1

Using online Babylon dictionary

Posted by Meo Con on 18:25 in
Lately, Babylon have provided online dictionary in URL http://dictionary.babylon.com , you can use dictionary whenever, wherever.

In order to look up in a dictionary, you type word into “Define” textfield and press Enter, Babylon will provide you meanings of that word.

Besides, Babylon provide Translation Toolbar help you look up in a dictionary faster when you are working without accessing to Babylon website. Translation Toolbar support Internet Explorer 5.0 and Firefox 2.0 or newer. You can download Translation Toolbar by clicking “Get the Translation Toolbar” icon.

Besides, if you want to embed Babylon dictionary into your website, you can use Google Gadget to do this. Firstly, accessing to http://www.google.com/ig/directory?q=babylon&root=%2Fig&dpos=top , choose Babylon Translation Tool (of Guy Levy), then click “Embed this gadget” in “For Webmasters”, modify gadget interface, then click “Get the code” to receive code to embed into website.

1

My Top 4 iGoogle Gadgets

Posted by Meo Con on 05:55 in ,

I like using iGoogle because it makes me feel like I am already multitasking just by looking at my home page. The usual gadgets most people already have on iGoogle are probably GMail, to-do lists, and some favorite blogs. Here are the three gadgets that I love:

1. Listening to Podcasts in iGoogle

This is a new one I didn’t know about until yesterday. By going into “add a gadget”, and in the search box type your favorite podcast. For example, I added the Nature podcast to my iGoogle.

By clicking on “Add it now” the podcast episodes are added to your regular iGoogle homepage. By clicking on an episode, you can listen to it from within your browser and choose whether to save the file to your hard drive or not. I like this gadget because I listen to a lot of podcasts, and with a limited hard drive space it’s nice to not to save each and every episode when you don’t really want to listen to them twice.

2. GTalk in iGoogle

While I’m scanning the latest RSS feeds I get in iGoogle, I like being able to keep in touch with my GTalk

contacts on the same page. Search for “Google Talk”, and add the gadget to iGoogle. The result will look like the picture at the top of this article, and you can start any chat right from your homepage.

3. Picasa!

One of my all-time favorite ways of keeping track of my friend’s picture albums, especially those who don’t use Facebook, is to add their Picasa RSS feed to my iGoogle homepage. I wrote about how you can do this a little while ago on Google Tutor.

4. Facebook

When I am working I have countless tabs open (I can’t imagine how I did it before browser tabs were invented!), and Facebook tends to be one of them. I just added it to my iGoogle though, so I don’t need to pollute my browser with more tabs than I can handle without spending too much time navigating between them. To do the same, simply search for “Facebook” after clicking “Add a gadget” on iGoogle.

There are so many gadgets you can add to iGoogle, what rocks your home page? I’d love to hear about new interesting gadgets, and the ones that are truly making a difference in your day to day life, whether they are plain fun, or just make your life easier!


0

Using Google Groups To Backup Gmail

Posted by Meo Con on 05:51 in ,

One of the best features of GMail is its huge storage space. It’s almost near the 3GB mark and it’s still growing, giving us reassurance that Google was sincere when they said, “that you’ll never have to delete another message.”

Most GMail users by now, must have loved and mastered the labels and archive features of this free service from Google. The only e-mail they must have deleted besides those nasty spams are messages that are really not worth storing away in the GMail archives.

On the other hand, the rest of your messages are safely tucked in there, properly labeled and served immediately once you use the powerful search built in to GMail. This is all possible is you can access your GMail account.

Yes, unbelievable as it may sound, Google is not God and so its servers, from time to time, do suffer from internal glitches, bugs, attacks etc. that will render some of its wonderful services unavailable for its many thousands of users. That friends, include GMail.

During these rare occassions the worst thing could happen is that your messages could become lost (though I couldn’t imagine how since its Google who’s behind the service so this scenario is very remote) but hey being prepared for the worst comes from expecting the worst, no matter how confident and trustful you are of Google’s capabilities.

So what’s the solution? Back-up your GMail.

Not by setting up a forwarding feature to another non GMail address because those services could knocked down as well.

Not with any other 3rd-party service and not even in your own hardisk, but with Google Groups.

Yup, this nifty and uber-cool e-group service by Google is all you need to backup your GMail messages.

Here’s how you do it.

1) Create a new Google Group. Name it with something like “yourGMailaddress+archive” or “archivefor+yourGmailaddor” something similar.

create_new_group1.png

2) Give it a description that will give you a hint that this is your backup archive for your Gmail.

3) Set Access level to “Restricted” since this would only be your GMail backup and archive.

restric_access.png

4)Skip the “Invite members” step.

5) Go to “Group settings”

Group settings_final.png

6) In the “Advanced” tab, click on the “Use Google Groups to manage remote archive” option. Enter your GMail address instead of a non-Google Grooup mailing list.

choose as remote archive_final.png

7) Click “Save Changes”. Remember to copy-paste the e-mail address in step number # 3. You’ll need it later on when we setup your GMail to forward messages to this Google Group.

