The Joys of Gmail

Although I didn’t get started using Gmail until April 2006 (still in the days of invitation-only, but not very early either), I can’t imagine life without it.  There are several aspects of Gmail which I use on a daily basis to better organize my life and save myself time and energy.

The first thing to know about Gmail is that you no longer use folders for organization.  Rather than placing an email in only one folder and having to remember which folder you put it in, you now apply labels to your messages and you can view all of them in the “All Mail” section.  And the coolest new feature about these labels — you can color-code them to make an easy visual guide to your organization.

Another amazing aspect of Gmail is the awesome filtering system.  If you apply a “Newsletter” label to every email from Amazon, then you can set up a filter to automatically apply that label for you.  If any email you get with the word “Urgent” in the title should get your attention even more, then you can set up a filter to automatically star it for you.  You can even mark any email from your mom with “Fwd” in the subject as already read (just kidding mom!).  (To set up a filter, click the “Create a filter” link next to the search buttons and it should be pretty self-explanatory — just ask if you need any more tips and tricks!)

Because of these (and many other awesome) Gmail features, you may want to use Gmail for all of your email needs.  In order to get all your mail in Gmail, just go to the Settings -> Accounts tab to set up the accounts to send as and POP3 access (though it’s even better if you can get set up your other accounts to be forwarded instead of using POP3).

If there are any other aspects of Gmail that you’d like me to talk more about or if you need any generic help, just let me know in the comments!

Poor College Student Rock Band

Rock Band is the most addicting video game I have played in the past couple years (it’s no Contra or Slingo (not even going to link it to avoid any temptation), but come on, what is?).  The family Christmas present this year was a PS3, mainly just for Rock Band.

Every time I’m home, rocking out is one of my top priorities.  And although I have a couple friends with the game up here at school, it’s not the same as having access 24/7.

But that’s really not a big deal, because I can rock out (with less sound, nonetheless!) any time I want.  I’d like to present – Poor College Student Rock Band!

Materials: a computer (with internet), two pencils (or if you’re willing to splurge, two drum sticks), and a pillow (maybe tape if you’re feeling very ambitious).

Instructions: Go to either Jarr3tt88’s or azuritereaction’s YouTube channel.  Load one of their many (400+ combined) Rock Band drum videos.  (Optional – put tape on your pillow to make 4 distinct sections).  Play Poor College Student Rock Band!

DannyIachini.com was stolen!

Once my hosting plan ended in June, I decided that it was time for me to move on.  There wasn’t anything especially bad about my previous host, but there really wasn’t anything good – so I figured I’d give a different company a shot.  Since I had my domain name registered with them, I decided that I’d just let it expire and buy it back whenever it became available.

I constantly was checking GoDaddy.com to see if I could get it back yet.  From June until last Thursday, it was under 4 different “phases” which prohibited me from buying it.  Then when I checked tonight, the WhoIs data changed – someone else bought my domain.  enomsky.com is now referenced in the WhoIs, and a little research showed that they’re related to enom.com.  By checking for my domain there, I found out that I can pay them $200 to buy it back.

$200 for MY NAME.  That’s absolutely preposterous.  I’m not going to pay that ransom.  Instead, I’ll be coming out with a completely new domain at some point – but for now, WordPress is where I’m gonna be!

Readers’ Choice

Going through my previous semesters’ notebooks, I found a page which I wrote two years back, listing a whole bunch of blog topics that I wanted to do.  Back then, however, I never blogged, so they never got written.

Let me know which you may find helpful or interesting and I shall make them my blogging to do list (if I don’t get any recommendations, I’ll take that as everyone wanting to read each of them, and so that’s what it will be).

• The Joys of Gmail (filters, labels, and all sorts of organization)
• Why Everyone Should Use Google Calendar (although, I’m a bit of a hypocrite during the summer)
• Google Desktop’s Awesome Door-Opening Potential (entirely hypocritical here – I only use it for the indexing)
• Keyboard Shortcuts How-To (getting written whether you like it or not)
• Writely (haha… this is old!  This was Google Docs “Document” before Google acquired it)
• Google Talk (Google’s chat program – “Better than AIM in all aspects other than user-base”)
• The Smart Way to Personalize a Homepage (before I caught on to iGoogle – though I’ve got good tips for iGoogle now!)

