XP4Vista

Track Specific Portions of any Web Page with FireClip

2011-08-15T20:42:00.001-07:00

In this screenshot, I am tracking portions of multiple web pages from a single location. The portions include the top headlines from WSJ.com, latest currency rate from Google, topics that are currently popular on Twitter and weather forecast again using Google search.

A lot of this information may not be available as RSS feeds but I can still check for updates across all the above web pages by simple reloading the above start page.

This was made possible through Fireclip, a Firefox plug-in that lets you select and slice out specific portions of any web page and puts them all on a single page.

You can later reload this page to track all clipped portions in one go without having to go to those sites to check for changes or new information.

For example, I can go to Google to determine the current exchange rate (e.g 1 USD in INR) and then clip out just the relevant portion, that lies between the search box and results, with Firelip. Watch video.

Video Screencast: How to Track Web Pages with FireClip

Microsoft introduced the concept of Web Slices in Internet Explorer 8 to help you monitor web sites from the browser itself but with a small limitation - it the website owner who actually decides what parts of his or her website can be subscribed to as a slice.

FireClip, as the video demonstrates, lets you clip any portion of any web page. Geeks may also want to try this Ubiquity tutorial to access portions of another webpage from anywhere else in Firefox.

Find Images from a Specific Country with Google

2011-08-15T20:41:00.001-07:00

The advanced search page for Google Image Search has been totally revamped and, while this is mostly a cosmetic change, it does have one new option – search by region.

You can pick a country from the drop-down and Google search will give preference to images that are either physically hosted in that part of the world or are served from a country-specific top-level domain (like .in or .co.uk).

To give you an example, a search for “movie posters” on Google Image Search with the region set as United States is likely to display posters from Hollywood movies while the results would be very different if the region were set to another country while leaving every other search parameter same.

Screenshot A: Search for Movies (region: United States)

Screenshot B: Search for Movies (region: India)

Internally, search by region adds a new “cr” parameter to image search URL with the value equal to the country code.

Google Chromebooks go on Sale at Amazon

2011-08-15T12:07:00.001-07:00

Google Chromebooks are now available for purchase at Amazon.com. They won’t ship them to non-US locations but if you can’t wait to get one, use a package forwarding service.

The base model - Acer Cromia ($380) - features a 11.6” display with a dual-core Intel Processor and 2GB RAM while the slightly-bigger Samsung Series 5 model ($430) sports a 12.1” display with an Intel Atom processor and the 2GB RAM.

Google notebooks, or a better word is netbooks, are light and seem to have an impressive battery life but am still not sold on the concept of “everything running from the cloud.”

How do you sync your phone or tablet when you can’t install the necessary software (like iTunes) on the computer. Will your exiting hardware - like printers, external hard drive or your wireless mouse - work with a Chromebook when there are no compatible drivers? Will it let you work if the Google Cloud itself is down?

Google will be adding offline support for Google Docs and Gmail to the future releases of Chrome OS. They could be useful as your second computer that you primarily use for browsing the web or for watching vidoes but in the current state, I think these $250 netbooks probably offer better value for money. Yes, they won’t boot in 20 seconds but you get to do everything else that's possible on a Chromebook and much more.

Here's an impressive promo video of Google Chrome Notebook in case you missed it before.

Use your Browser Address Bar as a Calculator

2011-08-15T12:06:00.001-07:00

You know this, right? If you have set Google as your default search provider, you can use the browser’s address bar as an instant calculator.

Simply enter the calculation in the address bar, Google will compute the answer on its own servers and will send you the result as a “search suggestion.” You don’t even have to press the Enter key.

This works with IE and Google Chrome while in the case of Firefox, you’ll have to type the expression in the browser’s search box instead of the address bar.

Your Browser as a Calculator without Google

You can also perform calculations inside the browser offline without requiring Google.

Go to your browser’s address bar, type javascript: followed by any calculation and hit Enter. The calculation will happen inside the browser itself as shown in the screencast:

Axel Rauschmayer, who first wrote about this technique on 2ality.com, suggests that you can even perform complex calculations with JavaScript, something which is not possible with the Google Calculator.

Here are some examples that you may try or check Mozilla Docs for a complete list of Maths functions that are supported in JavaScript.

1. javascript:Math.random() [Find random number between 0 & 1]
2. javascript:Math.pow(3,9) [What is x to the power of y]
3. javascript:Math.sqrt(32) [Find the square root of a positive number]

Tumblr Blogs Can No Longer Import RSS Feeds

2011-08-15T12:03:00.003-07:00

Maybe this is more ammunition for people who think that RSS is dead.

Since its early days, Tumblr has offered a useful import feed feature to help you bring content from other sites – like Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Blogger, etc. – into your main Tumblr blog. Technically, you could import content from just about any external site into Tumblr as long as there was an RSS feed available.

Unfortunately, as @Shripriya first noticed, Tumblr has quietly dropped support for importing RSS feeds into their system. Tumblr’s support site still has a page on how to use Import feed but the feature itself has been removed, thus denying you the ability to use Tumblr has a lifestreaming service.

The last auto-fetch request into my Tumblr blog was made during the first week of June and that may be the date when they dropped support for RSS imports (you can still export your Tumblr blog as an RSS feed though).

I am little surprised at Tumblr’s approach here but that doesn’t mean you can’t bring your external content into Tumblr – they do offer a simple API that can write anything, including RSS feeds, to a Tumblr blog but you’ll have to take the help of a developer to get that thing working for your blog.

The Most Disliked Videos on YouTube Ever

2011-08-15T12:03:00.001-07:00

Nathan Yau at FlowingData has created a reference poster that highlights the most disliked videos on YouTube of all time. I have added an image map to Nathan’s poster so you can click on the video thumbnails to watch the corresponding video directly on YouTube.

There are five music videos of Justin Bieber that make it to the hate list but the award for the most disliked video on YouTube, and thus on the entire Internet, goes to Rebecca Black for Friday – 81 million views and 1.6 million dislikes.

Charging

2011-08-15T12:02:00.003-07:00

Here’s a device that could be useful to millions of households in India and elsewhere who have mobile phones but sometimes not get enough electricity to charge their phones.

TES NewEnergy, a company based in Japan, has created a new USB based charger that can charge your mobile phone without requiring electricity – all it needs is a heat source which could be as simple as a pan of boiling water or even a campfire.

The device, known as Pan Charger, converts heat into electric energy and that can charge any cellphone, MP3 player or other mobile device over a USB connection in 3-5 hours. Thetech specs say that the USB connection also has a built-in radio and a lantern – things that you often need when there’s no power.

Pan Charger is already available for purchase in Japan according to an AFP report but, at $299 a unit, it is not a very affordable option. That could however change as the company does have plans to introduce the device in other developing countries.

