DianaTan.net

Gmail Priority Inbox is Google’s answer to fix Email Overload. Is your Gmail inbox cluttered with useless emails while important emails are missed in the email flood? You need this…

Google has a new evolved Gmail filter to that help users separate bologna / bacn from your important emails. Priority Inbox is like your personal assistant, helping you focus on the messages that matter without requiring you to set up complex rules.

So what is bacn? A new term I learnt today which means email which has been subscribed to and is therefore not unsolicited, but is often not read by the recipient for a long period of time, if at all. Bacn has been described as “email you want but not right now”. And this is what Gmail Priority Inbox will separate, besides the spam.

Gmail Priority Inbox is rolling out over the week to all Gmail accounts and will feature -

Automatic sorting – Gmail uses a variety of signals to identify important email, including which messages you open and which you reply to.

Sections keep you organized – Incoming email gets separated into sections: important and unread, starred, and everything else. Don’t like these? Customize them.

Predictions improve over time – Over time, Priority Inbox gets better at predicting what’s important to you. You can help train it using the train buttons.

I am sure we will all love this new feature. Thanks Gmail…

Do you know that you can receive phone calls and post voicemails right on your blog. GrandCentral, a Google service, will let you add these communication options on your blog for free!

Blogger Buzz says that though GrandCentral is currently in a private beta test, bloggers can skip the wait and get a free account immediately. GrandCentral is an innovative service that lets users integrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into one account, which can be accessed from the web. Last year Google acquired GrandCentral Communications.

Add GrandCentral?s WebCall button to your blog, and your readers can easily call your phone or leave voicemails without ever seeing your telephone number. You can screen calls, either accepting them or sending them to voicemail, and you can even block unwanted callers altogether.

At this time, it is only available from within the US and maybe opened up to additional countries in the future. I tried the exclusive Blogger invite, but it doesn’t work from India. However, its a great way for US residents to get entry into GrandCentral and use its revolutionary communication features.

I was looking through the newspapers and came across a terrace house on auction near my home. For the price offered and the locality, I am not attracted to buy it up since people are still staying in. There might be problems to evict the previous owner and it might become messy. So, no, I will put my money in the bank and earn interests. But if you intend to sell your house, then you might like to check out the link above – simply enter your zip code and it is easy peasy.

I have bought and stayed in a 3 room HDB flat in Singapore and it was so small like a pigeon hole. Whatever you say, can be heard next door and there was no privacy. At that time, I stayed alone though I shared the costs with my sister. The flat has long been sold for some profit and I was very relieved when everything was settled. There are many people who sell their house in order to upgrade to a bigger home. It is fine as long as you can afford it and plan well in terms of finances such as whether you can afford to pay in the long term or not in case you lose your employment.

Hence, selling your house need not be a chore anymore with all the technology being set up to make life so much easier. You can then have a peace of mind doing the things you love and continue to do so.

Thanks to Shirley Wilkerson for the guest post.

Remember when the show “Lost” was in its last season? Remember how people would gather around your office the next day and discuss the program? Well, the reason many people were able to keep up with the show was due to DVR. With DVR, you can watch popular programs like “Lost” whenever makes most sense in your own schedule.

My husband is a doctor, and he always would miss the best television shows during their prime seasons. Often, he would complain to me about how distant he felt from his regular friends who were not doctors. They could catch the latest sporting events on television or shows like “Lost.” Then, one day, I decided to surprise my husband with the best gift of his life. I still remember the day so clearly, when he walked into the kitchen a week after “Lost” had ended, and I had the last episode playing. His face lit up, and he was so surprised to see his other favorite show (aside from sports) on television!

He could not get over it. When I told him I had recorded the show with a DVR I ordered through expertsatellite.com, he was thrilled. If you want to surprise your busy spouse, then record his or her favorite program. It is the surprise of a lifetime!

If you are hearing about project Titan for the first time then I would like to introduce you to the current development which is going on in Facebook. They are planning to launch a full fledged webmail service this year where you can send and receive emails on your facebook ID.

Facebook’s Project Titan is all about converting the current messaging system into a full fledged webmail service where you can search emails, and use POP/IMAP to get those mails on third party service like Outlook. Currently they are having a message center where you can check messages sent by your friends and users on facebook but that system is not much effective. There are very limited options in current system. That’s why facebook is planning to have a complete webmail system where you can do lot many things with your messages. According to the update on Techcrunch,

First, our understanding is that there will be full POP/IMAP support, meaning users can access the account other than through Facebook itself. Your email account name will be your vanity url – vanityurl@facebook.com.

