Hotmail Email expands to 5 & 10 Gig
Posted by jerothe in 
I was transferring over a post tonight from 2005 about Yahoo! Mail growing in size and I thought I would be remiss if I didn’t mention what I read about Hotmail today.
I read that Microsoft is increasing space from 2 Gig to 4 / 5 Gig on all free Hotmail accounts, and 10 Gig on the paid accounts. I checked my account, nothing had changed as of yet, but it was a new post. I am sure in the coming month that will be different. read more
New version of Google Desktop, Search your files at the speed of light.
New an improved, Google Desktop now caches more file types.
Not a new program, Google Desktop came out late last year. Being a geek, I downloaded it and tried it out.
Made by Google, you know that it is a good product, simple, and easy to use with a purpose in mind, to make your life easier. Unlike Windows search, Google Desktop search leads the way in the need to find files quicker and more accurately. With the prices of hard drive space bottoming out, and the costs of bandwidth becoming more affordable, people have more files today than every before. That also means there is that much more to organize and potentially lose.
Slow and clumsy, or at least we know that now that Google Desktop is here, Windows search can search a drive, a folder, whatever you need. But with Gigabytes of files, this could take forever. And you are just trying to figure out if you still have something, just to get an idea, maybe not to search out something specific, and you would like an answer quickly.
Look under the hood to see how the magic works!
This is how Google Desktop works. Like Google online, Google Desktop will cache all of the files on your hard drive for you to search. When you are away, watching the boob toob, Google quietly searches and indexes your whole hard drive worth of files. So, when you type in a file you need, the results pop up instantly! That’s less than one second.
Now, I haven’t had a use for this feature, because I am by nature, very type A about my computer files. I need to access them, and I have a strategy with a good memory that doesn’t often necessitate searching for something. But every once in awhile I do. Tonight I actually tested to see what kind of results I would get for some image files I knew I had of my wife, doing some reference poses for one of my online contests.
Not even needing to be online, I opened a browser, and entered in Google address in the address bar. If online, there is a line entitled “Desktop” that will switch you to a screen that will only search your computer.
I searched for “Sarah Rothe .jpg”. I searched for her name, and I wanted an image file with a .jpg extension. Up popped some 57 pages of results for me to go through.
The pitfall is your own organization
Now although this is a great tool, it does remind you how proper naming and organization is important. It also told me that I don’t clear my cache enough. I got a ton of results from cached webpages, most of them email. It made me go through, rename some files, delete some, and of course, clear my cache in the browser I don’t use as often. (I need it to help me with my memory in other browsers for webpages.)
Conclusion
Google Desktop is something that everyone should try if you have even once lost a file, and can’t even remember what it is called. Google with return results with the path name, with all of the parts searchable. From the folder names, to file names, to even the text in the documents. Desktop previously only cached emails, Microsoft Documents, and web files. Below you will see a more complete list of what types of files will be it’s index, even video, music, and of course, images files.
If I used this more, I would give it a higher rating. For someone who is busy and not organized, this would be a life and time saver.
Coolness Rating
Google Desktop
New MSN Messenger 7.0 released and why you care
Whole new set of tools to make you that much more of a slug.
MSN Messenger came out with a new version late last month, jumping from 6.2 all the way to 7.0, and for good reason. There are a bunch of cool new things and the interface becomes more slick every day.
First off, when I started to write this article, I came across a site that has those flash animated smileys that have been all over the internet lately. If you haven’t seen them, check these smileys out, they are really cool and really free.
More options for file transfers.
You can now transfer all sorts of file formats via messenger, from the original jpgs up to a better resolution format in .pngs or even music .mp3 files.
Trick those you don’t want to know that you are online.
There is a new cloaking feature that allows you to hide yourself and your online presence from those annoying friends who you don’t want to piss off, but don’t really want to talk to either. All you have to do is right click on their name, and choose “block”. Like I said, you will show up offline on their computer, so they won’t really know that you are there.
Personalize your messages and get your friend’s attention
First conceived in Yahoo Messenger, now there are animated “winks”. These are little animations of people and objects that say and/or do certain default things such as a dancing pig! There are nudges, which gives the other users window a little shake and sound to get their attention if they are away in the other room. The nice thing about nudges is that you can only do them so often, a nice preventative measure of them becoming annoying. If all this wasn’t enough, now there is a pen tool for the message box, so you can actually write a message to your friend instead of type it. More of a novelty thing I think, unless you have a wacom tablet like I do, it may be quicker to write, who knows.
Easily personalize your away message
What I believe is a new feature, right under you own screen name is a small field for you to type your away message, before you set your status. No clicking through a couple of menu options to find it, no clicking through and saving different messages to set. Just one click, type, and you are there.
The slick interface
When I say this I mean, the fading in of the buddy icons, the fading in of the bios, and all of the user information at your fingertips right down to accessing their hotmail email address. When you are typing messages, you can now make a simple right click and do a search on a word that was used, either to find out a definition, or maybe to find out more information if you are talking about media, literature, or even animals.
I even learn about these things they call “muggins” which are dynamic .png files inside of a flash file that you can change to reflect your mood. I think I must be really old, because I don’t get the point, but I guess it would be to let your friends know how they should talk to you according to your “muggin”.
I even understand there is advanced video options for those of you who have internet cameras, with more of a real time response and options for communicating sans typing.
Conclusion
Most of this stuff makes MSN that much more of a toy then a really necessary communication tool, especially for teenagers who can’t get out of the house. But fun and inventive, it is fun to see this software evolve into some crazy tool you might see in some sort of futuristic movie.
Coolness Rating
MSN Messenger 7.0
Yahoo Mail Expands to 1 Gig
Your expectations of free email are changing daily.