Pan Charger isn’t the only device that can charge mobile phones without a power outlet. There’s Yogen, a hand-powered charger that works like a Yo-yo. You attach the cell phone to Yogen over USB and pull/release the cord for a few minutes to charge the phone.

The best idea however comes from Kenya. They have turned a bicycle into a mobile phone charger – ride your bike for a few kilometers, which most villagers do anyway, and your phone is charged.

Send HTML Emails with Gmail and Google Docs

2011-08-15T12:02:00.001-07:00

All popular email programs – from web-based Gmail and Yahoo! Mail to desktop-based Microsoft Outlook to the mail app on your mobile phone – are now HTML (or rich-text) capable. Thus, your email messages can have custom fonts, inline images, lists, tables and other formatting similar to a web page.

But there’s one little problem - how do you write an HTML email?

The built-in WYSIWYG editors, like the one shown above, offer basic functions for formatting text but there are things you cannot do. For instance, how do you insert a 3x5 table inside a Gmail message? Can you right-align an image and wrap text around it similar to Word?

All this is easily possible in HTML but since your email program won’t let your compose a message directly in HTML, you’re stuck.

I have two easy solutions for this problem. The first is HTML Mail – here you can write an HTML message and send it yourself or anyone else with a click. The tool has a simple WYSIWYG editor but you can also switch to the code view and compose messages directly with HTML markup.

There’s another alternative that uses Google Docs to send HTML mails from your Gmail account itself. It works for both Google Apps and regular Google Accounts.

First make a copy of this Google Docs sheet and then choose Gmail –> HTML Mail to authorize the sheet to send mails from your email account. Once authorized, choose GMail –> HTML Mail again and now you should see a form for sending mails. Fill in the various fields, write any HTML code in the Message field and hit send.

You can use the previously mentioned WYSIWYG editor to generate the HTML markup and copy-paste that code into the Google Docs form. Also, if you wish to send the same message to multiple recipients at once, just separate their email addresses with commas.

The Google Docs option internally uses Google App scripts (class GmailApp) and you can find the full source code under Tools –> Script Editor. So the next time you want to create a more professional-looking email newsletter that has tables and other complex formatting, you know where to go.

Create your own Facebook Book

2011-08-15T12:01:00.001-07:00

wser.

If you have been active on Facebook for some time, you’ll love Social Memories.

This app analyzes your entire Facebook activity since June 2009 – your status updates, photo albums, events you’ve attended, places you checked-in, friends who you frequently interact with, etc. - and turns all this data all into an elegant printed book.

Every page of this book is made of beautiful infographics offering new insights into your Facebook activities like when are you most active on Facebook, where do most of your friends live, your most popular Facebook pictures, etc. The way this data is presented in the book makes it all the more interesting.

The Facebook book would cost you around $32 (with international shipping) but you don’t necessarily have to buy one to get all these interesting insights.

The Facebook App will create a Flash version of the book that you can view in the browser itself though the resolution is not good enough for printing. You can also save selected pages of the book as photos in your Facebook profile. Impressive! Thanks Ilya Vedrashko.

All-in-One Google Search

2011-08-15T12:00:00.001-07:00

short for What Do You Love?, is a new website from Google that lets you search across all the Google Products from one place. The final home for WDYL, according to the HTML source, is likely to be google.com/whatdoyoulove but its not live yet.

Type in a query and WDYL will display the top search results from Google Images, Blogs, Maps, News, Books, YouTube, and other Google Search properties – neatly arranged on one page but there’s one element missing – web search.

Also, it looks like safe search is currently not enabled for Google WDYL so you may sometimes encounter NSFW results for regular queries. For instance, I searched for “Gmail” and the top photo result in Picasa was that of a woman on a beach.

Full credit goes to MG Siegler for discovering WDYL.

Find Videos that were Recorded at a Particular Location

2011-08-15T11:59:00.000-07:00

Would you like to know if there are any videos on YouTube that were shot near a particular geographic location - say in your city or, if you zoom-in further, near your school?

When you capture a video on a cell phone or digital camera that has GPS, the co-ordinates (latitude and longitude) are saved in the video itself and YouTube can extract these to determine the location of your video. Alternatively, if your camera doesn’t offer the location feature, you can always geotag videos manually while uploading them to YouTube.

The only little problem is that YouTube doesn’t offer an easy for you to search videos by location but there are alternatives.

For instance, if you are on Google Maps (or Google Earth), you can zoom-in to a specific area of the maps and then turn-on the video layer to see videos recorded at that location (see screencast). Google says that it displays only the “best videos” in the video layer or videos that have an average user rating higer than 3 stars.

The other more comprehensive option for searching videos by location is Jotpix. Jotpix determines your current location from the browser and will automatically show local videos nearby or you can key in any address to see video around a specific location.

Unlike Google Maps, Jotpix doesn’t filter geotagged videos by ratings but you can limit your search by category as well as the date when the videos were uploaded. And as you move around the Google map, the search results will change automatically. Give it a try!

View Contents of a Zip File Online with Google Docs

2011-08-15T11:58:00.001-07:00

Consider this. Your friend sends you a 10 MB zip files as an email attachment and you are not too sure what files are inside that archive. It could be a slideshow with pictures of cute cats, that you would definitely not like to open, or maybe something more important.

Earlier you would have to download that entire 10 MB files to your computer just to see whether it is of any use but not anymore. The Google Docs viewer, the standalone app and the version that comes integrated with Gmail, can now handle both .zip and .rar formats in the browser itself.

That means you can browse the contents of an attached zip file online without having to download it. If there any Office documents or Photoshop files or even another zip file contained inside, you can view their content as well in the same Google Docs viewer window.

There’s another scenario where this feature will come handy.

Say you want to download a zip or rar file from a website but before doing so, you would like to confirm what’s inside the file. In that case, just copy the URL of the zip files and paste it into the Google Docs viewer like in this example.

Google Docs can handle ZIP and RAR formats but for extracting other archive formats like gzip or for opening password-protected ZIPs in the browser, check this tool.

Also see: A Better Alternative to Winzip and Winrar

Expand the Range of your Wireless Network with any Old Router

2011-08-15T11:57:00.003-07:00

The wireless range offered by your router will vary depending on which Wi-Fi standard it supports - is it 802.11g or 802.11n compatible? - and whether there are any walls around as that will obstruct the Wi-Fi signal.

The 802.11n routers, also known as Wireless N routers, typically have a higher Wi-Fi range but even if you get one of these, the wireless signals may still not reach certain areas of your home - like the corner study or the bedroom on the first floor – as there are just too many obstructions in the form of walls between your laptop and the router.

