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25 Incredible Skins, Resources & Tools for the Gmail Power User

February 5, 2008 by Skellie 76 Comments

Gmail is one of those rare things unanimously loved by everyday web users and tech-heads alike. The possibilities are endless. It can be anything from a simple email client to your central nervous system on the web. How far you take it is up to you.

Each day seems to produce a new hack, tool or tip for better Gmail use. In this post, I want to highlight only the very best, hand-picked from hundreds of resources. This is not another resource list you’ll bookmark and never look at again. These tips, monster resources and tools will change the way you use Gmail.

Best Gmail skins

1. Super Clean skin — probably the most popular Gmail skin, Super Clean replaces the standard interface with a minimalist white and sky-blue version. Perfect for the budding Zen-master.

gmailsuperclean.png

2. Air skin — makes subtle changes to the visual interface, adding clean lines, a cloudy color combo and changes the primary font. The perfect solution for users looking for a fresh look without any radical changes.

gmailair.png

3. Mac skin — a Mac-inspired Gmail skin to match the Mac you’re checking your mail on! Adds a Mac-style menu and color-scheme to your Gmail account.

gmailmac1.gif

4. Fe Mail skin — a well-crafted and very pink Gmail skin.

femails.gif

5. Dark Gmail skin — almost the complete opposite to the last link, this skin is one for the dark and brooding Gmail user.

darkskin.png

6. Silverstar skin — a popular minimalist gray theme.

simplicity.gif

7. Brushed skin — a gray and maroon theme with nifty gradients thrown into the mix.

brushed.png

Best Gmail resources

8. The Gmail Shortcuts Cheat Sheet — a comprehensive printable cheat sheet of useful shortcuts for Gmail. Print it and stick it to your desk: these shortcuts are worth memorizing. Did you know pressing ‘Tab’ and ‘Enter’ will send the email you’ve composed?

9. Gmail Craze: 40+ Tools and Hacks for Gmail — a frequently updated post from MakeUseOf featuring essential Firefox extensions, Greasemonkey Scripts, Desktop Apps, Web Tools, tips and hacks.

10. 55 Gmail tips — this website is dedicated to providing detailed Gmail tips. It covers everything from excluding chat from search results to importing Hotmail contacts.

11. Hack Attack: Become a Gmail Master — this fantastic guide from Lifehacker introduces Gmail’s most powerful capabilities in a way that’s easy to follow. It will help take anyone only familiar with Gmail’s basic functions to the next level.

12. Use Gmail as Your Universal Email Account — got too many email addresses to keep track of? Forward them all to Gmail and deal with your incoming mail from one central location.

13. Ultimate Gmail Collection: Over 80 Tools and Tips — a monster list of extensions, scripts, apps, notifiers, how-tos and shortcuts for the serious Gmail user.

14. Turn Gmail Into Your Personal Nerve Center — influential technology blogger Steve Rubel shares his essential Gmail life hacks, including:

  • How to turn Gmail into a massive personal database
  • How to get real-time news updates in Gmail
  • How to automatically store your bookmarks in Gmail
  • How to manage Calendar and To-Dos in Gmail
  • How to blog from Gmail

15. 1 Awesome Gmail Tip You Didn’t Know About. Seriously. — this easy tutorial explains how you can customize your Gmail address to serve different purposes.

16. Gmail Toolbox: 60+ Tools for Gmail — Mashable.com works its magic with a huge compendium of Gmail tools. It includes all the extensions you know and love in addition to some (previously) undiscovered gems.

17. Access Gmail When It’s Blocked at Work or School — Engtech provides five strategies you can use to check your Gmail anywhere, even when the I.T. department doesn’t want you to.

18. Mark Spam Messages as Read — this simple filters hack allows you to prevent your unread spam count showing in the main display. Best of all, it will still alert you to items that have been incorrectly marked as spam.

19. Gmail Tips and Tricks: Monster Roundup — Lifehacker’s big roundup of its favorite Gmail downloads, hacks and articles.

Best Gmail tools

20. Gmail Drive — this tool puts Gmail’s extensive storage capacity to use, adding a new drive to your computer which can be accessed via Windows Explorer. You can create folders and drag and drop files within the drive. If you’ve got unused space in your Gmail account, why not add some more space to your hard drive?

