Yahoo Mail Brings POP, Disposable IDs, Mail Forwarding and More to Free Users

On its 16th anniversary, Yahoo Mail got a fresh coat of paint along with several new features that is sure to entice a lot of users, especially those using Yahoo’s free email service. Among the new features that was announced a few hours ago, are POP3 access, conversation view, automatic mail forwarding, and advanced filters that were previously available only to Yahoo Mail Plus users. Above all, the storage space has been pumped up all the way to 1,000 GBs.

Mail Plus, on the other hand, has been renamed to Yahoo Ad Free Mail, whose subscription prices have been raised from $19.99 / year to a whopping $49.99 / year. For existing Mail Plus customers, however, the old price remains.

Yahoo now finally supports conversation view, a feature that allows multiple email exchanges between two parties to be viewed in a single thread as if it were a chat conversation. Actions such as searching, starring, and deleting emails can now be handled from the Actions menu that is already a part of the new Yahoo Mail for some time now.

Automatic email forwarding to non-Yahoo email addresses and POP access are two important addition that allows Yahoo Mail users to read their emails outside of the web interface. Free users can now set up their email programs to download mails to the desktop, or forward them to another email inbox.

To handle spam, users now have the ability to generate disposable email addresses. The address has the format basename-keyword@yahoo.com, where the basename remains constant and keyword keeps changing. Users get to choose both the basename and keywords and they can be different from your actual email ID. You can generate multiple disposable email addresses and these can be configured to either deliver mails to your inbox or send them to a particular folder or the trash.

The number of filters have also been increased from 100 to 200.

The new Mail now also supports background themes, taking curated photos from Flickr, which can be seen on both the desktop as well as its mobile clients.

How To View Multiple Timezones in Windows for Free

More and more people are working on a global scale — I work with people on three different continents, for example. This means that time differences are more important than ever. We need to know what the time is in other parts of the word; after all you don’t want to make a Skype call to someone on the other side of the world and wake them up at 4 in the morning!

Windows includes an easy way to keep an eye on the time in up to two other time zones. This is an extremely useful feature for anyone working on a global scale and it does not require the installation of any additional software.

To get started, click the clock in the notification area of the taskbar and then click theChange date and time link in the popup that appears.

On the first tab, Date and Time, you should make sure that your current timezone and time are set correctly.

Now you can move to the Additional Clocks tab where you can figure one or two extra clocks as required. Click the first of the Show this clock check boxes and then use the drop down menu to choose the timezone you’re interested in. You can also assign a label to the clock to make it easier to identify.

If you have a need for yet another clock, tick the second Show this clock check boxes and repeat the process of setting the timezone and label.

With everything configured, click the OK button.

There are now a couple of ways in which you can view the extra clock when you need them. The first option is to click the notification area clock and you’ll see a large popup complete with all of the clocks you have configured.

The second option does even require a click — just hover the mouse over the taskbar clock and a tooltip popup appears with a quick summary that you can take in at a glance.

Having these clocks on hand is immensely useful, and a great alternative to checking the time online.

Bring Back Google’s Black Bar Below the Omnibox using Proper Menubar

The Black bar below the Omnibox (URL bar) in Google page was very useful to navigate between different Google services. Recently Google updated its search page and added a  new apps section as a replacement for the menu bar. Even though we have all the apps in that drop down box, the old menu bar was pretty convenient for all the users. Previously I wrote about a Chrome extension to bring back the Classic mail composewindow in Gmail. Today I came with  an extension called “Proper Menubar” to bring back the old black menubar below the omnibox in Google search page.

Proper Menubar is available for Chrome and Firefox. You can download it using the link at the end of this post. Once you install the app, you can see the extension’s icon near to your URL bar in Chrome and in the bottom of the screen in Firefox. That icon is used to enable and disable the extension in your browser. If you click that icon you can see a button “Proper Menubar is ON”. Click that button to enable and disable the menu bar in your Google search page.

Using this extension won’t affect any of the Google updates and Google Apps on the search page. You can also customize the “Proper Menubar” application. Go to Settings -> Extensions -> Proper Menubar  -> Options. There you will see a window as shown in the screenshot below. In the first section “Basics” you can edit contents on the black menu bar. Exclude the unwanted links from the menu easily. At the end of the page you have an option to display that black menu bar in all the webpages you visit.

In the designs section, you can change the background and opacity of the menu bar displayed. Also you can change the country website code of the application. This custom menu bar will restore the links from Google services and from some of the important web services. By enabling the option to show this bar in all the websites you visit, it will make the options handy and open any Google service instantly. Even you change monitors, this app will work fine. It works great on HDPI screens.

If you really miss that black menu bar on Google home page, then Proper Menubar is a must have extension in your browser. Try this app in your browsers and share your experience with us in the comments. Thanks for reading, do share this post with your friends.

Download Proper Menubar for Google Chrome

Download Proper Menubar for Firefox

Create a Public Folder Where Anyone Can Add Files

Dropbox and SkyDrive allow you to have “Shared Folders” where a folder is shared between all members of the group. Any member can contribute files to the shared web folder and such a thing is ideal for collaborative efforts like for sharing photos with guests after an event. People can view photos uploaded by other users as well as upload their own to the shared folder.

5 Efficient Alternatives To Windows Search

I don’t search very often, but whenever I do, I find the Windows 7’s default search tool inadequate. It’s slow, it doesn’t have many options to filter results, and it requires the file indexing service to be running in the background, which is a big performance hit as it keeps grinding my hard drive incessantly. Microsoft did a good job integrating search throughout the operating system – on the start menu, on explorer, on the Control Panel. It’s a pity, it doesn’t work as it should, which is why I’m on a look out for the right tool that could replace the default search tool on Windows. Here is what I found.