Expand your Wireless Network's Range with an Old Router

What should you therefore do to ensure that the Wi-Fi signals are available in full strength in every corner of your house?

You can easily extend your Wi-Fi network with some additional hardware - like Wi-Fi repeaters and Wireless Access Points - but if you want to save a few bucks, just get hold of an old wireless router that you no longer use and connect it to your existing router using an inexpensive Ethernet cable.

Our premises is around 100 feet by 200 feet with plenty of walls (see the above illustration) and yet there’s wireless Internet access available in almost every part of the house.

The setup is extremely simple. All I have is a main Wireless-N router connected to the ISP provide modem. Then there’s a second wireless router (Wireless-G) that is connected to the main router over an Ethernet or Cat-5 cable.

Use a Second Router as an Access Point

Let’s call our routers OBAMA (the router that you are already using with your wireless home network) and PALIN (the second router that you want to add to increase your wireless range).

A: Note the Settings of the Main Router

Step 1: First we need to determine the IP address of OBAMA (our existing router). Copy-paste the following command in the Windows Run box and note the value of “Default Gateway.” That your router’s IP address.

cmd /k ipconfig

Let’s assume the router’s IP address is 192.168.30.1. Also make note of the Subnet Mask value which is usually 255.255.255.0.

Step 2: Open your web browser and type the router’s IP address, that you determined earlier, into the address bar. If you are using IE, you might want to add http:// to the address else IE may throw an error.

You’ll now have to provide a password for accessing the router settings. This will vary depending on your router’s manufacturer – just Google for “<brand name> default router password” or try the standard combinations like admin/admin, admin/password and admin/<blank> (no password).

Step 3: Once you are in the settings of OBAMA router, switch to wireless settings and make a note of the Wireless mode, the SSID and the channel.

If you have protected your Wi-Fi with a password, also note down the security mode used (WPA, WEP or WPA2) and your secret passphrase.

B: Configure the Second Router

Step 4: Next we need to configure PALIN, our second router.

First reset the router PALIN to factory defaults by hard-pressing the reset button for about 10 seconds. Now connect PALIN to your computer using the Ethernet cable. Put one end of the cable in any of the LAN ports available on the router and the other end to your computer’s Ethernet port. Make sure the router is powered on.

Step 5: Open the browser and type 192.168.1.1 – the default internet IP address of your PALIN router. If you are not using a Linksys router, try 192.168.0.1 which is the default for Netgear and D-Link routers.

Once you are in, you need to change the values of the default SSID, Wireless mode, the channel, the security mode and the passphrase such that they match with your OBAMA router.

Then go to Setup –> Advanced routing and change the current mode from Gateway to Router. Next disable DHCP Server since our primary OBAMA router will handle the task of assigning IP addresses to devices connecting to the wireless network.

Finally, change the IP address of the PALIN router to any free address in your LAN. For instance, if the IP address of OBAMA router is 192.168.30.1, you can safely assign 192.168.30.2 to PALIN. Also make sure that the Subnet mask is the same as determined in Step 1. Save settings.

C: Connect the Two Routers

Now that we have configured the routers, it’s time to connect them with wires.

Your existing OBAMA Router probably has five (1+4) ports – the WAN port here (or the Internet port) should be connected to the ISP provide modem as before. Pick any of the available LAN ports on the router and connect it to any of the LAN ports on the PALIN router using an Ethernet cable. That’s it.

Now that everything is setup, you can connect your computer and mobile devices to the second router using either a wired connection (the three ports are still free) or over Wi-Fi.

Since we have assigned the same SSID and security settings to the second router, you don’t have to configure anything on your laptop as you move around the house*. Also, as we are just expanding the reach of an existing wireless network and not creating a new one, all your shared folders, music libraries, photos, and other files will be accessible from all computers and mobile devices that are connected to the home network.

[*] You may also split your existing wireless network by connecting a router. This method will create an additional wireless network and the two won’t be able to see or talk to each other.

YouTube Releases New Statistics on Mobile Traffic, Monetization, etc.

2011-08-15T11:57:00.001-07:00

YouTube has updated their press page and it offers some new statistics around YouTube’s Partner program, mobile growth, monetization and more. Here’s a quick summary of the key new stats:

#1. YouTube users upload the equivalent of 240,000 full-length films every week. In other words, 60% more content is getting uploaded to YouTube when compared to the previous year.

#2. Over 3 billion videos are viewed a day while YouTube mobile gets over 320M views a day. YouTube’s mobile traffic continues to grow at an impressive rate - up 60% since January this year. I wonder if YouTube has figured out a way to monetize their mobile content.

#3. 150 years of YouTube video are watched every day on Facebook and every minute more than 400 tweets contain YouTube links. Google doesn’t exactly say how many YouTube videos are watched on Facebook.

#4. YouTube is monetizing over 3 billion video views per week globally but over a third of YouTube's total monetized views come from Content ID. To give you an example, if Sony finds a trailer of one of their own movies illegally uploaded on to YouTube, they can choose tomonetize the video instead of asking YouTube to remove it.

#5. YouTube has 20,000+ partners around the world and hundreds of YouTube partners are making six figures a year. I doubt if the amateurs are making that kind of money on YouTube but a more encouraging news is that the number of YouTube partners making over $1,000 a month is up 300% since 2010.

#6. Over 12 million people are connected and auto-sharing to at least one social network.Google has been actively pushing users to connect their YouTube accounts with Facebook and Twitter but I think the 10+ million users of Google+ may have also played a role here.

And finally, here’s a follow-up to Rebecca Black’s Friday, the music video that went on to become one of the most disliked videos on YouTube ever.

Gmail Adds Read Receipts in Google Apps Business

2011-08-15T11:56:00.003-07:00

Would you like to know if the sales presentation you just sent to your boss and other co-workers has been read or not? Now you can if you are using Gmail with the Google Apps for Business edition.

Like Microsoft Outlook, Gmail has enabled email tracking in the Business edition of Google Apps to help users know the exact date and time where their email was opened and read by the recipient(s). Read receipts aren’t sent automatically, unless enabled by the domain administrator, and it for the email recipient to decide whether or not they would like to notify the sender that the message was delivered and read.

How Read Receipts in Gmail Work?

You may choose to send Read Receipts to senders within your organization, where everyone is on Google Apps, or even to external addresses that may be on different email system (like from Gmail to Microsoft Outlook).

Here’s a quick walkthrough on how you can track your emails with Gmail using Read Receipts.

Step 1: The sender, while composing a new email message, checks the “Request Read Receipt” option.

Step 2: The email recipient opens the message and when he is done reading, Gmail pops-up a notification asking whether or not they would like to send a read receipt to the sender.

Step 3: If the recipient agreed to send a read receipt, the message in the sender’s inbox will be updated automatically with the exact date and time when the message was read.