I’ll most likely be blogging about several of those topics in the near future, but your vote can most certainly increase priority!

Michael Crichton’s Prey

Heading up to Arts Fest last month, my buddy, Kevin, said that he thought I’d really enjoy Michael Crichton’s Prey.  He told me that it was a nerdy book with some really neat creative technologies and even some computer code – so of course it sounded awesome!

Crichton is new to me (other than Jurassic Park when I was 8), but he was very easy to follow.  The story is about a computer programmer (well, project manager who knows code) named Jack who has two major things wrong with his life – he is no longer employed and he suspects his wife is cheating on him.  The two come together when he gets a contracting position at his wife’s company and heads out to their fabrication laboratory.  That’s when everything gets crazy!

The technology that Michael Crichton talks about in this book is not quite around yet (to the best of my knowledge), but he talks about it in such a way that it just makes perfect sense, and I could totally picture it in existence.  There is an insane amount of action over a 24-hour period, but it is written in a way that it’s not even overwhelming.

If you’re looking for a solid read discussing some really neat technological advances with some fantastically described action scenes, then Prey is for you.  Clocking in at just over 500 pages, it took me a little longer to read than most other stuff this summer, but it really drew me in nonetheless, and it was awesome!

A Request for Apple

Tags (AKA labels) are the new huge thing tearing up the web. You can tag your messages in Gmail, you can tag your tasks in RememberTheMilk (yesterday), you can even tag your blog entries (oops :-\  I’m working on it…).

There is one place that I have not yet seen tags, but I really would like to — iTunes.  Playlists are cool and fully customizable and everything, but tags could be a really handy addition!

I’ve got all sorts of different Rock Band songs in iTunes, and the way I have it set up is that they’re all part of the “Various Artists” “Rock Band Soundtrack” album. Then the title for each song is “Title (Artist)”. That’s been all right, but there are a couple big problems with it in my books:

1. I now have two copies of whichever songs I had before I got into Rock Band. That’s really just a waste of space both on my computer and my iPod…
2. It’s a real hassle when scrolling through all of my songs (on my iPod) to find the artist when I forget the name of the song (at least I can search in iTunes…).
3. I can’t do sub-categories. These are all just “Rock Band Soundtrack”. If I had tags I could tag them by their difficulty or some other structure, making it even easier for me to find the song I’m looking for.

I know iTunes isn’t a web application, so maybe that’s why they aren’t following the Web 2.0 trends, but tagging really could bring some awesome possibilities to the table.

Remember the Milk

I have found several very useful tools this summer, but I’m pretty sure the best one I’ve found is www.rememberthemilk.com.  This site takes an idea that must be thousands of years old (the To-Do List), and adds all sorts Web 2.0-ey goodness.

You can create several different lists (I don’t know of any limit, but it’s on a computer, so I’m sure there’s some upper bound which is inevitably a power of 2) containing whatever sort of tasks or items you want.  Items can be added, completed, assigned due dates, postponed, moved, prioritized, tagged, repeated, have notes attached to them, contain a URL, shared (I don’t know anyone else using it yet though..), and all sorts of other awesome stuff.  You can create a grocery list, a list of items you need to pack to go back to Penn State, a list of things that you need to do at your internship before Friday, or even a list of all the Pokemon cards you still need to collect.  (I’m absolutely just kidding.  Pokemon was totally 10 years ago.  Yu-gi-oh is all the rage now!)

I’ve set myself up with the default “Personal”, “Study”, and “Work” lists as well as my own “Books” and “THON” lists.  You can create “Smart Lists” from your search results (which can be very precise), so that you can always find list items that contain the word “blog” in them with just the click of a mouse.