21. GTD Inbox — the email solution for productivity nuts, GTD Inbox is a Firefox extension designed to merge the “Getting Things Done” productivity method with Gmail. It transforms Gmail into a productivity hub you can use to set and manage tasks or to-dos. The interface is very subtle and won’t interrupt the look and feel of Gmail as you know it.

22. Better Gmail 2 — this simple and elegant Firefox extension, authored by Gina Trapani, makes several improvements to Gmail’s core functionality, allowing you to hide the ever-annoying Spam count, compose Mailto links in Gmail and view your storage quota as a useful graph. If you’re still using the old version of Gmail, you’ll need to download the original Better Gmail extension.

23. Gmail Music — this nifty little web-based GUI app allows you to store MP3 files in your Gmail account and play them on any computer.

24. Dragdropupload — a Firefox extension that does away with the pesky ‘Browse’ interface. It enables drag and drop email attachments to make the process quick and painless.

25. Gmail Skins — a Firefox extension to customize the color of your Gmail inbox.

Suggest your favorite skins, resources and tools in the comments section!

Filed Under: Web Tools Tagged With: gmail, power, resources, skins, tools, user

18 Undiscovered Websites Every Gamer Should Know

January 23, 2008 by Skellie 146 Comments

The gaming niche is characterized by its haves and have-nots. You’ve seen Kotaku, IGN, GameSpot, Joystiq, 1UP and the others, but what about the great, lesser-known gaming sites?

This post introduces 18 great gaming sites you might not have seen before. Whether you’re looking for freebies, music, laughs or oddities, there’s something here for occasional and hardcore gamers alike.

1. Overclocked Remix is a community hub of users who painstakingly remix and arrange video game music. There are thousands of tracks available for download. If you like the soundtrack to your favorite game, you can bet it has been remixed and reworked here.

overclokedremix.jpg

2. The Freeware Indie Games Database offers just under 1,000 play-tested freeware titles from independent game developers. The games here are innovative and unique. Some of them are bound to be re-developed as Wii titles.

freewaredatabase.jpg

3. POKE is a light-weight utility that allows you to cheat in almost any single player game, whether it’s already published or to be published in the future.

poke.jpg

4. The Daedalus Project gets into the minds of MMORPG players. The website’s author has surveyed over 35,000 gamers and provides a detailed break-down of his findings in areas such as the player life-cycle, making friends and status reversal. It’s fascinating stuff.

daedalus.jpg

5. Gaming Magazines of the Pre-Internet Era is a treasure trove for retro gamers. It links out to .PDF databases of old and out of print gaming magazines.

preinternetera.jpg

6. The Grand List of Role Playing Game Clichés is a list of 100+ painful clichés any RPG fan would have encountered before. My favorite? The No! My beloved peasant village cliché: “The hero’s home town, city, slum, or planet will usually be annihilated in a spectacular fashion before the end of the game, and often before the end of the opening scene.”

thegrandlist.jpg

7. GameCakes is the website for people who love cake and video games. These game-themed cakes run the gamut, from the bizarre to the majestic. The scrumptious photos will have you baking your own cupcakes in no time.

gamecakes.jpg

8. CrazyPC is the hardcore gamer’s place for computer accessories. All the neon, case mods, plexiglass, tubes and coolant fluid you can poke a memory stick at.

pcmods.jpg

9. VGMusic is host to 24,000+ midi versions of video game tracks from all your retro favorites: Megaman, Mario, Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, et al.

vgmusic.jpg

10. Build Your Own Gaming Computers is a website dedicated to helping you… well, you can probably guess. Gaming rigs sell for thousands of dollars and learning to build your own can save you lots of cash. This website provides advice on the entire process, from choosing parts to installation.

howtobuildgaming.jpg

11. Abandonia offers thousands of abandonware DOS downloads. Abandonware essentially means games which aren’t sold anymore, prompting their release into the public domain. They’re the games you might have owned and loved as a child or teenager. Chances are you’ll find some old favorites here.

