David Pogue put out the call a while ago for videos of things that really bothered you about your cellular carrier, and a number of people responded with something that’s a bit of a pet peeve for me, too: the 15 second instructions on how to leave a voice mail message that you can’t turn off and can only skip if you know the right special key. He’s absolutely right, and he puts it like this:

Last week, in The Times and on my blog, I’ve been ranting about one particularly blatant money-grab by U.S. cellphone carriers: the mandatory 15-second voicemail instructions.

Suppose you call my cell to leave me a message. First you hear my own voice: “Hi, it’s David Pogue. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you”–and THEN you hear a 15-second canned carrier message.

…

(You hear a similar message when you call in to hear your own messages. “You. Have. 15. Messages. To listen to your messages, press 1.” WHY ELSE WOULD I BE CALLING?)

I, the voicemailbox owner, cannot turn off this additional greeting message. You, the caller, can bypass it, but only if you know the secret keypress–and it’s different for each carrier. So you’d have to know which cellphone carrier I use, and that of every person you’ll ever call; in other words, this trick is no solution.

…

These messages are outrageous for two reasons. First, they waste your time. Good heavens: it’s 2009. WE KNOW WHAT TO DO AT THE BEEP.

Do we really need to be told to hang up when we’re finished!? Would anyone, ever, want to “send a numeric page?” Who still carries a pager, for heaven’s sake? Or what about “leave a callback number?” We can SEE the callback number right on our phones!

Second, we’re PAYING for these messages. These little 15-second waits add up–bigtime. If Verizon’s 70 million customers leave or check messages twice a weekday, Verizon rakes in about $620 million a year. That’s your money. And your time: three hours of your time a year, just sitting there listening to the same message over and over again every year.

In 2007, I spoke at an international cellular conference in Italy. The big buzzword was ARPU–Average Revenue Per User. The seminars all had titles like, “Maximizing ARPU In a Digital Age.” And yes, several attendees (cell executives) admitted to me, point-blank, that the voicemail instructions exist primarily to make you use up airtime, thereby maximizing ARPU.

Right now, the carriers continue to enjoy their billion-dollar scam only because we’re not organized enough to do anything about it. But it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to sit there, waiting to leave your message, listening to a speech recorded by a third-grade teacher on Ambien.

Let’s push back, and hard. We want those time-wasting, money-leaking messages eliminated, or at least made optional.

He’s absolutely right, and those long annoying intros (even worse when coupled with someone who has a really long voicemail intro message) have got to go…or at least we should be granted the option to turn them off. I’ve already lodged a complaint with Verizon about this – and thanks to David’s article, I now know which buttons to press to get around the long intros…as long as I know which carrier the person I’m calling is using, which is all but impossible if you make a lot of calls.

Pogue is right though – this is all about airtime and making sure you drain as many minutes doing mundane things not associated with what you actually want to do as possible. It’s silly, it needs to stop, and frankly – it is 2009 – we all know how to leave someone a voicemail. In fact, a lot of people are predicting that voicemail as a technology is on its last legs.

In any event, hop on the campaign and let your carrier know you’re displeased too. Find out how to make your voice heard and tell the cellular companies that we’re taking back the beep at Pogue’s blog below:

[ The New York Times :: Take Back the Beep Campaign ]

Anyone who’s ever lived in a city knows that their town has a heartbeat- a kind of sound about it that just makes you think about it; and since music is so closely tied to our memories and feelings about everything, including the place we live, CitySounds has put together playlists for various cities around the world that they feel really captures the soul, energy, and vibe of the town.

The music is hosted at SoundCloud, but the playlists are ever evolving and ever growing, and some cities feature music from artists who actually live and are from the places where their playlists are from.

My only complaint is there’s no playlist for Washington, DC, but that could change at any time. The folks behind CitySounds note that new playlists are uploaded and added every day, so it’s likely just a matter of time before your city is included, if you live next to a major metro area. In the meantime though you can enjoy the sounds of cities like Amsterdam, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, New York, even Geneva.

Head over and see if you can find your town – if not, try a city that you already know and love, and see if you agree with the track selection.

[ CitySounds ]

Every year, the fine folks at PC Mag put together a list of their top 100 Web sites of the year, including some classic hits that we all have bookmarked and have for ages, along with some undiscovered newcomers that are making waves and turning into popular blogs, Web services, or apps. The list is always chock full of great sites and worthy bookmarks; this year is no different.

