Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on October 29, 2007 by CyberNet.

Last week Gmail launched free IMAP support, which was one of the most user-requested features. We were fortunate and got the IMAP access to show up in our account simply by logging out and logging back in, but some of my friends are still sitting around waiting for it to show up in their accounts. Google has said that it will take about a week to roll it out to everyone, which means all accounts should have access to IMAP by the end of the month (on Wednesday).

Since the launch of IMAP support I’ve received several questions from friends and readers wondering how it all works, and why they should use it. Lifehacker has a killer article that walks you through using Thunderbird with Gmail’s IMAP, and so I thought I would just give a quick rundown on the important points such as setting it up.

–IMAP vs. POP–

IMAP, unlike POP3, supports two-way communication between the email client and Gmail. If you read/delete a message in, lets say Outlook, the same action will be taken on the message in your Gmail account. If you put an email in a folder, for example “Personal”, in Outlook it will also be labeled as “Personal” on Gmail. I think you get the gist.

For a lot of people IMAP is just better because you don’t have to manage your email in two different places. Although some people still prefer to use POP because they know that their messages are still accessible in the event that they permanently delete it from their email client.

–How to Enable Gmail IMAP–

As of right now Gmail is still rolling out IMAP access to their users, but they plan on it being done around Wednesday, October 31st. They require that you set your interface language to “English (US)” in order to use the IMAP access, and when it becomes available this is how you can enable it:

1. Log in to your Gmail account.
2. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page.
3. Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
4. Select Enable IMAP.
5. Click Save Changes.

–Setup your Email Client–

Setting up the IMAP access is not all that different from setting up a POP account, but there are some address and port changes you need to be aware of. Here are the general settings that you’ll need:

Google has more detailed setup instructions available for the most popular email clients:

• Apple Mail
• Blackberry
• iPhone
• Outlook 2003
• Outlook 2007
• Outlook Express
• Symbian S60
• Thunderbird 2.0
• Windows Mail
• Windows Mobile 6

–How Gmail IMAP Works–

*IMAP translates labels with a forward slash (/) into a folder hierarchy like you see in your computer’s file system. If you have a label such as ‘Family/Friends,’ you may want to reconsider your naming schemes because your IMAP client will display it as a folder named ‘Family’ with a subfolder named ‘Friends.’

**If you delete a message from your inbox or one of your custom folders in your IMAP client, it will still appear in [Gmail]/All Mail. Why’s that? In most folders, deleting a message simply removes that folder’s label from the message, including the label identifying the message as being in your inbox. [Gmail]/All Mail shows all of your messages, whether or not they have labels attached to them. If you want to delete a message from all folders, move it to the [Gmail]/Trash folder. If you delete a message from [Gmail]/Spam or [Gmail]/Trash, it will be deleted permanently.

–Applying Multiple Labels–

Managing your email can be a bit tricky since Gmail uses labels and almost all email clients use folders. Naturally if you move an email to a folder in your email client, it will have the same label applied on Gmail. But how can you add more than one label to an email?

It’s actually fairly simple. Copy a message, instead of moving it, to each folder corresponding to the labels you want to have applied. Gmail will recognize this action and apply multiple labels to the same message.

–What Doesn’t Gmail IMAP Support–

From first glance it may seem like Gmail’s IMAP service supports everything that you’ll need, but there are still a few things that have not been implemented:

• \Answered and \Recent flags on messages.
• Folder subscriptions. All folders are always in the ‘Subscribed’ list.
• Substring search. All searches are assumed to be words.
• Searching arbitrary headers. Only some headers are available for searches: From/CC/BCC/To/Subject.
• There is no SIEVE interface to Gmail filters.
• Only plain-text LOGIN over SSL tunneled connections are supported.

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on November 08, 2007 by CyberNet.

If you haven’t seen of, or at least heard of the “Dummies” books, I don’t know where you’ve been living! Ever since the first “For Dummies” book hit the shelves back in 1991, they’ve been a huge success. At this point they cover nearly any topic possible, focusing on ones that are complex, confusing, or intimidating. Seeing as the entire topic of computers, hardware, software, and the Internet can be a bit intimidating, there’s a whole line of books that fall under each of these topics. Today I thought we’d take a look at some of those books, but more specifically, the ones geared towards Open Source Software.

You’ll notice that there’s a link to the dummies homepage for each book. These books can be found for much less at sites like Amazon, but one of the benefits of linking to the homepage is that there’s an excerpt from the book as well as the table of contents so that you can see what all you’re getting and what it covers. If it interests you, go read an excerpt, and take a look at the table of contents before going to another site to buy it. Here’s CyberNet’s list of Open Source books for Dummies that may be worth taking a look at.

