On Wednesday night I learned a pretty cool trick at the .NET Usergroup meeting when Jon von Gillern was giving his presentation on RegEx.  When selecting text in some applications like Visual Studio if you hold down the ALT key you can select a vertical column.

     This is one of those things that you would probably never know about unless someone told you, so now you know.

    If you haven't been keeping an eye on Google labs then you have missed the new entry of Google 411.  Simply call 1-800-GOOG-411 and get business directory listing for any city and state.  I have tried it several times and it works fairly well.  It free and doesn't even have any ads so it's hard to complain about it.  It's all based on voice prompts and will even dial the number for you. (This means be careful if you're goofing around and looking up things like the White House.) Currently it just has business listings, but I hope that they will soon add listings for people. As far as I am aware this is Google's first step out of the computer world and into a seperate type of market.  Atleast as far as I know everything else at Google you access with a computer.  The arena makes complete sense for Google though since it is all about data and they have lots of it.  Where I would really like to see Google go next is tv listings.  It's all just data as well and with Zap2it not providing a free feed after Sept 1st it leaves a hole in the US market to be filled.  GIve Google 411 a try and let me know what you think.

    If you've been watching closely today you saw that Google acquired GrandCentral.com.  This site allows to get a phone number and then have that number routed to any number of other phone numbers you want such as cell, work, or home depending on rules you define.  It has a host of other features as well such as recording the conversation and sending individuals you're trying to dodge directly to voicemail.  I came across GrandCentral a few months ago and have been tempted to try it out, but I haven't had a chance to. If you're using it, let me know what you think about it.