Recent Posts

926

Living Room / Re: Downloading your Gmail Account

« Last post by allen on March 21, 2006, 05:14 AM »

It's kind of funny in a way.  I have my gmail account set for POP3 download and I read it from Thunderbird 99% of the time.  I just use the gmail interface when I'm away from home. 

-Rover (March 20, 2006, 10:20 PM)

Actually, I do the same thing (sans Thunderbird) -- primarily because of gmail/Opera being only tolerant of one another, at the moment.

Yesterday, after reading the entry in Allen's blog, for the first time, i believed this could happen. (before that, i thought it were only anti-google hoaxes)

-jgpaiva (March 21, 2006, 03:46 AM)

I wish When it happened to me, though, it was a while back -- before pop3/forwarding were options.  It's possible, if not likely, there are some who make up stories as anti-gmail propaganda, but the unfortunate truth is that their stories are based on real tragedies

Btw, does anyone know what would happen if i redirected the incoming mail on the other e-mail account to the gmail again? do you think they'd get full?

-jgpaiva (March 21, 2006, 03:46 AM)

Huh, that's an interesting question . . . an infinite loop of reforwarding mail . . . Try it!

927

Find And Run Robot / Re: typeadrun

« Last post by allen on March 21, 2006, 05:08 AM »

Wow, I had no idea there was a blackbox for windows . . . consider me, a fan of it's linux counterpart, excited. 

-allen (March 20, 2006, 09:52 PM)

I hope you like it, i personally loved it. I used it for 3 years and sure liked the experience!

-jgpaiva (March 21, 2006, 03:49 AM)

I'm playing with it.  Not quite as stable as the linux version . . . but not unusable at this point.  What are you using now-a-days, explorer?

928

General Software Discussion / Re: Which Instant messenger software do you use?

« Last post by allen on March 21, 2006, 05:05 AM »

I just use Google Talk -- all the people I IM have it, it's incredibly lightweight, and does just what I need it to do.  Archiving my chats to my gmail account is a nice touch, too.

929

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Windows Start Menu manager

« Last post by allen on March 20, 2006, 10:02 PM »

I'd love to see this idea come to fruition.  While I seldom -use- my start menu, it annoys me to no end to know that it's there and cluttered.  xplorer2 with tis dual panes allow me to more easily bring my start menu to an acceptable state, but it's still a tedius matter to deal with.  And it's true, while FRR is a great application, no everyone will desire to use it.  One thing FRR users and non-users alike certainly have in common is they -do- have a start menu and it does naturally gain clutter.  A more streamlined means of dealing with this clutter would be a godsend.

930

Find And Run Robot / Re: typeadrun

« Last post by allen on March 20, 2006, 09:52 PM »

i was needing a program like farr,since i use blackbox for windows (http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/)

-jgpaiva (January 04, 2006, 03:54 PM)

Wow, I had no idea there was a blackbox for windows . . . consider me, a fan of it's linux counterpart, excited.  That said, you can access the start menu by hitting the windows button on your keyboard, if you have one.

931

Living Room / Downloading your Gmail Account

« Last post by allen on March 20, 2006, 09:43 PM »

There's been talk here and, really, all over the net about backing up Gmail locally -- largely because a few people have fallen prey to what seems to be spontaneous combustion of Gmail accounts.  While some of these may very well be the result of violations of terms of service, I know I for one lost my account without ever violating any ToS and was given neither warning nor later justification for my loss off account.

That said, I personally feel anyone who uses gmail and values the information they keep on their account should take care to keep a backup of said data.  It is a bit ironic, if not counter-productive, to backup locally something that urges you to "archive everything" and enjoy universal remote access -- unfortunately, all that convenience and archival is meaningless if you don't have an account.  Unfortunately, sometimes gmail accounts just die.

Gmail does provide POP3 access to your account which, if nothing else, services are a rather efficient means of backing up your data.

Just go to your settings, select the POP/Forwarding tab, and make sure you select "All Mail" (even already downloaded) -- this will release all your mail for download to a third party client so you can download away.  Just follow the setup instructions provided for your mail client of choice.

