How To: Save yourself from stupid Tech Support Questions

Almost every other geek is pwned by his friends or people he/she knows by their stupid tech support questions. And sometime they drag you to the limits that you get frustrated enough to shoot yourself and bang your head onto your computer screen πŸ˜› How on earth can someone be so stupid πŸ˜› But luckily I found a Pidgin Plugin called STFW(Search The F**king Web). This is one really awesome plugin I have seen recently and I (and most other geeks) needed something like this for ages πŸ™‚

What it does?

When somebody asks you a question, you can reply back with relevant keywords from the message you received prefixed with the command /stfw. The plugin will automatically convert the keywords to a URL understood by the site Let Me Google That For You (lmgtfy.com) and asker will get a URL like this http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+is+http.

How to use?

The Download, installation and usage instruction can be seen on plugin page. So, when someone ask you “Wireless not working on my laptop”, just reply back with the following message

/stfw Wireless not working on my laptop

C’mon guys, ask me tech support questions πŸ˜›

 

How To: New Mail Notification

mbooth commented on one of my last post (How To: GNOME GMail Notifier) informing that he/she uses mail-notification. I was curious to check it out for mail via IMAP and I found it way more useful as compared to Gnome Gmail Notifier. I especially like the option to configure it to check the mails every ten seconds. Thats way cool for anxious people like me πŸ™‚ Keeping in mind the huge advantages of mail-notification, I thought of writing an howto for configuring it πŸ™‚

Install Mail Notification

Installing something can’t be simpler. Just use the following command as root

[root@fedora ~]$ yum install mail-notification

Configuring mail-notification is very simple. Its as easy as it can get but there are tricks for special cases like Gmail forΒ  Google Apps hosted websites.

Launch Mail Notification

Mail notification loses a point here. It doesn’t show up in any of the menus. You have to launch it from command line. You can launch mail-notification from System -> Preferences -> Mail Notification (Thanks mbooth for correcting). Or use the following command as normal user to launch mail notification

[saini@fedora ~]$ mail-notification -p

Configure Status Icon Behaviour

On mail notification properties windows, select Status Icon tab and choose the appropriate behaviour.

Mail Notification Status Icon Action

New Message Popup Settings

Now go to Message Popups tab, and select appropriate options. If you don’t enable popups, using mail notification doesn’t really make sense (though none can prevent you from doing so πŸ™‚ ). Keeping popus stacked is good because it shows you all messages in case you get more than one new mails in an interval. Also, you can configure the expiration time for the popups.

Mail Notification Message Popups Settings

Add New Mailbox

Now select General tab and click of Add button. Mail-notification supports checking new mails from Evolution, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Mail, any IMAP and POP3 Server and moreover your system mailbox πŸ™‚ Select Gmail for mailbox type. Enter username and password for Gmail account.

Mail Notification Supported Mailboxes

Mail Notification Add Gmail Account

Now move over to Details tab and set delay between checking mails. I keep it 10 seconds πŸ™‚

Mail Notification Gmail Account Settings

Add a Google Apps Hosted Email Account

This is totally optional πŸ™‚ Now we’ll add a Google Apps hosted account. This is a bit tricky. For mailbox type, you’ll have to select Gmail. For username, you’ll have to provide your email address.

Mail Notification Add Google Apps Hosted Account

Also, the mailbox name has to be modified in this case to make things work. Move over to Details tab and change mailbox name to your email address.

Mail Notification Google Apps Hosted Account Settings

Add a new IMAP mailbox (Gmail)

This is totally optional πŸ™‚ Keep mailbox type as IMAP. IMAP Server has to be imap.gmail.com . Username and password are same as Gmail Account.

Note: For this mailbox to work, you’ll have to enable IMAP in settings tab in Gmail.

Mail Notification Gmail IMAP Account

Now move over to Connection tab. Connection for Gmail IMAP has to be SSL enabled. So, select “SSL/TLS on separate port” and make sure the port number is 993.

Mail Notification Gmail IMAP Account Connection Settings

Well thats all you need to do for configuring things for getting new mail notifications lightning fast πŸ™‚ Now sit back and relax until someone sends you a mail πŸ™‚

The only major disadvantage that I found with mail-notification is that it doesn’t stay in notification area all the time. It appears only when there is a new mail.

 

How To: GNOME GMail Notifier

GNOME GMail (Google GMail) Notifier is an awesome tool for GNOME/Linux users if you are addicted to checking mails every few minutes. GMail Notifier solves a bit of your problems by notifying about multiple gmail accounts. One more plus point is that it can display GMail Notifications for new mails in accounts for which you are using Google Apps. Below is a step by step howto on installing and configuring GMail Notifier in Fedora (may apply to other distros as well).

Install GNOME GMail Notifier

You can download and install it from GNOME GMail notifier home page or just use yum

[root@fedora ~]$ yum install gnome-gmail-notifier

Launch Gmail Notifier

If installation was successful, go to Applications -> Internet -> Gmail Notifier.

GNOME Gmail Notifier

Open Preferences

Right click on Email icon in taskbar and click Preferences.

GNOME Gmail Notifier Select Prefreneces

Select Preferences

Set inbox update time to 1 minute. Check display notifications for new messages and errors. Also select a sound to play for new mails.

GNOME Gmail Notifier Prefreneces

Add GMail Account

Click Add on preferences window and add your GMail account.

GNOME Gmail Notifier Add GMail Account

Add Mail Account (Google Apps) (Optional)

If you don’t know what Google Apps is, leave this step. If you do know, then add your mail account.

GNOME Gmail Notifier Add Google Apps Account

Check Mail

If you can’t wait for 1 minutes to see GMail Notifier in action, just right click on email icon in taskbar and click Check Mail.

GNOME Gmail Notifier Check New Mails

Mail Notifications

Whenever you get a new mail, you’ll have bubble like the one in image below and a sound will also be played.

GNOME Gmail Notifier New Mail Notification

Enjoy the notifications πŸ™‚

 

MSN Crawlers Pawned

After seeing the way MSN crawled my last post, I just realized why Microsoft could never do good in Search Engine Market πŸ™‚

I wonder why MSN would crawler same page from two different machines. I wonder if a single page can be divided further for crawling. Checkout the screenshots below πŸ™‚

Why Google Wins

A few minutes later. Three Microsoft machines were crawling the same page πŸ˜›

MSN Crawler Pawned

I have conformed using ARIN that all these IPs belong to Microsoft πŸ˜€