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12. Jay is Games sources out the best casual games and brings them directly to you. The blog’s authors sure know their stuff and their opinions are worth listening to. Subscribe to their feed for a daily stream of gorgeous, idle distractions.

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13. Old Grandma Hardcore is the blog of a foul-mouthed, lovable gamer grandma (with the pictures to prove it!). No, we’re not talking Brain Training and The Sims — we’re talking games like Bioshock and The Darkness. This grandma really is hardcore!

oldgrandma.jpg

14. Insert Credit is a multi-author Japanese games and culture blog specializing in breaking news from the land of the rising sun.

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15. Replacementdocs is an online archive of .PDF game manuals for thousands of popular games. If you’ve experienced the frustration of losing the manual to your favorite title, replacementdocs should have a solution for you.

replacementdocs.jpg

16. Wonderland is an odds-and-ends gaming blog mainly known for its cool gamecrafts. From Darth Vader backpacks to Quake coasters, this blog is proof that gamers are an arty bunch.

wonderland.jpg

17. The Speed Demos Archive is host to hundreds of videos documenting the efforts of those dedicated individuals who’ve conquered games in the shortest time possible. Watch epic games like Half Life 2 and Icewind Dale beaten before your lunch-break is over.

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18. The System Requirements Lab analyzes your computer, benchmarking it against the minimum requirements of a specific product. Ever wondered if your computer can handle that gorgeous new release? Now you’ll know.

systemrequirements.jpg

Update
: Here are some more great websites that you might not have seen before, suggested from our readers:

  • GGMania
  • MultiPlayerGames
  • SarcasticGamer
  • Rock, Paper, Shotgun
  • CheapAssGamer
  • GameNewsHQ

Filed Under: Internet Tagged With: gamer, Games, online, websites

The Basics of Programming

January 22, 2008 by Loki 1 Comment

Programming – the process of creating a source code for a specific software (or simply a solution to a problem), became a common skill nowadays especially since people tend to become more aware of virtual existence. It stands as a means of communication and interaction between a machine (which only “knows” ones and zeros) and a human (who practices a more complex language), the latter being the master of the former. Further, it is a phase in the software development cycle where you employ all data gathering and analysis output into the project.

When programming, one has to learn specific skills. I have divided them into four categories for better understanding.

1. Requirements of the Program

A programmer, both amateur and professional, first has to discern the problem or set of problems he wants his program to solve. He has to pinpoint each involved process in the problem so that it will be given enough attention (and corresponding codes) later on.

Let’s take the Fibonacci number sequence problem for example. During my college years, our class was given this exercise where we need to create a Fibonacci number sequence. The number of identities to be added and the limit of numbers are defined by the user. For example:

If the user wants two identities added limited to seven numbers, then the sequence would be:

0 1 1 2 3 5 8

where there are seven output numbers, and, starting from the first two numbers 0 and 1, the program adds two consecutive numbers, the product of which becomes the next number of the sequence.

However, if the user wants three identities added limited to nine numbers, then the sequence would be:

0 1 1 2 4 7 13 24 44

with nine numbers, the first three numbers (0 1 1) starting the sequence before the addition pushes through.

Breaking down the Fibonacci sequence problem, a programmer should basically:
a. be able to generate the first zero and a preset number of ones based on how many identities the user wants to add;
b. be able to determine the time when the program starts to add identities of the sequence;
c. store and output the number after the above process is finished; and
d. count the number of output numbers in such a way that it meets the limit of the user. Upon determining those, I was able to determine the requirements of the Fibonacci problem posed by our professor.

2. Understanding of Algorithms

After addressing the problems for which a programmer will be designing a solution program to, he should do some planning. In the field of computing, this is done through algorithms, a defined set of instructions for a specific programming problem. Algorithms loosely determine what goes on during the start of the program, the processing of data into information, and, of course, the end of the program.

The two commonly used forms of algorithms are flowcharts and pseudocodes. Flowcharts are graphic representations of a program that utilize shapes like ovals and parallelograms for a certain process phase within the program, and arrows for the program flow after a specific process finishes. They simply define the program content and flow, letting the programmer visualize and evaluate the processes involved in a program with ease.

