DerekWilson.ca

Making the Switch to Gmail

Derek — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:04:10 +0000

Recently in my communications class I was required to present a five-minute persuasive speech on a topic of my choosing. Naturally being somewhat of a nerd I picked something tech related but also something I thought the other students would care about and also take action upon. I presented my speech on why you should be managing your email with Google’s Gmail service. My speech aimed to convince students why they should stop using the PAWS email system at the U of S and start using Gmail. In an effort to make switching as easy as possible for students I created a step by step handout of how they could switch to Gmail. Below are the 3 steps that I laid out for them which perhaps you’ll also find handy. In future weeks I’m planning on writing a few more guides on some of the features of Gmail since it’s something I use daily and quite frankly love like a family member.

Here are the 3 basic steps required for switching to Gmail.

Step 1: Signing Up

Visit www.gmail.com and click on “Create an Account”. Fill in the form as required making sure to pick a professional sounding login name. Addresses in the format first.last or initial.last can be good choices if available.

Step 2: Forward Existing Mail to Gmail

UofS Students:

Go to www.mits.usask.ca and login with your NSID and password.
Click on “Forwarding” under the heading “Email” on the left hand menu.
Enter your new Gmail address in the “Forward to” space and click “Set Forwarding”.
Now future email sent to your PAWS account will be automatically forwarded to Gmail.

Hotmail Users:

In Hotmail go to Options > More Options (In inbox, link is on upper right hand side)
Under the heading Manage your account click “Forward mail to another e-mail accounts”
Select “Forward your mail to another e-mail address” and type in your gmail address
Click Save, and you’re done!

Step 3: Import Old Emails into Gmail

Download and install Mozilla Thunderbird:
www.mozillamessaging.com/thunderbird/
In Thunderbird navigate to File > New > Mail Account
Enter your email and password from your new Gmail account and click “Continue”
Repeat steps 2 & 3 this time using your old email address and password (for U of S students this means your PAWS account)
Thunderbird will start to load your messages. This could take a while if you have a lot of email.
Select your old email inbox in the left menu column (for U of S students this means your PAWS account)
Click on a message then press “Ctrl + A” to select all messages.
Click and drag these messages to your Gmail inbox in the left.
Wait patiently while Thunderbird moves your mail.
Voila! Enjoy all the new capabilities of Gmail without losing any old emails!

That’s it, I did it in under 3 minutes and I’m sure you can too. If you have any questions or would like to request a step-by-step guide for something else related to Gmail feel free to leave a comment.

Having trouble with any of the steps? Watch the screencast below and follow along with me!

Album of the Week – Nice, Nice, Very Nice – Dan Mangan

Derek — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:03:10 +0000

This week I’d like to highlight an album that I’ve been listening to a lot lately. It’s the album “Nice, Nice, Very Nice” by Canadian artist Dan Mangan. I don’t think it’s really necessary to write a big comprehensive review of the album, I think enough people do that already. I will say this though; it’s good and you should listen to it. That should be enough for most people but if you’re still doubting me here’s a review from The Coast

Vancouver native Dan Mangan’s vocals on this LP will charm the pants off any summer road-tripper, via beautifully sung folk pop melodies, sometimes about coffee, sometimes about love. Mangan’s smart, soul-bearing album kicks off with “Road Regrets,” a song he wrote in 2007 while driving from El Paso to Austin, drinking gas-station coffee and regretting it all the way. Second track “Robots” is a sincerely sung silly tune that proves “robots need love too.” Mangan wrote the Nice, Nice, Very Nice tunes between 2005 and 2008, and it shows; this is a thoughtful release that will grow on you, listen after listen, all summer long.

There, see I’m not the only one who likes it. Should that not be enough to convince you I recommend you give the album a listen yourself and you can be the judge.

My Top 5 iPod Apps (+ Top 5 Jailbreak Apps)

Derek — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:31:42 +0000

I purchased an iPod touch back in October and I haven’t looked back since. With some help from web services like Google the iPod has helped me to organize my life and it’s been great for staying on track during school (well, ignoring time spent playing games during boring lectures). There’s no denying that the iTunes App Store is nothing short of amazing, never have mobile applications been so easy to purchase and use. It’s biggest downfall, however, is that 99% of what’s in the store is poor quality or just plain useless. This makes it even more exciting when you find a app that adds some amazing functionality to your iDevice. When I first got my iPod I spent a lot of time scouring Top 10 lists and the iTunes top seller lists to find good quality apps, a lot of the time these pointed to really obvious apps (like Facebook, Skype, Remote or Shazam), niche apps or games. Now that I’ve owned my iPod long enough I have compiled my list of my favourite apps which I used almost daily. I’ve left out the obvious ones, because chances are you probably already have them, as well as games (I think I’ll do a top 5 favourite games as well at a later date).

Let’s saddle up and get going. Here’s my top 5 favourite iPod apps:

5. GoodReader - Good Reader was one of the first apps I purchased and it’s still one of my favourites. It can open huge pdf files with ease and it’s got a great search feature. It’s especially handy for students who may have an eBook version of their textbook or perhaps course notes that they don’t want to carry around all the time.

4. Dropbox – This is a must have if you’re a user of the desktop version of Dropbox. If you don’t know what Dropbox is, it’s a really great application that keeps files synced between computers over the internet plus so much more (Check out more info at the Dropbox website). The iPod app is just an extension of the desktop functionality allowing you to view your files on your iPod

3. Tweetie 2 - Now I’m not a very heavy Twitter user but it’s hard to deny that this app is top quality. I tried a couple other twitter apps and I found this one to be the best. It’s got some great features and I’m especially fond of it’s offline capabilities since there’s lots of places I go that still don’t have wireless. (I’m looking at you bus)

2. Convert - I was originally attracted to this app because the UI is so nice, however after a while I found it to be tremendously useful. It’s really handy in the kitchen when you can’t remember what some silly imperial measurement is in metric. It’s also really handy for students in a science based program for converting between units. (Fun fact: Did you know there are 2.5524×10^13 nautical miles in 5 light-years?)

1. Air Video - This is probably my favourite non-jailbroken iPod app although it may not have the same impact for everyone. It allows you to stream video from you computer to your iPod over your home network. Oh, but all your videos are avi’s you say? No problem Air Video will transcode on the fly or if you wish it can convert it and add it to iTunes for later. The app has two parts, the iPod app for accessing your files and a media server backend that lives on your computer and does all the heavy lifting. If you’re anything like me you have a large media collection of movies and TV shows and this app allows you to access it when and where you want. I’ve spent time organizing my media for use with XBMC so this program fit in so nicely. It allows me to continue watching my media all over my house or in bed without needing to fill up my iPod with large video files. Also, although I’ve never got it to work with my router, you can setup to server to serve you videos over the internet so you can access them where ever there’s a wifi hotspot.

[Bonus: Ambiance, Read it Later, 2010Guide - Olympic Spectator Guide, XBMC Remote, GeeTasks]

5. Maps Enhancer – The problem with having an iPod touch rather than an iPhone is that it requires a wifi connection for a lot of it’s usefulness. Maps enhancer helps a bit in this regard, it will allow you to use the maps app in an offline mode. It works by first viewing the map you want while you’re connected to the internet then it stores those images in a cache for offline viewing.

4. Scrobbl - This one is exclusively useful for last.fm users. It allows you to scrobble your music on the fly so you can keep your last.fm profile up to date. I think last.fm is a great service for data nerds like myself and this just makes harvesting listening data that much easier.

3. Winterboard - This one allows you to add a custom theme to your iPod. Sure, it’s an app that probably everyone already has but that won’t stop me from loving it. I especially love having a the transparent lock slider since most people won’t know how to unlock your iPod if someone decides to borrow it.

2. Five Icon Dock – This one does as the name implies, it increases the number of apps you can have in the dock from four to five. When I first got my iPod I had a tough time deciding which four apps were worthy of the dock this app helps to make your decision a little easier.

1. LockInfo – This might be the single best piece of software on my iPod. It adds some extra info to your lockscreen which means that you can get all the information you need (email alerts, calendar events, weather, time, ect) without even unlocking your iPod. Not only that but it looks really nice and feels like something Apple should have shipped with the official firmware.

[Bonus: SBSettings, NES 3, Inspell, Categories]

Obese Geese Playlist (part one)

Derek — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:04:41 +0000

A made a playlist for a friend recently it was titled Obese Geese because it a) ryhmed and b) brought a funny mental picture. Anyways I love discovering new music and I’d like to share that you..

With no further adieu here’s a little new music to enjoy during the Reading Week break.

That’s just the first half of the playlist. Stay tuned for the other half coming up later.

Saturday: Comics Page

Derek — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 02:42:49 +0000

via: XKCD

A Whole New Host

Derek — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:44:16 +0000

Hello Internet,

This concerns the approximately 0 people that read my blog before I moved from a free-webhost. (Sure it was free and everything but FTP was awful) to paid hosting (www.diywebhosting.ca which seems to be pretty awesome and affordable so far). You might have noticed that all my posts are gone, fear not because they didn’t contain anything worthwhile anyways. So let’s move on.

I sure a question on everyone’s (well to be honest, probably no one’s… yet) mind is; what are you going to being writing on this fancy blog. The answer is simple; what ever I feel like. However, I promise you this, it will not be some lame diary for me to spill my heart out on. (ie. Not what I’m currently doing) I intend on writing things that I believe people will find beneficial. I’d ideally like to set up a weekly chedule of themed posts. I’ve been thinking something like this:

Monday- “Mixtape Monday” – A playlist of music I’ve been listening to lately to start your week off right.

Wednesday – Random Review – A review of something I’ve seen, consumed, read, ect that I feel you should know about.

Friday - Essential Apps - A feature I’ve been brainstorming about for quite a while. I would like to feature one “essential application” that I use on a regular basis on my computer that I think you should too.

Saturday – Morning Cartoon – I stole this idea from the D.I.Y blog, but I think it’s an awesome idea. Heck, the only reason I read the paper during the week is for comics, why not feature one of my favorites each week.

Let me know what you think in the comments or you know… don’t.

So will this rather ambitious plan work out? Or will my dreams be crushed by reality.
Tune in next week for:

A Noise Annoys and Oyster OR A Plane, a Train and an Autonomous Robot.

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