arstechnica: A number of Gmail users are complaining that their e-mail has mysteriously vanished. After TechCrunch picked up the story, Google issued a public apology, stating that the problem affected only 60 users. There don't seem to be any noticeable patterns in the group of affected users.
Tags: google, email, gmail
Do you do a lot of instant messaging? I have started to do more now that Google Talk is built into Gmail. The beauty of that is that I don't have to install a client and it is available anywhere I have a browser. If I want one of the other services then I need to install their client or something like Trillian that logs me into everything at the same time. Still a bit of a drag because I have to log in and have things running in the back ground. The browser is with me everywhere.
Fine, well and good you say but but what about all my old friends on AIM or Yahoo! or MSN?
If you are willing to spend a few minutes getting things set up once, I am going to show you how you can have truly portable instant messaging for all your services and all from within your browser.
This wizardry is done through servers called Jabber Transports. Cool thing is, you don't have to know or care how they work, just how to access them.
First you need another client for Jabber. Unfortunately Gtalk just won't cut it for this step as they have no way to access the transport browser. I use Psi because it is easy so those are the instructions you'll read below. You are only going to need this client for the initial set up. The magic here is that you are going to do this on one computer and it will instantly transfer to any other computer you install Google Talk on or any browser you run Gmail (with its built in chat client). It's all very cool and it's not hard if you stay with me.
Install Psi then set it up to talk to GTalk
1. Download Psi and run the Psi installer
2. On the 'Choose Components' screen, deselect Automatic Startup so Psi doesn't run automatically every time you start Windows
3. When the set up finishes, select Run Psi
4. Close the tips window
5. Enter a name for your account in the Name field (I used 'GoogleTalk'). Also, make sure that the box next to Register new account is NOT checked.
6. In the Jabber id field, enter your Google id and be sure to put the @gmail.com after it. If you have Google aps for you domain, you'll need to put in the correct domain.
7. Open the Connections tab, check all the boxes and enter talk.google.com in the host field. The port is 5223.
8. Click Save
9. In the Psi main window, click the drop-down at the bottom that is currently labeled 'offline' and select On-Line
10. Enter you password when prompted
11. You'll then be logged in and should see a lit of all your contacts from GTalk.
Browse for a transport server that does what you need
1. Go to https://www.xmpp.net/servers and look around for a transport server.
- for example, if you want to use Google Talk to talk to people on AIM, you need one that provides a transport to AIM. It will say something like "AIM Transport: Users can register for gateway communications to AIM"
I am going to use jaim.at in my examples
Configure the transports that let you talk with other IM services
1. In Psi, click the little trident icon on the bottom left
2. Click Service Directory
3. In the Address bar, type in the name of the transport server you found above
4. Click the Browse button
5. Pick the Transport you want, in this case AIM, and right-click and click register
6. Enter your username and password on that service
7. Close the Service Discovery window
8. You'll get a message in Psi about the new service wanting to talk to you. Click Add/Auth
9. You'll then get another message saying you've been authorized
10. You'll then get similar messages for each of your contacts in AIM (or which ever service you are using) but you only have to go through each once
That's it. You can exit and close down Psi. You aren't going to need it again until you want to add another transport.
Now the fun starts! All those old friends from AIM are now available to you in GTalk and, even better, within your Gmail client in any web browser. Oh, and if you have chats being saved in Gmail (in Gmail, settings - chat - Save chat history in my Gmail account) , this method will save all your chats, even those with the other services.
There is a caveat...if you want to add a new friend from another service, you have to add them as username@transport so, from above, it would be username@aim.jaim.at.
Happy chatting!
Tags: instant message, im, chat, google, talk, gtalk, gchat, how to, instructions, guide, talk, aim, aol, msn, yahoo, jabber, transport
Tags: humor
ABC News: Nintendo said Friday it will replace 3.2 million straps for its popular Wii computer game controllers after receiving a rash of reports that the device flew out of the hands of pla
The new straps will be 0.04 inch diameter instead of the current 0.024 inch.
Tags: nintendo, wii, replacement, recall, straps
Yahoo News: Web sites that register their domains through Google will be automatically set up to work with several other company products, including e-mail, calendaring and instant messaging.
They'll charge $10 annual fee and only handle addresses ending in four suffixes — ".com," ".net," ".biz" and ".info."
Tags: google, domain, registration
This update helps prevent a Windows wireless client from advertising the wireless networks in its preferred networks list. The advertised list could be used to spoof an address so you might attach to to it and let all your traffic go through nefarious computers.