On the other hand, pseudocodes are descriptions of a computer program in a very informal language. A pseudocode uses simple, worded descriptions very close to the human language as compared to a syntactical programming language. However, pseudocodes usually follow the format of programming statements like conditional and looping structures. Programmers only describe what triggers a condition and what happens within a loop instead of actually putting in variables, values, and arguments.

Algorithms are often neglected by programmers in the sense that programmers are bound by deadlines, and algorithms take some time to create. However, despite the time waste, programmers can easily put algorithms into code since algorithms themselves are loose descriptions of the code. It will actually save more time if programmers are to flowchart or pseudocode than practicing the faulty trial-and-error programming style.

3. Knowledge on Programming Structures

Programming structures define a great part of programming. They actually compose the greater bulk of programming in the sense that output-yielding processes are usually the byproducts of any of the following simple structures: concatenation, selection, and repetition (as identified by Edsger Wybe Dijkstra, a Dutch computer scientist).

Further, a programmer can also use the more complex, object-oriented form of computing using objects, classes, and methods. These three are then bound by several concepts for interaction: inheritance of behaviors and attributes, encapsulation of classes and of objects, abstraction of certain classes or objects to handle a specific segment of the problem, polymorphism of parent and child class members, and data passing that triggers methods.

I remember the time when I had to study mathematical logic as a prerequisite of computational logic and programming structures. A great way to understand mathematical logic is by learning its basic form, symbolic logic, from where it is derived.

Symbolic logic studies the properties of, you guessed it right, symbols. The simplest area tackled in this field involves the five logical operators: conjuction (AND), disjunction (OR), implication (IMPLIES), equality (EQUALS), and negation (NOT). The first four are binary operations requiring two values, while negation needs only one. Let’s check the yields of two propositions of differing values based on the first four operations:

Table of Symbolic Logic Operations

Now, let’s look at a simpler table of negation:

Table of Symbolig Negation

These tables can help determining results of logical operations, one of the widely used values in programming, the other being stated or assigned values.

4. Expertise on Programming Languages

Programming languages are the means for a human to communicate with a machine. Compared to the human language that is used for interaction, programming languages are often constrained to yield results. They are meant to instruct machines to perform specific tasks. Also, they can manipulate and influence programs and applications via data sent and received.

There is a great variety of programming languages out there, and they can be classified based on use. The succeeding paragraphs detail some of the programming languages I was able to use.

Common languages like C++, COBOL, and Java (often used with compilers or translators, programs that interprets high-level computer language to low-level language understandable by machines) are used for “behind-the scenes” programming. They inspired the birth of other languages, and are best used for studying the ins and outs of programming.

Languages like Prolog and Jess, on the other hand, are better used for problems that require activation of rules to function.

Further, languages like Turbo Assembler or TASM and GNU Assembler or GAS are nondescript interpreters of machine languages, working mainly for instructing machines at low-level communication.

Although not strictly classified as programming languages, scripting languages like PHP and JavaScript are still used for creating programs, but they are better used in defining applications. They slowly invade web designing too, since they can provide wider functionality and can accommodate client-based processes.

There are many other languages that one can use for a specific type of problems too, so exploring different languages and their functions and applications isn’t a bad idea. Actually, with a vast virtual world, there is a multitude of programming languages to choose from. One shouldn’t be limited to one or two programming languages since problems can exist from as small as a Fibonacci sequence generator (as shown above) to a creation of a complex system that manages contents of, say, Daily Bits.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: algorithm, Fibonacci, language, Programming, pseudocode

17 Sensational, Free and Downloadable Graphic Novels

January 8, 2008 by Skellie 72 Comments

The web is home to a treasure-trove of free culture. Thousands of artists, writers, film-makers, poets and illustrators craft impressive creative works and share them freely online, in the interests of making their work accessible to as many people as possible. We thank them for that.

In this post, I want to highlight a booming segment of the online free culture movement: graphic novels.

Each link will take you to a page where you can download or view a high quality graphic novel or excerpt freely and with no strings attached.

There are plenty more to be found, but these seventeen are some of the best you’ll find.