The real reason I started this thread is the following, tiny bit of information--because it threw me off at first.  Gmail doesn't release all of your mail immediately.  It releases blocks for 200 - 400 messages at a time.  So when you go to download and it says it's downloading 300 or so messages, don't be alarmed.  Next time you check your mail, it'll grab another block -- and so on.  If you have a big gmail account, your best bet is to set your e-mail client to download every minute or two and just leave it running overnight.  Eventually, it'll download them all.  From there on out, it's easy street -- just downloading your daily mail traffic.

Any seasoned computer user knows the value of backing up data (even if they don't actively pratice it -- gmail is no different.

932

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: gmail backup

« Last post by allen on March 20, 2006, 09:29 PM »

currently I use outlook to gather it once a month, and then export it from outlook, back it to tape and purge it from outlook. I am just looking for something a little more simple.

-serchend (March 19, 2006, 10:32 PM)

I suppose it complicates things, that it requires the launch of an additional program.  For me it's the simplest thing in the world, since my browser is always open and my browser has a built in mail client.  No additional software, nothing to rememer, just a system set to download hourly.  I don't use it much, so I don't know--could windows scheduler be used to automate this for you?

933

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone with Opera having trouble with betanews?

« Last post by allen on March 20, 2006, 09:20 PM »

I have the same problem -- looking further, it gets even more peculiar.  Right click on either of those top menu items -- notice the absence of the context menu you'd typically see for an image -- no image properties, copy image, etc.  And here's the reason:

#menu a i { visibility: hidden; }

Those "tabs"? They're actually one background image--
http://images.betane...tanews/header_ff.gif

It looks like what betanews did was use a relatively sloppy technique to put text there for non-image browsers/text readers -- hide the text for the rest of us, but make those tabs clickable.  Opera's strict rendering, with improvements added in the last few builds, doesn't like it . . .

934

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: free behind the sceens diskdefragmenter FREE to boot

« Last post by allen on March 19, 2006, 10:20 PM »

I've been using defrag, and its sister application dirms, for several years.  First thing I do on a new system is defrag with dirms and then install buzzsaw, which I run as a process rather than an application.  While the difference was more noticable on older, naturally slower, machines, I still keep it running.  It keeps the system defragged really well.

There is now a non-free GUI for dirms, which is a non-realtime defrag utility -- basically a replacement for windows disk defrag.  I'll admit, I don't know enough about different defrag utilities to say whether or not it's better than windows defrag -- I just take the author's word on it   The real-time defrag, on the other hand, is without a doubt something windows does not do.

935

General Software Discussion / Re: New Color Picker / Color Selector application released

« Last post by allen on March 19, 2006, 10:17 PM »

I think an easy way to handle the schemes would just a be a dropdown menu above the history box -- where there's a default, "history" scheme and then any other schemes that have been added.  Selecting a scheme, obviously, changes what colors are shown in what is currently the history area.  Add "new" and "edit" buttons by or under.  In the edit section, include an editable name field and the ability to delete colors.  I suppose there would also need to be a button to add new colors to the active palette

936

Living Room / Re: Unprotected Wireless Lans?

« Last post by allen on March 19, 2006, 10:12 PM »

Before I had my own broadband connection here, I found I could hop onto my neighbors from most points in my house with a relatively good signal.  Bound by some old-school "good neighbor" syndrome, I brought it up and was told to feel free to use it . . . yay

When I had an apartment in Norfolk, VA, I had access to 3, sometimes 4, unsecure lans.

937

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: gmail backup

« Last post by allen on March 19, 2006, 10:08 PM »

You could also do this with outlook/outlook express, since that's the file format you want anyway

Personally, I back it up via Opera.  Aside from some insurance incase gmail decides to delete your account, it comes in very happy when gmail decides to tell you to try again in a few seconds (which seems to be happening at least weekly, these days) and you need to access a message that you've already received.

938

Living Room / Re: Keeping track of software license/serial keys

« Last post by allen on March 19, 2006, 01:06 PM »

My license keys are all stored in fsekrit.  I keep a copy on my computer, my palm's SD card, my usb drive and a copy on my ftp server.  I'm not losing them any time soon

939

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: PageSpy - A swiss army knife for web-developers

« Last post by allen on March 18, 2006, 04:31 PM »

Excellent review -- I hadn't given pagespy the slightest glance, but now I'm playing with it like crazy.  It's very well assembled, I sort of wish it was standalone though, or at least portable to other browsers.  Oh well, can't it all right?  I was relieved to learn its color scheme wasn't the same one as in the review

Mouser: In my experience (granted, I haven't used Firefox much in the last year+), there were several different DOM/DHTML related extensions, but I've never seen anything that can hold a candle to pagespy--not even combinations of them.  It does a lot and does it well, it seems.

