14 February 2014

7 Really Free Things You Can Do On Amazon Without Spending A Single Dime



amazon-large

No, this is not an article about that gizmo or the book that has gone free. This is also not about grabbing goodies for cheap off Amazon.com’s digital racks. This is about diving into Amazon’s depths and coming up with useful free resources you can make use of. Amazon.com was named after Earth’s mightiest river. It also launched with the tagline — Earth’s biggest book store. Thirty years later, it is a gigantic “warehouse” that stocks anything you can think of. Like a personal tank, maybe. Amazon doesn’t seem to be straining under the load of being the world’s largest...


Read the full article: 7 Really Free Things You Can Do On Amazon Without Spending A Single Dime



Google Updater Needs Permissions to Control your Computer – Why?



If you are using any Google software on your Mac OS (Mavericks), you may seen this dialog box saying that “Google Software Update would like to control this computer using accessibility features.”


Google Software Update Mac


You can click the Deny button and the Google software installed on your Mac will continue to work without issues but why is the software updater asking for permission to control the computer?


I have been scanning the online forums and discovered a few threads that seem to explain the problem and what this Google’s Software Updater program is trying to achieve.


The short answer is that Google wants to auto-update any Google software installed on your Mac OS – stuff like Picasa, Google Earth, Google Drive, App Engine or Google Chrome. They want to install updates in the background without the user’s intervention and hence need this permission.


An engineer from the Google Chromium team says that it’s completely safe to Deny this dialog.


The Google Support website has instructions on how to uninstall the Google Software Updater program on your Mac using the terminal app but there’s a caveat. You have to uninstall the corresponding Google applications as well else the Google Software Update will be reinstalled after a few hours.


Manually run Google Software Update

Manually run Google Software Update



Another option would be that you disable the Google Software Update program from automatically checking the Internet for updates and manually update any Google software on your Mac.



$ defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 0

Run the command above at the terminal to disable auto-check and open the CheckForUpdatesNow.command to run the checks manually.




This story, Google Updater Needs Permissions to Control your Computer – Why?, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 14/02/2014 under Apple Mac, Google, Internet

Google+ Easter Egg for Valentine's Day



Google+ has a special Easter Egg for Valentine's Day. Mr. Jingles, the Google+ mascot, transformed into a heart. You can find the animation in the Google+ notification box: in Google+ for desktop, Google+ mobile apps and most Google services.






Here's the animation that's displayed when you click the icon. This is the "retina" double-sized version:






"I <3 you, people of Google+! You've made me feel like your Valentine many times over," says Mr. Jingles.



You can also check the costumes for New Year's party, Christmas, Thanksgiving Day, Halloween, 15 years of Google and 2 years of Google+.

openSUSE 13.1: A Solid Linux Release With Long Term Support



opensuse131_intro

Ubuntu and Fedora aren’t the only major Linux distributions out there: there’s also openSUSE. This RPM-based distribution celebrated the release of version 13.1 on November 19th, and there’s a reason why this release is so important. OpenSUSE 13.1 is considered an “Evergreen” release, meaning that it’s going to be supported for 3 years – akin to Ubuntu’s LTS releases. Let’s take a look at what makes openSUSE 13.1 so great. Unique Features OpenSUSE has a lot of items in common with other distributions – KDE as the default desktop environment, Firefox as the default browser, and a good selection of...


Read the full article: openSUSE 13.1: A Solid Linux Release With Long Term Support



10 Tips To Work Smart When You Get Hit With A Slow Internet Connection



snail-www

You think it’s the kind of thing that happens to other people, but sometimes, calamity befalls us. Sometimes, the gods are cruel and they take away your life force. Yes, one day, we will all have to deal with a slow internet connection. Drama aside, it’s not an uncommon scenario. You might be at a coffee shop with too many people logged onto the Wi-Fi and the limited bandwidth isn’t enough to keep everyone running. Or, like me, you might just live in India. But hey, with a little ingenuity, you can still get your work done and sneak in...


