Gabriel Lawrence, CMA

Windows 7 Landscape and Nature Theme - Lots of Backgrounds

2011-08-24T17:03:00.000-04:00

I've put together a compilation of desktop backgrounds in this theme that I really enjoy looking at. They will change every minute or so and there's enough that you won't see the same one over again very often.

Please enjoy

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B12RiXMS1A54M2IyZTIwZjMtMDI1MC00ODQ5LWI1YTEtMzhmZGVhMmZlNGU0&hl=en_GB

It's a large file and remember, it will only work in Windows 7

An open internet, an open world: In Google's eyes

2009-12-29T19:07:00.001-05:00

I wanted to quote the last paragraph of a letter about openness Google sent to its employees, and shared with the world on their blog.

"Open will win. It will win on the Internet and will then cascade across many walks of life: The future of government is transparency. The future of commerce is information symmetry. The future of culture is freedom. The future of science and medicine is collaboration. The future of entertainment is participation. Each of these futures depends on an open Internet."

Read the rest at:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/meaning-of-open.html#links

Fiery Sunset Over Snow Fields 23 Dec 2009

2009-12-26T13:06:00.001-05:00

Fiery Sunset Over Snow Fields 23 Dec 2009, originally uploaded by Wytchwood.

My new desktop background. I'm loving it, it gives me the shivers.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wytchwood/4216465184/

The Cookie Monster was always my favourite

2009-11-05T13:10:00.001-05:00

Google partners with Sesame Street to celebrate the show's 40th anniversary.

Google Apps - Still use Gmail with something @ you dot com

2009-11-04T17:10:00.001-05:00

Clearly from my excessive posts about Gmail, I love it. I frequently here complaints from people who cannot get the email address they want. As a test I tried, glawrence at gmail.com, glawrence 1 at gmail.com etc. even glawrence 776 at gmail.com was taken!

Most people have never heard of Google Apps. Google Apps is Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, all customized for your private domain (the part after the @). Now my email address is anything-I-want at glawrence dot ca, and I can still use Gmail. My blog will soon be at http://www.glawrence.ca just FYI. I registered my domain from www.blacksun.ca for $25.00/year, much cheaper then I expected. You can find some that are cheaper like www.netfirms.ca, but I can't speak for their customer service. Blacksun.ca has been great, if you email them the instructions Google gives you when you sign up, they take care of the rest.

Here's a link to Google Apps standard edition: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html

The standard edition is free, and provides the same 7gb of space Gmail currently does. They try to keep the standard edition relatively under the radar because they charge $50/year/user for the business edition.

Google Apps is a great way to be able to use Gmail with your custom domain. Go to http://www.blacksun.ca/domain.html and find out if the domain you want is already taken. Post in the comments if you want me to post a step-by-step guide to setting it up.

Good luck getting the email address you always wanted!

Blackberry Bold 9700 spotted on Rogers.com

2009-11-03T13:07:00.000-05:00

I was just browsing Rogers.com when this came up. Clicking it doesn't go to a page about the new Blackberry Bold 9700 though.

Clearly if they're using it in their marketing, it must be coming out any day now.

Stay tuned...

Google Streetview seen in Canada - How would our government do it?

2009-09-04T11:46:00.000-04:00

I read this in a comment to a National Post article by "MaurizioL" http://bit.ly/A3lB1

I had to post it because it is exactly what our government would do if they decided the Canadian people needed Streetsview:

"Apr 11 2009
12:11 PM

Can you imagine if the City of Toronto, with the provincial and federal governments in tow, decided to do what Google is doing?

While Google says that their imagery will be available in a few weeks since it has been first collected, this is how a hypothetical, tax-payer funded equivalent undertaking would go:

* Program is launched with great fanfare by Mayor Miller, who mumbles something about "public transit and green city", gets big applause by council, NDPers, and The Star for his visionary leadership;

* Government issues RFI, then RFQ, then RFP;

* Public debate on the issues of privacy and safety;

* Three way agreement on funding is negotiated between province, feds, and city. The new "Digital Imagery Interprovincial Authority" is created as an agency to manage and oversee all public funds for the project;

* Environmental assessment #1;

* City hall debates use of private contractors Vs public agencies to do the work;

* Another debate on issues of privacy - legislation passed that any of the possible 5 million citizens caught on camera must consent to their picture being displayed;

* New provincial agency formed to oversee the new "Public Digital Recording Devices Act";

* Original RFP scrapped, new RFP issued. Official reason is that "all vendors responses did not meet the technical specification requirements of the RFP". Real reason is to ensure responses from public-sector and unionized contractors;

* Environmental assessment #2;

* Environmental assessment #3;

* Project scrapped due to environmentalists' concerns over pollution produced by camera-bearing vehicles;

* Speculation that real reason for scrapping the project is the Gardner Expressway which would be caught on camera, and that would be just too painful a reminder of what the lake-front used to look like;

* Mayor unapologetic for cancelling the project after 4 years of public debates, assessments, RFP's, and assorted other hot-air;

* Mayor raises property tax by 5% and decrees new "meat sandwich tax" as revenue tools to fund the cost of all the work to date, approximately $53 million.

