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Gmail Users Now Can Send 10GB Files

This is going to be a little bit handy. Google has announced that Gmail users can now send 10GB files across the network. As you can see from the handy graphic, users can insert files from Google Drive.

via mashable.com

This is a logical extension to the concept of Google Drive, which is in itself an attempt to fight back against Microsoft Skydrive and the iCloud. Of course, the disadvantage is that the recepient has to be able to grab a 10GB file as well, which is a whole other story.

 

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Attach 10GB Files To Gmail With New Google Drive Integration [Updates]

Quicko

is apparently an "innovative search engine". They go onto explain that it "is an experimental but innovative idea to explore search results in a grouply manner so that all search results related to a search query can be stacked together in one single page and then you can use that page to navigate between your desired results with great ease." (As an aside, I love the 'grouply manner' phrase!)

What this means in practice is that you get a group of boxes with a small amount of information about the page in them, and you can choose the ones that you're interested in. It looks a bit like this:

You can click on a link to see the page inframe on the Quicko website, and you can collect a series of pages to look at - I've got a couple over on the left hand side of the page. To be honest, I don't find this particularly helpful, since I'm just seeing results in a different format with less information than I'll get from Google. Moreover, if I want to view a page, I can do so via page preview, or I can use something like Redz which works in the same way. If the grouping of results is important to me, then I can do that using Searchlion (aka Slikk) which works in a rather more attractive way.

So I'm afraid that this engine has nothing to really recommend itself, and the interesting things that it does do are done better by more established engines.

Free Online Thesaurus

According to graphwords.com "It’s an free English online thesaurus that helps you find the meanings of words and show connections among associated words. You can easily see the meaning of each by simply placing the mouse cursor over it." Simply type in your word and see a nice graphical display of related words and definitions. Thanks to Carol Bream for bringing it to my attention. :)

QSView - Instant Google Street View

If you want to see a location quickly, and don't want to spend ages finding it using the Google map function, try out QSView - Instant Google Street View which does the job for you. Simply start typing in the address and the street view will pop up fairly quickly. You can then view the location as per Google streetview. Nothing particularly exciting about it, but it may save you some time, which is always a good thing.

Facebook turns on Christmas

Some people like Christmas. I know, it's really odd, and I can't quite fathom it myself, but they do. However, there are some of us who don't like it. We prefer to get through the year without thoughts of festivities, Santa and all the rest of the stuff. You can therefore imagine my horror that Facebook has now decided to tell me when my friends are talking about the C word. I was going through my newsfeed and saw this gem, with blurring to protect the guilty who should know better.

I didn't ask Facebook to do this. I don't want Facebook to do this. But apparently I have no choice since there wasn't a way of turning it off. So thanks for that Facebook, and a 'ho sodding ho' to you too.

Open Status Search - Search Facebook

Open Status Search - Search Facebook without logging in This is quite fun in its own nosy, macabra way, since you can see what people are talking about on Facebook - at least those who have open status updates that is. Very simple to use - just type in whatever you want to search for, and you'll get to see what people are saying:

You can then click and take a wander into their profile. Of course, it's always a good idea to check your own, just in case!

Check changed Twitter biographies

with Bio is changed. Very simple really. Log in, telling them who you are on Twitter, and they'll send you emails when the people that you follow change their biographies. Why would you want to do that? Well, in case they get a new job, marry, have children or anything else that they think is important. They'll update you instantly, daily or weekly.

Followerwonk: Search by Twitter bio, name, URL, location, more

Followerwonk says of itself: "Who are you looking for? Whether it's new talent, customers, or just friends, we help find whom you're after.Login with Twitter and we'll overlay your follow status. Want precise tracking of new/lost followers?" It's a pretty good analysis tool. I like the option of being able to search through biographies in particular, which gives searchers a variety of ways of ranking and rating people. There's a really fun 'compare users' option, analyse and track followers and so on. It's packed full of helpful information, and you can get a lot of data without having to register to use it.

Bluepage

via bluepage.com

If you want to do something to help children without any particular work on your behalf, then consider using the BluePage search engine. It pulls its content from Yahoo! and any money that is generated via clicking on a link goes to children's charities.

The 'About us' page says:

"Brought up in a modest family in Morocco, we witnessed our parents’ fear of not being able to afford our school expenses. Therefore, we immigrated to Canada and, thanks to the opportunities offered by this country, we were fortunate enough to study to become, for one, a computer engineer, and the other, a medical student.

We founded Bluepage in 2012 in order to offer this same privilege to children who aren’t so fortunate, children who didn’t choose to be born in areas of impoverishment, children who could be our next Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela or Louis Pasteur. Our mission is simple: give a platform to charitable organisations on which they can connect with people who wish for a better world, without changing their online habits or making donations. To do so, we developed a system to salvage a small part of the 30 billion dollar annual revenue generated by online advertisement.

This ambitious project has been made possible by the support of Bluepage Technology. In order to make primary education accessible to all, our different partners, organisations like UNICEF, collect the majority of the profits gained through advertisement. The rest of the money is used by Bluepage to keep this website available and offer the world an innovative platform that, simply, makes a difference."

As a search engine, it's not particularly interesting if I'm honest, but then, that's not really what the purpose of this engine is. If you can just take a look, do a quick search, and if it's appropriate, explore an advert or two - even if it's just once - it'll be a help to people who really need it.

BuzzBundle; no thanks, not at any price

I got an invitation inviting me to take out a trial subscription to BuzzBundle: the smartest of the social media management tools so naturally enough I went along and had a look at it. To say that I was a little taken aback would be a fair summary. Basically, as far as I can make out from the blurb, it's designed to let you cheat your way in social media marketing. Try this section out for size: "Create up to 100 personas with dozens of social accounts each. This can be your company's representative or a Joe from the street – join the talks as different personalities." Any company that tries doing this and gets found out is going to be crucified within the hour. There have been instances in the past of companies and invididuals trying to pretend to be other people, and it's such a seriously bad idea I can't begin to tell you.

Let's try another section: "Create hundreds of active social profiles. Grow authority for your profiles and easily influence your brand awareness and reputation." Same thing. I don't know about your world, but in mine this is usually referred to as lying and cheating, and I'll bet you any money you like that it's going to be against the terms and conditions of any social media resource that you care to name.

Now, they make the point that sometimes you have to post to say Twitter using different profiles. I certain have two profiles that I use, but it's quite clear who I am, and what I'm saying under each. However, with this tool the whole idea is to cloak yourself under different names, positions and locations. It also makes the point that if you have 10 personas working with 10 different accounts, that's 100 people talking about your brand. Actually it's not - it's one person trying to fool other people out there.

Really nasty and cynical. Let's hope that they fail miserably, but I don't think that's going to happen.