ShanKri-la

Attach Files to Gmail From Any Windows Application - gAttach

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 06:35:34 PDT

Users of a desktop email client like Outlook or Thunderbird have long been used to using the email function built in many applications like Word, Windows Explorer, etc to attach files with ease.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work for web based email like Gmail. You could make Gmail the default email client within the browser like you can do in Firefox. But, your Windows desktop applications don’t have any idea how to do it for Gmail. I came across gAttach on Madhur’s blog and tried it out.

What is gAttach?

gAttach is a small Windows application that lets you email using Gmail with or without attachments from almost any Windows application. Here are a gist of gAttach features

Send email from any Windows application via Gmail
Handles email - mailto links from all browsers and not just Firefox
Works with Google Apps
Uses HTTPS for added security
Option to let gAttach remember your Gmail username/password for convenience or you can just login yourself
Choose to launch Gmail after creating a draft message
Choose to use basic HTML version or Rich Text version
Option Load Gmail when you click on an email link
Option to setup proxy server details
Free for personal use

gAttach was a small 496K download and just took under 2 minutes to install. Once installed, you just use the Send to ‘Mail recipient’ function in your Windows Explorer right-click menu to attach files. Just be mind ful of the 20MB attachment size limit in Gmail.

Gmail Notifier can also make Gmail the default mail client for Windows and Mac but gAttach gives you the extra options mentioned here.

What about Linux?

gAttach is a Windows application. What if you wanted to make Gmail the default mail client in Linux? How-to Geek has this trick covered. Even though the post is on how to get it done on Ubuntu, it should work on other Linux distros as well.

Use Gmail without a Mouse

For a power Gmail user, some of the Gmail keyboard shortcuts are essential. For me, ‘#’ key is just invaluable to delete mails easily trying to keep up with the ‘zero inbox’ I try to follow. However, this post from official Gmail blog, nicely walks though on various keyboard shortcuts to use Gmail without a mouse. (tip: just type ? in Gmail to see various shortcuts)

Gmail users, what do you think? If you are using Yahoo or Hotmail, do you know of a similar way to do this?

[via Madhur Kapoor]

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Firefox Extensions: Picks of the Week 08-10-03

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 06:04:39 PDT

So, the much awaited Biden-Pail debate is over and the news analysts are tearing it apart to see who got the lead after it. And thankfully the Google Chrome fever seems to be over too. Let’s show our beloved Firefox some love with this week’s edition.

WiseStamp: The name gives away nothing. But, this little extension brings HTML signatures to your all your web-based email accounts. We have been smitten by Gmail HTML signatures add-on Black Canvas beofre but this goes one step further. It supports Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail & AOL mail. You can create signatures in a rich HTML editor as well as create links to your favorite social networks. Try them both to see what fits your needs.
Omnibar: If you haven’t tried Google Chrome yet and don’t care about it, you can move on to the next extension in the list. This extension mimics the Omnibar in Google Chrome by merging the search box in the location bar. It still can’t show the search results in Omnibar but it’s close.
FlickrSender: if you are Flickr user, you will love this. You can just right click on any image in the web and send to Flickr in just 3 clicks. You have to be logged in to Flickr ro use this. [experimental add-on]
TwitBin: It’s a Twitter sidebar extension and works nicely. You can send and receive tweets right from your browser and still continue to browse as usual. You can follow me on Twitter too.
GTalk Sidebar: I have shown how you can GTalk gadget in your browser sidebar by using a specific url. But, if you don’t want to go through all that, you can simply install this add-on and get done with it. Use Alt+G to open/close it. Need Flash installed in your browser.
Flixo: This extension is for the developers who love working with API’s. Netflix recently opened up it’s API to developers and now you can interact with it using this extensions. You can automatically OAuth signs requests to API requests and it prompts for parameter values in resource GET requests.

I have been featuring Firefox extensions all along but haven’t shared any themes with you. That’s gonna change and here’s the first one.

Firefox Theme of the Week

Heaven Cube: It is a dark modern theme and you will love it if you have a similar dark theme for your OS as well. Here’s what mine looks like.

If you are new here, feel free to check out our Top Firefox extensions list or browse through my weekly picks. There are some hidden gems in those posts.

Have a great weekend!

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HackWordPress.com Turns 1 and Has a Huge Giveaway

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:30:23 PDT

WordPress has become my favorite hobby and in fact my wife’s potantial business venture. There are excellent resources for WordPress and Hack WordPress run by my friend Kyle Eslick, is one of the most useful ones out there.

Hack WordPress has just turned 1 and the 2000+ RSS subscribers is just a hint at what it has acheived as a milestone in it’s infancy. If you do anything with WordPress, HWP is a site to bookmark.