Sample e-mail: archiveforyourgmailadd-garchive-41973@googlegroups.com

You’re done with the first part, which is creating a Google Group that will serve as backup and archive for your GMail messages.

Now we continue…

8) Log on to your GMail account.

9) Go to “Settings.” From here you have two options:

settings_final1.png

a) Set up your GMail to forward all your incoming messages to your archive Google Group.

a.1) Paste the Google Group archive e-mail we took note of earlier into the forwarding e-mail field.

forward all message_final.png

b) Create a “Filter” to specify which messages to forward to your Google Group archive.

create filter_final.png

The specific details of this filter is all up to you.

b.1) Paste the Google Group archive e-mail address we took note of earlier into the “Forward it to” field.

Apply an appropriate label if you wish, then click “Create filter”.

You’re done! You just created a Google Group that would back up your GMail messages and setup your GMail account to forward your messages to that Google Group.

In the event you cannot acces your GMail, or you accidentally deleted a message, you can still access the messages sent to you via that backup Google Group and use other means available to respond to those messages.

Pretty neat, eh?

Don’t miss my other GMail tips while you are here, especially the popular Using GMail as your Universal Email Account post.


39

Gmail Craze: 40 + Tools and Hacks for Gmail

Posted by Meo Con on 05:46 in ,

All for Gmail: handy Firefox extensions, best Greasemonkey scripts, some desktop tools and lots of useful tips. Take this Gmail thingie to another level. Enjoy ;-)

FIREFOX EXTENSIONS

Gspace - multi-platform firefox addon that turns your gmail account into powerful online storage tool

Gmail Search Extension - search your gmail account directly from the firefox search bar

GcalQuickTab - toggle between gmail and google calendar with keyboard shortcuts

GTDInbox - turns your account into flexible and feature-loaded ToDo-management service (GTD = Getting Things Done)

GMail Manager - manage multiple GMail accounts right from your browser

DragDropUpload - this handy extension lets you quickly attach one or more files to your emails by dragging them over the “Attach a file” link

[update] CustomizeGoogle - removes ads, switches you from http to https, hides the spam counter, quick contacts box, invite box and forces fixed font

[update] Better Gmail - integrates bunch of cool features, i.e. attachment icons, attachment Reminder, mail preview, filter assistant, label colors, macros, and saved searches

[update] GmailSkinz - powerful firefox addon with lots of cool features: (Note: some users reported having problems with this addon)

  • change the colour of your inbox(from green to dark green),
  • view weather, google calendar and news headlines along side your emails,
  • integrate any Google IG module to sidebar menu(Awesome),
  • insert images from your Picasa web album in to emails,
  • insert smileys,
  • change the attachment paperclip to an icon indicating the type of attachment,
  • make the navigation (Inbox, Starred, Sent Mail, etc) horizontal,
  • hide various page elements (invite panel, page footer and your email address from the top right of inbox).
  • complete integration with Gmail: addon settings can be changed directly from the Gmail settings page.

Google Toolbar with Gmail search - Official Google toolbar featuring one-click Gmail search

E-Mail Notifier Toolbar | Gmail Notifier - as titles say ‘…notifier

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GREASEMONKEY SCRIPTS (What is Greaseamonkey?)

Gmail Super Clean - clean and distraction-free gmail. Looks great, check it out here

Gmail Spam-count Hide - hides spam count link

GMail Attachment Icons - adds attachment icons to emails, letting you see what kind of attachment an email has (HTML,JPG, PDF….) [update: 'Attachment icons' isn't a standard greasemonkey script, it's an addon for a similar Firefox extension known as Stylish. However, installing it on greasemonkey should be fine as well]

Google Reader Integration - integrates Google Reader into Gmail. Highly Recommended (demo)

GmailTo - forces all ‘mailto’ links to open in GMail

Saved Searches - lets you create ’saved searches’(aka smart folders) and display them in the separate box in the navigation menu. Clicking on a search executes the saved query. Demo

Conversation Preview - handy addon that lets you quickly preview message contents right from the main inbox window. See demo below

Google Calendar Integration - integrates Google Calendar agenda into Gmail. Demo

Label Colors - lets you color menu labels to make them stand out better. Demo

Gmail Macros - adds extra keyboard shortcuts to Gmail (i.e. “t” for move to trash, “r” for mark as read, “p” for mark as read and add to archive…etc). Read more

[update] SSLGoogle - force google mail, docs and cal pages and their intra-links to a secure connection(HTTPS)

[update] Gmail Encrypt - encrypts outgoing emails

[update] Gmail Date Search - adds a Search by Date button to Gmail’s search form

[update] Gmail Signature Float - moves your mail signature to the top of the message rather than the bottom

Following image displays all above mentioned scripts in action(click to enlarge and open it in a new windows)
gmail greasemonkey scripts

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Desktop APPS and Web TOOLS:

