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The Official Gmail Notifier
At first there was the Gmail Notifier extension for Firefox. And there was the GMailCompose extension for Firefox (made defunct by the WebMailCompose extension). The first displayed an email notification message in Firefox. The second allowed you to have all mailto: links you click automatically send you to a page to compose the email in Gmail. There was also GTray.
And then there now is the official Gmail Notifier from Google. Purely for Windows, it appears unobtrusively in your system tray when installed.
New message notifications appear as a transclucent pane in the bottom right of your screen. (The icon does look a little cutesy doesn't it?)
There's not much more you can do with it.
It's nice to have an official tool from Google that does what all those other homegrown tools do. It's also interesting that Google seems to have incorporated the best of all these amazing tools in their app - mail notification and mailto: link manipulation. Thumbs up to the authors of those neat little tools! Google seems to be copying your ideas!
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McSearchPreview - a better GooglePreview?
In response to Martey's comment and my entry (I think), Carlo has updated the McSearchPreview webpage to include an explanation of the Amazon affiliate codes mentioned below.
When you use McSearchPreview and click on an Amazon result, you support me and the further development of the extension if you actually purchase a product.
Support extension authors!
Carlo Zottmann wrote me about 2 weeks back to let me know about his McSearchPreview extension for Firefox. He wrote his first Firefox extension after using the GooglePreview extension (which I wrote about) and discovering that it lacked similar capabilities for other search engines that he uses. Attending a need is indeed excellent inspiration.
McSearchPreview adds preview thumbnails to search results for Google, MSN Search, Yahoo Search, A9 and AllTheWeb. Unlike GooglePreview, the thumbnails are retrieved from Alexa (by default - Thumbshots can also be used as an alternative). This means a larger number of results will have preview images, since Thumbshots only has thumbnail images of pages that are in DMOZ (in which very few pages would be listed).
McSearchPreview also adds an "Open in new window link" at the end of each search result - the actual usefulness of this feature is a little arguable since we are using a browser with tab browsing, after all. It also adds a "Site Info" link that takes you to the Alexa page for the search result's domain. It seems like an Amazon affiliate link but I'm not exactly sure if the author gets any benefit from it. Well, I'm fine with letting Carlo make a little profit from his neat extension, if any, but it would have been nice if he'd explained why there's (what appears to be) Amazon affiliate code in the "Site Info" links. Incidentally, the author of GooglePreview has removed Amazon affiliate code from version 0.3 of the extension.
Anyway, this is a really nice extension and I'm using it in place of GooglePreview at the moment (more pretty thumbnails!). Thanks Carlo!
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pickle.dump(links, blog) // Non-techie edition
- The Order of the Stick is my favorite web comic - it's DnD-related! Check out the cast of characters. Not sure if this is for you? Check out strip 3 - if this hasn't got you chuckling in pure appreciation, The Order of the Stick probably isn't for you. Otherwise, enjoy!
- Learn how to tie a tie - I don't remember how to tie a tie. I don't really have many chances to wear one anyway but you never know when this may come in handy when you're single and wife/girlfriend-less. Weird how the ladies know how to tie better ties than guys.
- The 25 most difficult questions you'll be asked on a job interview
- The most important games ever made - an ongoing piece of work. Halflife should be in there. Baldur's Gate too. Maybe Fallout.
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Loving my iPod mini
I wished I had an iPod mini. I have now got an iPod mini - a silver one.
To clear several plausible doubts judging from the comments in that last post (well, mostly directed at the rant by jbelkin):
- Roshambo, I'm not sure how Sumajin SmartWrap is going to be useful for me. The website isn't very descriptive so if you could explain to me what it does... :)
- Like Luke said, jbelkin, you said you "never read (my) original post" and yet go on to say "and this is why (I'm) wrong". I liked the self-contradiction there heh. But, but, I agree with you most of your points (well, right now because I'm the owner of an iPod). Except that the iPod (mini) is overpriced. Perhaps you haven't met poor people before (OK that isn't fair, but you weren't being fair). The iPod mini cost me a week's salary. I am now willing to pay for it because I am drawing a salary.
- I have no idea what "Fry's" is. I live in Singapore.
- I am loving my iPod mini.
For my fellow Singaporeans, do go get your iPod mini if you want one from SGL at Sim Lim Square (it's on the 2nd floor, and if you go by the connecting bridge from OG, it's the first shop on your right). It's $440 ($18 less the the market price of $458 at places like the AppleCentres) and the lady there is very friendly. Another thing I must say is that the Best Denki people manning their phone lines give pretty crappy service. They don’t sound very friendly and don’t bother to check for you the availability in other stores. Neither did they take the initiative to tell me when the new stocks will arrive. Harvey Norman is a completely different story because the guy who serviced my call was totally friendly, checked out the stocks in the other branches, and even told me when the stocks will arrive. Boo Best Denki.
Anyway, more on this (the iPod mini) later.
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Flattered
John Stone sent me a very nice email today about his redesign.
I've got my own blog and I used your's for inspiration, it doesn't
look nearly as good as yours and thats good because I wouldn't want
people to think I "stole" the design, but I just wanted to clear it
with you first, if you think it looks to much like a clone, i have
another design i can use.Someone took my crummy design as an inspiration - I am at once amazed and utterly flattered. Thanks for asking nicely John, and yes it is more than alright.
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