How To Easily Access Your Favorite Files and Programs with ‘sTabLauncher’ [Windows / Mac]

The Windows taskbar can quickly become cluttered if your add too many of your favorite shortcuts to it. If you are looking for a clean, unobtrusive, and uncluttered way of getting quick access to your favorite files and folders, you should consider ‘sTabLauncher.’

Chrome Extension Turns Gmail Inbox Into a To-Do List

There is a new Chrome extension called Signal, that allows Gmail users to edit messages directly in their inbox, replacing subject lines as well as the body with custom text to improve visibility of those messages in your inbox. The idea is to convert messages that call for action, into a sort of reminder or a to-do list, without leaving Gmail. This is especially useful for those who do a lot of scheduling over email.

Signal adds three buttons to the message view window in your Gmail inbox – Edit, Highlight and Restore.

To edit a message, click on the Edit button. Now you can edit the subject line and the message body, delete characters or type new ones. The Highlight button lets you keep just the text you selected, while deleting the rest. The Restore button brings back the original text.

The edited messages are stored on Firebase, an online service that lets you build web applications and store data online, thus allowing your edited messages to be synchronized across all instances of the Chrome browser with the extension installed. The original email is never deleted, which can be verified by disabling the extension and refreshing your inbox or by accessing your email via another browser.

Signal is currently available only for Chrome, but extensions for Firefox and Safari are being developed, as revealed by the developers.

Note: To make Signal work you should have the “Preview Pane” Labs feature disabled in your Gmail inbox.

How to Open Websites From Firefox’s Cache Without Connecting to Internet

Want to revisit websites on your browser without incurring additional bandwidth charges? Yes, you can.

When you instruct the browser to open a webpage, the browser fetches the files needed to render the page on your screen, including external files the page refer to such as the stylesheets, Javascripts and embedded images. These are stored on your hard disk, and reused when you open another page (from the same website) that use the same stylesheet, images and other stuff. Not only this saves bandwidth, it enables the browser to render the page faster.

This is the purpose of the web browser’s cache, which you must already know. What you might not know is that it’s possible to open webpages and sites entirely from the cache, provided there is a copy of those pages on it.

The Opera browser will always attempt to open pages from the cache when it cannot retrieve the page from the Internet. No additional steps are required. If you have visited the page before and there is a copy of the page still present in Opera’s cache, you can open it even when you are disconnected from the Internet.

This is also possible in Firefox, but you need to coax the browser. Here is how.

1. Close Firefox, if it’s open.
2. Press Win+R to open the Run dialog box, and type “firefox –p” (without the quotation, of course).
   
3. This will bring up the Profile Manager. (Learn more about managing Firefox’s user profiles and how to create desktop shortcuts for different profile). See the “Work offline” checkbox? That’s it.
   
4. Check the box and click on “Start Firefox”.

This will start Firefox without connecting to the Internet. You can now view previously opened web pages from the browser’s cache. Web content that relies on network data such as advertisements, or your email inbox, won’t appear. But pages with static content will appear fine.

To come out of offline mode, click on Firefox’s menu and then click on “Work offline” to uncheck the option. Once you exit the offline mode, you can’t go back to it without closing the browser and starting all over again.

Note: do not create a new profile for browsing offline, for this will not work, unless you use the same profile for normal surfing. Because each user profile’s cache is separate.

Google Drive has just received a nice little graphical update

Google Drive has just received a nice little graphical update, with document editors now neatly compressed to maximize space on the content itself. Go check it out and let us know how you find the same.

It is noteworthy, that earlier in September too Google had rolled out an update for Google Drive. The Internet Search giant had claimed that the version 1.2.352.10 will bring bug fixes but in actuality offered more than that. Through the last update introduced tweaked UI and easier uploads.

Official MEGA Synchronization Client for Windows is Out. Syncs Multiple Folders

When authorities shutdown Megaupload and arrested Kim Dotcom for abetting copyright infringement last year, they didn’t realize they were stirring up the hornet’s nest. Within weeks, Dotcom’s file sharing service was up in a new avatar. Simply called MEGA, the new cloud storage company’s primary focus is on user’s privacy and security of their data. MEGA has always been in the news ever since, and Dotcom saw to it, never missing an opportunity to speak out against those who brought down his previous company.

Cloud storage is more or less a saturated business, dominated by the likes of Dropbox and SkyDrive, with two dozen smaller players vying for a bigger piece of the pie. So, what new does MEGA brings to the table? For start, a hefty 50GB storage space for free user, and the ability to synchronize multiple local folders to respective folders in the cloud. The last thing is possible via MEGA’s desktop synchronization client for Windows that’s just been spotted in the wild.

BitTorrent Chat: Server-Less Private Instant Messaging

BitTorrent, the company behind the revolutionary BitTorrent peer-to-peer data transfer protocol, has announced a new project – a secure, server-less instant messaging client based on distributed technology, the same that drives BitTorrent network. Called BitTorrent Chat, the messaging application doesn’t store any conversation on any servers, unlike most popular messaging services such as Facebook and Whats Up, which means they are protected from third-party access and data breaches.

While BitTorrent Chat doesn’t store any messages on a third-party server, it does need a central location to get the conversation going. It’s just like downloading content through BitTorrent – people have to first connect to a tracker to know where the message should be sent. TorrentFreak, who caught up with the developers, say that the details are a bit fuzzy at the moment.

The application is currently in the Alpha stage of development. Those who want to give it a try, head over to BitTorrent Labs to sign up for the private Alpha.