GmailDrive (Windows) - adds a new virtual drive(’Gmail Drive’) to My Computer folder and uses gmail as its storage medium. Drag’n drop files Gmail Drive and it will store them on your gmail account as if on additional hard drive. More on GmailDrive

[update] gDisk (Mac) - similar to above mentioned GmailDrive but for Mac users

Gmail ToDo - handy desktop application that stores entered todo’s in a todo label on gmail

Desktop Notifiers: GMail Notifier(official release from Google), GTray (Win XP), GCount (Mac), Gmail+Growl 2.0 (GmailNotifier addon that lets you further customize ‘new mail’ alerts)

GMail for Mobile - access gmail from your mobile

GmailFS - mountable Linux filesystem which uses Gmail as its storage medium

Google Talk - Google’s IM service which is fully integrable with GMail

You’ve Got Gmail - Gmail plugin for Trillian IM client

Update: more notifiers: KCheckGmail(Linux), Notifier2(Win)
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TIPS and HACKS

Unbl0ck - use this tool to access gmail from places where it’s blocked (work, school…)

Gmail icon generator - creates an image of your email address to minimize spam exposure

Gmail To Thunderbird - how to access your Gmail using Mozilla Thunderbird

Shortcut List - handy, printable list of keyboard shortcuts for the Gmail

Hotmail Contacts Import - explains how to import contacts from Hotmail to Gmail

Gmail trick that explains how to find that ’someone’ who gives away your email address to spammers

Attach any file type - bunch of tricks showing you how to attach and send blocked file types, i.e. ‘*.exe’

JimsTips - huge collection of basic gmail tips

[update] What to do if your Gmail is nearly full? See here.

[update] Secret keyboard shortcut for deleting messages. Check it out here

[update] How to - import your archived emails into Gmail

[update] How to - Backup Gmail your Gmail using Google Groups

[update] How to - Re download gmail messages into outlook

[update] How to - Work with Gmail Attachments (includes cool tips, Greasemonkey scripts and Firefox addons)


0

Windows Live Hotmail themes - new dynamic ones introduced

Posted by Meo Con on 05:41 in ,

Windows Live Hotmail is definitely listening to its users. I suppose many subscribers had shown an interest in customizing and personalizing their accounts with themes and, thus, we now have new ones made available including dynamic themes!

In the light of a fresh competitive initiative from Gmail who now allow users to create their own themes, Windows Live Hotmail doesn't want to be left behind. They have introduced ten new themes 6 of which are dynamic, meaning they change depending on the time of the day and the weather. Some old themes have also been renamed.

How to customize and personalize Windows Live Hotmail account with themes?

The new themes available in Windows Live Hotmail from More themes optionWindows Live Hotmail themes are available under "Options". Click on the link which displays a drop down menu with 8 themes. You can select one from this menu but I suggest you first check out all the themes available to you. Select "More themes" from the drop down which takes you to the Hotmail settings section.

New themes - standard and dynamic ones - in Windows Live Hotmail account

You'll now be in the "Themes" page; click on the one you like and hit the "Save" button. You can always revert to your old theme or change to another one if you don't like your present selection.

Here is the latest list of standard Windows Live Hotmail themes to personalize and customize your email account:

  • Windows Live: the default blue theme that all of us got when we first made our Hotmail account.
  • Bamboo: Nice green.
  • Cherry Blossoms: Floral and pink.
  • Flourish: Pink and darkish.
  • Carbon: Dark and sober theme.
  • Graffiti : The urban art form.
  • Wildflowers : Orange and striking.
  • Moonlight : Dark theme with the moon hidden partly behind clouds - I like it!
  • Mesmerizing Brown : originally called Circular.
  • Dottie Orange: Orange in color and was earlier called Dottie.
  • Violet Springtime: Purple (or violet, if you like). Its earlier name was Floral.
  • Victorian Gray : Sober theme which was known as Victorian sometime back.

Dynamic Hotmail themes

Most of the new dynamic themes are cartoony and have line art.

  • Daisy Hill
  • Tugboat: A small tugboat on the seas
  • Robots: I'm sure my son would love this
  • Prairie: open land with a tree - looks great in the night time.
  • Desert: Sandy... what else?
  • Sports

Conclusion: It's heartening to know that Windows Live Hotmail is taking proactive steps to better the user experience and (more importantly) listening to customer feedback. Making new themes available may not be such a big deal for some but it shows that the customers are being kept in mind. The next step to match (or better) Gmail is, obviously, a provision for creating your own themes.



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Blueish Exodeo - Windows Vista Themes

Posted by Meo Con on 19:51 in


Description : Awsome black & blues color combination having styler toolbar.Multi color effects.

Author : hidafa

Download : Click here


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Black & White Style - Windows Vista Styles

Posted by Meo Con on 19:49 in


Description : Light colors with bulb background in the wallpaper. Quick links are available on desktop to open up different applications. New taskbar, New buttons and little more...

Author : weirdfish2

Download : Click here

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