In summary:

* Google: 12 weeks, $0 cost to tax payers, ready to view on your browser;

* Government: 4 years, $53 million of tax-payers' money, no cigar

Welcome to public-sector works in Toronto."

Toshiba Laptop - A New Lease on Life

2009-08-08T16:35:00.000-04:00

My Toshiba laptop has been quite the trooper. I have taken it to school everyday for the past 2 years, and it still keeps kicking. It had got quite slow though, and I was this close to giving in and buying a new computer.

Instead I decided to make the one I had better.

I first reformatted the hard drive, and brought the computer back to its original state.

This made a world of difference because computers tend to slow down after awhile from drive fragmentation and issues with registry entries (and other mumbo jumbo).

It was still slow though, so I decided to look at upgrading my RAM. To my surprise, RAM is cheaper then the last time I checked. It cost me $70 for 4GB of RAM.

The truth is there has not been much innovation in laptop computers in the past two years. RAM and hard drive space has gotten cheaper, and because of this, new computers have more of them.

Processors have hit a peak though. My Intel Core Duo processor is relatively the same as the one you get in a new computer. The reason is that processors have got as fast as they can until the next big technological breakthrough comes along. So what manufacturers have done is put two processors together to be able to run more applications at once. The problem with this approach for laptops is power. It takes double the power to run two processors which means your battery life will be affected. This is why there are quad processors for desktops, but still only duo (2) for laptops.

The RAM installation took about 2 minutes, and is so easy anyone could do it...seriously, anyone.

www.crucial.com - The Memory Experts, was a very informative site about what type of RAM my machine could take. Try their Crucial System Scanner Tool to see what RAM is in your computer already, and your upgrade options. You don't have to buy your RAM from them, but their prices are very competitive if you don't mind waiting for shipping.

Chrome vs. Firefox vs. Safari vs. Opera Memory Usage

2009-08-05T20:02:00.000-04:00

Dot Net Perls created a thorough test that concludes Firefox 3.5 is by far the least memory consuming browser.

Surprisingly even better than Google's Chrome browser. Even with the new competition in the browser space, Firefox still remains relevant to browsing consumers.

Note: The test used some pre-released versions, and excluded Internet Explorer because it was acting finicky (who would have guessed?)

Gmail tree theme during lightning

2009-08-04T15:29:00.000-04:00

I usually like the simple look of the default Gmail, but recently I've been using the "Tree" theme.

If you tell it what city you live in, it changes the look depending on the weather outside your door.

Check out this screen shot during a storm...

Go to settings, themes to have a look for yourself.

How to tag email messages in Gmail (a work around)

2009-07-18T12:44:00.001-04:00

For a long time now I wanted a way to be able to tag and edit email I have already received from Gmail.

Sometimes someone sends you an email about something but doesn't explicitly say a keyword you would think of if trying to search for it later.

Sometimes you get more information on the subject later and would like to be able to add it in.

So I decided to do this myself, thanks to Gmail's conversation view, it is possible.

Step 1:

Go to Contacts

Add a new contact called "tag" and make the email address yourusername+tag@gmail.com.

This will still go to your inbox.

Next we want to add a filter for this email address.

Go to Settings, Filters, Create a new filter...

Now in the To: box type in this tag email address, yourusername+tag@gmail.com

Click Next Step, select 'skip the inbox' and 'mark as read'

Click Create Filter

Now anytime someone sends you an email that you want to add keywords to, or notes for yourself to review later, you can.

Forward the message to "tag", in the body of the message type whatever you like, and press send.

This email will be added to the original message in conversation view, and will be searchable to find the original message later.

Let me give you an example of when this could be useful. You were at a dinner party and you told the group you need a new cleaning person. Tom said he has a great cleaning person named Monica, and he would email you her contact information the next day.

When the email arrives all it says is Monica 416-555-6933, if you were to archive this message as is, you would have to remember her name, something you may not remember in a couple weeks when you're looking for it again.

