I am very pleased to announce to everyone that we plan on doing some great things with our number inventory after the New Year.  Some of these changes are already in progress and are taking place in our Number Porting Process.

What are these exciting changes?

• Local Number Inventory Expansion including Canadian DIDs
• Automation of Grasshopper Porting Process

We are in the process of finalizing a contract with a carrier that can issue us Canadian local numbers. Our goal is to have Canadian numbers available for the first of 2010. We will be getting in touch with our Canadian customers via email in an attempt to find out how many numbers and what areas they need the most so that we can order them accordingly.

Wishing you a very happy Thanksgiving from everyone here at Grasshopper!

With over 25 great features in the Grasshopper virtual phone system it was hard to narrow it down to just five. But believe it not, based on feedback we have received from Grasshopper users over the years, we were able to do so.

Here are five features that our customers love and take Grasshopper above and beyond:

1. Call Forwarding

Stay connected. That is one of the mottos here and it is one of the main reasons our customers use Grasshopper. Have calls forwarded to any number in the world. Your cell phone, home phone, office phone, the pay phone down the street (we don’t necessarily recommend that but hey, it can be done). The call forwarding feature is easy to use and helps you stay connected to your small business.

One of the best things about Twitter is getting great information from great people in real-time. As an entrepreneur it is extremely valuable to hear from and learn what other entrepreneurs are doing, what is working, what isn’t working and what tips they have for others.

The twelve people I have listed below are certainly not the only entrepreneurs out there offering valuable information but they are some of my favorites:

Ben Yoskovitz

• @byosko
• Who: “CEO/Founder Standout Jobs. Blogger. Entrepreneur. Father. Opportunity-seeker.”
• Why: Ben interacts with his followers and presents great information for start ups.

Mike McDerment

• @MikeMcDerment
• Who: “FreshBooks CEO”
• Why: Mike does a great job of answering questions about FreshBooks, interacting with his followers and keeping everyone updated on events and engagements.

Laura Legendary, the founder and owner of of Eloquent Insights, is our featured entrepreneur and guest author this week. She gives us a look into her life and accessibility issues on the web.

You spend your days as maestro of carefully controlled chaos. Conducting conference calls, contacting clients, closing contracts. You email, tweet, blog, post profiles, and tap out text messages. You rehearse your elevator pitch, tune up your marketing plan and attend industry conferences. For relaxation, you consume every classic business book and must-read relevant weblog just to keep current.

Now, do it all with your eyes closed.

What makes me an unlikely entrepreneur is that I am a business owner who is blind. My success as an entrepreneur with a disability has less to do with how I feel about it, and more to do with how well I manage it.