Hasta La Gadget!

Jul 03

WrapUp: Gmail Increases Attachment Limit, Mozilla Weave Gets Autologin Support, and More

This article was written on June 29, 2009 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

Gmail Increases Attachment Size to 25MB
In a quest to show up other email providers Google has once again bumped up their attachment limit. This time they increased it from 20MB to 25MB. That may not seem like a significant jump, but if you look at both Yahoo and Hotmail they only offer 10MB attachments (or 20MB if you are paying for one of their plans). So now Gmail allows for larger attachments than the paid plans of their competitors.

Windows 7 Discounted for Pre-orders
Gizmodo has a rather comprehensive list of all the different places you can pre-order your copy of Windows 7 at a significantly reduced price: Home Premium is $50 instead of $120, and Professional is $100 instead of $200. I am extremely disappointed that Microsoft didn’t give existing Vista Ultimate users special upgrade pricing if we were willing to lay out our wallet for Windows 7 Ultimate.

iPhone 3GS Causes Surge of YouTube Uploads
The YouTube team posted to their blog that in the last 6-months mobile uploads to their site have increased by 1700%. Even more amazing is that the overall rate of uploads increased by 400% since the iPhone 3GS was released with its video recording/uploading capabilities.

Google Voice Invites Being Sent Out
Google has kept a closed door to new users for their GrandCentral service that they aquired, which then turned into Google Voice earlier this year. Users could get on a waiting list though, and according to Google all of the people who requested invites will now be welcomed with open arms. Everyone else, too bad, for now.

Microsoft Security Essentials Passes Initials Tests
Last week Microsoft posted the first Beta of their free antivirus application called Microsoft Security Essentials. I’m sure people are a bit weary of testing this since we don’t really know how good it is, but according to one independent test the application was able to catch and treat all 3,200 viruses they threw at it. What might be even better, however, is that it didn’t flag any clean files as viruses. Microsoft might be on the right track here.

Boxee for Windows Available
I have quite a few friends who have been anxiously awaiting to get a copy of Boxee on their Windows machine, and a few who were already testing out a very early release. Now everyone has the chance to dig into the best video sites through one clean and intuitive interface. In case you don’t look at the fine print… 64-bit platforms aren’t supported.

Download Windows 7 RC by August 15th
If you’ve been procrastinating and haven’t grabbed the Windows 7 RC download you might want to make a note that you only have until August 15th to do so. After that Microsoft will be pulling the plug on the download, but you’ll apparently still be able to get a key if you need one.

Firefox 3.5 Coming Tomorrow; Video of New Features
Note that I actually linked to two different stories in the title. Firefox 3.5 is apparently getting released tomorrow, and I thought the video was a good way to prep all of you for that. Mozilla’s Mike Beltzer walks you through the most notable changes, and describes how they all tie into the browser.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

43 of the Best Free Windows Enhancements
FreewareGenius has assembled a list of 43 apps that can breathe new life into Windows. I have to say that I’m very impressed with what they came up with because it doesn’t include the obvious programs like Firefox or Skype. Check it out because I’m sure a lot of the apps you haven’t heard of.

Another Dock for Windows
Man, you’d think that Windows users just can’t get enough of these docks. This is yet another dock that tries to clone a lot of the features offered by the Mac Dock. I have to say that it does a darn good job with the “live reflections” though.

Ubiquity for Firefox Updated
Mozilla has updated their Ubiquity Firefox extension to include smarter input parsing, better language support, and a hold-your-hand tutorial for those that don’t quite understand how such an extension could be beneficial.

DropRecord Offers Multi-Site File Uploading
Your mom always said “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” What she really meant by that was don’t go and upload a file to just one site when you can upload it to a dozen different ones at the same time with a service like DropRecord. The list of supported sites includes RapidShare, MegaUpload, HotFile, MediaFire, HotFile, 2Shared, and several others.

Backup Your Google Docs
This is a rather clever backup utility for anyone that is using Google Docs. It will let you backup all of your files in your account, and each subsequent time you run the app it will only grab new/changed files. You can even select the filetype you want the documents exported as (eg. PDF). Now if only there was a way to schedule this darn thing.

Mozilla Weave Gets Autologin Support
I always thought that Weave was a pretty cool add-on, but it just got a lot more useful. Now when you have it remember a password you can set it to automatically log you into the site. That way the next time Firefox sees the login form you want have to touch a thing… it will do all the dirty work for you.