Internet Bubbles

It seems people once again are catching the internet technology bug. Good news for us, but is the internet "Boom 2.0" going to Bust 2.0? We started this company at the tail end of the big internet bust because we saw a need for an effective use of technology. While all the broke investors hung their heads low with their companies that provided little more than glitter, we delivered solutions. The bust didn't scare us then and the inevitable chatter over there being a second bust after this new boom is no different.

Free VoIP to Landline Calls for Life... Kinda.

According to a recent announcement on their website, Skype rival Gizmo is now offering free calling to land line and mobile phones in 60 countries! What's the catch? The land line or mobile phone must be owned by an active Gizmo Project user. So although you'd be able to call from your Internet phone to your buddy's land line or mobile, you'd have to still get all your friends to sign up for the Gizmo Project.

This begs the question: What's stopping someone from just saying they own all these numbers that their buddy needs to call? Well, you can only enter two numbers into the interface as your own: Home Phone and Mobile Phone. So unless you want to go changing these numbers around every time your buddy wants to make a call, you'll just have to take the honest route.

These Gizmo guys make their money off of any outbound calls you make to people who aren't Gizmo Project members (for 1.0¢/min), and off of those who purchase "Call In" numbers (basically a phone number you can give out for unlimited inbound-calls to your Gizmo) for as little as $3/month.

Digg it
Read: engadget

New Google Maps

Ok, so it's not a *huge* change from the previous version, but it seems Google Maps got a facelift, today. I haven't seen hardly any press on this as of yet. Below are some other changes I've noticed. Some of these may be simply things I didn't notice until now:

1. The pretty new "tabs" under the search bar for Search the map, Find businesses, and Get directions.
2. More useful instructions when finding places, such as "by the Perimeter Mall" in the first result of this search.
3. You can now use the mouse wheel and buttons, as reported in this digg article.

If there's other things I've missed, please comment and let us know!

Welcome to the Fam!

We've recently hired several new developers which we just realized we never announced!

Greg Bean - An uncageable intellect, Mr. Bean got into programming at a young age because his dad was a programmer, so Greg has been programming custom sockets since his youth. When I went in for our initial interview at the local coffee shop, I passed Greg reading on the stairs and thought to myself, "Man, wouldn't it be cool to work with that guy? There's no way he's a programmer, though." Greg doesn't just think out of the box, he lives outside of it: The perfect addition to the Grinn Productions team.

Brett Kirkland - Although we were initially concerned about Brett being able to give our projects ample attention while working as the Senior System Developer for a certain well-known soft drink manufacturer and tending to his wife and four kids -- Brett has proved himself by hitting the ground running. His code is wonderfully crafted with artful precision. We thank you for being here, Brett!

Dallas Moore - The newest addition to our team, Dallas been programming since before most .NET developers graduated from High School. Being "in the game" for such a long period of time has given Dallas an honest, no-nonsense view of software development as a whole. We're sure there are invaluable lessons for all of us to learn from you, Dallas.