I hate checking voicemail. Maybe as much as I hate going to the ATM or stopping to get gas. One of the things I hate about checking voicemail is the whole surprise factor. I never know who the heck I’m going to have to listen ramble on. Call me crazy, but it’s just one of the simple tasks I just truly hate to do. In my mind I’ve been wanting visual voicemail since I acquired my very first cell phone. I also wish I had this feature at work. Checking my work voicemail is the WORST - it’s like daggers in the eyes… (hint hint to all capable developers - this would be AWESOME)..

In one of my many web surfing journeys I ran across a service called YouMail. YouMail is a FREE visual voicemail service and they say they intend on keeping this basic service free (you go YouMail creators). So I’ve been using it for one week now and I really like it. Here are some of the YouMail features.

1. You sign up for YouMail (very easy process) and the calls you don’t answer get forwarded to your YouMail account instead of your wireless carrier voicemail system. It’s honestly that simple.

2. You can retrieve your email via dialing the voicemail number, or by going online to youmail.com or via your smartphone. You can also have your voicemails sent to you via email and/or text message. I have my voicemails sent via email and I click on the play message button (certain numbers of my mom’s mobile number have been oranged out).

3. You can even share your voicemail, which I think is pretty cool.

4. They have a feature called “Ditchmail”, which ditches unwanted callers. Ditchmail hangs up on unwanted callers before they can even leave a voicemail (I LOVE IT!!!). I think we’ve all had the experience of giving our number to someone (an ex- boyfriend, old friend, sales rep, etc) we truly wish we hadn’t. I recently did. I made the stupid stupid stupid mistake of giving my mobile number to a car dealership, but thanks to Ditchmail; I no longer have to be bothered by their unwanted phone calls (in your face Infinity of Tysons).

5. You can also set up different greetings for different callers. So your friends can hear a different greeting than your family and your boss and/or clients can also have their own greeting.

For this to be a FREE service, I think you get a lot AND if you hate the checking voicemail task as much as I do; you’ll find YouMail to be a pleasant relief to that daunting task.

I heard Adobe was going to release a free limited version of Photoshop. I signed up for it to take a peak to see what is has to offer. I’d first like to say that the layout for Photoshop Express is very attractive; actually it’s kinda sexy. Anyway, I started test driving Photoshop Express and the first RED FLAG I found was the fact that I could NOT upload psd, gif, png, or tiff files; only jpg files. This did not please me, but I went ahead and uploaded a jpg file and moved on.

The next thing I wanted to test was the resizing and cropping features. Second RED FLAG: when you choose to resize the image using one of the set sizing aspects, it chops off the dang image. Whereas in Photoshop, if you change the image size settings; the image remains in tact, it does not get chopped off. This sort of annoyed me. This is a simple task. Resizing an image should not be rocket science.

I didn’t try anything else within Photoshop Express. I glanced a the effects they have to offer and what not, but Photoshop Express is clearly not the product for me. I’m a Photoshop professional girl and I and need the full Photoshop package; the layers, filters, effects, various file type compatiblities, etc, etc. But I guess, it’s a good start. Photoshop Express is a heck of a first try though. I’ll give Adobe that much. It could turn out to be an excellent photo editing tool for the complete novice. We shall see.