In celebration of HWP’s 1st birthday, Kyle has unveiled a redesign and I just love the new look. Plus, he has a huge Premium themes giveaway. Here is a list of premium themes you could win:

6 Month Developer Subscription - The winner of this prize will receive a 6 month developer subscription to Woo Themes (Courtesy of the Adii and the Woo Themes team)
2008 Theme Club Subscription - The winner of this
prize will receive a copy of all themes released by iThemes in 2008,
valued at over $1400.00 (Courtesy of Cory Miller of iThemes)
3 Revolution Single-Use Licenses - All 3 winners will get their choice of which Revolution theme they want their license to be for. (Courtesy of Brian Gardner of Revolution Themes)
5 One Theme Single-Use Licenses - All 5 winners
will receive a webmaster (single-use) license of the extremely popular
One Theme (Courtesy of Lee Cooper and Karl Forshaw of One Theme).
2 Gabfire Single-Use Licenses, 2 Multiple-Use Licenses, and 2 Developer’s Licenses - Winners will have a choice of which of Mehmet’s 3 different themes you would like your license to be for. (Courtesy of Mehmet of Gabfire Themes)
2 TV Elements Single-Use Licenses - Winners will get a single-use copy of the extremely popular TV Elements video theme. (Courtesy of Jason of Press 75)

How to Enter?

It’s very simple to enter.

Blog about this contest - 3 Entries
Leave a Comment - 1 Entry

As you can see, there are a great many prizes to win in this giveaway and it’s very simple to enter! Contest ends on Oct 9 and the winners will be announced Oct 10th.

Giveaway aside, I wish Kyle & Hack WordPress good luck as HWP has become a cornerstone in the WordPress community. I secretly wish to write as a guest author in HWP sometime but haven’t been able to due to time constraints.

Congratulations, Kyle!

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Evernote Opens up it’s API - Users Rejoice

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:47:06 PDT

Evernote is a note-taking application on steroids. It has the winning formula and success written all over it. I did step over a line and called Evernote as a Google Notebook alternative. And it has definitely come true for me. I have completely Google Notebook for Evernote.

Evernote just introduced some very important and poweful changes that puts in the right path even more so now.

Evernote Service API

I am very excited about Evernote’s Service API launch. This means that thrid party developers can now interact with Evernote and come up with innovative ideas. In fact, someone could end up creating a brand new Evernote client that could just blow the original out of the water. This is what makes a lot of web applications like Flickr, Facebook, etc. a success.

Mac and Windows Scripting

This is great news for those savvy at the command line. If you are one of those geniuses, you can automate various processes and integrate Evernote with other scriptable applications. For eg. you can automatically pull RSS feeds into Evernote or all scanned pictures to be added to Evernote. You get the idea.

Import/Export

Now, you can import/export your notes out of Evernote from Evernote for Mac or Windows and into another making your Evernote data completely portable in the form of well-defined XML.

Evernote has been seeing minor improvements since I reviewed last, like getting a kickass Evernote iPhone App, adding rich text formatting, nice tag support, etc. But, the above enhancements is definitely going to take it to the next level. If only, I could get a native Linux client for Evernote!

I already use Evernote as a Mozilla Prism app but I would love to see a Adobe AIR app for Evernote making use of it’s Service API. What would you like to see?

[via Evernote Blog]

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3 Excellent Craigslist Interface Alternatives

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:41:42 PDT

Even though I have been using Craigslist to buy stuff locally for a long time, yesterday was the first time I sold something. A Lexmark Color printer. We sold it within a day of listing it.

Craigslist has adopted the less is more principal in terms of design, features, etc. ut, for the power users it’s interface can be limiting at times. We have looked at a Craigslist alternative before (Crgslst.com) but it has been blocked. I have found a few more alternatives now.

CLHack.com - A nifty javascript driven web interface

Clhack.com provides a familiar Windows Explorer look in teh web with the States and Cities presented in a folder hierarchy structure.

Once you dig into the United States or Canada, the state/province, the city, it lists the various categories under the city. Clicking on US -> Michigan -> Lansing -> Cars+Trucks look like the picture. Plus, the pictures zoom out when you mouse over it.

You have the option to see the listing with pictures (default) or all listings. You can search through the listings, choose to search only the titles and set a min or max price or both.

I also like the fact that the whole interface is tabbed. Which means you can keep the existing searches open and start a new search in a different tab. This means i can search for an item across cities or even states in different tabs.It even remembered my last search tab when I closed and re-opened the tab in Firefox.

Now, let’s take a look at a desktop alternative.