1. Linux for Dummies, 8th Edition
   If you’re wanting to dive into Linux but you’re just not sure where to start, Linux for Dummies will get you pointed in the right direction.  It focuses on Fedora Core 6 but also includes information on other distributions like SuSE, Mandriva, Linspire, Knoppix, and Ubuntu.
   Link
2. OpenOffice.org for Dummies
   This book was published in December 2003 so it’s definitely due for an update.  If you’re at all interested in using OpenOffice.org, it might be a good idea to stop at a book store and take a peak at it just so you can get an idea of what it’s all about. It covers a wide variety of different topics and includes into about templates and styles, creating spreadsheets, and more.
   Link
3. Ubuntu Linux for Dummies
   We talk quite a bit about Ubuntu Linux here at CyberNet because it is one of the most popular distributions.  Published just this year, Ubuntu Linux for Dummies will teach you how to tap into multimedia, graphics and other applications using Ubuntu, generate and mange web pages, print service, and troubleshoot problems you may be having. They’ll also explain how to run Ubuntu right from a CD-ROM and how to install it on your PC or a network server.
   Link
4. Firefox for Dummies
   Given the number of readers who use Firefox, and the fact that Learn Firefox can teach you just about anything you’d want to know about it, this book probably won’t come in handy for yourself. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t recommend it to a friend that’s not so tech savvy to teach them all about what they’re missing out on! Firefox for Dummies is written by Blake Ross (creator of Firefox), it’ll be just enough to get your Friends who have been using Internet Explorer for way to long thinking about making a switch. It’s full of history, and the sometimes forgotten details that make Firefox a browser to love.
   Link
5. Free Software for Dummies
   While this book isn’t completely dedicated to Open Source software, it covers a lot of it from OpenOffice.org to Thunderbird, GIMP (the image editor) and even Blender. They point out how to locate the best free software out there that will work with Windows, Mac, or Linux. Sure you can spend lots of money on software, but why do it when you can get a lot of it for free that works just as well?
   Link

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on October 11, 2006 by CyberNet.

Eudora is making its way over to the open source world because Qualcomm decided to start basing the Eudora Mail application off of Mozilla Thunderbird. I know a few people that use Eudora as their primary mail application and when I informed them of the this information their initial response was “Eudora is already free.” I then realized that they were using the Light version which has no ads but fewer features than the Sponsored version. There is also a Paid version available for $19.95 which has no advertisements and all of the features.

There are a lot of nice features that I hope get migrated over from the existing version of Eudora to the Mozilla-based version which is expected to be released in the first half of 2007. The announcement of the partnership came after Eudora 7.1 was released today and labeled as the final commercial release. Surprisingly the update fixed and introduced a lot of new things for being the last release.

It seems like everyone is partnering off or purchasing other companies in hopes of beating out the competitors. Right now the big news is on Google and their acquisitions/products that don’t seem to be stopping. Before we know it Yahoo! and Microsoft will be teaming up against Google,  but by that time Google will already own most of the Internet. 🙂

News Source: Qualcomm Press Release [via Burnt Electrons]
Thanks to “Jack of all Trades” for the tip!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

Between constant password breaches and the NSA looking in on everything you do, you’ve probably got privacy on the mind lately. If you’re looking for a little personal privacy in your communications with friends and loved ones, or you just want to trust that the documents you email to your accountant or client aren’t being intercepted and read, you’ll need to encrypt those messages. Thankfully, it’s easy to do. Here’s how.

Read more…

Back in the early days of the Internet, where Netscape once reigned supreme as the web browser of choice before Internet Explorer took over its throne, the world was very much smaller (at least figuratively, and not literally). Well, anyone remember using the Thunderbird app? It was one of the more popular open source email, calendar, and contact management apps out there, which is more or less a free and open source version of an alternative to Microsoft Outlook. After all, it could run on many platforms, including Linux, Mac and Windows.

I guess desktop email clients have lost their popularity along the way, where web-based email such as Yahoo!, Hotmail and Gmail are far more convenient to use, and the functions introduced in such web email services have proved to be quite useful as well. Mozilla, the ones behind Thunderbird, has decided to shift their attention, focusing on web and mobile projects instead (mainly their Firefox browser and Firefox OS for the future), while decreasing their emphasis on the Thunderbird email app.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Mozilla Thunderbird 11 introduced, Thunderbird Beta ready for download,