The patch isn't on Windows Update but you can get it here: kb917021
Tags: microsoft, windows, xp, wireless, security, kb917021
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Dugie's Pensieve has an article about a new tool called VMDK2VHD. He's also written a quick little guide for how the process worked. Could be a pretty handy tool if you like using the 2 environments.
* 'Scrub' the VMware Image using the first half of that very fine guide from Chris Wolf over at SearchServerVirtualization.com
* Use VMDK2VHD to convert the VMDK virtual disk to to a VHD
* Create a new VMC with roughly the same hardware (IDE drives, etc, etc) in Virtual PC 2007
* Attach your newly created and converted VHD
* Power up you new VMC, login and wait (a few minutes) for *all* the new hardware to be detected
* I clicked cancel to the new hardware driver wizard
* I also clicked no to the reboot - hey livin on the edge here
* Install the Virtual Machine additions (v13.724)
* Reboot
* Let the hardware wizard run
* Tada!
Planning a trip next year? The New York Times has mashed up Google Maps with their articles about various locations in the world.
New York Times: Where to Go in 2007
Tags: travel, google, new york times, nyt, map, mashup
Check out Searchmash.com
You click on the little '+' in the items in the right hand column and see results for Images, Blogs, Videos, Wikipedia. Pretty cool. You can also click 'hide details' for a top-level only display.
Also, if for example you click the '+' next Blogs you'll get a link to 'See blog results' which when clicked swaps places with Web Pages on the left.
Tags: search, google, searchmash, find, integrated
Tags: humor
So, I just glanced at the calendar...there are only 2 weeks left until Christmas! You can get just about anything at Amazon and you have until Friday 15 December to order, get free shipping and get the gifts delivered by 22 December.
If you're still wracking your brain for something unique for that hard-to-buy-for person, Amazon gift certificates make the perfect gift!
Tags: amazon, shop, ship, gift, certificate, save, Christmas
$2 Million to Fastest Urban Robot
Red Herring - CA,USA
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will hand out $3.5 million worth of prizes to the fastest robot road racers.
Tags: robot, racer, fast, speed
Gizmodo: Using the Adobe Flash Player API, YouTube can now connect to your webcam and record directly to YouTube. And by getting rid of the saving and uploading step a huge barrier has been removed for a lot of users. Since saving/uploading have been the biggest complaints about the site this should have a huge impact on the company.
Great. Here comes more crappy unedited video.
Tags: youtube, webcam, upload, api
This news is a few weeks old but some how I missed it.
ABCNews: "By adding Skype to the Google Pack in 27 countries, Google is providing users with the ability to easily download Skype to communicate with millions of Skype users for free and inexpensively call landlines and mobile phones," Google said in a statement. "The programs included in Google Pack must meet Google's high software standards and are considered the best in their class."
Try Google Pack.
Tags: google, pack, software, download, skype, voip
If you are using Safari 1.3, Firefox 1.5 or above or Opera 9, stop over and CanvasPaint and check it out. Its An impressive near pixel-perfect copy of Microsoft Paint in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, using the <canvas> tag. IE users will be left out of this one.
Tags: html, css, javascript, firefox, safari, opera, canvas tag, canvas
http://www.imagehost.ro.nyud.net:8080/viewer.php?img=2502113445678a36429d7.jpg
And here you thought Google Earth was mapping software.
Update 6 December: I had coralized the link. Works fine for me but there is a comment that it didn't work so here is the non coralized version:
http://www.imagehost.ro/viewer.php?img=2502113445678a36429d7.jpg
Tags: humor, google
http://www.imagehost.ro.nyud.net:8080/viewer.php?img=2502113445678a36429d7.jpg
And here you thought Google Earth was mapping software.
Tags: humor, google
VOA: The United States says it plans to establish the first permanent human base on the moon by 2020 at the latest. The space agency NASA has revealed its plans for locating the outpost and for a landing craft that would carry astronauts from the base to explore other regions.
Tags: NASA, space, moon, base, lunar, lander, united states
Yahoo! News: U.S. companies will need to keep track of all the e-mails, instant messages and other electronic documents generated by their employees thanks to new federal rules that go into effect Friday, legal experts say.
[snip]
The change makes it more important for companies to know what electronic information they have and where. Under the new rules, an information technology employee who routinely copies over a backup computer tape could be committing the equivalent of "virtual shredding," said Alvin F. Lindsay, a partner at Hogan & Hartson LLP and expert on technology and litigation.
Tags: email, backup, track, law, corporation, corporate, rule
