Get free SMS text messages on your iPhone

Tired of paying for SMS text messages? Have an iPhone? Well you came to the right place.

First off, this process requires that you have Push Notifications enabled on your iPhone, and a Google Voice account (more information). If you already have a GV account, skip step 1.

1. Sign up for a Google Voice invite (or email me, I have one left). It may be minutes, hours, or days until your invitation arrives - Google is still working through their invitation process. Once you do receive your invitation, ensure that you sign up for a Google number (here's why). For more information on how to properly activate Google Voice with a Google number, go here.
   
   
2. Download the Boxcar application onto your iPhone (it's free)
   
   
3. Open Boxcar on your iPhone, go to Settings (upper-left), go to Add/Edit Services, hit the + sign, go to Email Account, call it whatever you please (mine is called Google SMS), choose your settings (mine are Sound:Default, Badge Updates off, Private Alerts off). Hit Save (upper right). Hit Done.
   
   
4. Now go to the service you just created and you'll see your custom forwarding address at the bottom. Touch Your Forwarding Address is: and email the address to yourself.
   
   
5. Go to Gmail and open the email from Boxcar containing this custom forwarding address. Select the address and Copy it (control+C, or right-click > copy)
   
   
6. Go to your Gmail forwarding settings and click the button next to Forward a copy of incoming mail to: and Paste (control+V, or right-click > paste) the address that you just copied. Ensure that keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox is appears to the right. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.
   
   
7. This will send a verification code to Boxcar, which will appear on your iPhone. Go back to Gmail forwarding settings and enter this code into the box next to Verify [your custom forwarding address] and click Verify
   
   
8. Go to Gmail filters (click the link), click on Create new filter at the bottom, and at the top next to From: type txt.voice.google.com and click Next Step
   
   
9. Check the box in front of Forward it to: (Your boxcar custom forwarding address should appear in the box). Click Create Filter.
   
   
10. (Optional) Now go back to your Gmail forwarding settings and click the button next to disable forwarding at the top. This will prevent all of your emails being forwarded to your iPhone - some people may want to leave forwarding enabled if they wish to receive a Push Notification (popup) for every new email (I don't)

You're done. If you have your GV account already, test it out: Go to your GV account and send an SMS to your own Google number. This should result in you receiving an email in your Gmail Inbox with the message that you just sent. This should also result in a popup on your iPhone with the message - just like a normal SMS message sent over the cellular network.

Three cheers for Google for providing this service, and an equal number of cheers for Boxcar for providing a free way to get popup email notifications.

Questions? Email me at mike@kerfeld.com

This Makes Me Sick (Part 4... 5...... I lost count)

U.S. Senators Seek ATM Fee Cap at 50 Cents - WSJ.com

'"It's unfair for people to pay that much to access their own cash," Mr. Harkin said.'

There is much wrong with that statement. It would be unfair if, say, there was one bank with a monopoly on the market. But, luckily we participate in a market economy where banks are free to compete with each other. As such, there are banks that will offer to pay your ATM fees for you. I've been taking advantage of this, and enjoy seeing a $5-$10 deposit go back into my account at the end of each month. It's all automatic, it's all online, and it's all thanks to Schwab Checking. I can use any ATM in the US and have the fee reimbursed.

Another point - who is to say what constitutes a "fair" price to use an ATM? Did you accuse Apple of charging "unfair" prices before you bought your new iPhone?

Lastly, banks provide ATMs to consumers so that they may access their cash without having to visit a branch. This is called a convenience. Normally, consumers pay a premium to use services that are convenient. But, Mr. Harkin thinks it's unfair.

Now, if you want to talk about unfair, why don't we discuss how senators spend the salaries, benefit monies, and travel stipends supplied by taxpayers? I wonder if Mr. Harkin would characterize those activities, too, as unfair.

MK

Senators vs. Goldman

(reprint from the Wall Street Journal)

Senators vs. Goldman
The committee members fumble toward finding the real villains.

If an investor buys shares in General Electric, and then GE's stock declines in the future, is the New York Stock Exchange to blame? What if the investor chooses to purchase the shares through TD Ameritrade or Charles Schwab? Is the broker also responsible for the losses?

Senators interrogating Goldman Sachs executives yesterday appear to believe the firm has a duty to protect all of its institutional trading partners from making bad decisions. Such protection has never been extended even to mom-and-pop investors of course, and for good reason. Yet much of the Beltway class, looking back at the financial crisis, now believes that gamblers who bet their money on an always-inflating housing bubble are the real victims.

Yesterday's hearing of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations came in the wake of a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit accusing Goldman of fraud. The SEC case concerns a 2007 transaction arranged by Goldman in which John Paulson's hedge fund bet that subprime mortgage-backed securities would decline, while institutional investors IKB and ACA bet they would rise.