1. NYC2123 is a graphic novel designed for the Sony Playstation Portable, though it can easily be viewed as an image slideshow on any PC. It’s a B&W cyberpunk story, set on a post-apocalyptic earth. There are currently 6 issues available for download.

nyc2123.jpg

2. Fell #1 by Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith follows Detective Richard Fell, recently dumped in the roughest part of town and forced to try and stay afloat amongst the decay. Like many graphic novels, this one is heavy on the dystopia and will please anyone who likes their characters dark and morally ambiguous.

fell.jpg

3. Crossing Midnight Vol. 1: Cut Here is a fantasy meets Asian horror story of two twins born under strange circumstances. It’s set in present day Nagasaki, Japan, and is bound to please fans of J-Horror.

crossingmidnight1.jpg

4. Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile asks the question: what if classic fairy-tale characters were banished to present day New York?

legendsinexile.jpg

5. Deadman Vol. 1: Deadman Walking follows the journey of a man struggling to solve the mystery behind his own death.

deadmanwalking.jpg

6. Salamander Dream is the whimsical story of a girl and her salamander spirit friend. The print version of the novel was named one of the best comics released in 2005 by Publisher’s Weekly.

salamander.jpg

7. Y: The Last Man Vol. 1: Unmanned is the story of Yorick Brown, the last man alive in a world inhabited only by women.

thelastman.jpg

8. Meanwhile is an interactive comic from Jason Shiga — kinda like a much cooler version of those Choose Your Own Adventure books you read as a kid.

meanwhile.png

9. The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes, written by best-selling Sci-Fi author Neil Gaiman, chronicles the story of Morpheus, Lord of Dreams.

thesandman.jpg

10. The War of the Worlds graphic novel adaptation is available freely online courtesy of Dark Horse Comics.

waroftheworlds.jpg

11. DMZ Vol. 1: On the Ground is the story of an embedded war journalist trapped in the war-zone that is now New York City.

dmz.jpg

12. Outside the Box chronicles the dangerous adventures of a bored dotcommer drawn into events much larger than himself.

outsidethebox.jpg

13. Doom Patrol Vol. 1: Crawling From the Wreckage twists the group of superheroes stereotype on its head.

doompatrol.jpg

14. Indefensible Positions is a modern day story where magic and myths are real.

indefensiblepositions1.gif

15. Hellblazer: Original Sins follows the early days of John Constantine, a British occultist with murky morals who is often forced to save the day.

hellblazer.jpg

16. Chaos PhD is a finely crafted and off-beat homage to the Silver Age of American comic books.

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17. Swamp Thing Vol. 1: Saga of the Swamp Thing tells the tale of an unlikely hero: a swamp creature forced to fight against the destructive influence of a corrupt and decadent human-kind.

swampthing.jpg

Filed Under: Internet Tagged With: amazing, download, free, graphic, novels

2007: The Year of Social Networking

January 2, 2008 by Arun 1 Comment

An article at PC World does a great job of summarizing the major developments in social networking space in 2007 and ponders over the prospects and uncertainties for 2008.

One insightful point mentioned in the article is how innovation at start-ups startles tech giants. Google, the great Web firm that one-upped Yahoo in claiming the search crown and hailed as the poster child of innovation was beaten at the social networking front. All the major internet firms such as Yahoo, Google and MS were done in by FaceBook which sort of perfected the concept of applications around social networks.

Social Networking is moving from the domain of an ‘nice add-on’ feature to a must-have even at the enterprise level. Various organizations are now waking up to the possibility that to attract the next generation of talent, it is essential to incorporate the flavor of social networking and connectivity within the enterprise.

While there were major salvos fired at FaceBook’s walled garden approach to social networking apps (which it did counter by licensing the F8 platform), it will be LinkedIn’s progress in the API space that will be really interesting. Being a site for business networking, it is one network that will really see a boost with professional networking going beyond just the website to the Web as such.

But another shift that can also be expected is the increased availability of affordable feature-rich mobile phones and compelling mobile applications. Apart from the enterprise user, the benefits of mobile applications have not really trickled down to the casual user. 2008 will hopefully be the year when mobile applications especially for social networking will really take off. Since Google has made several bold moves in the mobile space, expect a lot of innovation in this front.