Read Receipts for Personal Gmail Accounts

How to Record Skype Calls on your iPad

2011-08-15T11:56:00.001-07:00

Skype, the much loved app for making voice and video calls, is now available for the iPad as well – download a copy from your country’s iTunes store. The iPad app can be used on both Wi-Fi and 3G networks and, like the desktop version of Skype, you can also send text messages and place calls to landline and mobile numbers from the iPad.

The Skype app is compatible with the original iPad and the newer iPad 2 though you would need the latter model for making video calls. One big advantage of using Skype over the built-in FaceTime app is that it lets video chat even with friends who are outside the Apple iMac/iPhone/iPad ecosystem as Skype is available for all popular platforms including Windows, Linux, Android, Symbian and more.

How to Record Skype Calls on iPad (or iPhone)

While there are plenty of software tools around for recording Skype calls on a desktop, the process of recording Skype calls on an iPad or iPhone is a little bit different.

You initiate a call over Skype, switch to an audio recorder app and hit the record button. The technique works because even if you put the Skype app in the background, the call won’t disconnect. The other option is that you launch an audio recording app first and then switch to Skype so the recording happens in the background.

So which app do you use for recording Skype calls on the iPad.

My personal favorite is Quick Voice – this is a free voice recorder with a minimal interface and you can you record audio of unlimited duration. The only limitation is that you cannot run Quick Voice as a background app and second, if the audio file size exceeds 5 MB, you can’t transfer it out of your iPad.

If you want to have the Skype app running in the foreground during the recording – like when you are doing a video call – you may consider getting a copy of Voice Recorder orAudio Memos. These are inexpensive voice recording apps for the iPad that have no limits and support background recording.

Take Notes while Recording Skype Calls

If you would like to jot down notes during a Skype call on an iPad, the recommended apps are Evernote (in the free category), Audio Notes, Sound Note and Notes Plus. With Evernote you can only type notes using the built-in keyboard while the other apps will also let you both type and draw freehand on the screen during the recording.

Finally, one unlikely but great contender in this category of Skype recorders isScreenChomp. This is a digital whiteboard app that also records audio with drawing and exports everything as one video file.

The workflow is pretty similar. You launch the Skype app, initiate a voice / video call, then switch to ScreenChomp, or any of the other note taking apps, and start recording. Simple but there are obviously certain limitations.

One, you may only record voice calls using the above methods and if you are doing a video call on Skype, only the audio portion of the call will get recorded on your iPad.

Second, if you are using headphones during the Skype call, only your side of the conversation will get recorded since the built-in iPad microphone won’t hear the voice coming from the other side.

Video: Skype for iPad

You Can Save the New Gmail Ads

2011-08-15T11:55:00.003-07:00

Google is testing a new and completely different format of ads inside Gmail as was first spotted by Richard Waters of the Financial Times.

A thumbnail image of the ad appear in the sidebar, a place normally reserved for contextual text ads, and clicking this image will open a larger version of that ad in the same Gmail window.

Richard writes:

The small box in the upper right hand corner, which has a thumbnail image in it, was all that appeared alongside the original email. The text advertises an upcoming movie, “One Day”.
Clicking on the box opened the larger image inside an email. At the top left (not shown here) the user is given three options: Save to Inbox, Forward and Dismiss.

Gmail users then have an option to save these ads in their Inbox – in case the ad has a shopping coupon that you would like to use later – or they can forward the ads to a friend (won’t that be annoying?). If you dismiss the ad, it would disappear from your inbox forever. Interesting!

Create a Mail Merge with Gmail and Google Docs

2011-08-15T11:55:00.001-07:00

A mail merge program helps you send personalized email messages to multiple contacts in one go. Each message has the same content but some parts of the message can be customized – like you can greet each recipient by their first name.

Who needs Mail Merge? If you are organizing a party at your home, you can send personalized email invitations to all your friends with the help of mail merge. A person like Steve Jobs - see the following video - can use mail merge to effortlessly invite hisinner circle for the launch of a new product.

How to Create Mail Merge with Gmail

Microsoft Outlook with Word has Mail Merge functionality built-in but if you are a Gmail or Google Apps user, you may still use mail merge easily with the help of Google Docs.

And though the Mail Merge program using Google Docs, this is not limited to Gmail users. If you have linked your Hotmail or Yahoo! account with a Google Account, you may use that or any non-Gmail address with Mail Merge as well.

Mail Merge with File Attachments - Step by Step

This new version of Gmail Mail Merge program offers support for rich-text (HTML) email templates, you may add file attachments with the outgoing messages, there’s an option to BCC emails to yourself and better overall usability. Let’s get started:

Step 1: Open this Google spreadsheet and create a copy of the same in your Google Docs account (File –> Make a Copy).

Step 2: Under the new “Mail Merge” menu, click on “Reset” to clear the canvas and alsoauthorize Google Docs to access your Gmail and Google Contacts.

Step 3: Open Google Contacts and create a new Group with all the contacts who you would like to send a personalized email. Alternatively, you may simply add the recipient’s name and email addresses manually in the Google Sheet.

Step 4: Click Mail Merge –> Import Google Contacts and type the name of the Google Contacts group that you created in Step 3. Google Docs will now automatically import all the relevant Gmail contacts into the spreadsheet.

Step 5: Fill the various fields of the email template (highlighted in white).

5a. You can compose an email template in rich text using the HTML Mail tool and then copy-paste the generated HTML code into the message body field of the Google Sheet.

5b. If you would like to add an attachment to your email messages – say a PDF file or an Office document – just upload that file to Google Docs and copy-paste the ID of the file into the Attachment ID field. You can find the ID of a Google Docs file in its URL.

Step 6: Go to the Mail Merge menu again and click “Start Mail Merge” – the status against the names of your Gmail contacts will change to “OK” for all email messages that were successfully delivered through Google Docs.

That’s it! You’ve just completed your first mail merge through Gmail and Google Docs.

Please note that Gmail has a daily sending limit and any messages that are dispatched using the Gmail Mail Merge program also count in that limit. You can send a maximum of 500 messages in a day and if you exceed that number, Google can temporarily lock your Gmail account.

Use Scary Wireless Names to Discourage Wi-Fi Theft

2011-08-15T11:52:00.001-07:00

The data LED of your wireless router is constantly blinking and none of the family members are using the Internet at home. This might indicate that someone outside – probably one of your neighbors - is enjoying the web using your Wireless network.

Are neighbors using your Wi-Fi network?

If you would like to confirm this, type the router’s IP address in the browser – here’s how to find the router’s IP Address – and open the DHCP Client Table (it is under Status –> Local Network –> DHCP Server for Linksys routers). This shows a list of all devices connected to your wireless network including those of strangers.

