Technology and Money

MyTextFile: A Web Based Text Editor That Works with your Google Account

MyTextFile is an online text editor that also supports full screen mode for distraction free writing. You can log into MyTextFile with your existing Google Account as it is built using the Google App Engine.

MyTextFile is extremely simple (you can have one file per account) but it does offer some useful options. For instance, you may change the foreground or background colors, turn on Auto Save (to recover work in case of browser crashes), change fonts, etc.

It also preserves an history of all your document change and you have the option to selectively delete any particular revision. Now Google Docs can do all this as well but MyTextFile may still be worth exploring as it is light, simple and allows download of text files.

Related: Online vi Text Editor, WriteRoom for Windows

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MyTextFile: A Web Based Text Editor That Works with your Google Account - Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal

Make Your Windows Vista Computer Faster with this free PDF Book from Microsoft

Windows Vista users should download this free PDF ebook - Vista Performance and Tuning Guide - as it discusses several tweaks that will help a computer feel more responsive. Thanks James.

Some Windows Vista tips that you won’t find in the guide include:

1. Slipstream Windows Vista DVD with SP1
2. Delete Junk Files from Vista SP1

I was reading through the book and found this particular recommendation very handy where they say that you should put a computer to Sleep as this state doesn’t consume much power and machine will always start faster. Excerpt:

Sleep should be considered the new default “Off” state in Windows Vista. When a computer enters Sleep state, Windows Vista saves the current session to memory and enters a low power state where only memory is powered.

In Sleep state, the computer uses very little power - extending battery life for mobile computers and conserving energy even for desktop computers while ensuring that the computer is still ready for action quickly. In fact, on a modern laptop computer, power consumption in sleep state is typically less than one watt.

Windows Vista also includes a new Hybrid Sleep function. Hybrid Sleep will function as a failsafe in case of power loss by saving the session to memory normally, but also writing it all to the hard drive (similarly to how hibernate works). This ensures that even when power is lost, data remains intact.

When you want to resume working, just press the power button, tap a key on the keyboard, or, on laptop computers, open the cover. Windows Vista takes only a few seconds to resume from sleep, though it can take a little longer to resume from Hybrid Sleep after you restore a power source to the computer.

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Make Your Windows Vista Computer Faster with this free PDF Book from Microsoft - Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal

Microsoft FrameIt Turns Web Pages & Feeds into Framed Images

Microsoft FrameIt is a new service from Windows Live that is primarily designed for people who have digital photo frames but others may also find it equally interesting as well.

FrameIt lets you easily combine blog feeds, photo streams (like Flickr) and regular web pages into a single RSS feed. And since photo frames cannot render HTML or text, Frames actually converts all the feed items and web pages into images as this example.

When dealing with regular web pages, FrameIt offers two options - you can either show the full web page in your FrameIt feed or your can configure FrameIt to just pull out the images that are embedded in that web page.

So I can create a FrameIt feed for the Google homepage with the latter option and will therefore know when the Google Doodle (logo) on the homepage has changed.

Windows Live FrameIt | Official Blog | Thanks Chris.

Here’s the same feed but with a different resolution and color scheme.

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Microsoft FrameIt Turns Web Pages & Feeds into Framed Images - Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal

Yes, No, Maybe? Conduct Opinion Polls Over Email using Gmail

In some situations, a poll conducted over email may be more practical than running a web based poll because readers can vote through their email clients without requiring a browser.

It’s as simple as replying to any other email and can be done even from mobile phones.

Turn Gmail into a Poll Software

Let’s see how you can quickly setup an opinion poll over email using only your existing Gmail account. The suggested approach will work best for polls that have a single question as in the following examples:

a. Will you buy a Macbook Tablet ? (Yes | No | Maybe).
b. Which is your favorite search engine? (Google | Yahoo | Ask | Cuil | Other).

In this example, we’ll ask a standard question “What’s your gender” with two choices - male or female.

Step 1: Compose a new email in Gmail, make the question as your subject and put the choices in the message body.

Step 2: Now convert each of the choices into hyperlinks that link to your email address but with an alias.

For instance, if your email address is hello@gmail.com, you can make the choice “Female” as an hyperlink for hello+female@gmail.com as in the image below. Repeat this for the other “male” choice.

Step 3. We are done creating the basic poll in Gmail. You can now send this email poll to a mailing list or type the addresses manually in the BCC: field but make sure you don’t exceed Gmail’s limit on sending email.

Step 4: The next step is to create Gmail filters so that email containing votes don’t clutter your main Inbox. Also, filters will save you from the hassle of manually counting the number of responses received for every choice.

A filter would look something like this:

“hello+female@gmail.com” in the To: field, apply the Label “Poll: Female” and check “Skip the Inbox”.

Create a separate filter for the “male” choice. You are now all set.

And if you are sending this poll to a very large group, consider creating a No Spam filter in Gmail to prevent any valid responses from hitting the Spam folder. Also see: SMS Polls.

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Yes, No, Maybe? Conduct Opinion Polls Over Email using Gmail - Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal

Draft Suggests That Government Promote Blogging in Indian Schools

If the recommendations made in the national policy on use of technology in Indian schools go through, blogging could become huge in India.

The draft recommends that Internet access be provided in all schools and that students be encouraged to blog as part of curriculum.

This draft policy, still under discussion, says - "Blogs are powerful tools to support creative writing that can be published and shared not only with the teacher but also with peers and the world, alike."

The document will be submitted to the Ministry of Human Resources under Government of India. And this particular recommendation on use of blogs in school education as a "tool to support creative writing" was originally made by Shuchi Grover in this paper [pdf].

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Draft Suggests That Government Promote Blogging in Indian Schools - Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal

Prevent Gmail from Marking your Important Emails as Spam

False positives in Gmail are rare but not non-zero and there’s always a possibility that an important email may miss your Inbox because Gmail filters have marked that message as spam.

And when you get hundreds of spam messages each day, extracting those legitimate emails from spam gets all the more tough.

There’s some hope as Gmail has included a new "Never Send it to Spam" option in their filter that allows you to set rules for messages that should never be marked as spam.

For instance, if you work for IBM, you could say that any message with "ibm.com" in the To: field should not be classified as spam.

Thus you’ll never miss any important email from your boss. Also see: Gmail Search Commands

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Prevent Gmail from Marking your Important Emails as Spam - Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal