Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on September 01, 2007 by CyberNet.

Weekend Website

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could manage all your emails from your different email accounts AND all of your messages from social networks in one location? Well, now you can. Compatible with email services like AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and more, and Social Networks like Facebook and MySpace, a new service called Fuser unifies all of your inboxes into one that’s easy and convenient to access. Setting up an account is a quick and easy process, and you can register for as many email and social network accounts that you’d like, all for free!

How does Fuser work?

Fuser relies heavily on Java to work its magic. After entering in your login name and password for email accounts and social networks, Fuser will go retrieve all of your messages and consolidate them into one list. If you don’t want all of your message in one list, you can select which accounts you’d like to see.  For example, I selected “All Accounts Off” in my Fuser Inbox so that I could view the messages for each account separately. It’s definitely one of the easiest ways I know of to unify mail from multiple accounts into one online location, and the only solution I know of that also incorporates messages from social networks.

The image below shows what the “Home” page looks like when you login to Fuser.  Under the “Mail” section, you’ll see how many new and unread messages you have since your last logout, and the total number of unread messages. In the “Social Networks” section, you’ll see most recent comments, and a list of those who leave you comments the most in the “Leaderboard Spotlight.”

Features

• Spellchecker for email
• Support of accounts using POP3 and IMAP
• Auto-complete email addressing based upon your contacts
• Option to create folders to organize your messages
• Layered folder structure
• Log into multiple compose windows at once
• Single login for all accounts
• Choose which account you’re sending mail from
• Receive mail in one account and reply to it from another

Social Network incorporation

This is one of the truly unique features with Fuser because it can go and retrieve my Wall messages from Facebook, and bulletins and messages from my MySpace account. What’s even more impressive is that you’re able to reply to these messages right from Fuser.

Things to keep in mind…

One think to keep in mind before you go to Fuser is that you should log out of any of your webmail accounts. They’ll remind you of this to ensure that you won’t get locked out of your mail account.  They probably recommend this because if you’re logging in from multiple locations simultaneously, your mail service would probably get suspicious and lock you out of your account for security purposes.

When I first started using Fuser, one of the things that was really helpful was all of their tours.  There is one main tour, and a couple mini tours which are very helpful. I recommend you take advantage of them.

As with any service, I often look for their method of monetization. In this case, Fuser users Google ads, but they’re off to the side and unobtrusive. I hadn’t even noticed them until I actually looked for how they were monetizing the service, which is nice.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that Fuser isn’t intended to be used as a backup service for your email. If you delete a message in your Gmail inbox, for example, it will get deleted at Fuser as well.

Want to register?

Right now, Fuser is in a private beta stage. They expect to offer a public beta within a month, however you won’t have to wait!  We’ve gotten permission from Fuser to provide you with a code to access their private beta.

All you have to do is go to www.fuser.com and click “Register.” The registration code that you’ll need is FickleMonkey.

Thanks Fuser team!

Wrapping it up

My only complaint is that they don’t offer support for Opera, but I’m sure it’s something they could ad in the future. They also plan on incorporating other online communications in the future as well. Another minor complaint is that the text, by default, appears small and almost hard to read.

Overall, in the short time I’ve been using Fuser, I’ve found it to be an amazing service that I’ll likely continue to use.  It’s so nice to have all of my messages in one location from both different email addresses, and the two social networks I frequent the most.

Give Fuser a try with the registration code above, and let us know what you think!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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

Web Browser Wednesday

I’ve been addicted to sidebars ever since I bought my first widescreen monitor. Sidebars have the ability to provide a lot of information inside a very small space, and it wasn’t until recently that I fully started to utilize them. It all started when I put the Tab-Bar on the side in both my Firefox and Opera installations (video on customizing Opera), and then seeing how Start++ handled the implementation of mobile sites capped it off.

So what I’m going to show you today is my top 10 favorite sites to put in your browser’s sidebar. Most of the sites mentioned were created for mobile devices, which means they load at least twice as fast as the normal site. This makes it even more appealing to me.

Both Opera and Firefox support this kind of feature, so I’ll get started by showing you how to do it in each of those browsers.

–Firefox–

Having a site open in the sidebar is pretty easy in Firefox:

1. Right-click on one of the URL’s that we provide below, and then bookmark it.
   
2. After you have saved the bookmark, go back to the Bookmarks Menu and right-click on the bookmark. Choose the Properties option.
   
3. Now check the box that says Load this bookmark in the sidebar:
   
4. The next time you open that bookmark it will popup in the sidebar!

–Opera–

Opera is actually a little easier when it comes to placing sites in the sidebar, and they have more features as well. One thing that you should know is that Opera refers to the sidebar as “panels,” and here is how you add a bookmark to a panel:

1. Right-click on a URL to bookmark it. Then click the button labeled Details, and then check the box that says Show in panel:
   
2. Now you’ll notice that the bookmark was also added to your list of panels. Note: If the Panel’s bar takes up too much room read our tutorial on making it smaller.

