Software And Tools - Tricks And Tweaks

Like most of us I have multiple email addresses that I use for different purpose. I use separate email accounts for newsgroups, for opening up accounts, for personal use, for work and for leaving comments on other blogs. Now to monitor them all on a regular basis constantly in today's busy life becomes rather messy and time consuming.

I use Gmail account as one of my main accounts to handle most of my important and personal email (link to that email address can be found on my "about Tejas Patel" section at the bottom of right hand sidebar). I use multiple Gmail accounts as well apart from using domain based accounts. So I use Gmail's feature of handling multiple accounts for "Send As" feature and mail forwarding feature.

So what do we need as solution?

A single mail account where all the mail from multiple email accounts are forwarded, in which mail messages can be filtered in separate labels and mail messages can be replied from the email address it was sent to

Solution:-

1. 1 Gmail account
2. Multiple Gmail or hosted domain accounts which can be forwarded to your mail Gmail account
3. Mail forwarding and "Accounts" feature within Gmail
4. Creating labels in Gmail based on "Email Account" that the message comes from

Bingo, using three simple steps you can manage all from email accounts from a single account and use the base account as a email backup account for the respective email addresses.

The exact steps are detailed on Google Tutor Post.

I have to tell that this has been functioning very well for me for quite some time now. I only wish that I can easily forward my Hotmail email messages to Gmail ( Hotmail email messages cannot be forwarded to other mail account).

I am sure similar results can be achieved using other solutions, but this works satisfactorily for me so far.

What methods do you use to aggregate your mail accounts?

This is what I love things in Windows environment, when I can try something without really installing and making it integrated part of my Operating System. I have installed IE7 Beta 2 on my main computer after asking my friends who have been using IE 7 beta for a while. But I would love to try something new without really installing it and making it a integrated part of my operating system.

Google Operating System posts a trick on how to try IE 7 without installing it get some feel of the new browser. Although the author makes it clear that not all the functionality would be working in using his stated method without installing IE 7 completely.

Of course another way to try IE 7 without installing it on your production system would be to use Virtual machine by using VMWare or Microsoft Virtual PC or other similar products.

Skype by default comes with a 5 user conferencing feature. If you are like most of the users, you still are not running Intel Pentium Dual core processors on your desktops. And this would mean that with Skype you are limited to 5 user conferencing limitation instead of 10 user conferencing feature if it was a Intel Pentium Dual Core processor. To over come this limitation, a nice man (sorry could not easily figure out what the author's name is) has found how Skype find's processor specific information and found a solution to it. The patch is downloadable on the same website as well.

files and settings transfer wizard is a true bliss for everyone. we will see its working and how to do the same manually

files and settings transfer wizard is a great tool as it copies all your settings and installed programs to your new operating system be it migrating to vista from xp or jumping from xp to xp & even lower versions! you can even select features or programs that you would like to copy to your new operating system. now how this this works: windows puts up all user settings in a user folder that can be found in “ :\Documents and Settings ” folder in the same drive windows is installed and you will find in this all users individual folders and  common folder for common settings and common installations. the application changes and settings that you save are kept in “ Application Data ” folder now there exists  two “ Application Data ” folders one in “ :\Documents and Settings\user name\ ” folder the other in “ :\Documents and Settings\user name\local settings\ ” folder what the use of two ? beats me! anyways the program, uses these two folders + the registry data and the program source to copy all your files and settings to your new os! so if in case u actually forgot to save / backup your settings u know where they are now! & if you are wondering where to download this tool from on Microsoft site u don't need to its there already on your system
Start Menu > Programs > Accessories > System Tools >> Files and Settings Transfer Wizard.

Now lets see how to actually do this manually, i am going to  copy my firefox with all its settings and installations (extensions, plug-ins etc etc) to a different system say my office system to my home i don't want to install all my extensions again so copy the main folder in which the application is “ :\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox ” copy zip do your biding. now copy two more folders the folders with name mozilla in “ :\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data ” and in “ :\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data ” once we have copied all these three folders mail / send / hard transfer to target PC download to the system and we are ready! just use an firefox installer (std firefox installation) on target PC for creating links and data in the registry! then dump replace these three folders in there respective locations! and walla!
the look, feel, everything, is exactly the same!!!

the simple way to transfer firefox is u can copy migrate the user settings from firefox i just used these to demonstrate that u can do the same to any software installation.

* adding search engine strings:
how to copy my installed programs to my new os
how to copy my installed firefox to my new os

Now before we begin diggin into XP lets do a bit of hardware check process against ram / speed against memory etc, etc.

Now Unless u are going to buy a new computer then scrolldown for recomended hardware description there is not much u can do about ur processor speed advise: dont risk with overclockers u mite kill a load of things.
many motherboards now come with overclock feature u can set from ur bios which with proper cooling these are usable. but generalising there is not much we can do about our processor. but system is slow how shd i hav perfomance increase ?

-> increase ur pagefile size (virtual memory).
One of the reasons linux is so stable is it uses an individual different partitions for different os usage (os files,installations,virutal memory). Its virtual memory is a drive formatted with a special filesystem for its use. so no file fragments gives gud perfomance but there's a catch once set u cant increase its size but in windows u can. so depending on no of installions u hav and no of programs u hav minimised u can increase ur virtual memory! if u are installing a new windows operating system leave one drive with 1gb space and use this drive for ur virtual memory speeds up a bit more.

-> go for higher capacity ram
Now here's the magic the more ram u hav the more speed and stable ur system wud be irrespective of ur processor speed best recomended ram size 1GB else use 512 mb fairly gud! u can still work around 256 but the more the merrier.

Buyin a New PC:

PROCESSOR: Intel HYPERTHREADING! (Actually works around twice the speed's perfomance due to hyperthreading, Comparision: hyperthreading with 512 RAM is equavalent to any process same speed with 1GB RAM since processor is a long term investment choose wise.

RAM: As said the more the merrier.

Graphics: New motherboards hav better Graphics accelerator than used to before but if u buy additional card ur system wud be using memory on the card hence complete ram available for ur processing is more. only advised to buy for a hardcore gamer else dont bother.

Moniter: Samsung/LG, Anythin's great just chk the resoultion @ frequency all resolutions shd me workin @ a minimum of 85 Hertz else u dont want to go blind do u ?!?

HARDDISKS: CHKOUT THE SATA HARDDISKS these hav serial connection cable and hav high data transfer speed and can therefore hav an high impact on ur system. cost is a bit more than the normal ida harddisks.

Remaining all depending on the fancy u want to put in.
ps: buy keyboard which has a good arm rest!
highly recommended!

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