Facebook Connect is already so popular option for connecting on different sites with profile details and if Facebook Connect and their own webmail will start working together then that may give a nice amount of challenge to other webmail services like Gmail and Yahoo.

There is a personal injury claims service helping UK citizens claim compensation on a no win no fee basis. This is a good service as you don’t pay if you don’t win in court. It is a win win situation for both parties and creates an encouragement for the company to fight out your case so that you can claim money for personal injury later on. The No win no fee basis will surely attract a lot of customers since it is value for money. There have been cases where insurance companies refuse to pay out compensation for accidents of its clients citing various reasons so that they can keep the money. Therefore you need to engage a good lawyer to fight out your case in court so that you can get your reimbursement for any accidents on the road or even during the course of work or travel.

I was googling around for some information on Lasik which is a type of refractive surgery for correcting myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism. LASIK is performed by ophthalmologists using a laser. The good thing about Lasik is that it can reduce or eliminate the need for glasses or contact lenses.

You might also like to know that Lasik is the most often performed surgery in the US. Lasik vision recovery can be as little as a few hours, but most see well in about a day or two and normally has no pain. US Lasik results data is available at http://www.usaeyes.org/lasik/faq/lasik-results-1.htm while General Lasik information and surgery video is available at http://www.usaeyes.org/lasik/faq/lasik.htm

Stahl Eye Center has been serving patients for more than 35 years. The Stahl Eye Center doctors’ patient outcomes have been independently verified by nonprofit Lasik patient advocacy USAEyes to meet or exceed the national norms for Lasik results. Fewer than 100 doctors nationwide have attained this certification. Stahl Eye Center doctors are graduates from top universities such as UCLA, John Hopkins and Yale.

If I have the excess cash, who knows, I might just go for a Lasik surgery as currently I am wearing glasses due to short sightedness or myopia as it is scientifically known. Over here, everyone is wearing glasses and myopia seems to run in my family.

Ok, so I wrote in my previous post that I paid twice for a summon online. Guess what! They have emailed me to refund the extra cash paid to them and will pay to my credit card. So even though the online payment system for paying summons is a little buggy at times and not really updated real time, they do reinburse the money if they have detected double payment. I like this. Honesty is the best policy. This is good customer service. Even though the system is not really stable in terms of updating payments, I kinda of like the refund. I got 4 payments updated correctly out of 5 – so this is still ok. You can still rely on the web site to pay your summons online – removing all the hassle of parking your car, paying for the parking and queuing up just to settle all your summons. What do you think?

As I have mentioned before, I do write articles now and then. After a break of about 5 months, I now continue to write articles for a US web site. The pay is only USD1 cent per word or about RM3.5 cents per word. Though it is not much, but it gives me some pocket money for my golden years of life long savings. Sometimes I also get rejected by clients and it depends on who you write for – easy going customers or calculative one with plenty of demands and revisions. As of yesterday, I managed to submit 5 articles and they are all accepted promptly. I don’t want to put all the eggs in one basket and depend on only one source of income. That is why I diversify with various sources of income from the internet.

If you like me to write articles for you, contact me at diana.tan(AT)gmail.com

Google has just launched Google Maps Malaysia, the localised version of the company’s popular online mapping service. While Malaysia maps have already existed in Google Maps for a while, the service now has nearly all the features available in the United States map, including routing, business listings and turn-by-turn directions.

One of the interesting new features is the Movie Finder which allows users to search through the database of movies and the cinemas showing in Malaysia. This feature goes much further than that, as it also offers a list of events currently going on in Malaysia and even property listings for potential house buyers. The event listings are provided by klue.com.my while property listings are provided by iproperty.com.my.

In fact, Google has been working with a number of providers to provide various services, as well as offering tools to contribute their maps and points of interest to Google Maps Malaysia. The company has also updated the mobile application meant for mobile phones.

The application now supports searching and if it’s a business listing, allows you to call in to destinations that have a phone number listed. Although almost full-featured, there are a couple of features that is still missing on the Malaysian version of Google Maps.

Two features missing from Google Maps Malaysia is the public transit feature (which gives you information on public transportation required to get to your detsination) and the traffic information service (to help avoid traffic jams).

For businesses, Google has prepared a number of tools and APIs for these businesses to promote their companies on Google Maps. There are currently around 100,000 local businesses listed on Google Maps from various sources, which includes contributions from them as well as from individuals sharing information. Currently Google Maps Malaysia covers the whole of Malaysia including East Malaysia, although certain smaller towns are still not covered.

maps.google.com.my