CraigsPal - Advanced Craigslist Search

Now, if you are looking for something beyond just a nice looking interface than the 90’s look of the original, CraigsPal might fit the bill. CraigsPal is a Windows based desktop software that brings additional features like

Highly customized filtered content
Multi-city, multi-state search
Ability to remove listings containing certain words
Browsing with keyboard shortcuts
Spam flagging

CraigsPal comes in free and paid versions ($29.99). With the paid version, you get additional features like

fully automated search
instant notifier for search results
email/mobile notifier

The free version is pretty useful too although it has ads on one side. It can be very useful if you are on Craigslist everyday looking for stuff in various cities.

Search All Craig’s

If you are quickly looking up stuff though and you want to get listings of a particular item no matter where they are in the country, like a freelance job, Search All Craigs can help. All Craigs is a Google Custom Search engine, just like the WordPress Custom Search engine I put together. It is helpful while searching across the country for something but its helpfulness ends there.

You don’t get image previews or advanced filtering capabilty you get with the other 2. But, someone took the trouble to put this together and is definitely worth a mention.

Craigslist is an excellent place to find some items at a steal. Using a powerful visual interfaces such as these could make you a Craigslist ninja and zap items or get gigs before others can. Do you have any Craigslist secrets you would like to share with us? Comment away.

[via MakeUseOf | Lifehacker]

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Post tags: deals, software, tips n tricks, tools, web apps

Firefox Extensions: Picks of the Week 08-09-26

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:49:45 PDT

Folks, sorry for the site being down since this morning! We exceeded our bandwidth due to our iPhone blog getting very popular this month! We are now back in business..

It’s been a while since we looked at some cool new Firefox extensions. However, I did completely revamp the Top Firefox Extensions listing I maintain and added some much needed new categories so it makes it easier to find the extensions you need.

Let’s look at some more new extensions:

FoxTab: FoxTab is a Windows only extension that makes switching tabs via Alt+Tab a visual treat. If you are used to Apple’s coverflow or PicLens picture views, TabFlow will be right up your alley. You can choose from one of 5 different layouts for tabs.
It is an experimental add-on, so you will need a login at AMO to download it. Plus, a version for Ubuntu and Mac OSX is coming soon.
BugMeNot: BugMeNot is an awesome service for those websites that require you to register to see their content. BugMeNot has hundreds and thousands of usernames and passwords for those sites you don’t want to register. This extension makes it even easier to get those. Just right click on username and password field to get those. Sorry, no porn sites!
Email This!: You have probably used the Gmail This! browser bookmarklet or other bookmarklets we have reviewed. Email This Bokmarklet Extension brings this feature not just to Gmail but to plenty of other email services such as Google Apps Gmail, Yahoo and even apps like Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc.
Find In Tabs: Search text across all your tabs with this extension. Clicking on the search result will take you to the tab with the search text in it. Very useful for those like me with dozens of open tabs.
Google Preview: Shows thumbnails of websites in the search results in your Google and Yahoo searches. This add-on can be very helpful in identifying a search result if you are looking for a website you have been to before.
TinyUrl Creator: I have used the TinyUrl bookmarklet to create TinyUrls but now this extension makes it even more easier to create short easy to share urls.

Firefox 3.0.2 Released

If you are on Windows, you might already have been prompted to update to Firefox 3.0.2. But, looks like Firefox 3.0.3 will be out hot on the heels of 3.0.2 fixing a bug.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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Blaze Media Pro - A Swiss Army Tool for Audio/Video

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:59:56 PDT

Blaze Media Pro is really an all-in-one audio powerhouse. Anything you wanna name to do with audio, it seems to do it. Blaze Media Pro offers conversion, ripping, editing, recording, burning, playback, etc. My issue with audio/video files is that there isn’t a set of file formats you can rely on. They are available in a mind boggling number of formats and everyone at some point needs to convert them to fit their needs.

The features it supports are mind boggling and I am going to try to list a few important features in this list based on the type of media you are editing:

Audio Features

Supports conversion, ripping, burning, editing, rerecording
Burn audio CD, copy music cds
Media management, Audio merging, MusicID recognition, etc.
Supports lyrics search, audio tag editing, FreeDB support, etc.
Extract audio from video files and save to sound files
Visual audio editing allows you to choose the part of the track you want to edit, apply effects, etc.
Play & edit any portion of the audio file, insert noise or silence, apply various filters.
You can also add album information into audio files
Supported audio formats: WAV PCM, Compressed WAV (ADPCM, GSM, DSP, A-LAW, U-LAW, ALF2), MP3, MP2, OGG Vorbis, WMA, AC3, AAC, FLAC, AU (Unix Audio), AIFF (Apple Audio), RAW, CDA (Audio CD Tracks), and ALAC, WavPack.
Drag & drop ability, interface skins lets you customize it to your liking.