Opera’s additional sidebar features come in handy for displaying sites. When you’re viewing a site in one of the panels, you can adjust the zoom so that the text is bigger or smaller, or you can have the site optimized for small screen display (removes most images, etc…). I recommend that you try out the small screen rendering on all of the sites, and you’ll notice that some of them look better that way:

–Top 10 Sidebar Sites–

Alright, on to the sites! I’ve gone through dozens of different mobile sites (including ones made for the iPhone) and were able to pick 10 of them that look and work well in the sidebar. So without further ado, here are my favorites in no particular order:

Tip: The site titles are hyperlinked to their mobile sites, and all you have to do is follow the instructions given above for bookmarking them in your browser.

1. Weather Underground
   What you’ll want to do with this site is visit the URL in your browser first, enter in your Zipcode, and then bookmark that address. Then you won’t have to worry about putting in that information each time. If you’re using Opera I recommend enabling the small screen rendering that I mentioned above.
   
2. goMovies
   Just like the previous one, you’ll want to visit the URL, enter in your Zipcode, and then bookmark that address. Then each time you pull up your movie listings, it will automatically retrieve them for the theaters in your area. Opera users should probably set the zoom a little lower (I use about 80%).
   
3. Gmail
   The mobile Gmail site not only looks good, but gives you fast access to all of your emails. Using it you can read and compose emails, which makes it an amazing time saver! I’ve been using this for most of my mail needs since it is so much faster than the actual Gmail interface.
4. Google Calendar
   This gives you a quick overview of your upcoming events, but the best part is that you add items to your calendar from here.
   
5. Remember the Milk
   My favorite task manager now has the ability to sit inside of my sidebar. You can add new tasks and see what’s due. I’ve found myself using the service a lot more now that it is so condensed and easily accessible.
6. Google Notebook
   You can manage your entire Google Notebook from your sidebar.
7. Digg
   If you’re a Digg addict then I think this is a must. The mobile version of the Digg site gives you a fast-loading alternative to view the news. It’s nice when it only takes a second to load instead of 30-seconds like the normal site does sometimes!
   
8. Google Talk
   Chat it up with all your friends with this handy little Flash app.
9. Facebook
   I know that a lot of you are addicted to Facebook, and so I thought this would fit right in. It displays recent events from your news feed, upcoming events, and lets you change your status.
   
10. Twitter
    This is a really handy site for anyone that uses Twitter. You can update your status, and view recent entries from your friends. The small screen rendering in Opera is also really nice for this one.
    

–Overview–

I’m finding myself using sites in the sidebar more and more these days, especially since they often reduce the number of extensions you need to install. If you come across any sites that work well in the sidebar, let us know in the comments below. I’m sure there are a bunch of great ones out there, and I just wanted to get the ball rolling by listing off my top 10!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Here’s an interesting question for you: if you set up a rule in Microsoft Outlook to forward messages from one account to another, and you do it without the knowledge of the owner of the account you’re forwarding from, are you intercepting or merely copying mail? It may seem like a moot point, but for David Szymuszkiewicz, a former IRS worker, it’s an important distinction. David was afraid of being fired after his license was suspended for drunk driving (he needed to drive to the homes of delinquent taxpayers), so he secretly set up this rule on his boss’s machine to see what the world was saying about him. The rule was discovered and, wouldn’t you know it, he was in trouble. The only question now: whether to charge him under the Wiretap Act for intercepting messages or the Stored Communications Act for merely copying of them.

So, what was your answer to the question above? You might be tempted to say he was simply making a copy, and indeed that was Szymuszkiewicz’s argument, but any Exchange admin will tell you that Outlook rules are executed on the server, not at the client, meaning those e-mails were indeed being intercepted. Szymuszkiewicz was convicted of wiretapping but seems to have avoided a harsh sentence, with 18 months probation being handed down. A light punishment for wiretapping, but a heavy one for diddling menus in Outlook.

IRS employee uses Outlook rules to intercept boss’s e-mails, convicted of wiretapping originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Score another baby step for digital democracy: the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the government must have a search warrant before it can obtain email from your provider. Specifically, the court held in U.S. v Warshak that “it would defy common sense to afford emails lesser Fourth Amendment protection” than traditional communications like phone calls and postal mail. Yes, you’d think that would be obvious, but the specific question had never actually been raised at the appellate level before, so the decision is critically important — it’s likely that other courts will take their cue from the Sixth Circuit when faced with similar issues. As the EFF points out, however, there are several legal exceptions to the warrant requirement in the Stored Communication Act that the organization is still fighting to have amended, but hey — we’ll take every little bit of progress we can.

Sixth Circuit rules that the government needs a warrant to search your email originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey, Google just rolled out Gmail for Android 2.3.2, which improves support for Priority Inbox and adds in a couple much-needed compose and send options. Priority Inbox gets some buffed-up views and controls to change importance settings, and Gmail can now send a notification upon receipt of an important email, which is incredibly cool. Even better, the compose screen now lets you specify any sending address you’ve setup in desktop Gmail, which is a slice of pure email heaven for those of us who juggle multiple accounts from one inbox. You can also respond to messages inline now and swap between reply, reply-all, and forward much more easily. Best of all, if you’re running Froyo you can hit that QR code and go grab the update right now since Google broke Gmail out into a Market app — no need to wait for your pokey manufacturer / carrier to roll out Gingerbread. (Then again, if you’re still waiting for Froyo you might not be quite as pleased.) Ain’t modularity grand?

Gmail for Android update improves Priority Inbox, adds additional compose and send options originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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