Share a Firefox Profile Between Ubuntu and Windows

The CyberNet weblog details how to seamlessly share a Firefox profile between a dual boot Ubuntu Linux and Windows installation by sharing the same profile folder in both OSes. It’s a very simple trick that involves the Firefox Profile Manager, and it only takes a few steps to complete. On the other hand, if your goal is to share profiles between different computers, we’ve got you covered there, too.

I will have to try this in my Kubuntu settings!!

A Better Way to Set Up Gmail IMAP

If you’ve set up Gmail IMAP using Google’s instructions, you may have noticed a couple of snags—namely that your Sent Mail, Drafts, and Deleted Mail aren’t necessarily matching up as you’d expect between your email client and Gmail. To remedy this, you’ll have to tweak a few advanced configuration settings in your client, and weblog 5ThirtyOne has the details. On the iPhone, for example:

  1. Open ‘Settings’ > ‘Mail’ > [Your Gmail IMAP account] > ‘Advanced’
  2. Select ‘Drafts Mailbox’ > ‘On the Server’ > ‘[Gmail] Drafts’. Return to the ‘Advanced’ view.
  3. Select ‘Sent Mailbox’ > ‘On the Server’ > ‘[Gmail] Sent Mail’. Return to the ‘Advanced’ view.
  4. Select ‘Deleted Mailbox’ > ‘On the Server’ > ‘[Gmail] Trash’. Return to the ‘Advanced’ view.

If you prefer your deleted email client messages to archive in Gmail rather than go to the trash (which seems like a more Gmail-like solution), there’s one change.

Rather than mapping your Trash folder to Gmail’s Trash, you’ll want to select the “All Mail” mailbox—effectively removing the email from your inbox but not deleting it from your Gmail account altogether.

This is for the Ipod Touch and the Iphone. I thought people would like to know how to setup the GMAIL on them!!

Batch Process Images with Photo Drop

Mac OS X only: Resize, rotate or convert multiple digital images at once with Photo Drop, a small utility that creates programmable image editing droplets. Launch Photo Drop and set the actions you want to perform, like rotating, padding, cropping, resizing, resampling or adding copyright or other meta info and save your droplet. Then, drag and drop any number of images onto the droplet, which processes them and saves them. Great for making high-res digital photos fit for email, watermarking your stuff or resizing a group of images for your blog, Photo Drop is a free download (donations encouraged) for Mac only. Thanks, Susie!

Google And Nielsen Link Up To Measure TV Ads

Google is putting its chocolate into Nielsen Media Research’s peanut butter. The two companies have signed a pact to cooperate on measuring the effectiveness of TV advertising. Currently, companies can buy Google TV Ads only on the Dish satellite network.

Google is bringing second-by-second analytics and feedback to the TV advertising world, but all it can do right now is measure what’s happening inside the set-top box. The deal with Nielsen will allow Google to add a crucial layer of demographic data. The combination of Google’s second-by-second reporting of which ads are being watched with Nielsen’s panel-based demographics should prove delicious to advertisers. Now all Google has to do is gain a foothold in other cable and satellite TV networks besides Dish.

I bet this will be the beginning on Ads in video.

Google Declares Jihad On Blog Link Farms

A major Google page rank update has punished large scale blog link farms and similar sites indulging in heavy cross linking by dramatically cutting their Google page rank scores.

There is some suggestion that the changes may be related to the sale of text link ads, but at this stage this is not backed by evidence, and a range of sites I checked that are selling text link ads were showing no change in page rank.

The only clear change appears to be among large scale blog networks and similar link farms, where each site in the network provides hundreds of outgoing links on each page of the blog to other blogs in the network, in some cases creating tens, even hundred of thousands of cross links. Previously such behavior has been rewarded by Google with high page rank, although it would now appear that this loop hole may now be shut.

Blogs in the TechCrunch network (we don’t link heavily on each page..nor do we have a particularly large network) and the Gawker Media network (who like us don’t go nuts with links) maintained their page rank whilst blogs across a range of other networks saw big decreases. The AOL owned Weblogs Inc was not immune, with leading Gadget blog Engadget dropping from PR 7 to PR5, Autoblog (6 to 4) and DownloadSquad (5 to 4).

The move by Google could well cause many smaller blog networks, including a number with funding, to close given their heavy reliance on text link ads and related sales that depend on strong Google page ranks for each site. Although traffic alone can and does sell ads on bigger sites, a drop from say PR7 to PR4 in one example makes the ad sell that much more difficult, particularly on blogs with little traffic. I’d suggest that the Deadpool will soon see a number of new entrants.

I guess that means I’ve got to watch what I link to!!