Video Features

Supported video formats include - MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVI, MWV, ASF, SWF & FLV, PSP, 3GP & MOV files
You can compress videos back into the same format or any other format of your choice
You get the same functionality as DVD Shrink with BlazeMedia Pro
You can use it as a DVD ripper and convert to AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and WMV for output
Comprehensive video options are available including delete frame, delete selection, crop, resize, rotate, mirror, flip, trim, adjust volume, etc.
Plus, you can apply almost 30 different effects and color adjustments to enhance your videos.
Video - Video capture, creation, extraction & editing.
Burning - Audio, video in VCD, SVCD & DVD formats as well as data CD/DVD.
Extract frames from video in batch mode and save as images.
Create video from still frame images.

Now comes the hard part. This software costs $50. As a reader here, you may know that I am a huge proponent of free software and write regular reviews of such software. There are definitely other free alternatives such FooBar for audio and other software alternatives for video.

But, Blaze Media Pro brings all that features into one powerpack that just makes me say that it is definitely a swiss-army knife of audio/video tools. If you are looking for some powerful features and do a lot of advanced editing with audio or video files, mass convert files from one format to another, this tool could be the best $50 you have spent.

When I was asked to do a paid review for this product, I downloaded the 14-day free trial and gave it a whirl and was absolutely impressed. One thing I noticed is that the product does so much and all that information has been presented in very short area and it could actually overwhelm someone first landing on it. The product page could definitely use a overhaul make it visually appealing and present the information in an easy to digest way.

You don’t have to take my word on Blaze Media Pro. You can try it for free and see it for yourself. I’d definitely appreciate it if you could share your impressions on it in teh comments so anyone reading this would benefit from another pair of eyes looking at this software.

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Oosah Offers 1TB of Free Online Storage

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:54:14 PDT

To be honest, I was skeptical at this claim but still proceeded to try out this service. I signed up for an account and played around only to be pleasantly surprised at the intuitive interfaces ad features in it.

What is Oosah?

If you have seen Bad Boys movie, you’d know this term from Martin Lawrence. I wonder if the creators of this service is fans of this movie!

Oosah is an online file storage service that offers 1TB of online file storage. In fact, Oosah is not just an online storage service but in fact a feature rich Web 2.0 content hosting site. Oosah wants to

give you one spot on the Web where you can manage all of your digital media content - photos, videos, and music/audio files. It is designed to be easy enough for novice users to use, while at the same time providing features that even the advanced user can appreciate.

How is Oosah Different?

Oosah has some features that I didn’t see elsewhere

Web-based file management system - create folders & sub folders
Desktop feel -with folders and file drag & drop, keyboard shortcuts
Upload content in any digital format - raw, uncompressed image formats & video formats
Mobile device support lets you upload to Oosah from your phone instead of transferring to your computer first
Supports batch file uploading with file size limits: 200MB per video, 50MB per image & 9MB per MP3 file.
Create Playlists, Slideshows or Gallery’s from your media collection.- they are called an Oosah.
Lots of sharing options for your Oosahs - Email, RSS, linking/embedding, SMS, podcasting, downloading-burning to CD/DVD and local high resolution photo printing.
You can save media as public or private or even share it with a password.

Do You Really Get 1TB?

From the Oosah FAQ,

Basic Oosah membership is free. A basic account provides a user with a predefined amount of storage space for their content. Currently this amount is 1 terabyte.

Here is a Oosah slideshow I created with some pictures I uploaded:

Atleast, Oosah is offering 1TB at the moment with the free account which might drop down for the free account as they gain traction. The FAQ does hint at the paid membership for the higher storage needs.

Connect & Browse Flickr, YouTube, etc

Another great feature of Oosah is that you are able to connect to your social media profiles such as Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Picasa, etc. After connecting it to your Oosah account, you can browse in the familiar folder interface, download, print or share it.

All in all, Oosah might replace Box.net usage for me atleast for my media files that I want to share. In fact, I wonder if my wife would be interested in a slideshow feature such as these in her Indian Recipes blog.

What do you think of this storage service? What do you use right now?

[via Mark of MeAndMyDrum]

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Kingston 4GB DataTraveler USB 2.0 FLash Drive $12.12 (Free Shipping)

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 06:43:06 PDT

I usually post on usb flash drive deals such as these on Fridays but had to pass this on to you as soon as I saw it this morning.

Buy.com has an awesome deal this morning selling Kingston 4GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive for just $12.12. Plus, you get free shipping! No mail-in rebates or coupon codes or a new Google Checkout account.

I have gotten many of these and given it as gifts before. I use a Kingston 4GB everyday and they are sturdy and lasts me a long time.

If you use a flash drive everyday, check out 12 Must have Portable Apps for your USB drive.
Or you can browse through posts tagged portable apps for more.

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