What can you do prevent Wi-Fi theft?

You can’t block the Wi-Fi signals from reaching your neighbor’s house but there are several things you may do to prevent them from piggybacking on your wireless network. Some of the well-known techniques to secure your Wireless network include:

1. Setup a password for your Wi-Fi network - Open your router’s admin dashboard and set the wireless security mode to either WPA, WPA2 or WEP (use WPA2-mixed if possible). Now people would have to know the password before they can join your Wi-Fi network.

2. Use MAC Address Filtering – Your laptop computer, mobile phone, tablet and all other gadgets have a unique MAC address. Go to your router’s dashboard and under the Wireless Mac Filter section, add the MAC addresses of all your known devices so that only whitelisted devices can access your wireless Internet.

Discourage neighbors from using your Wi-Fi

Most people in the neighborhood, who are connecting to your Wi-Fi network without permission, could be doing so unintentionally just because their computer showed them that an open wireless network in available in that area.

Mikko Hypponen has a brilliant idea to discourage such people from connecting to your wireless network – rename your network name (SSID) to something scary - like c:\virus.exe - and the non-techies are very unlikely to use your Wi-Fi network ever.

To change the SSID of your wireless router, log in to your router’s admin console and rename the network under Basic Wireless setting as shown in this screenshot.

[*] Find the MAC Address of your devices

If you type “ipconfig /all” at the command prompt, you can easily find the MAC address of your computer’s network card – just look for the string “Physical Address.” The Wi-Fi Mac address of mobile devices is often listed on their Settings page.

The MAC Addresses are also listed inside the DHCP Client Table of your router.

The Top 3 Webmail Providers..

2011-08-15T11:51:00.003-07:00

Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Windows Live Hotmail are the three most popular web based email services around but which is the largest of them all?

The last public stats, released by Comscore in September 2010, suggested that Hotmail had 362 million users, Yahoo! Mail had 273 million while Google’s Gmail was a distant third with 193 million users.

The figures would however be a lot different an year later.

MailChimp, the email marketing company that delivers around 2 billion emails per month, including this blog’s newsletter, analyzed the webmail domains of all their outgoing mail traffic and the results reflect quite an interesting*, if not very surprising, pattern.

Hotmail is still the king among web email providers but Gmail is quickly catching up – in fact the volume of email messages (~249.2m) that were sent to the gmail.com domain in July 2011 was very close to the Hotmail volume (~250.8m). Yahoo Mail isn’t growing at the same rate as the other two services.

The MailChimp numbers do not represent the actual user base of the various email providers but if we look at them relatively, they do give an idea of the overall trend.

[*] MailChimp uses double opt-in before adding any email address to their database and thus the numbers should mostly represent active email addresses.

Find the Perfect Mobile Plan and Save Money!

2011-08-15T11:51:00.001-07:00

If you are based in India and carry a mobile phone, which you do for sure, here’s something that may help you pick the best (or most cost-effective) voice and text plan for your phone based on your current actual usage.

The service, known as 3gsimplified, is available as a mobile app for Android phones and also as a web app in case you are using a different phone or would like to compare mobile plans from the desktop.

Which is the Best Mobile Plan for you?

You install the app and choose your region (or circle) and also your existing cellular operator from the available options. The app will read the voice call logs from the phone and based on the local / national (STD) usage, it will recommend you a list of the most cost-effective plans from different operators in your region.

With mobile number portability (MNP) available across India, it has become so easy to switch operators now. Alternatively, you may configure the Plan Hound app to only show plans from your existing operator or from the preferred operators.

Then there’s the web app, available at 3gsimplified.com, for mobile users who are not on Android. Here you need to manually input your monthly voice usage for Local and STD calls and the service will use the exact algorithm to determine a more cost-effective plan for your mobile phone.

The idea is impressive and well implemented except for one limitation - the mobile app does not consider the roaming usage – calls you made while you were outside your circle – while recommending the voice plans. For frequent travellers, the roaming charges may often constitute the bulk of their monthly mobile bill.

The Plan Hound app was one of the shortlisted entries at the Nasscom Emerge contest and secured the third position. If you want to save on your monthly mobile bill but don’t have the time to analyze your call logs, get this app!

Bring Language Translation Capability to any Windows Software

2011-08-15T11:50:00.003-07:00

You can easily add language translation capability to your web browser with the help of extensions but what about the other desktop apps – like the Office suite, the desktop email program or your instant messenger – that you again use very frequently.

If you are looking to integrate Google Translate in Windows such that you can translate text from one language to another inside any software program, check out Trasmiti.

Transmiti sits quietly in your Windows system tray – select some text inside any program, press the hotkey (the default is the Windows key but you can change that) and, within seconds, you’ll see the translated version of that text on your screen.

Internally, the service uses Google Translate and thus it can be used to translate text across all languages that are supported by Google including the Indian languages.

The app is and also portable so you can use it without installation. See the other options for translating Outlook emails and Word documents.

Microsoft Word 2010

2011-08-15T11:50:00.001-07:00

Word 2010 Tutorial

Microsoft Office 2010 programs have always been the most popular productivity software that is used by majority of the world population. Microsoft word has been one of the most useful ones and it provides a wide range of functionality and purposeful uses.

Microsoft Word 2010 is the most recent Word processing program and it is one of the mostly used one of the Microsoft Office Pack. Microsoft Word 2010 is highly sophisticated and it is used for composing letters, reports, academic papers, references, CVs, essays, term papers, articles, novels and many other things. You can print out what you produce, design it to make more attractive, add pictures, tables and list fact and figures by using graphics. You can save the word office document you have produced on the hard drive for later use or to edit further in future.

Using Microsoft Word 2010 for composing texts is very handy because it has many features that make the process quick and rather easy. With Microsoft Word 2010 you can actually not only compose text but also create tables, write academic papers and insert references, tables of contents etc. with the References tab of Microsoft Word 2010. Additionally new features of Microsoft Word 2010 will be making everything a lot easier for both new and expert users.

This is how a Microsoft Word 2010 document looks like on our monitor display.

Getting Started with Microsoft Word 2010

If you are new to Microsoft Word 2010, you should definitely note that it is not a difficult task to get the hang of it. If you have used a prior version like MS Word 2010, then the shift to 2010 Word edition will be piece of cake. First of all you should know how to get started and to do this you will have to go to the Start menu and then to All Programs which should be followed by Microsoft Office and finally Microsoft Word 2010.

Here is the route to follow to get started with Microsoft Word 2010:

Start All Programs Microsoft Office Microsoft Word 2010
This is how you can open a new Microsoft Word 2010 document.

