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New Year Resolution - Clean Up Your Gmail Account with Labels and FiltersJanuary 2

A new year is upon us, and once the hangover and the food coma has worn off, it’s time to start working on those resolutions for the fresh new year. Instead of the traditional desires to lose weight and stop smoking, I propose a more realistic and achievable goal - clean up your Gmail account.

Gmail makes it easy to keep your Inbox organized, but those tools are of no use unless you harness them. Perhaps you already know about these tools, so consider this post your wake-up call to start using them more effectively.

Labels

Labels are the equivalent to folders in other e-mail services, but they offer an additional benefit. You can apply multiple labels to a single conversation in Gmail.

To create new labels or edit your existing ones, click the Edit Labels link on the left.

From there, you can rename, remove, or create new labels at will. I suggest creating labels based on sender names, or create an overarching category such as Bills or Services. To apply a label to existing mail, just check the box next to the conversation and look under the More Actions drop-down list.

Once your labels are set, move on to Filters.

Filters

Filters are one

TipsFor.us 2008 Review - The Obligatory Summary PostDecember 31 2008

The year 2008 has come to an end, and thus concludes the first year of existence for TipsFor.us. It’s been an interesting year for us, and I’ve learned a lot so far.

TipsFor.us was re-born from the ashes of a previous domain in March 2008 and is therefore a fledgling site. We’ve made some mistakes in our youth, and I’ll share what I’ve learned here.

A Few Stats and Charts

First, some numbers. We’re definitely a small site, but we managed to muster almost 500,000 pageviews in our infancy.

As you can see, we had a big spike in late March when an article on open-source Windows apps was featured on StumbleUpon and Del.ico.us. Traffic has been relatively flat (but consistent) since.

An overwhelming majority of you visited our site on the Windows operating system (almost 89%). We really need to start writing more Mac and Linux articles.

On Windows specifically, most of our visitors came here on XP. Vista didn’t even muster one-fourth of our Windows visitors.

Taking Screenshots on a Windows Mobile DeviceDecember 26 2008

In case you are wondering how to take screenshots on your Windows Mobile Smartphone or Pocket PC, let me show you. In my experience (with WM5), Windows Mobile has no built-in way to take screenshots, but there are a few free utilities available that can provide that functionality.

Here are three free tools for taking screenshots on Windows Mobile:

1. vSnap, by Mobile-SG
2. Capture Screen Utility, by Fann Software
3. Screen Capture, by Illium Software

Of the three, my personal favorite is Screen Capture, by Illium Software.

Download and Install

There are two ways to install Illium Screen Capture. The first is to download and run the complete installation file on your Windows PC (with your device connected). But what about Mac and Linux users who also happen to own a Windows Mobile device (like myself)?

That leaves us with method two - download the CAB file directly to your Pocket PC or Smartphone. The original download links on Illium’s site are way too long to type manually, so here are TinyURL links instead.

• Direct download link (

Mount Multiple Disc Images for Free with Virtual CloneDriveDecember 23 2008

Please insert disc! I mean it! Insert the disc now!

If you grow tired of programs that demand the presence of a physical disc, you can bypass that requirement by running the disc virtually.

Virtual CloneDrive, by SlySoft, is a free program that allows you to mount and run disc images so that your computer will think they are physical discs. This is handy when an application checks for an inserted disc, such as installing/running software or playing a video game.

Virtual CloneDrive supports most popular image formats, including ISO, IMG, BIN, UDF, and CCD files. You can choose which file types to associate by default upon install.

You may have to reboot after installation (or after adding additional virtual drives). As of the most recent version (5.4.1.1), Virtual CloneDrive supports up to 15 virtual drives. Wow!

I Hate ID3 tags (Part 2)December 16 2008

I think I finally found a good solution to my dilemma.  The best part is, it’s open source and available for windows, linux, and mac.

Songbird

I had tried it in its early beta, and decided to try it again.  It can easily do everything iTunes does (except for all the stuff you don’t want iTunes to do).  Any feature it’s missing is typically available as a plugin.  It has some flaws, but they are already set for later releases (such as CD burning, but heck why not just use infra recorder for everything).  Just take a look at the features and “coming soon” section of the page.

Here is the important part:

The Single Most Amazing Plugin Ever. You can set multiple folders for it display in the folder tree, and it is simple to add content to.

When combined with Songbird, it solves all the problems the ID3-tag-hater has.  I also managed to install and uninstall enough plugins that it feels like it was made just for me.

Oh