This free service is definitely worth trying out (especially if you’re disorganized or simply want to make yourself even more organized).  So create your account now and add me (eyekeyknee) as a contact!  We can share tasks with eachother and experiment with whatever other features might be out there!

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Early last week, Mare told me that I had to see Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.  She was absolutely baffled that I hadn’t heard of it, because it has been buzzing all over the interwebs, but since I’ve been working, I typically spend less than an hour a night on my home computer.  She sent me the link to it, and I didn’t get around to watching it until Friday night.  I really regret putting it off, because it was AWESOME!

Written and directed by Joss Whedon (Firefly and Serenity’s writer/director), Neil Patrick Harris (Doogie Howser!) stars as Dr. Horrible, a up-and-coming evil villain, trying to make it into the Evil League of Evil.  Nathan Fillion (the captain of Serenity) is Captain Hammer, the superhero who always foils all of Dr. Horrible’s evil plans.  Penny (Felicia Day – a new actress to me) is Dr. Horrible’s crush who he finally talks to.

Going into it, I really had no idea what to expect: I didn’t know if NPH or Nate could sing, I didn’t know that it was going to have an entertaining plot, and I really didn’t know that it was going to be hilarious.  But it was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while.  The songs were so funny (I wish I could download just the music…) and there were quite a few terrific one-liners.  I really really suggest you take the 43 minutes out of your life to watch this one – it’s definitely worth a watch (or four.. that’s my count so far…).  Enjoy!

Opening Ceremonies

Yesterday was 08/08/08 and at 8:08:08 PM, the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing were underway.  The news that I had seen leading up to the Olympics was almost entirely about the political situation in China, the smog levels (and what they might do to ruin some of the events), how Michael Phelps is going to win 8 golds, and a little about whether or not Rafael Nadal can keep up Spain’s awesome streak this year.  But I hadn’t really heard anything about what to expect with the opening ceremonies.

They were fantastic.  I didn’t get to watch the entire thing (I tuned in late and watching the parade can get kind of boring), but that which I did see was amazing.  The use of technology was one thing that I found awesome – they had this big LED scroll that they rolled out to be 147 meters long (source), and around the entire circumference of the stadium was a huge project screen with images almost constantly being projected onto them.  I don’t know what the Chinese will come up with next, but I definitely tip my hat to their impressive technological feat last night.

The other thing that I thought was awesome was the number and skill of the performers.  In many of the individual segments, there were 2008 people who were doing

/ coordinated actions.  Two that stood out in particular were the people with the light suits (I think they were LEDs all over their entire suit — I’ll link in the comments when I can find it) and the Tai Chi around the school children (those performers were so absolutely perfectly placed in their concentric circles and also in straight lines from certain angles.  Their knowledge of where they were at any instant was simply stunning.).  I’m glad I got to see some of the opening ceremonies this year, and I cannot wait to watch some of the 3600+ hours of Olympic coverage!

Ender’s Game

For the first time in my little brother’s entire life, he recommended a book for me to read!  Ender’s Game is the story of a young boy (it starts when he is 6) in the future who is pretty much the chosen one to save the human race.  The entire planet has come together to fight the evil buggers (who we’ve already had two wars with), and in order to do so, the best and brightest genetically created children are sent to battle school.  The story goes on to tell of Ender’s trials and tribulations at battle school and then… come on now – I’m not going to ruin this for you!  Go pick up a copy yourself!

It really was a fun book to read.  Orson Scott Card writes in such a way that it’s very easy to understand, despite talking about the future (a tough feat in my eyes).  The combination of the really fun action scenes (all over the place) and the terrific character development (for a 6 year old, Ender’s one complex kid) made it very enjoyable to me (and with a little bit of philosophy thrown in, maybe more critical readers could read beyond the surface… but that’s not what I was going for, because I’m lazy).

As I’ve been doing the majority of this summer – I’m going to tell anyone reading this that they should get to their nearest library or used book store and pick up a copy of Ender’s Game!  I know I can’t wait to get my hands on the rest of the series (and I’m also excited to hear more news on the potential movie and video game…).