How I keep myself updated with my mail, twitter, and the blogs I follow when I am not able to access the Internet

I shall be joining IIT Madras in some time now. Rules there don’t allow LAN and Internet access for the first four months(No idea why; they say you need to experience IIT life, as once you get  your computers, you get hooked to LAN/Internet gaming, and you will hardly enjoy  the campus; This is true for a lot of people, from what I have seen from my last year at NITK). So I felt the necessity to keep myself updated. So, with a little help from Google, and a bit of tweaking, I figured out how to get regular updates by SMS(this works only in India, though you could use some alternate services to work it elsewhere; this does not cost anything, and is way better than using GPRS/3G).

So here is how it works. Gmail and Twitter have authenticated RSS feeds. This means that feed readers trying to read these will prompt the user for Username and Password. Hence authenticated feeds are not supported by most readers. Moreover, to view these feeds, there needs to be an interaction between the user and the reader, and hence an internet connection is needed.

So we use something called a Feed-Proxy. These are sites, that automatically supply the login details when asked, and export the feeds to thier own RSS feed. In simpler words, they convert authenticated feeds to unauthenticated fields.

Google Labs India has a feature called SMS channels, from which one can subscribe to Channels created by other users. You can create your own channel, and RSS feed updates can be sent. So we use these SMS channels to send the updates to your mobile as the unauthenticated feed supplied by the Feed Proxy(Most blogs have their unauthenticated feeds, and can be accessed in a similar way).

I shall post some useful links here:

Gmail Feed(Authenticated):

Twitter Feed(Authenticated): http://twitter.com/<username>/with_friends

Feed-Proxy: FreeMyFeed-Enter the authenticated  feed address, username and password. The RSS feed link is to be used later;Copy it somewhere.

Google SMS Channels: You need to login using your Google account.If you have not already done so before, you need to verify your phone number. Click on the create channel link, select RSS feed, and paste the feed address appropriately. Fill the rest of the details and you are done.

Edit: Use tinyurl to convert your feed proxy feeds from relative URLs to absolute URLs as relative URLs may fail on SMS Channels.

SMS Channels takes some time to activate, so be patient

Googletalk on facebook

Tired of switching between windows for chatting? It was a nuisance for me switching between google talk and facebook chat. Now, you can add googletalk on your facebook. This way you can take care of your google and facebook contacts. All in one window. To use this, click here

Manage multiple Email accounts from your Gmail account

Most of us have more than one email account. Even if  you do not, I would strongly suggest you to keep a second account(what I call a temporary account) which you can give as a reference to many forums that ask for it. You need not think twice about the spam. It is not going to affect your primary account. Managing multiple accounts is sometimes very cumbersome. Gmail has come up with a really nice solution to this in the form of Multiple Inboxes.

Given below are the steps to manage your secondary accounts from your primary Gmail account.

To enable Multiple Inboxes,

1. Go to settings in your Primary account.

2. Under the Labs tab,enable multiple inboxes.

Now in your secondary account,

1. Go to settings.

2. Go to the Forwarding and POP tab.

3. Enable forwarding and forward all mails to your primary account.

Now log in to your primary account again

1. Go to Settings.

2. Go to Multiple Inboxes tab.

3. type “to: <your secondary email address>”

4. You may also create inboxes such as “is starred”, “is drafts”.

That’s it. All forwarded mail will show up in the secondary Inbox. You could also use the “superstars” feature in Labs to categorise your mail aptly (I use Green stars for my temporary account).

Googlepedia: Research maximized

Firefox never fails to surprise you. The addons are simply amazing. They add so much more to the browser. Many like me cant do without these addons any more.

Googlepedia is yet another useful addon that I found while browsing through them. It shows you a relevant Wikipedia article along with your search results. Clicking links in the article will trigger new Google searches, making it a very useful research tool.

Googlepedia can be downloaded here.

Context Search: Yet another nifty Firefox Addon

It often gets very irritating to open a new tab in firefox, so as to search for something. This simple add on is by far one of the most effective ones I have found. Context Search adds an entry in the right click menu, which allows one to open a search for the topic through google, yahoo etc.. in a new tab. Very handy and a must have addon.

Context Search can be downloaded here.

Flu-gle!!

In the recent years, google has taken over in many aspects of our lives. As mentioned in one of the earlier articles, google can be used to check the weather, monitor the stock exchanges or carry out calculations. Now, Google has launched a new service with which you can monitor the flu activity across the United States. That’s right!! This, Google claims will come in help of people wishing to travel within the United States to check if their destination is flu affected or not!!

Flutrends shows the flu activity across the states, varying from Minimal to Intense. It works through data collected everyday, also taking into consideration past trends. So next time you plan to travel in the United States, don’t forget to check on Flutrends.

Google Notebook: A handy Internet Side-App

Us, we’re self confessed google fanatics. We just loved how a duo of college
students turned their project into a global phenomenon. Now we see Google invading every sphere of our lives.

The Google search engine is undoubtedly unmatched in its ability to filter
data from the internet. However, once one saves all the data to the hard drive, it can often become a cumbersome job to filter out appropriate data. More often than not, the result is below par, compared to what could be achieved best.

Google has come up with a solution. This gadget is little known, little used but vastly useful. It transforms Google from an awesome search engine to a powerful data manager. All one needs is a Google account and one can start off with Google notebook.

Google notebook allows one to create as many notebooks as one likes. In each notebook, we can have multiple sections, for better data sorting. This comes in rather handy when there is some research to be done. One may find information about various aspects of the same topic, so it is always better to sort it as we see it. Text may be typed in or pasted. Bookmarks may be added, so one may refer a particular part of his notes at will. Apart from the above features, there is also an inbuilt text editor, that allows one to hyperlink as well, apart from the formatting stuff.

As most of todays popular web browsers have a tabbing feature, the notebook can be put away in a tab and used when required. There is a firefox plugin for notebook, which can be very useful. Add to this a google search box for your notebooks, one can never lose any information he/she would have compiled.

Overall, I thought that it is a great product and definitely worth trying out.

Google: not just a search engine

Google: a search engine and more

A major internet revolution in itself, Google has changed the way the people use the internet. And why would anyone not fall in love with the sleek, quick and accurate search engine, which spoon feeds the user with the whole web at his or her fingertips. However, unknown to most users, one can use Google for more than just searching the internet.

Loaded with loads of features, I was finding it rather difficult as to where to start with. Google can be used as a world clock. Typing “time <cityname>” yields the time in that city along with details on the time zone. Or one could use Google to keep tabs on the stock markets. Entering the ticker ID in the Search Box gives a graphical representation of the performance of that particular stock, along with stats on highs, lows, volumes etc.Google can serve as a scientific calculator.. Entering 3 + (4 * arcsin(0.5) * 34) gives an output of 74.2094335. Google comes with an inbuilt spell checker, which automatically corrects misspelled words while giving search results. Google may be used to find businesses in the locality. Entering “<businessname> <location>” gives a list of businesses in that locality. For instance, “barber Bangalore” gave

. And I hadn’t known that barbers advertise on Google too. Google has a very effective converter. It can convert currencies, or measurements in different units. Typing 12 inches in cm would give “12 inches = 30.48 centimeters”. The fill in the blank feature also comes in handy. Adding a * to end of statement gives answers to the questions given. There are also loads of other features which I may not know about, or may have forgotten while writing this entry, which are a part of the Google search engine. One thing is for sure.. They definitely come in handy.