Techkeyla: 2009 January

Offline GMail. Hurray!!!

Posted on: 28-01-2009

Category : google

Offline GMail

GMail offline is here. For everyone troubled by not being able to read emails due to no connection on the move (in subways, during flights, no wi-fi zones et al) GMail Labs has the solution. Of course, it only makes for someone who cannot do without GMail and has a flurry of mails flowing in to the inbox. GMail Labs uses Google Gears to make GMail offline possible. Once the connection is lost, GMail offline ( needs to be setup by installing Google Gears in the browser, please read the Official GMail Blog post) detects when you are offline. It then caches your e-mail so that you can read it, respond to it, search it, star it, or label it. When you are connected to the Internet again, it sends all the messages. Check out the pretty neat Intro video below.

Reading, Stars, Labelling, Opening attachments, Composing and Saving as drafts work. However anything which requires a connection like adding attachments won’t work. Another point, available only for US and UK and shall be rolled out soon for other regions.

Also read what others have to say about this one.

Gmail Goes Offline with Google Gears

Gmail gets offline support, finally

Gmail Goes Offline With Google Gears

Gmail Adds Offline Support

Offline Gmail

Bad review: 8Hands Social Networking Client Beta

Posted on: 28-01-2009

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Category : review, web 2.0

Tags: analysis, resources, web 2.0

Unless I am extremely tormented and harassed by an application, I tend to remain on the good side of review. But this little application install has been a nightmare. Extremely dodgy, unfriendly and useless. I am talking about the latest beta release of the Social Networking Client-8hands for Windows. It supposedly claims to integrate all your social networking needs and bring Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Blogger, WordPress, et al under one giant umbrella, conveniently operating them from one client (at least what they claim).

8hands

I got to know about this app, through DownloadSquad’s post on 8hands. First things first, the app needed some update of Microsoft .Net to be installed on my machine, and a reboot. Ok, no complaints. Once installed, the application required me to make an account to login, giving in my e-mail credentials. No activation link from email required. Ok, cool so-far. Setting up Twitter easy as it goes. Click the twitter icon, enter username and password. Done!

Facebook next. Enter user-login (email address) and password. Doesn’t accept. Tried again, doesn’t accept. Signed out of Facebook from browser, and then tried login in 8hands, doesn’t work. Tried 3 more times, whilst I was updating my frustation on Twitter via 8hands (Get my twitter feed here) . If I cannot get my facebook set-up here, what’s the damn use?

Went to Start, Programs, 8hands— No uninstall exe. Went to Ctrl-Panel, Add-Remove Programs. Found 8hands. Removed.

The other thing I noticed while I was updating Twitter through 8hands was that the messages were getting updated quite well on twitter, but there was no updates on the client itself. I could not wait for them to get updated, and hence hit the uninstall button. If anyone can set-up their Facebook account here, please let me know. Cheers and DONOT install.

P.S. The image means , 8hands doesn’t require Refresh. Yeah right!

Key points about the New Internet Explorer 8 RC1

Posted on: 27-01-2009

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Category : microsoft

Tags: comparisons, internet, intro, microsoft, news

Microsoft has just released Internet Explorer version 8.0 RC1, which is supposedly going to be bundled with Windows 7. But before you go and press the download button, let us have a look if they have made any substantial changes. In other words, is the new IE really worth it?

MS says: New rendering engine, support for CSS 2.1, ‘smart address bar’ ( very similar to Firefox’s Awesome Bar ).
It is not available for Macs, only for WinXP and Vista 32 and 64 bit versions. MS officials have confirmed of not going for any further changes in the user-interface or the programming from now onwards until its release. So pretty much, RC1 is what you would get. So, what’s different from the beta? MS has listed the whole list out here.

But seems like, more than that, IE (or rather MS) has picked up a few tips from Chrome (Google). Firstly, the separate process for each tab which would ensure IE would not crash for failure in one of the tabs.

Secondly, the “porn mode” or the InPrivate mode which is very similar to the Incognito Window in Google Chrome.

DownloadSquad has run a few tests comparing the IE8 RC1 with Google Chrome, Firefox 3 and Opera. The results are here.

For more on the IE8 RC1, please visit the following links.

New Internet Explorer 8 accelerates browsing

Microsoft Releases Internet Explorer 8 RC1: Promises Faster and Safer Browsing

Microsoft’s IE8 Release Candidate Is Live; Nearly Identical To Final Release

Introducing YouTube in GMail

Posted on: 23-01-2009

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Category : google

Tags: gmail, google, YouTube

GMail YouTube Google gets inspired by Yahoo Messenger this time. Right into GMail chat, if someone pastes in a YouTube Link (which we often do), you’d be able to play the video link, right then and there- No opening of new tabs or windows. GMail Blog says that it is just because they want the friends of the GMail users to remain on the same page while they chat and not leave their friends waiting for ages to respond to the chats.

The folks at Google have been really trying to enhance the user experience. What more do we need from Instant Messaging? We got new emoticons, Video Chat inside GMail, and now it’s YouTube.

And oh yeah..only Google Videos and YouTube. And this feature doesn’t work on the Client, but only from within GMail. This makes me think if Google is closing down GTalk as a whole. Any predictions on the next step of integration in Google? How about some mail integration with YouTube videos? i.e. if someone sent a YouTube video link in GMail, you could be able to stream it from your inbox itself. Just a though! Cheers to Google.