Read the full article: 10 Tips To Work Smart When You Get Hit With A Slow Internet Connection



Geeky Valentine, Android Licensing, Facebook Gender, Pandora Voting [Tech News Digest]



love-candy

Today in Tech News Digest, geeky goodness for Valentine’s Day, Android licensing terms for OEMs, Windows 8 sales update, Facebook’s increased gender options, Pandora’s voting algorithm, and how to get yourself banned from the Internet. A Valentine’s Day Roundup Whether you have a special someone or not, remember Valentines Day is about celebrating LOVE itself. #ValentinesDay — Julian Camarena (@juliancamarena) February 14, 2014 Today is Valentine’s Day, at least for those who celebrate the most romantic date in the calendar. It’s a day set aside to show your love for your significant other, or to simply revel in that incredible...


Read the full article: Geeky Valentine, Android Licensing, Facebook Gender, Pandora Voting [Tech News Digest]



Geeky Valentine, Android Licensing, Facebook Gender, Pandora Voting [Tech News Digest]



love-candy

Today in Tech News Digest, geeky goodness for Valentine’s Day, Android licensing terms for OEMs, Windows 8 sales update, Facebook’s increased gender options, Pandora’s voting algorithm, and how to get yourself banned from the Internet. A Valentine’s Day Roundup Whether you have a special someone or not, remember Valentines Day is about celebrating LOVE itself. #ValentinesDay — Julian Camarena (@juliancamarena) February 14, 2014 Today is Valentine’s Day, at least for those who celebrate the most romantic date in the calendar. It’s a day set aside to show your love for your significant other, or to simply revel in that incredible...


Read the full article: Geeky Valentine, Android Licensing, Facebook Gender, Pandora Voting [Tech News Digest]



Send Gmail Attachments to your Google Drive




The Send to Google Drive program automatically saves attachments from your Gmail messages to a folder in your Google Drive. It can save file attachments from all your Gmail messages or you specify a Gmail label, say GoogleDrive, and attachments of all messages marked with that label will get downloaded to a folder in your Google Drive.


You neither have to install any browser extensions (the program uses Google Scripts) nor do you have to grant access to your Gmail or Google Drive accounts to a third-party. And since Google Drive synchronizes with your mobile device and desktop, the saved email attachments will instantly become available on all your other devices.


How to Send Gmail Attachments to Google Drive


Here’s a step by step guide on how you can setup the Send to Google Drive program for your Gmail account:



  1. Click here to create a copy of the Google sheet in your Google Drive.

  2. Open the sheet and you should see a new Gmail Attachments menu at the top. Choose Authorize and grant the necessary permissions. This is an open-source Google Script) that runs in your own Google account and no one else will have access to any of your data.

  3. Click the same menu again and select Run. Close the Google sheet and the script will start downloading Gmail attachments to your Google Drive in the background.


The Google sheet will monitor any particular label in your Gmail mailbox in the background (every five minutes) and as soon as it finds a message that has attachments, it will automatically save all the attachments to the Gmail Files folder on your Google Drive. If you wish to download Gmail attachments in a different folder, change the value of cell D5 in the sheet.


Once the attachments have been saved, a new label is applied to the Gmail message indicating that the message has been processed. The default label is AttSaved but you can specify a different label in cell D6.


And if you would like to stop the script from running in the background, open the Google Sheet and choose Uninstall from the Gmail Attachments menu.


Send to Google Drive – Premium Version


The premium version supports even more features:



  1. Nested Gmail Labels – It can monitor Gmail messages that belong to a nested Gmail folder.

  2. Monitor Multiple Labels – While the free version only supports one label, the premium version can help you extract attachments from one or more Gmail labels

  3. Google Drive Organized – The free version dumps all Gmail attachments to one Google Drive fodler while the premium version organizes them in sub-folders thus keeping your Drive cleaner and more organized.


With the premium version, you also have the option for email and phone support (PDF Manual).












This story, Send Gmail Attachments to your Google Drive, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 01/02/2014 under GMail, Google Drive, Internet