Among some of the classics? Predictable names like Digg, The New York Times, and Slate dominate the news category, and you’ll find well known sites like BoingBoing, Hulu, and The Onion in the fun category.

Engadget, Lifehacker, and PC Mag itself light up the Tech category, and you can find Kayak, Mint, and Snopes live in the information category.

All of those sites are pretty well known, which explains why they dominate the Classic categories, but there are some real interesting finds in the Undiscovered categories.

For example, you’ll find newcomers like 148 Apps, a mobile app directory, and newcomer gdgt in the Tech category, and Grooveshark (which I happened to write a review of at AppScout), Awkward Family Photos, and 1000 Awesome Things in the Fun category.

Over in the Info category, you’ll find some newcomers like Legistalker (and my review), Still Tasty (and my review), and Wise Bread.

All in all, you can expect good things from the list, and you’ll do yourself a favor by trolling through it and clicking on the ones that interest you. If you love them all, or just want to add them all to your bookmarks and sort through them later, the editors have a downloadable app that will automatically add them all to your bookmarks list for you.

[ PC Mag :: Top 100 Web Sites of 2009 ]

Just when you thought you’d never mourn Clippy. Well done, Microsoft, well done. Full size HD video is here!

If you’re looking for storage and portability, who needs a clunky USB hard drive that requires an external power supply? If money is no object, Kensington recently released what they’re dubbing the “World’s Largest USB Flash Drive,” the DataTraveler 300, weighing in at a remarkable 256GB, all on a USB flash drive that looks as big as USB flash drives did about 5 years ago.

The drive is currently only available in Europe, and even if you wanted one it’s ridiculously expensive: almost $1000 US. If you have the cash for something like this, you probably already know how to go about getting one.

That being said, Kingston is already playing down the possibility that people will carry their resumes and a few of their favorite songs around their neck on this thing – the company claims this is for serious data storage and is designed to replace reams of CDs and DVDs or entire media libraries.

While I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of my entire music collection living on a USB flash drive, I can see the draw here – imagine an IT professional who can carry not just one but their entire array of supported operating systems, tools, and even whole disk images on a single USB key, or the musician who can carry one device with all of their original tracks, edits, and recordings in their pocket? Maybe the video editor who never deletes anything and has a desk full of power-sucking external hard drives can use this one device instead. I think those are Kensington’s target markets – and they’re right about one thing: it’s remarkable how far technology has come in such a short time.

[ Cult of Mac :: Kensington Launches World’s Biggest USB Thumb Drive ]

If you’re a fan of the Showtime hit series Dexter like many of my friends are, the bag pictured above should look pretty familiar to you. If you’re obsessed with the show, you’ll want it just because it’s in the show – if you’re not terrible obsessed but you’ve watched the show, you’ll notice that it’s a pretty nice bag! If you’ve never watched the show at all, take my word for it, it’s a really nice bag.

Aside from being perfect to carry a laptop in (in the show, Dexter has a Macbook Pro, so you can be sure your 15″ laptop will fit without a problem) the Oakley SI Computer Bag is made of ballistics nylon, sports a padded laptop sleeve, has a wealth of pockets along the front for chargers and other accessories, and has custom D-rings around the front and sides so you can attach whatever handles or other accessories you choose to it.

The only down side? The Oakley name and all of those wonderful features come with a price: $179 at Zappos. It’s certainly no $50 cheapy laptop carrier, but you do get what you pay for. I adore my Timbuk2 laptop bag and don’t think I’ll replace it soon, but if you’re in the market for a new laptop bag and want one with style and substance, this is a good fit. Plus, you can be the envy of all your Dexter watching friends!

[ Zappos: The Oakley SI Computer Bag ]

I desperately want one of these – Chrono Trigger fans will look at these and instantly love them; but frankly anyone who loves video games or just appreciates good design will probably fall in love with this shirt. I could even see some steampunk lovers picking this shirt up just because it has gears on it, but for those of us who know and love Chrono Trigger, this shirt is a must-have. Depending on the size you choose, the shirts run between $18 to $21.