Overall, its been a great year for Social Networking and for 2008 there’s a lot to anticipate.

Filed Under: Social Networks Tagged With: f8, facebook, google, innovation, linkedin, Mobile, social networking

Keeping Your Windows PC Clean – Part 2: Malware and You

January 1, 2008 by Devindra 1 Comment

This is the second post in my “Keeping Your Windows PC Clean” series. If you haven’t yet, check out my first post on using Windows Update.

Virii Plush Dolls
Picture from Paul Holloway @ Flickr

I realize now that the first post may not have been one of the most exciting topics, but when talking about the more advanced elements of Windows troubleshooting I believe it’s important to have your basics covered. Today we’ll be moving on to the most common issues Windows users face: Malware.

What is Malware?

Malware is an umbrella term that includes such computing staples as viruses, trojans, and spyware. In terms of risk prevention, it’s best to keep all of the different sorts of malicious software in mind. Simply put, there’s more to worry about than spyware and viruses. You can read an exhaustively complete explanation of all the different types of malware at Wikipedia.

Here are a few steps you can take to hopefully prevent getting malware in the first place:

Pay Attention to What You’re Installing

Once you get used to installing Windows programs, the installation process tends to feel the same after a while. It’s often tempting to simply click Next until the installation is finished, blithely ignoring the options presented to you. While it may speed up the installation process, this also opens you up to unwittingly installing malware on your computer.

The solution to this is to simply pay attention and read everything you see during installation. While an antispyware program will save you if you install junk on your computer, it’s always better to avoid putting it there in the first place. Pay attention and you’ll notice far more software trying to sneak onto your system than you previously thought. Also, choose the “custom” installation option if possible to see exactly what the software is putting on your system.

Some examples of malware include the software that tries to sneak into your system when you install the Weatherbug application (just stay away from that entirely), and the variety of junk you’re presented with when installing RealPlayer.

Take note: This isn’t just good practice for preventing malware, it also prevents tons of legitimate software which I find wholly unnecessary. These sorts of things won’t actively harm your computer, but pile enough of them on and you’re bound to notice a performance decrease. Some examples of this includes the auto-updating features of Quicktime and the Google Applications, as well as anything that masquerades as a “helper application” in your system tray.

Be Wary When Using Downloaded Files

Semi-related to the topic above, you should also pay attention to the files you download from the web and P2P applications. If possible, make sure the files you’re downloading are “clean” (checking comments usually helps with this, if they’re available), and don’t contain any strange executables. Things to look out for include random .exe and .dat files when you only expected to find music.

If you have antivirus software (which will be covered soon in this series), you can scan the files you download to make sure they’re not harboring malware. This is a last resort method of course, and the best course of action is not to download anything from sketchy pirate sites at all.

Use Firefox and Internet Explorer 7

Anecdotally, I would guesstimate that around 80% of malware that the average user installs comes from Internet Explorer 6. It’s no big secret that IE6 was one of the biggest security holes in Windows XP. This had to do mainly because of the way IE6 was integrated into XP. The tight integration was seemingly a good idea to Microsoft for development reasons, but in reality it opened up some gaping security holes.

After Service Pack 2 for XP was released, IE became a bit more bearable with a few security upgrades. Then came Internet Explorer 7 which offered greatly improved security (especially for Vista users), but unfortunately still couldn’t compare much to Firefox.

My advice for this section boils down to this: Use the latest version of Firefox for your primary web browsing, but also make sure to have Internet Explorer 7 installed because you need to have some version of IE installed. You might as well have the most secure version. (Of course if you followed my advice from the first column, you’d already be covered.)

Coming Up Next Time

The next article in this series will cover what you need to do to remove malware from your system. I didn’t include it in this one because it’s honestly a very different topic, and if you followed my advice in this section to heart you may never actually need to remove any malware 😉

Also, I realize that everyone has their own theories when it comes to computer maintenance, so I welcome you to offer your suggestions for avoiding malware in the comments.

Filed Under: Software Tagged With: malware windows xp vista microsoft

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