Visual voicemail is an excellent invention. Instantly see who left a message and listen to it, without having to go through the whole list. But mine ‘broke’ twice already and the carrier often doesn’t know how to solve it. Here’s how to fix it.

If you have ever installed a custom profile for your provide, for example to enable tethering, that profile may cause the problem. To solve it delete the profile by tapping on Settings > General > Profile (directly below accessibility). Now tap the big red Remove button and confirm removal. The phone will continue to work normally with visual voicemail enabled, but tethering will not be enabled unless your provider supports it officially.

If you have never installed such a thing or deleting it does not work, try resetting your network settings. To do this tap Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings.

Did you know users in the US and Canada can also use visual  voicemail on their computers, using a service from call wave?

During Backblaze installation it will scan your drive for content to backup and will start backing up anything smaller than 4GB. It will also automatically exclude your system files, as well as virtual machines and disk images. After installation you can excluded folders from the backup.

It’s got a lot more features too. You can change the backup schedule to once a day or manual, get a warning when there was no backup for a number of days, encrypt your files by entering your private encryption key, throttle the backup speed to keep your connection workable.

It also got a nice report showing you how much of each data type (Documents, Music, etc) is selected to backup and even a event log. Interesting it that I am using Dropbox to synchronize content between multiple computers, and it automatically backs that up too.

When you need to restore you can download your files as a zip file for free, or get a DVD (up to 4,7GB, $99) or a USB drive (up to 400GB, $189) sent to you through postal mail for a charge. The cost of all of this? Maximum $5 a month for a monthly recurring payment scheme, and as low as $95 for a two year commitment.

Wanna to try? You can too, as it has a 15 day unlimited data volume trial. And when you uninstall it, all your files will automatically be removed from the datacenter. Eh, what? So if your laptops get stolen and de thief uninstalls Backblaze I loose all my data? Yep. I guess that’s a glitch they need to fix, urgently.

Today Google started testing a new feature that makes it easier to schedule events with guests. The new event page will include a mini calendar right next to your guest list, so you can see when people are free. You can show or hide guest names so you can focus on the most important ones. It also allows you to easily add rooms and other resources.

It is quite an improvement in usability compared to the old style where you need to do your planning in a popup, with little information. In the new version you can actually see the other event others have scheduled – provided they allow you to read that of course. But even if they do not, the new user interface is much easier to work and saves you a few clicks to get your scheduling done.

It is no secret Twitter has been working on retweets. When I logged on to Twitter I was notified with this message. It turns out I am part of a beta group receiving this feature, which means I start seeing retweets in a new way.

And this is how the new retweets show up. It is pretty nice. You instantly see it’s a retweet, who retweeted it and how moany more people did that.

You’ll also see a retweet button (next to reply) on every tweet to let you retweet it yourself. If you click that you get to choose whether you want to retweet it to your followers or not.

After a few days I already noticed quite a few interesting retweets from people I follow. The new retweet style clearly allows interesting tweets to surface easily. Great feature.

Twitter lists are timelines you build yourself, consisting of friends, co-workers, sports teams, you name it. You’ll immediately notice if you’re one of the small group as the announcement will display right at the top.

The way lists work is very easy. When you search for someone or visit someone’s Twitter page there a list button to add this person to your list.

Whoever you follow in a list does not appear in your general timeline, unless you follow them there too. This is a great feature as it allows you to create lists for specific topic or events that you can follow without cluttering your main Twitter stream.

Lists can be either public or private. A public list allows you to share – you can send them the link, I have not seen a search for lists – a Twitter stream with others. Great for sharing a bunch of Twitter resources at once, I see lots of opportunities for it. A private list can only be seen by you. This would allow you to follow something without others seeing you doing so.

I started right away to create a Greenpeace Twitter list. As you can only see it when you are part of the beta testing group, I’ve posted some screenshots below. The first one is how you view a list on your own Twitter page. Also note the lists feature just below the search on the right. The second shot is the actual list pages as you see it when you visit it.

From what I have seen, I like the lists feature. And you?