If Dr. Seuss had a GMail account, he would probably let you know the popular web based email works great even without an internet connection by using a rhyme similar to the title of this post. Now, that Gmail’s offline feature has been finalized, it’s even easier than ever to turn it on. These instructions are taken from the already linked GMail Blog Post:

“Now, we’re happy to announce that Offline Gmail is graduating from Labs and becoming a regular part of Gmail. If you’re already using it, then you’re all set. While you’ll no longer see it on the Labs tab, you can tweak your settings and turn it on and off from the Offline tab under Settings. If you’d like to get started with Offline Gmail on your computer now, here’s how:

1. Click the “Settings” link in the top-right corner of Gmail.
2. Click the “Offline” tab.
   
3. Select “Enable Offline Mail for this computer.”
   
4. Click “Save Changes” and follow the directions from there.”
   

Here’s a screen shot of my offline settings when using Google’s Chrome browser

I find it interesting that the recent message range (amount of email to download for offline use) can be set from 4 days all the way to 5 years. Don’t be surprised if it takes a really long time to synchronize if you pick the latter.

Turn on offline GMail. Then go on a trip. Go ahead. You might end up saying something like:

“I do use offline GMail when I can. I do use offline GMail Sam I Am.”

My boys are now old enough that I can share the enjoyment of listening to music with them. Of course, this most commmonly happens in the car, so I’ve put together the following list of songs that we listen to most often.

Appropriately enough, I’ve called this list “the Minivan Soundtrack”. It’s mostly an up tempo collection of popular songs from movies, television shows, sporting events, and kid’s radio.

I recommend picking 15 to 20 of these and making your own travel CD. Then all you need to do is flash the vehicle dome light to the beat for an instant, mobile dance party with your family! Keep both hands on the wheel, please!!

Let me know some of your family favorites!



If you downloaded Google Chrome a while ago, you should know there’s now a new version available. Apparently this version was released somewhere around Dec 8, 2009 – going by the date of the Google Chrome Blog post Google Chrome for the holidays: Mac, Linux and extensions in beta. As the post title indicates, Chrome now comes in flavors for the Mac, Linux, and Windows. Also exciting for me is the introduction of Extensions for the Linux and Windows versions. Sorry, but Mac extensions are still in development.

I’ve installed Chrome on my Ubuntu machines and I am loving it!

Not all of my favorite Firefox extensions are available in Crome yet, but I’ve been able to duplicate a few. So far I have installed Evernote, Shareaholic, and XMarks.

I have been using Chrome for a while, and was surprised to learn that my installed version did not update automatically. Be sure to upgrade your version too! Also check out the custom themes for Google Chrome after you upgrade.

Several blogger colleagues have raved to me about how they love blogging with Windows Live Writer. Every time I’ve tried (until now) I gave up because my personal blog’s themes use dark backgrounds. When trying to use Live Writer it was impossible to write or edit. Here’s a screen shot of this blog’s default dark background.

I found the answer in a Windows Live Writer Forum thread titled Theme Not Showing Up Properly. Flora MSFT answered with the following advice:

“One of your screenshots is our plain editing surface, which we fall back on if template detection fails. You can choose to edit in this mode by going to View menu and unchecking "Edit using Theme".”

The change to not edit using my theme changed my post background to the default off white (blue-ish) color and has made blogging from Live Writer much mo’ better!

Iam writing this post from my Blackberry 8800. I was able to log in to the web dashboard using the Blackberry browser. Previously I could only log in, but then my phone browser would hang at “running script” while waiting for the WP dashboard to load. A single setting change on my phone eliminated the javascript / php that appears to have been the issue.

From the Blackberry Home screen:

1. Click Options
2. Click Advanced
3. Click Browser
4. Change setting to “Internet Browser”.

I’m not sure if this works on other Blackberry models too. Let me know if you try it!

Twitter is surprisingly addictive. When I first heard about it I thought, why would I want to send an SMS message to a bunch of people to let them know what I was doing? The idea of receiving a slew of texts wasn’t too appealing either especially if the content was stuff like “I am at the bus stop” or “I’m going to the grocery store”.  I joined Twitter reluctantly when I attended a technical conference back in September because the conference organizers were promoting it and communicating to attendees via the free service.

