ReviewSaurus – Technology Rocks!

Nirmal has made a post, where he has listed 3 reasons for not liking GMail. However, the reasons which he has mentioned are the ones which I think are PROS of GMail and when Nirmal asked me, I thought that it will be the best way of explaining that why I find his, listed CONS as PROS of GMail and apart from that, my reasons of liking GMail :

1. The Skin or Interface : I think, that this is one of the best part of GMail, because the color combination (largely blue) which has been used in GMail is soothing to eyes. You don�t get blind even after looking at it for long duration. As far as Web 2.0 effects are concerned, then I think that it makes use of Keyboard shortcuts, quick compose window, on the fly attachment, auto save etc. and these do come in the Web 2.0 effects.

Creation of filters, searching of e-mails, selection of e-mails is much quick and fast in GMail as compared to any other email service. It loads up faster than Yahoo mail beta and Windows Live Hotmail, as it is mostly text based and hardly uses any images.

2. Labels instead of Folders : Well, to be honest there is no big difference in these two things. So, I really can�t say why it can be called as a Negative. If you apply a label and then archive that email, then you�ll not feel the difference between the two.

3. Who needs Drag and drop ? : Well, the good use of shortcuts will ensure that you won�t miss the drag and drop facility. You can get the list of shortcuts from here. If you press the # key then you�ll be able to delete the email too.

These points were the explanation of Nirmal�s question of why I think that his points are PROS of GMail instead of CONS of GMail. Now, I�ll list the other reasons of why I like the GMail -

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This one is a tip I found at Zolved. It is an optimization setting that makes OO.org Writer run faster in Ubuntu. No reason it should not work in Windows.

• Just go to Tools -> Options
• Select OpenOffice.org -> Memory in left panel
  • Undo – Number Of Steps: 30 or 20
  • Graphics Cache – Use for OpenOffice.org: 128 MB
  • Graphics Cache – Memory per object: 20 MB
  • Cache for inserted objects – Number of objects: 20
• Select OpenOffice.org -> Java in left panel
  • Uncheck ‘Use a Java Runtime Environment
• Click OK and feel the speed next time you load OpenOffice.org Writer

PS: Find more writings of Vyoma at Splat and KalaaLog.com.

All in one SEO is a great Wordpress plugin which helps you work on the very basics of Search Engine Optimization. I’m no Search engine expert but with what I’ve noticed in these 2 years of blogging and what many blogging gurus and SEO’s have told that if we stick to basics also, then also we can get search engine love.

Here’s what it is capable of :

1. Allows you to change the Homepage Title : OK, you can do that by editing the template files but what if someone is not comfortable with the codes. I’m sure you’ll find it much useful then editing the code yourself.

In my case, the title used to be ReviewSaurus : The Techie Dino! but now it’s Software reviews and free downloads – ReviewSaurus : The Techie Dino! This way I made sure that I make use of the correct keywords in the Title.

2. Specify keywords for Homepage & posts: You can specify the Meta keywords for the Homepage. Again, it can be done by editing the file but those keywords become general for Homepage and post pages too. So, you get to specify different keywords for Homepage and posts.

For e.g. Check out this post’s heading and Title.

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Keeping the desktop and taskbar clean is one of my habit and I’m sure that you must have searched for some utility to help you in doing that. I would like to share one such utility, which will not only help you in keeping the desktop and taskbar clean but will give you quick access to your favorite applications too!

Free Launch Bar is one such utility which acts as a replacement for Quick Launch Bar of Microsoft Windows. Here are the PROS & CONS of Free Launch Bar :

PROS of Free Launch Bar :

1. Create Menus : With help of Free Launch Bar, you can create menus and you can group similar softwares in that menu. For e.g. I keep all the multimedia applications in one menu (Nero, Winamp, XnView, Picasa etc..). I can easily access these applications and keep taskbar clean as it saves lots of space as one Icon gives access to many applications.

2. Ability to create hot keys : Just when you realize that you need a particular software regularly, then you can simply assign a hot key for that and it opens up your most used application, pretty quickly!

3. Compatibility with standard Quick Launch Bar : Free Launch Bar is compatible with Quick Launch bar i.e. all those icons come up in Free Launch Bar which are already in Quick Launch. This is because, it uses the same folder which Quick Launch Bar uses.

4. It’s Free.

CONS of Free Launch Bar :

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Long back, I’d written a post where I pointed out Email Etiquette’s and I was glad to see many other similar posts. These posts not only point out few of the important things, which we forget while using the e-mails and I think one must follow them religiously.

1. 12 tips for better email etiquette.
2. 8 e-mail mistakes that make you look bad.
3. 10 common e-mail habits that waste time and cause problems.

I’m sure most of make these mistakes and we need to learn them and we can do that only by keeping ourselves alert while using e-mail. So, next time while e-mailing don’t forget to keep these points in mind!