I debated on where to put this information. But I decided on software because a mail program, although very common, is a piece of online software that most of us take for granted. And because of Google’s push into the free email arena, the capabilities of email are growing daily.
As of last count, my gmail account has almost 2.2 Gigs of space. Everyday that email space keeps growing as Google adds more and more servers.
This amazing amount of free space for email is a new idea. Only a year ago Google Mail was in beta, and all of the other free email players, Hotmail, Yahoo, were still in the dinosaur age, offering anywhere from 10-25 MB of free space. Not more than a few months later Yahoo mail extended to 500 MB, and Hotmail much later to 250.
But as Google expands, Yahoo has been trying to keep up. I am sure still bitter that Google didn’t just work explicitly for their needs back in the days when Google powered search results in Yahoo. At the beginnging of May, Yahoo extended their free email service to 1 Gig.
What I am going to do now is compare the two. I use Yahoo as my primary email, and google as another account with some random people to keep it active. But I have chosen to keep on using Yahoo, read below exactly why.
Address completion
Just like Outlook, Yahoo will complete an email as I type it. I am not one of those people that is good with remembering exact email account addresses. People change their email all the time, and it is hard to keep up. A standard UI option has been to have a “Nickname” which would be a shorter way of remembering an email. Type in the Nickname, the program would know to use the email you assigned to that nickname.
But essentially, it is still the same amount of info to remember. You still have to remember exact nicknames for everyone, and even if you keep it as simple as their first name, what happens when you have two friends named “Steve”?
Well, in the last 6 months or so, Yahoo has implemented this auto completion, where you type anything in the address bar, and it will enter not only a list of possible nicknames, but email addresses as well.
If you notice, this is something that Google Mail also does. It just doesn’t do the nickname part, which is probably a holdover from the original idea. Until I looked just now, I didn’t know Google Mail autocompleted. So Yahoo and Google come in a tie here.
Notifiers
Google has what is called the “Gmail Notifier”. This is basically a little program that runs out of your windows system tray and will tell you when you have new mail. You can set it up to log you in when you boot up the computer, or when you feel like it. This eliminates the need to have a browser open at all times.
Yahoo also does this, but does so in a little bit more cumbersome way. You have to have their messenger and their messenger when notify you will a little tiny popup, like Google, from the system tray that you have gotten new email. I do not factor in a the seperate program anymore now that I use Trillian ( a program that combines all your instant messengers like MSN and AOL into one, a later article.)
In my opinion, they come out even here too.
Email shortcuts
I am only reviewing things that I use here, and shortcuts are one of them.
In Yahoo, you can press Ctrl+Shift+P and you can compose a new message. There are a slew of other shortcuts, like Ctrl+Shift+C to check mail, and Ctrl+Shift+F to browse your folders. I used to really like Yahoo’s shortcuts, but then Google did them one better.
Google’s shortcuts are an option that you can turn on. This means you can use them if you want to, but you don’t have to. Google’s email shortcuts are even shorter, and a touch faster (both are faster than a button click). Compose in Gmail is “C”, and “N” and “P” for next and previous email, to browse through each one.
My main complaint for this one is that you have to click “Settings” in the upper right and then “Learn More” under Keyboard Shortcuts to figure out what they are. I am a lazy internet user, and that is two click too many. Why can’t they have them pop up when you hover over a link if you want, or be on the button options like they are in Yahoo?
For those reasons, I think that Yahoo and Gmail come out even again.
Bottom Line!
Until I wrote this, I hadn’t gone that deep into Gmail, or used it frequently enough to know. All I knew is that I didn’t like the “reply” option being at the bottom of the message. That is unusual for me, and something that will take some getting used to. But Gmail is so fast, using a lot of DHTML and CSS to function.
From what I have seen, Gmail is much more powerful as well, from searching email down to those user options and settings for customizing your email program to fit you, which is a new concept. Why didn’t anyone give us this before. Also, if you use Google for searching, which you should, it seamlessly integrates into all of their other programs.
I am having the two break even, but largely because I have so much time vested in Yahoo now. But after doing this comparison, I am going to try to use Gmail to see more about their features and how they work.
Coolness Rating
Yahoo Mail
Gmail
Grouper 1.4 for file Sharing!
Time to think about Peer to Peer (P2P) in a whole new light!
Chris came across this program a couple of weeks back, and now I am smitten with this program.
Grouper is a peer to peer program for sharing your files that allows you the explicit control of who you want to share files with. So, you would set up a group in “Grouper” and then you would invite a friend to join your group. Then you would be able to choose the files from your hard drive that you want to share and vice versa and you can easily swap them.
The interface is amazing!
You have so many options. You can fully customize your profile with cool icons, you can add comments to your files, you can browse the most popular files downloaded by your group, and so much more.
Some of the other awesome features
Tabbed transfer, group, and directory of files windows.
Built in encrypted chat functionality just like an instant messenger with people in your group.
A log of what files have been accessed and are currently being browsed.
A media plater to check out any music your friend is sharing, with playlist capabilities and more.
For a more complete list of capabilities, check out the Grouper website.
Now, you are not able to actually share music using Grouper. They save you from yourself for all of the copyright infringement stuff that happens when you give music to your friends. But from what I have read on the forums, there are ways around this, like zipping up your files to download in a different format, or temporarily renaming the files to download.
Here is a view of the interface.
Bottom Line!
If you ever share files with friends, but don’t want to be limited by email, this is a great program for you. Cool loading screen and all around slick and smooth interface, easy to setup and get moving, Grouper is for the hobbist who just wants to share photos with family or video, to the geek who wants to be able to control ever aspect of their P2P activities.
Coolness Rating