So what is Twitter? PC.com has a good write up titled Family friendly Twitter Tips and explains:

‘This free Web-based service shares qualities with blogging, social networking, instant messaging, and chatting, but is not exactly any of these things. Twitter allows you to broadcast 140-character dispatches (or “tweets”) to your friends and followers from your computer or cell phone; everything from what you’re doing at any given moment (“at coffee shop consuming 1500 calorie snack”) to links you want to pass along to replies to other Twitter users. Using Twitter isn’t unlike sitting in a friendly cafe overhearing bits conversation around you and then piping up when you feel like it.”

Read the rest of the PC.com article to see how you can use Twitter to keep up with your family. I’ve been using Twitter to broadcast blog updates and post random thoughts and activities. I’m not sending a Tweet for everything I do, but I can see (and follow a few people) how it’s easy to do.

Check out my Tweets at http://www.twitter.com/rbrambley, or if you sign up then follow me. I also have a widget in the sidebar of this web page with my 10 latest tweets.

Here are some other applications and add-ons to compliment Twitter that I have found useful. (more…)

If you are like me you have multiple web and pop3 email accounts, multiple instant messaging identities, and belong to several social networking sites. In all of these accounts you get frequent messages or updates that you have a hard time keeping up with across several independent clients. I recently realized that Digsby is the consolidated single client answer for my problem.

From Digsby.com:

“digsby is a multiprotocol IM client that lets you chat with all your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber with one simple to manage buddy list.”

“digsby is an email notification tool that alerts you of new email and lets you perform actions such as ‘Delete’ or ‘Report Spam’ with just one click”

“digsby is a social networking tool that alerts you of events like new messages and gives you a live Newsfeed of what your friends are up to.”

For example, I am using Digsby to monitor my Gmail, Yahoo, and vmetc.com POP3 email accounts, my Gmail and Yahoo instant messaging accounts, and follow updates on Twitter and Linked In. The screen shot in this post is my desktop client. Using the Digsby options you can configure the program to remain running after you close the desktop client and then provide Outlook style pop up notifications when you receive new communicatons.

Since the majority of my accounts are web page -based, setting up new accounts was (more…)

McAfee Avert Labs is claiming that 27% of all PCs their products have scanned since last Friday are infected with a Trojan malware named Downloader-UA.h. This Trojan was found disguised as media files on more than half a million computers. Believed to have been planted on file sharing sites like Limewire and eDonkey, users are tricked when trying to play a media file they downloaded.

As explained in the Yahoo news article Fake MP3 Trojan Detected On 27% Of PCs: (more…)

Ubuntu 8.04 has several cool features that were not previously available in past versions. The coolest is when you load the Ubuntu CD on a PC running Windows you have the option to perform a Wubi installation. The Wubi install installs like a Windows application (and it is removed as a Windows app too – i.e. from the Control Panel > Add / Remove programs) but configures your PC to dual boot Ubuntu and your Windows version. It does not modify partitions, the MBR, or any part of your hard disk. It simply creates a new folder named Ubuntu on the drive you choose to install to.

When I first tried the Wubi install I attempted to load it to the same partition Windows boots from. The installation failed, so I then installed it to my data partition and was successful. After a reboot I was prompted to choose which OS to boot. I selected Ubuntu and was amazed as my Lenovo T60p booted successfully. The only problem Ubuntu had with my hardware was that the wireless indicator L.E.D. did not light up, but wireless was working fine.

I was then able to download and install packages / updates, modify my theme and appearance, and configure Ubuntu as you would expect. I could even access my Windows files because the data partition was mounted as /host and the boot partition could be mounted as a removable drive. The end result is the screenshot of my dsktop in this post. (more…)

Lifehacker.com’s post Top 10 Free Video Rippers, Encoders, and Converters reports:

“Commercial video converter software’s aplenty, but there are several solid free utilities that can convert your video files on every operating system, or if you’ve just got a web browser and a quick clip. Put DVDs on your iPod, YouTube videos on DVD, or convert any video file with today’s top 10 free video rippers, encoders and converters.”

Here’s the list of all ten of the utilities. Read the entire article at the link above for more details on each one. (more…)