If you require using Microsoft Word 2010 frequently you can also place the 2010 Word icon on the Start menu and this way you can have a better, easier and quicker access to the application. In order to place the Microsoft Word 2010 icon in the Start Menu all you have to do is to follow the route stated above and drag Microsoft Word 2010 to the start menu. You can also do this by right clicking on the Microsoft Word 2010 icon and selecting Pin to Start Menu and it will be placed on the start menu for you to start creating and editing professional looking documents and many more.

Here is the route to follow to place the Microsoft Word 2010 icon in the Start Menu:

Start Menu All Programs Microsoft Office Microsoft Word 2010 (right click) Pin to Stat menu

This is how you can place/pin the Microsoft Word 2010 icon to the Start Menu.

Starting to use Microsoft Word 2010

Once a new Microsoft Word 2010 Document is ready you can start composing your letter, report, essay, term paper etc. However first of all, it is useful to know what is available in Microsoft Word 2010 Ribbon and Office Button.

File Button of Microsoft Word 2010

The Office button which was present in the Microsoft Word 2007 is called File Button within the Microsoft Word 2010. The File Button has the following Save, Save As, Open, Recent, New, Print, Save & Send, Help, Options and Exit icons. On the right hand side you can view detailed information about the document such as its size, number of pages, so on and so forth.

The Microsoft Word 2010 File tab and its contents are shown below.

The Ribbon of Microsoft Word 2010

The Microsoft Word 2010 Ribbon, which is the place where the toolbar contents are placed, is very handy and will provides a quick and easy access to the most frequently used icons of Ms Word 2010. There are the File, Home, Inset, Page Layout, References, and Mailings, Review and View tabs in the Ribbon on 2010 Word. Each tab also has several groups to organize and provide a better use of the Microsoft Office 2010 featrues. The Home tab has Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, Styles and Editing groups. Insert tab has Pages, Tables, Illustrations, Links, Header and Footer, Text, Symbols groups, the Page Layout Tab houses the Themes, Page Setup, Page Background, Paragraph and Arrange groups.

Microsoft Word 2010 also has References tab which consists of Table of Contents, Footnotes, Citations and Bibliography, Captions, Index and Table of Authorities and this tab is absolutely perfect for those who are working on a research paper, essay, and term paper or similar formal documents. Review, Mailings and View are also other three handy tabs of Microsoft 2010 Word that have several groups within themselves and all these are actually available with the Microsoft Word 2010 to help you complete your composing tasks easily and quickly.

With MS Word 2010 there is also Quick Access Toolbar which has a save, undo Repeat Typing button and Customize Quick Access drop down list. Within the list there are New, Open, Save, E-mail, Quick Print, Print Preview and Print, Spelling & Grammar, Undo, and Redo, Draw Table, Open Recent File icons. You can also choose to show the Quick Access Toolbar below the Ribbon by choosing Show below the Ribbon selection and you can also customize further with the More Commands button and make Microsoft Word 2010 suitable to your preferences and needs. In such a manner Quick Access Toolbar of MS Word lets you performance routine tasks much faster.

The Microsoft Word 2010 Quick Access toolbar and its functionality is shown below.

Composing the Text with Microsoft Word 2010

While typing up the text on Microsoft Word 2010 and also on other formats, you should make sure you save the document regularly. With Microsoft Word 2010, to save your document for the first time you have to click on file button at top left hand side and then click on Save. Then you will see the file name part and here you will type in the name you want to save the MS Word document as. Next you have to select where you want to save this Microsoft word 2010 document to and you can do this through Up One Level button or by just selecting the Desktop, My Documents etc. icons which are placed on the left side of the window.

This is how you can save your Microsoft Word 2010 document which is shown in the MS Word screen shot below.

Save As Option of Microsoft Word 2010

In addition to saving your document, with Microsoft Word 2010, you can also save it in different formats and also you can save a previously saved filed differently through the Save As button. In order to save Microsoft Word 2010 to a different format, you have to follow the same route as the normal saving. However once you have clicked on the file icon, you have to choose the Save As button and then carry on the same procedure as the normal saving procedure. If you want to change the format you can do this through the Save As button which is located just under the File Menu button. Lastly you have to click save and the process of �Save As' your document in Microsoft Word 2010 will be completed.

Auto Save Option of Microsoft Word 2010

One tip that could be very helpful is the automatic saving option which is special to Microsoft Word 2010. Here is how you can do it. You have to click File button and then to Word options button. Next the Word Options window will come up and there you will have to choose the Save button which is situated at the left hand side just below the Proofing button. Once you have the Save Word Options highlighted you can edit the options according to you preferences and you can adjust the Auto Save time which is basically how often you want the 2010 Word document to be automatically saved and this is how Microsoft Word 2010 enables you to automatically save your documents.

We have include a display of how you can enable the Microsoft Word 2010 to save you documents automatically.

Editing Text on Microsoft Word 2010

Once you have completed composing the text of your Microsoft Word 2010 document, you can edit the word document to make it look better. You can make it look more formal by making a few changes and adjustments by using the icons in the Home tab in MS Office 2010. You can use the Styles group which has some pre designed Heading styles or you can create your own by using the change styles button. Within the change styles button you can change colour, font and paragraph spacing. With the Microsof Office 2010 there are also quite a lot of new Font styles and you can simply access them through the Home tab. There are also numberings bullet points, aligning and paragraph spacing options, colour choices and many more options on in the Home tab of Microsoft Word 2010. All these icons can help you to make your document look much better and more professional and Microsoft word 2010 will absolutely make everything a lot easier and quicker for its users.

This is how the font of the composed text can be changed in Microsoft Word 2010 and also a handy tip would be short cut access which is CTRL + SHIFT + F.

Ribbon of MS Excel 2010

This is how you can edit your composed text via the Home tab which houses the Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, Styles and Editing groups on Microsoft Word 2010.

Spelling and Grammar Checker of Microsoft Word 2010

Once you have composed and edited the text of your Microsoft Word 2010 document, you can also check the spelling and grammar of the composed text to make sure that there are no mistakes. The Spelling and Grammar tool is placed in the Review tab of 2010 Word within the Proofing group which also homes the word count, thesaurus and research icons. The Spelling and Grammar option is also placed in the Status Bar which is the bar at the most bottom of the Microsoft Word 2010 document. If there is a tick showing at the bottom of the Microsoft Word 2010 document, on the status bar, this means that there is no proofing error and your text is free of any mistakes. If there are some errors then there will be a red cross on the bottom and you can correct the errors by clicking on the red cross. Also the proof error words or sentences would be underlined with a red colour and you can simply right click on it to correct them. This is a familiar feature from the previous models of Word like 2007 and the Microsoft word 2003.

Shown below is where the Spelling and Grammar Checker of Microsoft word 2010 is located.