The SEC claims that Goldman's Fabrice Tourre misled ACA into thinking Mr. Paulson's firm would be going long on subprime, just like ACA. It's not clear that this would have mattered, but Mr. Tourre flatly denied the allegation under oath yesterday.

The SEC also claims Goldman should have disclosed that Mr. Paulson's firm suggested some of the particular mortgage-backed securities on which the two sides in the transaction would bet. Yet Mr. Tourre testified that the pool referenced in the transaction performed no worse than similar pools of subprime loans not included in the transaction.

In sum, it appeared to be another bad day for the SEC's specific case against Goldman. But lawmakers seemed intent on finding the firm generally guilty of meeting institutional demand for subprime housing risk.

We're not sure which of the politicians at yesterday's Senate hearing did the most to confuse spectators. Investigations subcommittee chairman Carl Levin of Michigan seemed unaware of the difference between a market-maker, whose role is to offer prices at which a client may buy or sell a given asset, and an investment adviser, whose role is to act in the interests of the client as a fiduciary.

Ranking member Susan Collins of Maine showed that she understood the difference, yet still decided to badger the market makers at Goldman Sachs to admit they weren't acting as fiduciaries. Of course they weren't, as their sophisticated institutional customers would have known. Noticeably absent were any of these alleged victims who in 2007 were happily chasing yield and hoping to enrich themselves off subprime housing.

Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri veered closer to the truth when she described Goldman's facilitation of trading in mortgage-related instruments as "pure gambling" and told the executives: "and you are the house."

This was a valuable contribution. It reminded spectators that the transactions getting all of the attention—synthetic collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)—did not contain any mortgages. These were side bets. One could argue, as an astute reader did in a recent letter to the Editor, that investors like Mr. Paulson may even have helped reduce the impact of the housing crisis because they allowed stupid housing bulls to make their bets without actually creating any more bad loans.

If yesterday's hearing had any value, it was the recognition, even by the Senate inquisitors, of the real root causes of the crisis: too many bad mortgage loans with poor underwriting, and too many pools of these bad loans carrying a triple-A rating. Exploring the creation of junk loans should lead Senate investigators to the same place where most of the taxpayer losses are occurring—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Former Fannie Mae Chief Credit Officer Edward Pinto calculates that as of June 2008, the toxic twins and other government entities were responsible for more than $2.7 trillion in subprime and Alt-A mortgage exposure. Goldman's mortgage business was small potatoes in comparison; in fact this figure is three times Goldman's entire balance sheet.

The Senate's pending financial-regulation bill has no reform of Fannie and Freddie. Fresh off their meeting yesterday with the marketplace, the committee members might start on the road to useful reform by insisting on a rewrite.

Not a bad view III

Not a bad view III, originally uploaded by kerphotography.

Went to St. Thomas over New Years

Conversing

I've come to a (potentially overblown) realization that conversations can come down to two simple categories:

Life-maintaining

Life-changing

There are obviously multitudes of the former in our everyday lives, but the latter are the real game-changers.

IBL

CIMG1626, originally uploaded by Kerphotography.

Finally getting around to uploading all of my Israel photos. Some, but not all, feature me in pretty heroic poses..

@Mom's

@Mom's, originally uploaded by Kerphotography.

Mowed my first lawn in years, but took time to grab a couple shots of the fall scenery

Pongin'

Pongin', originally uploaded by Kerphotography.

Grabbed some action shots the other night

Oakland Cemetery Halloween Tour

Oakland Cemetery Halloween Tour, originally uploaded by Kerphotography.

Questionable Government Allocation of Resources

I'm watching a grilling of NASA executives that will be pivotal in determining if our nation's space agency is to receive the necessary funding to move forward with the Ares launch.

It is simply appalling to me that our media and government applies such strict scrutiny and skepticim to something at the center of human progress, yet is willing to shell out billions to financial institutions that have played a part in destroying our economic system.

At its core, NASA exists to explore the unknown. If you follow the money, it appears that there is a question that this purpose isn't more crucial to the human race's progress and existence than the purpose of banks and other financial institutions. That disgusts me.

Irena Sendler

Inspirational story, for sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irena_Sendler

http://www.nysun.com/national/nobel-prize-is-sought-for-polish-heroine/47560

Convenient Truth?

I've dabbled in climate change before, but never really taken it upon myself to do research and come to my own conclusions. After seeing An Inconvenient Truth, I was convinced.

However, there is an opposing viewpoint, and it should be taken seriously. This video pretty much sums it up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFK-UTGH1Zw

One interesting point worth.. um.. pointing out is that Al Gore cites the IPCC's opinion as the final word on the matter of scientific opinion. Is it not curious though, why he could cite the opinion of a governmental organization that was created to measure the effect of human activity on climate change?

If someone gave me funding and told me to find a relationship between eating chocolate and prevention of Swine Flu, I bet I could find one.

IMG_1049

IMG_1049, originally uploaded by Kerphotography.

Went to Southern Fried Smackdown on Sunday to witness Nashville v. Atlanta.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.