The shirts are fan-made and gorgeous, and available at Fangamer; the only thing you have to do now is decide which style you want. Much love to Offworld for the tip-off to these beauties.

[ Fangamer :: Chrono Trigger Tribute Shirts ]

(image courtesy of Lifehacker!)

The fine folks at Lifehacker posted an interesting feature a few days ago on how to crack wireless networks – the previous tutorial focused on some particular apps and a lot of command-line fu, but this time around a few easy to obtain apps and a computer that’’s portable enough to take with you to the network you want to crack and you may be able to find your way onto any wireless network you choose – provided there’s enough traffic on it to crack its WEP key.

In this article, they cover my favorite, KisMAC, a fantastic utility for Mac OS that does exactly what you want it to do with so little fuss you could give it to an inexperienced user to figure out – but if you do understand what’s going on under the hood, it’s even more powerful.

[ Lifehacker :: WEP Cracking Redux: Beyond the Command Line ]

There’s been a simmering flamewar on tech news blogs, forums, and e-mail distribution lists for years: will Google ever release an operating system? The debate has gone both ways:

On the one hand: “Never ever would Google release an operating system to compete with the likes of Microsoft and Apple! They’d shoot themselves in the foot! They already develop for all popular OSes including Linux, why would they build their own?”

On the other: “It makes perfect sense for thin client computing! Google already makes apps for just about every possible use, an OS would bring them all together! Google has the know-how and development prowess to make it happen, even if it’s a reskinned distro of Linux!”

The argument was put to rest today when Google announced the Chrome OS, scheduled to ship in late 2010. There are still tons of questions around the OS and exactly what platform it’s designed for, but most people assume it’ll be a desktop compliment to Android on the mobile side (or perhaps, as PC Mag’s Sascha Segan pointed out on Twitter, an excuse not to bring a decent browsing experience to Android) and will likely be targeted at netbooks and thin clients where Windows XP is a resource hog, Mac OS isn’t really present, Windows 7 is anticipated, and Linux (sadly) is largely ignored or disliked.

So what does Google do when it appears there are no great OS options on a platform? They come to the rescue with their own and do it themselves. They did the same thing with the mobile platform (even though they’re off to a rocky start…or perhaps more accurately limping out of the gate there) but I see what they’re doing. It makes sense for Google to launch their own OS, and the innovation that they will (hopefully) bring to the table may spark Microsoft and Apple into trimming down dead weight but beefing up features in their own OSes.

At the same time, one has to wonder if there’s any coincidence to Google’s announcement coming right on the heels of Google ripping off the “beta” label from some of their most popular products, like GMail and Google Apps.

[ ExtremeTech :: Google Announces Chrome Operating System ]

[ Wired :: Google Announces PC Operating System to Compete with Windows ]

Government officials reported earlier today that a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack was directed at the Web sites of several US government agencies, and that the attacks likely started after July 4th. Officials have also been able to determine that the attack likely originated from North Korea, and that a botnet of likely over 50,000 infected systems were used to take part in the attack. Here’s the official word:

A botnet composed of about 50,000 infected computers has been waging a war against U.S. government Web sites and causing headaches for businesses in the U.S. and South Korea.

The attack started Saturday, and security experts have credited it with knocking the Web site of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) offline for parts of Monday and Tuesday. Several other government Web sites have also been targeted, including the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).

With that out of the way, many government agencies have been reporting the issue as a major incident, calling it “complex” and “sophisticated,” and it’s kind of disturbing that we’ve learned so little from the greater virus incidents earlier in the decade to use those adjectives to describe this. The attacks have been on-going, and definitely have utilized a modestly sized botnet, but this type of work indicates a potency and level of effort that I think we’ve come to expect from North Korea in other regards: good for getting our attention, but not for much else.

DDoS attacks are relatively harmless when the target doesn’t drive revenue from its Web site or services, and are fairly easy to orchestrate. Additionally, there’s no indication that the North Koreans were responsible for amassing the botnet, were hijacking someone else’s, or perhaps worst of all (but most likely) were customers of a hacker-for-hire ring, some of which are known to sell or rent their botnets to anyone with some spare cash.

There will likely be calls for the US government to strengthen its cybersecurity posture after these attacks, and while I invite any money being invested in technology security, disaster recovery, and business continuity by any organization, I hope logic wins the day against fear.