940

Developer's Corner / Re: 30 AJAX tutorials

« Last post by allen on March 18, 2006, 11:43 AM »

That's a nice collection of links.  I'm not a big fan of AJAX, as I like web stuff server side and local stuff client side -- I don't like mixing.  AJAX also dramatically decreases the flexibility of an application, typically alienating users who disable JavaScript and users on portable platforms.  Since no two browsers have identical JavaScript implementations, developers typically pick one or two platforms to support and alienate the rest -- making the web less accessible in the name of making it seem more responsive.

All that aside, it is a cool hybrid technology that is a must-know for anyone in the web development industry -- it's not going away any time soon, and people are already expecting every new web-ap to act like it isn't a server side application.

941

Living Room / Re: mini article on google's upcoming payment service with some links

« Last post by allen on March 18, 2006, 11:39 AM »

A lot of stating the obvious -- the general conclusion is, as always, "Who knows what google has up their sleeve, let's wait and see!" -- they're usually one to impress, so I'm looking forward to it.

942

Living Room / Re: Kensington lock toilet paper hack

« Last post by allen on March 18, 2006, 11:35 AM »

It sure sounds like he said ghetto tape . . .
That's some dark tape . . . Duck brand makes a lot of different colors, but I'm used to seeing the silver/grey variation.  Maybe it's just the lighting.

Anyway, that trick . . . doesn't say an awful lot for the locks.  I guess if you're going to use one, you have to hope would-be thiefs are more brutish and less clever.

943

Find And Run Robot / Re: Feature request: text background color by frequency of launch

« Last post by allen on March 18, 2006, 08:33 AM »

I really like this idea. I'd prefer to have the different colors (and perhaps thresholds/limits) user-configurable.  I think either a separate column for colors would be a viable option, and maintain readability.  A default to pastels might also work -- subtle differentiation rather than extreme.

944

Developer's Corner / Re: math for programmers - nice big blog entry

« Last post by allen on March 18, 2006, 08:28 AM »

No formal college education myself, I keep meaning to brush up on math on my own -- this may be the kick in the pants I need(ed).  Great link, thanks mouser.

945

General Software Discussion / Re: Which app stays open on your desktop all day?

« Last post by allen on March 17, 2006, 07:03 PM »

Tray stuff aside -- mIRC, Opera and GoogleTalk are virtually always open.  More often than not, xplorer2 and EditPad Pro are also open.

946

General Software Discussion / Re: New Color Picker / Color Selector application released

« Last post by allen on March 16, 2006, 07:49 PM »

Works great.  I agree that a manification option as well as a free hand hex-entry would be great features.  Also, I think that a killer feature would be the ability to load/save different palettes -- Could associate palettes with different websites and such for easy recall.

947

Living Room / Re: World's Smallest Website!!!!

« Last post by allen on March 16, 2006, 01:14 PM »

. . . yikes.

That's really cool.  I'm sort of disappointed I didn't think of that.  I sort of went the other way, and turned a tiny little image into a huge table . . .

948

Official Announcements / Re: Contest - Make a new Banner for Website

« Last post by allen on March 15, 2006, 03:38 PM »

Why is it after only five minutes the whole thing gets gloomy?  Maybe I need to drink more coffee before attempting anything -- or maybe throwing in the towel in advance would be a good move.

949

Living Room / Re: snubster... wish I would have thought of this

« Last post by allen on March 15, 2006, 02:12 PM »

Reminds me of "kvetch", which seems to now be defunct but 5 or 6 years ago it used to be a fun place to post rants about things.  Nothing like communal angst.

950

Living Room / Re: 10 coolest alarm clocks

« Last post by allen on March 15, 2006, 11:12 AM »

I use my Nintendo DS as an alarm clock . . . battery backup isn't a problem, there . . . in sleep mode, it'll last a few weeks on batteries alone -- and it'll alarm when "sleeping".