Michel's Blog » Google/Gmail Related

New Gmail Video Chat!!

Michel — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:14:50 +0000

on tuesday november 11 gmail really stepped up their game and pushed gmail to the next level. now no one has an excuse to stay with yahoo, msn (hotmail), or aol. just the way google makes it so simple and easy to use unlike yahoo and other video chat softwares which are pretty complicated and take a lot of memory and effort to do things like store contacts and also other softwares open automatically when you log on which greatly slows down your computer when you log on. i dont have a webcam (yet) so i cant actually do it but ive downloaded it (and yes to use gmail video chat you have to download it) and how you do it is when you mouse over someone’s name in the chat contacts list and on the drop down menu it says: “Start Video Chat” then it gmail sends them an invite and they hit accept and thats it! simple as that. do to its simplicity and ease of use the official Michel’s Blog rating is a 4.5/5 and i recommend all of you to get it, within the next week or so gmail texting should be up too and im guess within 3 weeks there will be group video chat for gmail. google is starting to acquire a monopoly on more things then just search engines now and as long as they keep coming out with new and cool stuff i welcome it, other companies like microsoft and yahoo need to learn from google and the only way they will survive in this business is to do what google is doing which is continuously improving and updating their products. to read more click here.

GETTING REALLY REALLY CLOSE TO THE 2000 HITS MARK!!! it feels like just yesterday i was celebrating the 1000 views mark but it was just 13 days ago. the week after that i got like super super high record number of views and thats why the 2000 mark is coming so fast.

How to Get the Most Out of Your Gmail Email Address

Michel — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:12:30 +0000

ive been wanting to post about how to use your gmail email address to the fullest for a while now so i guess ill blog about it today, i apologize about having 2 gmail posts in a row especially to the people who dont have Gmail (and you should get one). well there are two great features for gmail they are:

The use of periods
The use of + signs

so if my email is bobsmith@gmail.com then i could add a period any where in there and it would still go to me, so i could write bob.smith@gmail.com or it works vice versa so your email could be bob.smith@gmail.com then give someone the email address without the period so its bobsmith@gmail.com and the person would still get it. you can add as many periods as you want any where you want so if you really felt like it you could say your email was b.o.b.s.m.i.t.h.@gmail.com

the one i think is much cooler is the use of + signs in your email address, so if my email is bobsmith@gmail.com if i was signing up for something that i knew would give me spam i would write my email as bobsmith+spam@gmail.com then set up a filter to have all emails sent to bobsmith+spam@gmail.com go straight to the spam box. it is also very useful for separating school from church stuff or to keep all the emails from colleges separated from the rest of your emails. so ill do one more example to help you understand this: if i wanted to keep my school and church stuff separated then i would give my church the email bobsmith+church@gmail.com and give my school the email bobsmith+school@gmail.com then set up filters. its also very handy when you want to see if certain people or organizations are taking your email address and giving them to spammers and if they are then set up a filter for the email you gave them to go straight to auto-delete.

wondering “well thats a nice feature, i think i’ll use it, but how do i set up a filter?” well i couldnt describe it better then google does so heres their answer:

Using filters

Gmail’s filters allow you to manage the flow of incoming messages. Using filters, you can automatically label, archive, delete, star, or forward your mail, even keep it out of Spam — all based on a combination of keywords, sender, recipients, and more.

To create a filter:

Click Create a filter (next to the Search the Web button at the top of any Gmail page).
Enter your filter criteria in the appropriate field(s).
Click Test Search to see which messages currently in Gmail match your filter terms. You can update your criteria and run another test search, or click Next Step.
Select one or more actions from the list. These actions will be applied to messages matching your filter criteria in the order in which the actions are listed — for example, you could choose to Forward matching messages to a specific email address, then Deletethe messages.
If you’d like to apply this filter to messages already in Gmail, select the Also apply filter to x conversations below checkbox.
Click Create Filter.

To create a filter from within a message:

Click the drop-down menu next to Reply.
Select Filter messages like this.
Enter your filter criteria in the appropriate field(s).

To edit or delete existing filters:

Click Settings (at the top-right of any Gmail page).
Click Filters.
Find the filter you’d like to change and click its edit link, or click delete to remove the filter.
If you’re editing the filter, enter the updated criteria for the filter in the appropriate fields, and click Next Step.
Update any actions and click Update Filter.

You can create an unlimited number of filters, but only 20 filters can forward to other addresses. You can maximize your filtered forwarding by combining filters that send to the same address.

for more information about using the . and + signs in your email address click here.

Hit the 700 views mark after two days of lots of views! but very few comments and votes compared to the number of views, this blog will be A LOT better with some interaction trust me!!!

New Gmail Smilies/Emoticons!!!

Michel — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:25:29 +0000

2 new options in the poll to the right so vote! and i added the poll that was half way down the page to the right side column so hopefully you guys could vote for both.

my theory about facebook being a good place to advertise was more then correct i got double the amount of views i normaly do today and its just the second day ive had facebook. im still trying to find out how to really advertise and adding more “friends”.

