Enabling Gmail Offline Access
Gmail is the best online webmail by far IMHO. It’s biggest problem is that it needs to make some inroads into the business market so it can start making some money and start to push out Yahoo!Mail and Hotmail (or Live Mail or whatever Microsoft is calling it this week). Google has taken a big step towards being a viable alternative to things like Exchange or Zimbra by way of Offline Access.
Google is going to be doing a soft rollout of this labs feature so if you don’t have it yet, keep checking back. If you do have it, here’s how to enable it. I believe it will download up to 10,000 messages to your desktop, including attachments. You’ll be able to use Gmail almost exactly as you would if you were online including being able to search your mail like normal.
Find Out What Twitter Users Are Viewing Your Website
I’ve used the TwitterCounter badge that tells people how many followers I have on Twitter for quite a while now. It’s nice, but not really useful unless you’re a narcissist. They’ve recently released something much more useful: TwitterCounter Remote. Remote is a small piece of code that adds a widget to your site that tells you which Twitter users have visited your site recently.
All you have to do to set it up is fill in a few fields and have the service auto generate a small piece of JavaScript for you. Take that and paste it wherever you want it to show up on your site and you’re done.
I’ve already found and followed 10+ people who have visited my blog with this thing. I think it’s a brilliant way to increase your following on Twitter and to create better relationships with people you know are visiting your site (something basic Analytics can’t do).
RUBotted?
If for some reason you think your computer has been compromised by a botnet, Trend Micro has a slick tool call RUBotted. It’s small, lightweight and simple to use. Here’s how to do it.
- Download RUBotted here
- Run the installer
- You should now see the icon in your systray
- If you left the box checked to run the program, you will see the following screen
- If all is well, you now see this screen
That’s about it. you can leave this thing running in your systray to constantly monitor your computer, but if your careful on the internet you shouldn’t need to have it running all the time. It should also be noted that this is in beta so if it crashes, don’t be surprised.
First Impressions On the Amazon DRM-Free Music Store Beta
Finally.
I can’t express how happy I am to be typing this right now.
I just got done downloading my first DRM-Free MP3 from the Amazon DRM-Free Music Store. I already have most of the music on there, but I settled on John Lennon “Imagine”, Remastered.
This is finally going to put the screws to Apple’s proprietary, locked-down, DRM ridden store some refer to as the iTunes Music Store. A while back Steve Jobs released a statement talking about how he really wanted to get rid of DRM which was a great marketing ploy. Those of us who aren’t zombified Mac users knew it was all just him blowing smoke.
Well Amazon has finally done it…and brilliantly I might say. The process is dead simple. You get a DRM-free 256kbps MP3 that you can put on any of your computers or mp3 players. What a concept! The prices for a single track are usually around $.89 - $.99 or around $6.99 – $9.99 for an entire album.
Apple Admits iPod Touch Screens Are Faulty
Forget the fact that the iPod Touch screens are faulty, did Apple just admit to something being wrong with their products? Wow. Amazing.
Anyway, if you’ve been surfing around in the blogosphere, you’ve seen countless number of stories saying that the screen on the iPod Touch is faulty especially with how it displays blacks (you bunch of racists Apple).
Well, after all the complaints, Apple has officially announced that the screens on ’some’ of the iPod Touch’s are in fact faulty. But honestly, are you surprised? I have yet to see a 1st gen product come out of Apple that hasn’t had some type of major bug or flaw. I enjoy letting all you ‘dipshits’ (see Bill Maher below) spend your money so Apple can screw you over while anyone with a brain waits two months for the price to be cut and the product to be upgraded to at least semi-usability status.
Firefox 2 Beta 2 Review
The much anticipated sequel to Firefox has finally launched in a solid beta, Firefox 2 Beta 2.
First off. I’ve been using it since Thursday evening and have really dug into the new features and options and haven’t come across any bugs. However, I don’t suggest the average user to upgrade (especially their main machine) unless you really absolutely can’t wait. There are still quite a few extensions and themes that are broken in it.
That being said, the new version is very nice and installation was a breeze. Most of my extensions were broken and my theme no longer worked, but that’s not surprising considering it’s a beta.
The interface is still pretty much the same, but that’s irrelevant due to the vast array of themes (skins) that will be available. In the Menu Bar, the word “Go” has been replaced with “History”.
Internet Explorer RC 1 Released
For those of you who have downloaded the beta version of Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft has just released the first Release Candidate.
Couple of things that didn’t get me off on the right foot were the download time and then I had to restart twice just to get it installed. Other than that, I haven’t played around with it yet to test it out, but I strongly suggest upgrading Internet Explorer if you are currently using IE 6 or IE 7 beta 1, 2 or 3.
You can get IE 7 RC 1 here.
A Few Nifty Windows Tools
When it comes to Windows, less is more. I don’t want my computer loaded down with a million programs that each do something different or that I’m only going to use once. There are, however, some programs that I have grown to love and can’t see using Windows without. I decided to compile a short list and share the wealth…oh ya, and everything on the list is free.
FoxIt Reader
There is nothing more frustrating than sitting and waiting for a huge program to load. This frustration is multiplied when you’re simply trying to open a pdf. Thank God for FoxIt Reader. This reader does exactly what it says. It opens and prints pdfs. Period. The entire program is less than 1MB in size and doesn’t even need to be installed. Just double click and you’re off and running. Get FoxIt Reader now.
Alt-Tab Replacement Power Toy
Get The New Yahoo! Mail Beta
Yahoo! Mail released their beta quite a while ago. I kept hearing all these stories about how great it was. I tried every hack, workaround, and trick I could find but I was never able to get my hands on it. Well, I finally have, and it is an amazing piece of software.
This blows Gmail and the new Live Mail (formally Hotmail) out of the water. The design is perfect and the functionality forces me to wonder why they didn’t just release the final version.
Here’s the good news for you if you want to test it out on your own Yahoo! account. I have the link that will allow you to sign up and get in on the action. After I signed up, it took a little less than a week for them to accept me into the beta.
