Google: Offline E-mail!!! (gmail)

Yet another reason to love Google. They've updated gmail once again with one simple, yet incredibly powerful capability: offline access!!!  Yes, for all of those people with laptops and no GSM's or tethered phones, we can search, view, and even send/forward and reply to emails offline.  For composing and forwarding/replying, they'll send when you're next connected to the internet, just like the offline email on your (airplane mode) iPhone or iPod Touch, etc.

Yes, some of you may be saying "Well, I use Outlook (or Eudora, or some other IMAP client) so I've always been able to use my email offline".  Okay fine, but for the rest of us who don't like to use virus-targeted microsoft software, this is a blessing.  Furthermore, it's a clear sign of a trend pushing email increasingly toward webmail-based services (even off-the-web!), as well as a perfect opportunity to get more out of Google Chrome's "Create Application Shortcut"...

KUDOS GOOGLE! :)

Cheetos(R): My new (old) favorite chips

From time to time I have blogged about big businesses with honorable and reputable social policies or protections.  Although this particular company is not tech-related, I'd like to take a moment to commend Frito-Lay for the info on the latest Cheeto's bag I bought at the store.

The back of the bag has (as usual) cartoons.  However, this one is titled "What's a serving?" And goes on to describe that 21 Cheetos(R), which reach ~3.5 ft when laid end to end, constitute one full serving.

At a time when child obesity is a growing problem, diabetes and heart disease run rampant across the country, and excess is encouraged by most big businesses to maximize profits, I find this incredibly responsible.  In fact, I once saw a local TV special where they gave children a giant bag of chips and asked them to pour out about one serving onto a plate for themselves. One (notably pudgy) kid of about 12 poured over 5 servings (as defined on the package) for himself and said that it was common for him to eat this amount in one seating!

Now it's possible that this is a recent legal enforcement, but I haven't heard anything about such a law (other than the one requiring that the serving size must be printed somewhere on the package... usually in the fine print in the Nutritional Facts).  But if it was the choice of Frito-Lay I must say I've a newfound respect for this snack food giant, and will certainly look to pick more Frito-Lay products when buying junk food!!! I encourage you all to do the same.

Remember: In capitalism, your greatest individual power is your choice of where to spend your money!!!

Google to replace Skype?!?

... Well perhaps not entirely, but Google has done it again! They've recently (yesterday?) introduced video conferencing to Google Talk, which is accesible from within the Gmail interface (or webApp in Chrome)!!!  While this doesn't match Skype in terms of VoIP to contact non-internet based communication methods, but it certainly makes video conferencing easy and accessible to Gmail users(/addicts) like me!!!

My initial experience with the app was one-sided (sending video, not receiving), but the receiver informs me the video stream was totally smooth!!! I didn't test the audio stream, but generally video is the bandwidth-limited component...

(In all fairness it should be noted that Apple Talk has had this feature for quite awhile; but then Mac's are notorious for handling AV apps better than PC's, web-based or not...)

SciFri Video: Election Map

With all the excitement and interest in the recent US Presidential elections, it is not surprising that science and technology have been applied to political questions recently.  Now there are probably few U.S. citizens who haven't seen the electoral map with blue and red states colored (in the lines) to indicate which nominee received their electoral votes.  And many of you have, like me, seen the more detailed CNN map showing the counties which went blue and red (notably, only the major population centers of blue "island" states NM and CO).

But Prof. Mark Newman, a physics professor at the Univ. of Michigan, has combined these maps with demographic information such that the newly distorted map more accurately depicts the number of votes, rather than geographic size, a particular location has to offer.  The results are, as CNN and other media outlets have described qualitatively: There are large "islands" of urban and high population density which are blue, surrounded by red concentric circles, outwardly expanding and coalescing in regions of lower population density. These "islands" appear much larger on the new map because of their disproportionately large populations.  This map demonstrates not only how Obama was able to win the nation (despite the very red-looking map when observing county poll results), but also how much more balanced we are as a nation in terms of red and blue! Now if only we couldd start seeing some GREEN in there... ;)

I've added a video section on the right where I will be embedding interesting Sci Fri videos as they appear.  Science Friday is a production of NPR, their homepage is here.  The original cartogram video is located here.

Total Commander is Total Bliss!

  I first started using "Windows Commander" when a neighbor (in the EU) installed it on my computer in '03 to make it easier for him to transfer other files onto my computer. At that time (and for several years afterward) I saw it as a useful and more stable tool for file management. So on my workhorse desktop (which I use for most of my media downloading, burning, ripping, etc) I've rarely had to open windows explorer ever since, and I've always been pleased with the performance of Windows Commander.  The program never froze (as Windows XP used to do all the time!), it rarely caused file transfer problems (only about 1-2 times/year, and then only because I was doing something weird like transferring from two different hard disks to my one external at the same time).  It was always VERY fast, both opening and running, and it's a very convenient way to see file details, permissions, and other settings instantaneously. Also, the option of "Overwrite all older..." for batch copying files from one directory to another made it a lot easier to synchronize directories. But I never saw it as particularly cool. Just a useful tool to replace explorer for file management.

  About a year ago I realized there was a newer version and I upgraded to "Total Commander Ultima Prime" (TCUP, see screenshot above)... I know, I know, it sounds pretentious.  But I can honestly say I have never before been so surprised and impressed by a piece of windows software. Much like its predecessor, Total Commander is impenetrably stable and fast.  And right away I noticed the ability to create "tabs", as is standard in browser software these days, which I found really exciting.  In fact, since the program remembers which tabs were open the last time it ran; I have cut down my file search time by orders of magnitude!  I usually have about 15-20 tabs open in TCUP, of my most frequently used directories (i.e., "Downloads", "Music", "Videos", and various directories specific to research projects I'm working on), so I need only to click on the correct tab and find the file I want!!! [I still use Vista's search for more infrequently used files]

  Okay, okay, so you're probably thinking: "File Management... Wow. That's not very exciting..." TCUP doesn't just integrate standard aspects of windows explorer (like adding network drives, etc), it also performs SFTP transfers (right in your directory windows!) and allows for the installation of open-source plugins like T-pot. No this isn't Russel's Teapot, but rather the TC for your iPod or iPhone... A lot of people have "hacked" or "pwned" their iPhone or iPod Touch since their release; but a pretty common problem among users is their inability to get files into the right places on the device (Apple firmware tries to keep you out of any directory you might mess with something serious; which includes where NES roms have to go, etc). I guess most users solve this by using SSH to a server on their computers; but T-pot allows you to enter your device as though it were a disk, and manage files from within TCUP (where you manage the rest of your files anyway)!

Finally for those people like me with big and especially ecclectic media libraries, and more than one computer from which you'd like to access your media... this has got to be the coolest feature. TCUP has a built-in function for what we used to do manually, but got too busy to do when the libraries got big: Synchronize Directories.  Just bring up your iTunes or Music directory in one window, the external hard drive's in the next, and share!  The feature can take a while to compare everything (i have about 50 GB, and my last sync took about 20-30 min to analyze).

These are just a few of the wonderful powers of TCUP; I'm afraid I've only learned maybe 10% of the capabilities of this program and they've already had several version updates since I obtained this one!!! I'm upgrading to 7.04a this weekend, so expect an update on this review in the future!