Sending mom a link to VoxOx will give her even more access to keep in touch with you on a regular basis. When she sees all the possible ways you can send her your love, it will make her day. So, why not start with Mother’s Day? 

Here are five ways you can wish her a Happy Mother’s Day via VoxOx:

1.    Call her on-the-cheap

My mom’s in Canada and she thinks I spend big bucks on phone bills (makes her love me even more). What she doesn’t know is that it costs 1 penny per minute to call Canada from VoxOx!  Plus, when you sign up for VoxOx in the U.S. or Canada, the first $1 worth of VoxOx credit is on us, so you can call a bunch of places worldwide for super cheap. 

It’s so easy too – just find her on your contact list, right click to select the contact, and then press the little phone icon. You’ll be giving her a call in no time!

And, if she’s not in your contact list, just go for the keypad tab:

2.    Let the world know she’s your favorite lady!

Declare your love for mom on all your IM/social network statuses from VoxOx by simply typing your message in the global status bar: 

3.    Fax her “I love you, mom” to her office

She won’t be expecting to see it when she comes in on Monday, and it will start her day off on a happy note.

As with calling, find mom on your contact list, right click to select her contact, and then press the little fax icon. For more details on how to fax via VoxOx, see our Earth Day entry.

4.    SMS ur xoxo from VoxOx

If your mom’s like mine she won’t text you, but you bet she reads the ones she gets… so text her “Happy Mother’s Day!” and make her smile.

Just like calling and faxing, you can text by finding her on your contact list and right clicking to select. Then, hit the button that says “SMS.”

VoxOx charges a 1 penny for outbound domestic U.S. & Canada texts, a 2 pennies for international texts. All inbound texts are free! Not bad, eh?

5.    Tweet your love for mom in 50 languages

If your mom is a real “with it” mom she might have her own Twitter account. Well, if that’s the case, why not send her a few loving Twitter @replies through VoxOx?

To do this, just find her Twitter profile in your VoxOx contact list, click on the Twitter logo by her name, and select “reply to”.

Now, if your mom speaks more than one language, VoxOx has a special way for you to impress her. For example, if she grew up in France (and raised you in CA), you can type your Twitter @reply in English, it will post in French.

To do this, when you select “Reply to,” a chat window will pop up — click on the globe icon (bottom right). Set your language, your mom’s language, and voila! Now you can tell the world that you love your mom in 50+ languages.

So, there you go – five ways to let mom know how much you love her. And with that, our VoxOx team would like to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to moms everywhere!

Connie is the telephone number guru responsible for your VoxOx phone numbers (let's call her director of CLEC operations). With several certifications she’s really a jack of all trades and keeps us humming along. She may be dubbed the team step-mom, but has more fun than most! With all the RV trips to the River & Desert, VoxOx is great for staying in touch with the “real” world…who says you need to be stuck behind a desk?

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Now all your 2000 FB buddies are there for you in VoxOx! Chat with ‘em, use the Universal Translator to make them think you’ve learned a new language, share a 100 MB music video file, etc.… all while making calls, sending texts, emails and even faxes to your other friends who still refuse to get on Facebook.

Click here to download update.

Natasha Grach is a PR pro by day and singer by night -- when not telling the world about VoxOx, she can be found on stage at some of San Diego’s favorite musical theater venues. She is also a travel junkie. Her favorite countries include Turkey, Israel, Spain, UK, Italy, Russia, Lithuania. She’ll be using VoxOx SMS CallBack on her next trip around the globe!

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Text from Your Desktop -- and Save Big! VoxOx offers dramatically lower texting rates than the major carriers. You also get additional features, such as follow-me texting and more.

If you haven’t seen the movie Network I suggest you stop everything (well, after you’ve read this), find it, watch it, and then this might make more sense to you afterward. With the help of a certain crazy-eyed fictitious network anchor named Howard Beale, we’re going to explore how texting with your cell phone carrier is an expensive proposition, and how using VoxOx can save you big.  Below are actual quotes from the movie to help us along with this post.

Howard Beale: “This is not a psychotic breakdown; it’s a cleansing moment of clarity.”

Just like you, we’re sick of cringing as we open our cell phone bill having no idea, or worse, too much of an idea of how bad it will be. It’s the kinda thing that can drive you a little crazy. Cell phones have become an integral part of our life. Many of us (myself included) can’t leave the house without one.  But don’t we all have a breaking point? Where we are no longer willing to pay through the nose for what has become a basic right. That’s why we, the good people at VoxOx, created plans for you to save boatloads of money on your monthly cell phone bill. Save enough and you might even be able to buy a boat…or at least pay next month’s rent.

Howard Beale: “ I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot – I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians (disclaimer — it’s an old movie) and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad.”

The fact is that texting rates are out of control. While they cost the cell phone companies almost nothing to deliver, we the customers end up paying a markups about 6500 percent (!), according to a recent CNNMoney.com article on “America’s Biggest Ripoffs.” That’s right, 6,500 percent on a simple text message! How do these companies get away with it? Who knows! But when you take a look at it, something becomes pretty obvious–their prices are remarkably similar. Check out the different texting rates when you don’t have a contract for the four major carriers:

T-Mobile:  Ever tried to find this info on T-Mobile’s website? It’s like doing graduate level research they have it so well hidden there.

• $0.10 per text domestic
• $0.35 per text out international/ $0.20 to receive an international text

Verizon: Not too easy to find, but good ol’ Google came through for me.

• $0.20 to send and receive texts domestic.
• $0.25 to send and receive texts sent to non US numbers, when you’re in the US.

Sprint:  Also makes it hard to find this information. Click on the “messaging link” and it shows you how to send a text message. Thanks Sprint. Why is this so hard? Anyway…this is the best I could come up with.

• $0.10 per text domestic
• $0.15 per text international

AT&T: Finally! A phone company comfortable enough not to hide their texting rates!  Kudos to you AT&T. But, geez…that’s a lot…anyway.

• $0.20 per message domestic
• $0.25 per message international

Now all of these carriers have unlimited texting plans, which of course would offer a better deal, but they range from $10/month (Sprint) to $20/month (AT&T) for domestic texts. So what are we supposed to do?

Howard Beale: “You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING (gosh-dangit) my life has VALUE!’ So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, [shouting]  ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’

VoxOx:

• Incoming messages are totally free
• $0.01 per (outgoing) message domestic
• $0.02 per (outgoing) message international
• Note: unlimited domestic plan are $4.95 per month; international plans are $9.95. Click here to learn more.

Once these cell phone carriers realize that charging such an exorbitant markup is crazy, maybe prices will drop. But for the meantime, start texting your friends from your desktop (using the VoxOx client software), with a real phone number, just like you would with your regular phone. But this time, it’s not going to cost you everything you got just to stay in touch with people. Especially when you want to stay in touch, but not actually, you know…talk to them.

Thank you very much, enjoy the movie … and keep on Voxing!

Ben, the VoxOx Intern, is a second-year MBA student at the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He has drunk beer on 4 continents, is fluent in 3 languages and has an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure NBA players. Ben also...wait, are you really still reading this? Because, you know, he's just an intern.

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