Gmail goes offline.

Hold on ! Don’t panic yet.

Gmail is not dead. Infact it’s alive and kicking. The Gmail folks at the Mountain View Giant ( read : Google) quietly rolled out a major feature on Tuesday. Its major because most of us haven’t seen anything like this before. What is it then? Its called “Offline Gmail”. 

So, offline gmail – what is it exactly? To put it simply – It lets Gmail act like a desktop application. Just like Outlook or thunderbird used for email. How is that possible? The technology that makes this possible is called Google Gears. It is a plugin which when installed into your favourite web browser allows Gears enabled websites to go Offline ( literally). So, your Gears enabled web applications (Gmail for instance) will run smoothly even when the internet connection is not available and also giving you almost the same user experience as if you were online.  You can even create a desktop shortcut for your favourite web app and use it to launch it anytime you want irrespective of whether you have connectivity or not.

Among other things Offline Gmail lets you read mail, open attachments, access the address book and compose mails to be sent later when net connection is available. Read  what the Gmail blog has to say about it. It uses a local cache on your computer to achieve this. But to use this nifty feature you need to have Gears installed. The feature is available in the Labs tab in the settings screen in Gmail. Gmail detects if you have Gears installed. So, if you don’t have it you won’t see the option to turn the feature on. So go get it from here.  http://gears.google.com/

One final thought – Gmail is not the first Web application to go offline ofcourse.  Several other apps like Google Docs, Zoho Mail, Google Reader and MySpace are already Gears enabled.

And an afterthought – Microsoft too upgraded its email service ( MSN Hotmail). They added POP3 support. POP3 is essentially the protocol which lets you download a copy of all your emails on your local hard drive using an email client like outlook. By the way, Gmail has had this feature since a long time ago. Grow up Redmond…grow up.

Google Gears is an Open Source Project  :)

Happy Browsing !

If you ever wanted to try Linux, now is your time.

Traditionally  normal windows users were wary of adopting Linux due to the steep learning curve.  Believe me,  Linux has come a long long way. Its user friendly, its fast and its good looking.  Linux may have a few minuses but there are features by virtue of which it scores over other OSes. If you feel you are up for the ride. give Linux a try. I strongly recommend Ubuntu Linux. Download a copy now from  http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download.  Download the latest version (8.10) . Its an ISO file which you need to burn on a CD to be able to install. You can also order a free CD to be delivered to your doorstep.  How cool is that ! Beat that Microsoft. And just in case you need help there is a very cool free ebook available to help you out.  You can find it here. http://www.ubuntupocketguide.com/download.html

In case you are still stuck try looking at the various UBUNTU forms where really nice helpful people will be willing to help you out. Or shoot a question to me.  I will answer them if  I know the answer .

Yet another random post

Folks,

As expected  this blog is not working out as it should have. In the meanwhile i have a little bit to share. A pic.

Yeah I completed it.

See ya later guys.

Life between weekends

Its almost over now. I am waitlisted at #149 at IIM Indore.

Life, on the other hand, is moving smoothly. It has been close to two and a half months now in McAfee and the experience has been more than satisfying. That, however, doesn’t stop me from waiting for weekends all the time.All I do on weekends is roam around the city meeting friends, college mates and schoolmates.My humble friend in most of my journeys has been my TVS Star City. Dude, its not a Harley. Its a plain old 100cc machine and worth every penny I paid for it. But, the coming weekend is promising. Raj is here and we all are hoping he can spare some time for us . My old faithful is up for scheduled servicing too. Our trip to the Big Bazaar is also due – lets hope we can make it this time. Till date, I haven’t caught up with Exeter guys- we might actually meet. I am supposed to attend a practice run on Saturday for the Sunfeast World 10k marathon – I have my doubts on that (Just doesn’t seem feasible at all !!!). Lots to do …… only one weekend.

See you later folks. Thanks Sunshine !

Convocation

Folks, that’s how I graduated.