Like most people my age, I guard my cell phone number closely--so closely that I cut myself off from people with whom I might otherwise want to talk. Some new services, like GrandCentral, give me control that the phone carriers don't by putting a second phone number between callers and me. GrandCentral will let me screen calls and determine who can reach me and when. That's great. But as soon as I call somebody from my cell phone, Caller ID gives me away--and my privacy and control evaporates.

Jangl is a very weird and potentially very useful service that assigns unique phone numbers to relationships. To get the Jangl number to reach me, for example, you would first go to Jangl.com and enter my Jangl ID, which I could have given you at a bar or on a Web site, etc. Then the site would give you a phone number. (In the future, Jangl will also deliver numbers via SMS). When you call that number the first time, you must leave a greeting for me, and if I then accept the call, we're connected. The same number you called is the one I use to call you, too. It's the phone number of our relationship.

The nice thing about this service is that neither you nor I can see each other's actual cell phone numbers. Also, either of us can terminate the relationship and expire the number. Since our actual phone numbers are never exposed to each other, that's it. Game over. Head back to the bar. This is even better than The Rejection Hotline.

The service does change the social dynamic a bit, though: Instead of giving people your number, you give them your Jangl ID. This makes sense on a public Web site, but if you meet somebody, give them an ID code, and say, "Look me up on Jangl, baby," they are either going to be confused, or else get the message: I'm keeping you at a distance.

We've blogged this before, but the service is nearing the open beta stage(the launch party is tonight), and because it's so unusual, I wanted to remind people of it.

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After months of languishing in Best Buy stores, the Samsung MM-A960 (SPH-A960) is now for sale on Sprint's Web site for a fair $79 with service. Though its silver flip-phone design has little pizzazz overall, especially for an EV-DO handset, it does offer a unique circular external display.

Features are a bit more impressive. Inside you'll find Bluetooth, a 1.3-megapixel camera with PictBridge photo printing, a digital media player, a Micro SD card slot, a speakerphone, and speech-to-text dictation. So far our experience with the last feature has been mixed, but we're eager to test it out. Stay tuned.

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GoToWebinar has tools for managing a large audience
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"Webinar." Is that not the ugliest word ever invented? Sadly, it's a good descriptive coinage: A webinar is a seminar conducted over the Web. And here's a new way to walk to talk: Citrix's GoToWebinar, a bulked-up version of the company's GoToMeeting screen-sharing product.

GoToWebinar has a more robust server architecture that is a supposed to be able to handle 1,000 attendees, making it suitable for large online meetings, such as press conferences. The screen-sharing tools in the product will be familiar to GoToMeeting users, but there are important additions to handle the coordination of large online meetings. GoToWebinar has an invitation and registration system, for instance. It will help you send bulk invitations over e-mail, manage the replies, and collect whatever information you want during the process (you can add fields to the registration form). When you are trying to coordinate the attendance of a large number of people, having a tool such as this is a big plus.

During the Web seminar itself, you can see how much of your audience is paying attention. If the GoToWebinar application is not the top window, the audience is probably not paying attention. GoToWebinar shows the organizer a real-time display of the percentage of people who are with you. If the attentiveness of your audience wanes, this may be a reminder to spice things up a bit or kick off a poll or a quiz (just remember to create your poll before the meeting starts; you can't write them on the fly).

After the event, the organizer can get reports listing all of the questions asked (via the messaging system) during the session or even a list of who was paying attention and when.

GoToWebinar is a screen-sharing application, great for PowerPoints and demos. It doesn't handle the voice component or a presentation, though. For that, you'll need to use a telephone conference bridge. GoToWebinar provides a dial-in number when you set up your meeting, which makes it easy for people to listen in to your presentation. Still, I would have preferred at least the option to host or participate in meetings via Skype or other VoIP products.

One other snag: GoToWebinar viewers need to download an application to watch a show. That's archaic--there should be an option for a pure Web-based viewer (see, for example, Vyew).

See also: Webex and Microsoft LiveMeeting.

GoToWebinar is a capable and serious presentation tool, and it's priced accordingly. The service is $99 per month to host all the seminars you can handle.

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To go on a proper energy diet, first you'd have to measure the power consumed around the house, outlet by outlet. Just like counting calories, that would take all the fun out of gobbling up electricity. But if you're really geeked about saving money and greening your home, then you might follow the lead of one Silicon Valley engineer who crusaded around his apartment with the Kill-a-Watt energy meter, measuring the appetite of nearly every appliance.

Eric Boyd calculated that over a year, his refrigerator, desktop PC, and iMac used the most electricity. He estimated that his stove, oven, and air conditioner demanded a bit less energy than the computers. (Government figures, on the other hand, list heating and cooling as the biggest energy gobbler.) The toaster, microwave, washer, and dryer were hungrier for watts than anything else in Boyd's home, but their infrequent use led to low operating costs overall. Lighting didn't cost much because he already used compact fluorescent bulbs instead of ravenous incandescents. And in case you needed more motivation not to clean the floor yourself, his Roomba ate up a piddling 43 cents of his annual electrical bill.

Unfortunately, Boyd concluded that he'd barely notice a dent in his utilities bills if he conscientiously unplugged every gadget from the wall when not in use. But various studies show that standby power drained by those dormant appliances might quietly eat up as much as one-tenth of your energy expenses.

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Security vendor ScanSafe reports that based on real-time analysis of more than 5 billion Web requests and more than 10 million Web threats processed through its servers, viruses decreased by 47 percent during the month of September, this despite several new Microsoft vulnerabilities in Office, including a few zero-day attacks. The company says it blocked 158 viruses for its clients, of which 31 percent were new and 14 percent were zero-day viruses (viruses that exploited previously unannounced vulnerabilities). By comparison, the company reported an increase of 21 percent in viruses during August but said that was consistent with "seasonal" virus activity.

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