I really do love Mozilla products, the flexibility and features of their products are something truely to be admired. Of course my favourite product is the browser Mozilla Firefox. See my post on Top 5 Reasons to Switch to Firefox. When I got my new notebook I decided to try Outlook 2007, this failed badly on Vista. I was searching for an alternative and due to my awesome experience with Firefox I decided to give its sister, Thunderbird - Mozilla’s email client a go.

I liked Thunderbird, it was great, reliable all the basic features I needed but there was one thing lacking. Yes, the supurb features of Gmail.

So the other day I decided to make the switch, it was the easiest switch I have ever experienced. On Thunderbird I was using IMAP with Google Apps so all my emails were there, beautifully intact.

Reasons I switched to Gmail (Google Apps).

Labels

This is an awesome feature that most people don’t know about. You can basically make “labels” to label your incoming messages on where they are from. For example every night this website is backed up and a copy is sent to me by email. I really don’t want to receive these emails everyday so I archive them straight away and a notification shows up on my label that my backup has been received.

Filters

Labels cannot work without this important feature. Filters lets you filter your message depending who it is from. For example all my Facebook, Twitter etc notifications are directed to their respective labels and do not even hit my inbox. As soon as I receive an email from Facebook it is automatically archived and sent to the Label, it never shows up in my inbox.

For anyone with overcrowded email problems, this is probably the best email management tool I have ever come across.

Amazing Search

This has got to be my favourite feature in switching to Gmail. The awesome functionality of Google search is applied to email. I can search by from, subject, body of the message or even label! Thunderbirds inbuilt search feature was really hard to deal with. Google search for Gmail is awesome for anyone who wants to find email fast.

Keyboard Shortcuts

This is a huge productivity booster. All I have to do is click a few keys and I am away composing, managing or sending email. For example all I have to do is press “c” an magically the compose window shows. There are heaps of shortcuts though, I am planning to learn them all slowly so soon enough I will have learnt them all.

Spam Filtering that Actually Learns from your Actions

Spam is a huge problem these days. With Gmail I get very few spam messages a month. I also get very few normal messages that go into the spam folder. However with the very few messages I tell Gmail to mark it as spam or to not and it actually learns. No spam filter system is fool proof and Gmail does a great job of combating spam.

These are my favourite web Gmail features. Of course there are other great ones such as Chat, Contacts and Labs however I think these universally apply to most people. There are also awesome Gmail features whether you use an email client or not, such as awesome security, spam filtering etc.

So what are your favourite Gmail features?

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So in just over a week exams start for high school students sitting NCEA around the country. These are the exams that count for real credits and will decide what classes you will do next year and if you will get into university. So to make this post of value I’m going to give you a few quick tips to help you revise/prepare for these exams. These tips are thanks to Cambridge Students

Where to study

Creating good conditions to study in can help you make the most of the time you spend revising. Here are some suggestions:

• Find a quiet place to study and make sure you are sitting comfortably
• Make sure your desk is well lit
• Keep background noise to a minimum
• Avoid studying in an area where there will be distractions (like television!)
• Have everything you need to do your revision to hand before you start

Practise mock exams

Look for exam papers from previous years and have a go at answering all the questions without any help during the time allotted for the actual exam. Practise-exams are a great way to help you uncover any weaknesses you might have, as well as help you soothe those exam nerves.

Last-minute revision tips

Although time may be short, you can still make a difference to your grade. Try and prioritise; do what you can.

• Use your revision tools (prompts, diagrams etc) to check final facts
• Keep calm and consolidate your existing knowledge rather than trying to learn new topics
• Don’t stay up all night revising; being overtired will not help you to do your best

If all else fails, procrastinate and hope for the best!

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Last night, I got a Twitter update from Wordpress, saying that the first beta release of version 2.7 was out. This version promised a huge GUI upgrade and many other cool features.

So with the help of a fantastic plugin called InstantUpgrade (which is now obsolete due to to Wordpress having this inbuilt feature) I quickly updated my blog. The obvious huge change was the visual design. All the actions are now on the left sidebar with drop down menus making it easier to find what you want when you want. The overall feel of the admin panel is much nicer due to the matching soft colour tones.

Another cool feature I have found is Quickpress, this lets you write a blog post right in your dashboard

and quickly and easily update your blog without any complicated hassle. Wordpress has also added a feature called Turbo which allows for use with Gears. This will let you store most of WordPress’ images, scripts, and CSS files locally on your computer. This speeds up page load time. Another productivity tool that comes with Wordpress, is the ease of uploading plugins. You can either search for plugins from the Wordpress website or upload them, this is straight from your admin panel. So if you are at a computer without an FTP program you can still easily add plugins to your blog.

However with a beta release there are still going to be features that have not been included with this release. This beta release is for users to try out and find bugs etc. Already I have changed some CSS of my theme and now I cannot access the editor. I’m sure this will be fixed in the final release, due November 10.

So what is your favorite feature in the Wordpress 2.7 beta 1 release?