Extras of Microsoft Word 2010

Every single version of Microsoft Office has something new and specific which generally amazes the users. With the Microsoft Word 2010 there are plenty of new features, however the best of all is the Format tab. This special feature tab of Microsoft Word 2010 cannot be seen when you are just composing a text, however if you insert a picture to the document and click on the picture you will easily notice the new Picture Tools option and the Format tab of Microsoft Word 2010.

This is how the Picture tools and the Format tab and its groups look like on our computer display.

Within the format tab of Microsoft Word 2010, there are adjust, picture style, arrange and size options and these enable you to format and adjust the picture you have inserted to the document and to make it suitable to your needs. Also for those who are not quite familiar with Microsoft Word 2010, you can insert a picture through the Insert tab which is placed just next to the Home tab.

Here is the route to follow to insert a picture in Office Word 2010:

Insert Picture Select a Picture Insert

This is how inserting a picture to Microsoft Word 2010 document window looks like.

Should you require using a table in your Microsoft Word 2010 document that you are working on, then you can simply use the same insert button and by clicking on Table group you can insert a table with as many columns and rows as you require to use. After adding the table to Microsoft Word 2010 document, you can fill it in with data and you can also format the data and the table, such as its borders and colours to make it even more professional and catchy in just a few seconds.

The route to follow to insert a table to the Microsoft Word 2010 Document

Insert Table Select the rows and the columns by moving the mouse Click to insert
This is how a table is added to a Microsoft Word 2010 document.

Once you have inserted the picture to the Microsoft Word 2010 document, click on the picture and then click on the Format tab which appears in a pink colour with a Picture Tools option. There you can see frames that you can select to format the picture you have inserted. It is also possible to change the position of the text and this too is a little different from the previous Microsoft Word Programs. There is also an option with Microsoft Word 2010 that enables you to remove the background to give a better appearance to your picture and overall document. The Size and the Adjust groups enable you to change the picture according to your preferences and requirements and these are only a few of the new features of Microsoft Word 2010.
Overall this was just a basic look to the Microsoft Word 2010 to enable users to get familiar with its components and usage. Once you have gone through this guidance you can simply start exploring Microsoft Word 2010 and start composing you letters, essays, reports, documents and many other things easily and quickly.

Web Publishing with FrontPage

2011-08-15T11:49:00.001-07:00

In order for you to publish content to the internet, you need to do a few things first.

Design a web site with useful information
Set up an account with a web hosting company
Market your product and advertise to increase traffic to your site

We will focus on development tools for your web site.

Most of the earlier work on the web was done using a language called HTML which stands for hyper text markup language. Nowadays you can make web pages without knowing HTML. One of these popular software is Microsoft FrontPage. You can even make web pages using Microsoft Word but it has limited capabilities.
Microsoft FrontPage is the one we will discuss in this section. For Microsoft Word and HTML tutorials, you can study other sections of this web site

Before we get started with FrontPage, I want to talk a little bit about web site design. In order to have a good web site, the design is very important. The web site should be easy to navigate and have the information in logical order. Lets us a look at a basic design for the web site.

This is a four level web site. The top level usually contains the home page. The home page should have limited information and should give the user the choice to navigate to other pages. On this web site, there are three choices, Products, Services and Contact info. If the user selects Services, the next layer of pages is shown. In this case we have two kinds of services Lawn and Pool. If the user selects the Pool services, we can give them a choice for either installation or cleaning. This is just a sample of your web site can be laid out. Sometimes, you may choose to give the users all the information on the home page. But as your web site grows in size, you will need to add more layers to keep the information in order.

Now let us look into Microsoft FrontPage and learn the basics. This is what FrontPage 2000 looks like

File Menu	Edit Menu	View Menu	Insert Menu	Format Menu
Tools Menu	Table Menu	Frames menu	Window Menu	Help Menu

Yahoo E-mail

2011-08-15T11:48:00.001-07:00

What is Email?

Email is by far the most important means of communication in the world today. Not only is it the preferred means of communication for business purposes, it is more often than not one of the primary means of staying in touch with friends and family. On any given day, you may be sending quite a few emails at work using a corporate email system like Microsoft Outlook and at the same time using many of the free web email applications like Yahoo Mail, Gmail, AOL or Hotmail for your personal use. Email is also known as e-mail. electronic mail, webmail, web mail, internet mail, and net mail just to name a few.

Yahoo Mail:

For today's lesson we are going to concentrate on Yahoo Mail (for personal use) and Microsoft Outlook (for work related).

Yahoo Mail is one of the most popular web mail applications out there and it is also FREE to use. There are other popular web mail choices like Hotmail, Gmail etc. Many of them are pretty much the same in functionality so we will just cover one of them today.

If you do not have a yahoo account, you can sign up for a free email account. Here’s the link to that side
https://edit.yahoo.com/registration?.intl=us
You will need to enter some personal information in addition to username/password that will be used to login to the mail system. We have included a screen shot of what it looks like right below.

Yahoo Mail Screen:

After you set up your Free email account with Yahoo, you will need to login to the mail system. You will need to enter the same username and password used during registration process for initial setup. In my case I have already logged into my email account. After I pass through the login screen, I get into the email application. As you can see right below I have more than 20,000 emails!! I am either really popular or I get a few junk emails. I think the latter is true in this case.

Here is a screen capture of what I am talking about.

We are using the new version of Yahoo Mail, so it may look different depending on the version you are using. The screen is split into two main areas. On the left side you will see email related section, personal contacts and a section titled applications towards bottom. This is a new feature in Yahoo Mail where you can do things like add an appointment to a calendar, manage your photos and use other apps like Paypal, Evite, etc

Default email folders:

The default email folders for Yahoo Mail are:

-Inbox [E-mails that need to be read],
-Drafts [E-mails in progress],
-Sent [E-mails that you have sent already],
-Spam [All those junk e-mails],
-Trash [E-mails that have been deleted]

Right below the default mail folders, you will see a section for contacts. As you work with emails, you can add the email sender's info to your contact list. This gives you the ability to have quick access to your personal contacts. You can also add additional info about your contacts here.

Finally you will see some of my personal folders that I have customized in order to better organize my email. Doing this will also help you especially when you are trying to find an existing email that you wanna hold onto for future reference.

I have shown a close up of these folders in the screen capture below.

Right above the folders, you will notice the navigation tabs including commonly used features of using an email system. These include checking existing emails or sending a new email message. Let us look at these options one by one.

Creating a New Email message:

When you are ready to create an email message, go ahead and click on the drop down arrow labeled New. From the drop down, go ahead and choose Email message. This should open up the new message window, shown as follows.

