Lifehack.org writer Nick Senzee has a common problem: He frequently forgets to charge his cell phone, or just forgets it altogether. Consequently, voicemail messages often go unanswered for hours at a time because he doesn’t know they’re there. To work around this, Nick devised a simple hack: He sets his phone to forward unanswered calls to his SkypeIn number:
Then, since I’m in front of my computer all day–or at least more often than I am with my phone–I get any voicemails that come in right away. And Skype is pretty good about letting you know who called with various alerts and so forth. For the return calls, since I favor landline reception, I just pick up the phone and call the number Skype has captured. But if I had a headset/mike, I could return the calls with a click of a mouse.
I think the success of this hack depends on the forwarding capabilities of your phone. My old Sony Ericsson, for instance, limits you to all-or-nothing forwarding, meaning every call would necessarily go to the SkypeIn number, not just those that didn’t get answered. But if your phone can be more discriminating, this could indeed be a worthwhile solution.
