George's Technology Blog
» Smart Phones, Web Design, Google or whatever
Trying Mystique Theme for a Day
Aug 27th
UPDATE: Obviously the Mystique Theme is here for more than a day. I ran into all of these cool new features, and am now re-thinking what I want as I build my next modified WordPress theme, probably built off of Thematic… maybe.
I thought I’d try out a new theme for a bit, any feedback would be appreciated, and make sure to let me know if this is your first visit or not.
Mystique 2.4.2
Feature-packed theme with a solid design, built-in widgets and a intuitive theme settings interface… Designed by digitalnature.
Tags: light, white, two-columns, three-columns, one-column, fixed-width, flexible-width, right-sidebar, left-sidebar, theme-options, threaded-comments, translation-ready, custom-header, editor-style
So, drop any comments below…
Call Phones in Gmail
Aug 26th
Filed under ‘new and cool things you can do with your computer’ Google has rolled out an improvement to Gmail voice and video chat that lets you call regular phones (with your headset/microphone).
Call Phones in Gmail
According to Robin Schriebman a Google Software Engineer:
Calls to the U.S. and Canada will be free for at least the rest of the year and calls to other countries will be billed at our very low rates. We worked hard to make these rates really cheap (see comparison table) with calls to the U.K., France, Germany, China, Japan—and many more countries—for as little as $0.02 per minute.
Just click the new “Call phone” button ion your chat window, and search contacts or dial a number on the keypad window and you can start enjoying this new feature.
You can also get phone calls in Gmail (just click the link to see how)!
How to add a new user to Windows 7
Aug 20th
This info applies to Windows 7, and I understand it also works in Windows Vista.
Click Start > Control Panel > under User Accounts and Family Safety, click Add or remove user accounts.
Next, type in your new account name (John, The Laptop, etc…) and choose the account type “Standard user” (see note below). Now click the Create Account button. At this point you can add a password to your new account, or there are other options like managing other users. When you are done close the window and you’ve created your new user. Next time you start or reboot your computer, it will stop and let you choose which profile you wish to login with.
NOTE: Only choose an Administrator if you need to, and you understand exactly what that means. Otherwise you can end up with big trouble as you accidentally leave your computer less secure than it could be. If you needed a user with Administrator privileges you probably wouldn’t be reading this unless you need a refresher.
Outlook 2010 users get Google Calendar Sync (32-bit only)
Aug 17th
For Outlook 2010 users out there (with 32-bit systems) who want to sync with Google Calendar your prayers have been answered…
FROM THE” GMAIL BLOG:
Google Calendar works with a number of desktop applications and mobile devices including iCal, iPhone and iPad, Blackberry, Android, Nokia/Symbian, and Windows Mobile phones. Google Calendar Sync for Outlook is also available, but one thing was missing — until now.
Now take the power of Outlook’s Calendar and sync with Google Calendar to get maximum flexibility and usability by extending yourself to the web – easily.
Share Your Calendar (GCalendar)
MORE
HTML5 Gmail Video Game
Aug 16th
Play Galactic Inbox, a free, keyboard-based fun game by Creative Technologist Paul Truong. No sound, and its not going to replace your favorite video game, but its a fun play, blast-from-the-past for those old enough to remember Space Invaders or Asteroids.
As the post says “make sure you’re using a modern browser that supports HTML5 first”. Not sure if your browser supports HTML5? Try this test:
http://www.html5test.com/
I’m using Firefox 3.6.8 which scored 139 of 300 points and it plays the game.
Internet Explorer Crash and Other Fixes
Aug 12th
As a user of Microsoft Internet Explorer for years, a computer enthusiast since before the days of Windows, and a web designer I figured if my Internet Explorer 8 had any problems it would be easy enough for me to fix using my current knowledge.
If you are having problems with Internet Explorer, you may be reading this in another browser, and I will assume so below. If you can’t get Internet Explorer running try “Get it Running” below.
My issue with Internet Explorer 8 appeared earlier today while trying to check out a web page I was working on that popped up a notification that Adobe Flash Player had to be updated. I clicked the install button and got an error that boiled down to 2 choices – debugging Internet Explorer’s error or closing Internet Explorer. Following common sense choices (clicking Update Flash followed by closing Internet Explorer) the browser would crash and then restore the previous page, and repeat. On the third time instead of trying to restore the previous page I got a message that it could not be restored. After a couple of times of going through this cycle I went to Google for help. I even clicked on an Adsense ad that promised an IE fix and landed on an attractive page letting me know that Softpedia certified their download as 100% Free, and having no spyware, no adware and no viruses. However checking SoftPedia for their Perfect Optimizer product did not yield any links to the site, so I got discouraged and went back to Google.
Depending upon your Operating System you can try one of these pages. If you have Windows XP, try either and follow instructions as closely as possible. If you can’t get Internet Explorer to run right try this (first option on both of the pages below):
Get it Running
Click Start > click All Programs > click Accessories > click System Tools > click Internet Explorer (No Add-ons) and hopefully this will fix or get around your problem for the moment, now visit one of the links below.
RECOMMENDED INTERNET EXPLORER FIX LINKS
Fix Internet Explorer in Windows 7
Fix Internet Explorer in Windows Vista
Updated Contacts and Gmail
Aug 10th
Logging in to Gmail tonight I was greeted with this popup:
Contacts has been renovated and Gmail has some spruced-up changes, moving email closer to the top of your window, about 16 pixels higher, according to the Gmail blog. So I read a little bit of the writeup in Gmail help and checked out the new look. Contacts is surprisingly different and I’ll probably be checking that out for a while since its the biggest change.
CONTACTS
Its now simpler to add or edit a contact, the interface is cleaner and less distracted. Contacts are displayed more like mail in a long list, and adding contacts to different groups is very easy. Also, you can undo changes now, very handy. Ooops, was that DELETED? No problem, just UNDO.
There’s also automatic saving and more standard name fields.
GMAIL
Mail, Contacts and Tasks are now at the top, followed by Compose Mail which is now a button instead of a text link. Now I am waiting for ActiveInbox to update so I can use it again since that interface has disappeared!
Emails (as mentioned previously) are just a little closer to the top of the window now, and the left sidebar seems different, though I guess that could be due to my Gmail theme.
Gmail / Google Multiple Account Access in one Browser
Aug 6th
Wow, I just noticed this new access multiple accounts in one browser feature at the end of my lunch and had to write a a quick bit about it. First, a message from our sponsor (lol). But seriously here’s an interesting quote from Macduff Hughes’ post on the Gmail blog…
Now, you can visit google.com/accounts and click the link next to “Multiple sign-in.” After you sign into your first account, you can sign in with up to two additional accounts from the new accounts menu in the upper right hand corner of Gmail, then easily toggle back and forth between them. You can even open multiple Gmail tabs — one for each of your accounts.
- Gmail Blog, Access two Gmail accounts at once in the same browser
I’ve got to check this out more later and add more – its such an exciting feature with possibilities. One caution, read the Gmail post because access via one browser to multiple accounts is not working universally yet and the post lists these exceptions and notes.