New E-mail Message options:

Let us clarify and explain some of the important items regarding a new email message here:

To: This is email of the person you're trying to send the message to. If the person that you are trying to send an e-mail to already exists under your contacts folder, then you can simply type the first few letters of their name. This will let yahoo mail auto populate this field. In case you do not have the e-mail address already, you will need to type the whole e-mail address in this box. I am going to go ahead and use one of my other emails aliases here: kashi@learningcomputer.com

CC: cc stands for carbon copy and essentially it means that you will be sending you're email message to another person as well. For our demo purposes, I'm going to skip over this part

Subject: You can enter the subject matter of the email here. In this field I will go ahead and enter Test mail

Body: The big white rectangle is the actual body of your email. Lets go ahead and enter some text here.

Rich text: This is a new feature in Yahoo E-Mail that I really like. This option will enable a basic formatting toolbar for your outgoing e-mail. You can modify things like font type, font size, bold, italicize, underline and a few more formatting options.

If you look right above the fields that we discussed, you will see additional command buttons so let us go over them real quickly.

Send: You will need to click on this on when you are ready to send the e-mail message

Attach: When you click on this button, Yahoo Mail will launch another dialog box where you can attach additional files (like Word document or Excel spreadsheet) to your email message. For now we are going to skip this part.

Save Draft: This option will let you save an e-mail so you can review send it later

Spelling: When you are done creating an email message, it is always a good idea to check the spelling. When you click on this option, it will go through all your email and highlight any of the misspelled words.

Sending a New email message:

I think we are ready to send our email. Here is what the email looks like before I send it.
After reviewing it, you can simply click on Send.

Web Mail Example:

Before we move onto the next topic on Yahoo Mail, I would like to show you how the email that we just sent looks like at its destination site. I have logged into yet another web mail client on my website (learningcomputer.com) and then clicked on the Inbox folder.

Right below you will notice the last email I received is from Kash, my Gemini twin! Notice you will see similar items like To, From, Subject etc. I am going to click on Reply and send a quick note back to the sender, mum that would be Me!

Check New Email messages:

Now that we are done with creating and sending a new message, let us move onto the next topic, checking your email. Back in yahoo email, you will notice the first button on the left most part in Check Mail. Let's go ahead and click on this one.

When you do that, you will notice that the main window has changed and now you have a new tab (Inbox) with different options on the top.

Right off the bat you will also notice that the emails in the Inbox are sorted by date in a descending order. What this means is that the newest emails are on top and the oldest ones are on the bottom. The column headings are also sortable, so you could simply click on the headings like From to sort the emails by the sender.

For this step, on our computer monitor this is what you see.

If you look at the first email, you will see that I did get a reply back from kashi@learningcomputer.com so let's go ahead and check that out first.

When you click anywhere on the item, it will go ahead and open up the new email message in the bottom pane. Here’s a screen shot of what I'm talking about.

Incoming Email message options:

Some of the items in figure above should be familiar to you by now. You will notice that we have the subject of the mail highlighted on the top, followed by from, to and then the actually body of the email. In addition observe that this email attached the original e-mail message towards the bottom. This is useful when you are trying to work on something that came from another email source. Essentially it keeps a running log of the items that were being discussed in the incoming message.

Once you have read the e-mail, you can take many different actions on it including the following:

Delete: This option will go ahead and remove the message and move it to your Trash folder

Reply: Using this you can reply to the email message

Forward: This one is a handy little option which will allow you to forward the message onto somebody else

Spam: This is my favorite as it marks the Email as a solicitation and moves it to the SPASM folder.

Move: This Button is useful when you would like to organize your email into personalized mail folders. For example if I received something on real estate, I could easily move it to the real estate folder.

Actions: This is a new feature that gives you additional features to work with your electronic mail. You can do things like these: Marking an e-mail as already read, selecting all emails etc.

We have included a screen shot of the Actions here.

Managing and organizing your emails:

The last thing we want to discuss regarding Yahoo Mail is the ability to manage and organize your emails effectively. We already looked at one option of having personalized folders where you can organize your email messages.

The other important item is search capabilities in Yahoo emails. Let us assume that you are looking for e-mails from Travelocity. How would you do that?

One obvious way is to filter by sender, then browse through all the emails to see what you are looking for. A much easier way to do this is to use the built-in search mail functionality within Yahoo! Let’s try this out next. Go ahead and type Travelocityin the Search Mailbox (highlighted in Red) and then click Go.

This will search through your e-mails and look for the expression "Travelocity" either from the sender or in the body of the email, very cool indeed! This is a much more efficient way to work with your yahoomail rather than using the sorted list feature.

Here is the output screen capture after we did the email search.

Microsoft Outlook 2007:

Next we are going to look at some features in Microsoft Outlook which is the most popular corporate email system in use.
In order to launch Outlook 2007, you need to do the following:

All Programs - Microsoft Office 2007 - Microsoft Office 2007 Outlook 2007
This will go ahead and launch Microsoft Outlook as shown below:

Microsoft Outlook Layout:

Let's go over the layout in outlook 2007 quickly. You will notice that outlook by default creates three sections or panes that you can work with. In the left pane also known as the Navigation Pane, you will see all the mail related folders including the following:

Inbox: This is where the new emails come in
Drafts: The emails that are in progress and have not been sent out yet are in this folder
Sent: Here are all the e mails that have been sent already

In addition there are other folders like Junk, Oubox and RSS Feeds. Besides the mail folders you will also see other options like Calendar, Contacts and Tasks.

List and Detail Mail Views:

Let us move onto the middle pane, this is where you can see your e-mails in a list format. Typically you will see headings like From [sender of the email], Subject [subject of the email], and Received [date of the email]. Just like the web email we saw in Yahoo Mail, you can click on these headings to sort the e-mails in a certain order.

Moving onto the third pane which is on the one to the right side. This is where you will find detailed information on your email. Most of these fields should be familiar to you by now, things like sender, to, subject, time of message delivery and the most important, the actual body of the email.

Here we have included a screen capture of the list and detail pane views.

Send a reply to an Outlook E-Mail Message:

Let us go ahead and reply to the above email message now. You can first select the e-mail that you're working on from the pane in the middle. In order to reply, you can either choose a Reply from the tool bar above or use the right click menu. We have decided to use the second option which will give several choices in addition to Reply.

You can see the right click menu in action below.

Reply Window:

After you select Reply from the previous step, this will open up a new window as shown below. Notice this window uses the new Ribbon layout that is a new feature for Office 2007. The different actions are organized by function which makes it much more intuitive and easy to use.

We are going to add some text to this email message and then click on Send button.

Contact

The last item we would like to discuss is Address book in Outlook 2007. This lets you add all your personal contacts in different formats. If you want to send a message to one of these contacts, you can simply right click on the contact and choose

Create - New Message to Contact.