Magic Jack USB device

After assuring me that it was not spam, she went on to talk about this little USB device that you can plug into a computer, then plug a telephone into it and make all the free local and long distance phone calls you like.  You even get a free phone number of the area code of your choosing.

Jean is the person who keeps Billy Mays and other TV ad men in business, buying that ten dollar whiz-bang device, then paying six dollars shipping on each of the eight "free" things he sends with it.  We have a drawer full of useless devices that either quickly broke or never functioned well.

So, when she told me about Magic Jack, to say I was sckeptical would be an understatement.  But having been recently chastised for failing to use our eighty-three-digit-long code for five cents a minute phone calls, I was in a defensive position, and so acquiesed and agreed to look into it.

Unable to find an excuse not to purchase the Magic Jack other than their terrible website, hokey home-video and the fact that they hide the price until after you've filled out your life history, I pulled out my credit card and paid the forty dollars.

The thing arrived promptly in the mail and I plugged it into a computer and waited for the software to self-install.  It did not.  I then followed the instructions they give for when things don't work right.  Still did not have a working phone.  Finally, I went to their website, ran their "fix" program and downloaded their latest software.

Ring, ring!!  Now we were cooking!

We do business throughout the State of Oklahoma, and a lot of it comes from Oklahoma City, yet we have a different area code.  So I chose a 405 area code for our new phone number.

You can take the Magic Jack with you and use it with your laptop, but be ready to go through installation hell with each install.

It's worth it though.  No more long distance phone bills.  No more eighty-digit codes to dial to use your WalMart long distance card. The only caveat - you have to have a broadband internet connection.

Quality?  It's a heck of a lot better than my cell phone, not quite as good as our regular phones, but not far from them either.  If a regular phone is a "10", then my cell phone is a 4 or 5 and my Magic Jack phone is an 8.

If you need to serve an area that has an area code different from your own; if you travel and need clearer phone service than your cell phone and want to avoid using your cell minutes; if you're tired of paying long distance charges - then Magic Jack is for you.  Check 'em out at www.MagicJack.com