Google Gives Dads a Doodle Tie for Father's Day

• June 19, 2011 02:55pm EST

It's not an animated necktie: It doesn't flip up in the style of Dilbert's. It doesn't parade around the screen, nor does it have some kind of fancy social networking tie-in that pulls together shots of you and your dad in a pretty Google slideshow.

Nevertheless, today's Google doodle is a simple, humbling reminder that it's Father's Day. And in case that message wasn't made clear enough by the graphic's design?An office-like impression of the Google logo featuring a giant necktie as the "L"?then Google's inserted another special little reminder in its main search page.

"Dad. Father. Pops. No matter what you call him, call your dad from Gmail," reads a link on the page's bottom. The link takes visitors to a slightly customized version of a "Try It Now" page for Google Voice, suggesting to readers that they, too, can call dad for free using the powers of Google's chat service within Gmail.

For those unfamiliar, making a free phone call to any U.S. or Canada-based phone (free until at least December, that is) is pretty easy?provided you've first installed Google Voice and Video Chat to enable the feature within Gmail. After doing so, just open up your contacts menu within Gmail and select the "Call Phone" option that exists below your own drop-down menu for selecting your status. Type a number into the small "Call" box that pops up in the lower-right corner of your browser, and then hit the big blue call button.

If you're having issues with being able to hear others?or, conversely, with others being able to hear you?make sure you've set up the right devices within Gmail's settings. To do this, pull up Gmail's general settings window by clicking on the gear icon in the upper-right corner of Gmail itself. You'll then want to click on the "Chat" tab. You should now see drop-down menus in the "Voice and video chat" section of the screen that will allow you to pick the devices Gmail uses to transmit and receive the audio portion of your calls.

If you'd like to test out your dialing setup before you call Dad for the first big time, use the "Verify Your Settings" option to check your microphone and speaker setup. Because nothing will hack off pops more on his big day than a poorly configured computer conversation.

For more from David, follow him on Twitter @TheDavidMurphy.

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Source: http://feeds.ziffdavis.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/breakingnews/~3/DADt-DA5xsI/0,2817,2387258,00.asp

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