How to Get a US Phone Number

This tutorial describes how you may easily get your own US phone number from anywhere in the world without spending a penny.

Once you have a US local phone number, your friends and relatives in the US will be able to dial you from their landline or regular cell phones without paying international rates. The calls can be forwarded to your mobile phone or desktop based VoIP softphones (also see: Make phone calls over the Internet).

[*] Skype also offers a service called Skype-In (also known as Online Number) where you can get a local phone number for USA but it costs around $18 for 3 months.

Getting your own USA Phone Number – Step by Step

Step 1: Sign-up for a free account with CallCentric.com and click continue. CallCentric will send you a confirmation mail to verify your email address.

Step 2: Once you’ve verified the email address, provide your city and country code, agree to the terms and conditions and click “Sign me up.”

Step 3: CallCentric will now provide you with a virtual tour of their websites. Skip it and choose – “Go to My CallCentric.” The next screen will list your CallCentric # in the format 1777** – copy that number to the clipboard.

Step 4: Open a new browser tab and go to phone.ipkall.com. Set the account type as SIP and paste the CallCentric # from the clipboard into the field that says SIP Username. The hostname is in.callcentric.com and choose the same email address and password that you used while setting up your CallCentric account.

[*] The default area code for your local US phone number is 253 but you may choose a different one from the drop-down. For this example, I’ll go with 425.

Step 5: Within a minute, you should get an email from ipkall.com with your new local phone number. Keep the email handy as you’ll need it while configuring the SIP client.

Step 6: Now that we have got ourselves a US phone number, let’s activate it.

6a. Download and install Express Talk on your computer. The trial version is good enough for our task. Make sure that you don’t install any of the “optional components” like toolbars, etc. during the setup.

6b. During installation, choose the default options for all the wizard screens. When you are on “SIP Setup,” choose “Yes, I already have a SIP account” and click Next. Fill the SIP details as in Step 4 above. Finish the setup.

6c. Once the setup is complete, go back to your My CallCentric page and refresh it. You should see a notification saying – “your phone is registered.” Done!

Screenshots Tour – Getting a US Number

   
   

Next steps – You can now grab a SIP VoIP client for your mobile phone and configure it with your new CallCentric /ipKall number. Most Nokia Symbian phones can be configured for SIP without external apps or just search for “SIP phone” in iTunes or the Android marketplace.

Popular mobile app Fring is free and also supports SIP but for some reason, I couldn’t get it to work with CallCentric’s SIP server.

What Programs are Accessing the Internet?

You only have a couple of websites open on your screen and yet the data activity light of the modem / router is constantly flashing indicating that one or more programs are actively uploading or downloading data from the Internet.

How can you easily find out which programs on your computer are accessing the Internet and what websites are they connecting to?

You have quite a few options. If you are on Windows 7 or Vista, you can use the built-inPerformance monitor utility to see a list of all running processes that are currently accessing the Internet.

Alternatively, if you are on a different version of Windows or want something less complex, try TCPEye 1.0. This is a free network monitoring utility that creates a self-updating list of all processes that are currently using your network connection.

What makes TCPEye a bit different is that it also lists the websites / servers that the programs are communicating with and the location (country) where those servers are located. Most other network monitoring tools only mention IP addresses and thus it is up to the user to determine the underlying server name.

If you notice an unwanted connection or a suspicious entry in the TCPEye log, just right click to end the process. Tech-savvy users may also use the netstat command to get similar information.

Share the same Keyboard and Mouse with Multiple Computers

My current work setup is something like this – I have two desktop computers, each running Windows, and they are both connected over LAN. Each of these machines have separate monitors but they share the same wireless keyboard and mouse – thus the desk looks less cluttered and I can quickly switch between the two computers.

This can be done is multiple ways.

There’s a simple hardware device called the KVM switch that is helpful when your computers aren’t connected over a network. With a KVM Switch, you can easily manage multiple computers (CPUs) with just one monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

The idea is a simple. The switch has USB ports where you may attach the shared keyboard and mouse. Then connect the switch and your computers using the included cables and you are good to go. Most switches have a button to help you flip between computers.

KVM switches even make it possible for you share the same set of microphones and speakers with multiple computers. And it doesn’t matter whether your computers are running Windows, Mac or a mix of both.

Software Alternatives to KVM Switches

If you are not too keen on a hardware based solution and if your systems are connected with each other over LAN, all you need is copy of Input Director, a Windows-only utility that’s easy to configure and is absolutely free for personal use.

As a first step, you need to install the Input Director software on all your machines. The computer that is physically connected to the keyboard and mouse becomes the “Master” machine while other systems will be known as “Slave” machines. Here’s a detailed guideto help you through with the installation.

The good thing about using a software based solution is that you can seamlessly switchbetween computers without having to press any buttons as in the case of KVM switches.

There are however a few points you need to remember:

1. Never shut down the Master machines without turning off the Slave machine first because then you would lose access to the keyboard and the mouse as well.

2. Don’t disable networking in Windows while the keyboard /mouse is active on the Slave side else you’ll have to restart the Master to regain control over the mouse and keyboard.

3. There may be instances when your Master machine won’t be able to recognize the Slave(s). In that case, simple right-click the Input Director icon in the system tray and choose “Rescan Slave Systems.”

4. Unlike a VNC software, you can’t drag and drop windows from one computer to another. However, Input Director supports clipboard sharing so you can copy-paste URLs and other text across computers.

Also see: Connect Laptop to your TV

[*] Input Director is for Windows only but if you are work with both Mac and Windows, or if you intend to use the program in a commercial environment, check out Synergy.

[**] If you only want to share a monitor between two computers, you don’t even need a KVM switch. Just connect one computer to the monitor using a VGA cable and the other monitor using the DVI or HDMI cable. You can then switch between computer using a button on the monitor itself.