Scott Villarosa posted about how to get Gmail to find specific downloads on BitTorrent websites using RSS feeds.
Now thats pretty cool!!! It is obvious how this would be of benefit to the user.
That’s a pretty cool trick - for non-Azureus users. For Azureus users, there’s already have “2″ RSS programs for downloading new torrents.
Gmail has many hidden features which can be utilized and thanks to some illustratious people, Gmail tips can now be shared with all. In an effort to provide easier access to Gmail Tips, they have been posted on “GmailTips.com” web site. Some of these Gmail Tips may be outdated, but they represent the entire collection. A nice list with informative content about gmail and cool tips on usage etc.
Cool tips though on the Gmail thing. So I guess my rage get’s pacified somewhat. This site has some lovely tips, too bad I’m too lazy to read them all. Google never stops giving! GMail Tips?? What is tips about them? Mostly things that you already know..
What’s with all these Gmail tips… there’s at least one a week. This fella forgot (or doesnt know) to put my favorite tip of all, storing attachements greater than 10mb, up to 20mb, and soon with the help of xmail you will be able to store even larger than 20mb attachements.
Google has a big problem on its hands: Gmail users are developing ad blindness. Ad blindness results when people get accustomed to ads and stop noticing them.
I like gmail ads… Since they are kind of humorous, I find myself occasionally scanning through them just to see what is there. They may soon have a problem, but I think they are doing a pretty good job with the ad plan overall. I don’t block google ads, they aren’t invasive or anything. Image ads, yes, flash ads, for sure. But not google ads.
The weird part is, I don’t even notice them anymore like the article says. They are very ineffective but if I have to click on them to keep my free Gmail I will. If everyone blocks ads you won’t get any more free stuff. No free news websites, no free email… You pay for the stuff by being exposed to the adds.
To be honest I don’t know how they make money with problems like that. Marketdroids have to realize that ad blindness happens everywhere. The vast majority of people don’t come anywhere NEAR filling their Gmail quota. And those so lazy that they never delete their inbox, and never download the large attachments to take it off the server are going to be too lazy to check ads. (Let’s face it, no one is approaching the 1 Gig limit without several e-mails with attachments of several dozen Meg each.)
What I don’t understand is if they want to go with a “slot machine” style system, why NOT offer money awards. If you click on the “winning” ad, you get 10 cents or something like that. It goes into your account, and when you accumulate a certain amount (say $10-20) you are sent a check. Or even better for Goggle, rather than give cash, give them a gift certificate toward a purchase at one of their advertisers. Say Best Buy was an advertiser. Then, when they accumulate $10, they can use that towards a Best Buy purchase. That would be great for Google, since it would cost them less than $10. And everybody wants cash. Whereas very few people care about getting an extra terabyte of storage space. If you have a contest where only 10% of the users will benefit from the prize, you are not going to get much response.
Regarding the concept of the random rewards, I think no one really needs that much storage, I send files all the time with multiple megabytes but i am still only using 13% of my storage. Cash incentives/gift certificates is a great idea. I wouldn’t mind if there was also a chance to win new gmail features either.
The problem is that by offering an incentive for clicks on ads, their advertisers suffer. If all you are doing is clicking with no interest in that actual product or service, then you are costing them money. And that will make them stop using Google AdWords.
The author is not suggesting that Google offers incentives to click on ads. He is suggesting that sometimes instead of an ad is a message saying that they won something. The user will click on that (which is not an ad), and claim their prize. The point is that if people knew that they could get rewards, they would have an incentive to look at the ads (not to click). If they saw something that they liked, then out of their own free will (and receiving no incentive) they would click on the ad.
Targeted ads are certainly more effective. What I think they need is better targeting, really. Adwords are not particularly effective because people mass spam the words. It was basically luck that the hotel was advertising there (or somebody else was). With better content recognition and better targetting of ads to content, they could be particularly effective. It’s just that the AdWords concept seems flawed, even if it is more effective than normal ads.
Hopefully Google will go innovative, not aggressive.
Anyway, if you still are irritated with the ads and viewing thru Firefox, here are a couple of ways to block it.
/* Remove ads from Google search results */
@-moz-document url-prefix(http://www.google.com/) {
table[width=”25%”][align=”right”][bgColor=”#ffffff “] {
display: none ! important
}
}
/* Remove ads from Froogle */
@-moz-document url-prefix(http://froogle.google.com/) {
td[valign=”top”][width=”20%”][align=”right”] > table {
display: none ! important
}
}
/* Remove ads from Gmail */
@-moz-document url-prefix(http://gmail.google.com/gmail) {
#rh table[class=”metatable”] {
display: none !important;
}
#rh div[class=”c”] {
display: none !important;
}
}
/* Remove ads from Google Groups */
@-moz-document url-prefix(http://groups-beta.google.com/) {
/* Remove ads from Google Groups message detail view */
table[id=”rn”] {
display: none ! important
}
/* Remove ads from Google Groups search results */
table[width=”200″][align=”right”] {
display: none ! important
}
}
One of the little-known freebies Gmail offers is a portable SMTP server to send mail from any network for any email address. This site shows how it’s done.
Isn’t this all available in Google’s own documentation telling you how to set up GMail with a third party e-mail client? Although its useful, but no real secret. It’s not like Google was trying to hide it.
GMail offers an extremely powerful system of filtering e-mail messages. By using a combination of GMail tags and filters, you can create an extremely useful personal organizer system right in your inbox.
Here is another great article on a “Getting Things Done” system in GMail.
Tools and tips on protecting your laptop from theft. Links to helpful resources.
“Firefox’s built-in search box lets you search Google from wherever you are. You don’t have to settle for that built-in searching, though, because you can build your own Firefox search engine plug-in to search through any site from the Google search box”
While there are other articles describing how to create a Firefox search plugin, this one comes straight from mozdev.org. It also includes instructions on how to submit your plugin to the website.
Portable Firefox is a fully functional package of Firefox optimized for use on a USB key drive.
Portable Firefox in one word: AWESOME! Now I can keep those perverted people who monitor other peoples browser history off my back and do so with a new version. You can always keep Portable Firefox, Portable Thunderbird and Portable Sunbird on my USB drive.
Actually this one is still “beta”… But as usual, Kudos to John Haller for another job well done.
In just a few seconds, JiWire’s free Wi-Fi Security Test gives you critical information about your Wi-Fi connection and whether or not it is vulnerable to wireless hackers and thieves.
I ran it, its bunk! Either I’m so secure that it’s only option is to return N/A for all my results or its total shat.
I’d steer clear of this, It also hangs my IE on exit. Was this put out my MS or is this just a reallly stupid moronic test.
This doesn’t seem to be so much a security test as a “print info about my wireless connection” page. I mean, wouldn’t the people really concerned about their network security already have taken measures to keep people out? Really, I found nothing informative about my connection from this. At best, it just offers basic security suggestions about wireless that I could find on almost any other wireless security site.
While it’s an interesting idea, it doesn’t seem to be that practical at the moment.
Voyeur Heaven: finding interesting video, sound and image files in unprotected directories.
Another useful resource is at Google Hacking Database (GHDB)