WE WON OUR GAME!!! we beat Navy at their rink in annapolis 3-0 to move our record to 2-0. it wasnt a blow out but it was quite obviuose we were the stronger team. we lost to them 4-2 in the preseason though. we were missing peyk bakhshi who is the right wing on my line so one of the defensemen, alexis, stepped up and filled in. she did fairly well, she did act like she was on defense a couple times but played a pretty solid game, but im pretty sure we would have scored if peyk had came…

NEW GMAIL SMILIES/Emoticons!!! now there is a whole new set of 12 chat smilies and 148 email smilies to add while sending an email. all the hidden smilies i blogged about a while ago showed up here, they were probably tests. the chat smilies are just the same set of smilies from the other three groups which are just the text, the circular faced, and the box faced, these are just a colored box faced with slightly different features. the email smilies are actualy very creative and pretty cool. they have things like poop, two smilies hugging (for XOXO), crabs, drinks, flowers, houses, cameras, presents, and much more heres what they look like,

email smilies:

Chat Smilies:

to read more about them go to http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/

oh almost forgot to mention THE REDSKINS ARE 6-2!!! things are looking good and i think its about time for everyone to start the bandwagon.

and professional barber John Basta cut my hair during the second liturgy and it is probably the shortest its ever been but im fine with it, but my mom not so much… and ofcourse my mom’s opinion is all that matters but just like last time a week from now she’ll love it

i was also waiting to hit the 600 views mark but completely surpassed that today and are now up to 652 so im half way to the 700 mark and getting closer to the big 1000 mark. also sorry about forgetting to catergorize some of the posts, ill get on that now.

Riddle/Phone/New UTube Video Idea

Michel — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:47:07 +0000

hmmm what to write about… here is a riddle i found:

Q: What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?

ill post the answer tomorrow but until then comment with what u think it is.

i loving my new phone and i fugured out why the camera wasnt working, and it wasnt that i hadnt activated the phone yet. it was becase i had left the plastic protective film that come on it when you ship it so it covered the entire front side. it turns out that the film was so thick the phone wasnt picking up my finger on the camera button (u dont press it u just put ur finger there) having little bit of trouble getting on the school’s wifi i got on for a little bit then it fadded away then back again, let me know if you know how to fix it. im also not sure if ill be getting a data connection plan (internet) i assumed i would after my dad ans sister got it but now my dad is saying “we’ll see” which means probably not.

as you can tell i dont have anything very interesting to talk about.

a kid in my web page development put this site as one of his bad sites in his website evaluation projects, so ill have to find a way to get him back. i think he thought i got mad at him for doing it but i dont get mad at these things, if u have any suggestions on how to get him back please comment with it. ive been thinking about making a new youtube video, i wrote a script for How to be an FOB video but i might just do something completely different. ill probably record it monday (NO SCHOOL!!) then not get the editing done till a few days in to the week. maybe i could make a video making fun of him or something, but the problem with that is ai dont even know his name i mean i just meet him last week. in the infomous words of my dad “We’ll see”. and like always suggestions for video topics are welcome.

And ill end with some words of wisdom

“If your parents never had children, chances are you won’t either.”

-Dick Cavett

i like the idea of ending with a quote, yea i think ill start ending every post with a quote, and if u have any quotes post them

Having problems with Google Chrome

Michel — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:29:47 +0000

before i downloaded google chrome i did my research and found that one of the leaders of the project said he didnt think chrome was ready but they put it up anyway, now those problems are starting to show.

takes too long to load. chrome seems to be getting slower, what it does is next to the title of the website on the tab there is a circle which is gray going counterclockwise quite slowly when you first press a link, after it does a couple full rotations it become blue, goes clockwise, and goes much faster then the page shows up. It really seems like its taking longer to switch from gray to blue and seems like its not doing anything while its gray and is just thinking about whether or not it will decide to load the website.
UTUBE AND OTHER MEDIA PLAYERS DONT WORK ANYMORE!!! i dont know if its something i did or what but just yesterday it seems like a switch fliped and chrome decided that all media players wernt going to work any more. CNN videos have never worked but now NPR (National Public Radio) audio broadcasts, Metacafe, and Youtube ,and by the way utube is owned by Google so theres really no excuse, all dont work anymore, if im just going to keep flipping to IE to watch a video then i might not use Chrome until they fix this. I absolutly love chrome dont get me wrong its a great browser but im not going to stay with it if google doesnt fix it

WOW!!

Michel — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:20:47 +0000

Thanks to all my viewers for making this the MOST VIEWS IN ONE MONTH SINCE THIS BLOG STARTED!!!

this month alone i got 152 views!!!

im going to try to post the number of views for the month at the end of every month, feel free to remind me at the end of the month.

i started this blog on November 25, 2007 which was 10 months ago, so for the first 9 months i got 33 views and this month alone i got 152 which puts me at 185.

if i can keep getting more views then i will apply to get just a small line of google adsense ads on the bottom of the page just so i can make enough money to buy a domain. the ads wont be flashy or anything to see what their going to look like visit anchorite.org and scroll all the way to the bottom and you’ll see them.

actually i just signed up for adsense 2 minutes ago, hopefully ill getaccpted and make enough to buy the domain!