, you need a passport photo!)
Jan 3rd
If one of your resolutions for this next year is to be a jetsetter, you’d better be ready with a Passport in hand. Instead of heading over to CVS and paying them a whopping $7.99 for passport photos, do it yourself for 50 cents!
You can easily take a photo yourself with your digital camera at home.
The US Department of State website gives 7 clear rules for the perfect passport photo. Basically, you just have to take it on a clean, white or off-white background and make sure it’s a nice clear headshot.
You can also download all the Passport Application forms and avoid the long lines at the post office as well!
Now all you need is the print out the photos to the correct size. Forget about re-sizing, editing, cropping, etc.
Just hop over to ePassportPhoto.com to auto-generate perfect photos to print out!
You can upload any photo from your own computer, rotate, crop, etc and then it will auto size it and layout the photos so that you can easily print out a 4×6 photo at home or at the store.
I printed the 2 required passport photos out for $0.25 at CVS (you need 2, but the 4×6 photo generated gives you more than two)!
They looked so good that when I brought up the photo to pay for it at the register, they initially tried to charge me $7.99 for my DIY photos (that is the price of THEIR regular passport photos)!
My clerk was so confused how I could walk-out with passport photos for only 25 cents…and don’t forget that you can upload the final photo to Shutterfly or Kodak EasyShare Gallery – they both offer free prints promotionally, so it could be totally free!
Hey, once you submit your passport application, you’ll probably want to know when you’ll actually get the finished passport back, right? Usually you’ll receive it within 6 weeks, but just to be sure, the US Department of State has set-up an on-line passport application status check.
QUESTION: WHAT COUNTRY ARE YOU TRAVELING TO NEXT? (OR WANT TO TRAVEL TO NEXT?)
Essistme.com esssitme.com essisstme.com e-ssistme.com
Jan 1st
The correct spelling is essistme.com, however, when I type really fast, sometimes I fumble and type the wrong url.
Usually I don’t care what you call me as long as you’re calling me. But sometimes Google needs you to type the correct spelling and it won’t suggest anyting. Oh well.
You found it. Now bookmark it!
I love tech, gadgets and the web. Hope you pick-up a useful tip or two here today that helps you use technology to your advantage! Better yet, why not share your own expertise in a comment on a post today to help the other readers that land here for answers!