Now you can forward this message to "tag" and in the body write words like "cleaning person cleaner maid tom suggestion recommendation" etc.

You get the drift, you want to be able to make every email that comes in searchable by you.

You have to ask yourself what you would naturally try to search to find this message and make sure those keywords are attached to the conversation.

Give it a try, let me know what you think.

Creating Multiple Signatures in Gmail

2009-07-03T12:41:00.000-04:00

Do you have multiple accounts all connected to one Gmail account.

I found it annoying to have to write a different signature depending on the email address I wanted to send from.

Here's a fix

Go to the green beaker in the top right corner of the screen. This is called "labs"

Go down to where is says "Canned Responses" click 'enable'

Now go to "Compose Mail", you should see a field below the subject line that says "Canned responses".

Type your signature you would like for lets say your business account in the email text field. Make sure to leave at least one line between your signature and the first line of the email.
If you like the way Gmail natively adds "--" before your signature, remember to add it yourself.

Now click the "Canned responses" and under "save" click "new canned response..."

Name the canned response something like business signature.

Now when you go to compose an email, you can write your letter. then press canned responses, insert, business signature and it will automatically be added to your message.

Give it a try...

How to create different 'reply to' addresses for multiple emails being forwarded to Gmail on your BlackBerry

2009-06-18T19:50:00.000-04:00

Many people use one Gmail inbox for all their email addresses. The problem with the Blackberry is that you can only designate one "reply to" address even though you may have 2 or 3 email addresses coming in.

Here's how to fix this issue.

Gmail allows you to put periods (.) in between your username of your email address.

Example: If your email address is yourself@gmail.com, you can send mail to your.self@gmail.com and it will go to the same inbox, give it a try.

You can also put a + sign after your username and any amount of text after it.

Example: yourself+business@gmail.com or yourself+personal@gmail.com

You can also send mail to yourself@googlemail.com

We will use this feature to be able to set multiple accounts under the one email address on your blackberry.

Step 1:

Go to your Blackberry Internet Service website (google 'your provider' BIS and you should be able to find it)

Step 2:

After you're logged in click "Set Up Account"

Add the different gmail account you decided on (i.e., yourself+business@gmail.com)

Step 3:

Now that you have a new account created, click filters.

Set 'when no filters apply' to 'do not forward messages to device'

Step 4:

Click 'Add Filter'

Call it whatever you'd like. Under the field 'apply filter when' set it to '"To:"'

In the 'Contains' field, fill in your business email address

Make sure 'Forward messages to device' is selected

Click 'Add Filter'

Step 5:
Next go to your regular gmail account in the BIS website (yourself@gmail.com) and click on filters again.

Here we're doing the exact opposite of the last step.

Add filter and set To field, in 'contains' add your business email again, but at the bottom make sure 'do not forward messages to device is selected'

Click 'Add filter'

Step 6:

You're almost there! Now on the new account created (yourself+business@gmail.com) click 'edit'
Here you can add a customized signature, but mainly you can change the 'reply to' field to your business email address.

And you're done! Now when someone emails your personal gmail account, and you reply on your blackberry, it will look like it's sent from your gmail account. If someone sends you an email to your business account, and you reply on your blackberry, it will automatically have your reply to address set as your business account.

Maybe I should start using Yahoo!

2008-04-21T22:25:00.001-04:00

Since the beginning of Google I have been an avid user of their search over all other search engines. From time to time I test out sample searches in different search engines and compare results. The results typically come back that Google is far superior at giving more accurate results in a better order of what I actually was looking for.

Recently I tried to search "Gabriel Lawrence" in Google, and could not find my website in the first five pages (does anyone ever go past that?). Out of curiosity I did the same search in Yahoo!, and I got the fourth spot. Now I may personally enjoy the Yahoo! result more, but even given my personal bias, I still have to say Google did I better job. The likelihood that someone is actually searching for my...less than perfect website is low on the grand scheme of things. Nevertheless, maybe I should give Yahoo! another try.

Google a 'dog company'

2008-04-15T15:57:00.000-04:00

In Google's Code of Conduct, section e states,

"Dog Policy:

Google's affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture. We like cats, but we're a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our offices would be fairly stressed out."

Wow Google truly is a company after my own heart.

http://investor.google.com/conduct.html

Saturday February 16, 2008 Music of the Week

2008-02-25T23:49:00.000-05:00

Saturday February 16, 2008

This week's band is Feeder. One of my new favourites, best songs so far are Oxygen, Piece by Piece, and Satellite News, on Echo Park.

Enjoy