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Choose Which Gmail Messages are Downloaded for Offline Use

Jason Barry — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:05:29 -0600

Google announced on the official Gmail blog a handy new upgrade to the Offline Gmail labs app. Before the update, you could enable Offline Gmail and it would use specialized heuristics to download messages for offline use.

With the new update, once you enable Offline Gmail, you can find some customizable options under the “Offline” tab in Settings. You can now select specifically which labels to download and how deep into your mailbox you would like the downloading to begin. Once the settings are saved, the app will immediately start downloading any emails weren't already synced to your computer. Of course, less downloads means faster Offline Gmail so you should be careful with the settings.

It's a substantial upgrade to a very handy lab application for commuters or travelers.

Twitter to Open Labs Site, Announces New Lists Feature

Jason Barry — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:47:45 -0500

Twitter announced at the Future of Web Apps conference in London that they will be implementing a Twitter Labs feature. A seemingly familiar idea, the Twitter Lab will be a formal outlet for Twitter approved plug-ins that are submitted by developers using the API. They expect it to launch “soon” but were skimpy on the details.

Twitter is also testing out a new “Lists” feature that will allow users to compile lists of their favorite tweeters. Users can create their own buckets of Twitter accounts and share them (or keep them private). The lists are linked from the users profile and can be subscribed to by friends. Developer information will be released in the next few days as the feature is rolled out.

Do you find your Twitter account lacking cool, new, functionality? Are you looking forward to organizing your Twitter friends? Does anyone still use Twitter?

Murphy's Law: Mozilla Crowdsources Open Source

David Murphy — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:30:20 -0500

It sounds like Buzzword Bingo, but a new Mozilla Labs project is applying an open-source, crowd-sourced routine to solve common Web developer issues. The program's called TestSwarm, and I must confess, it's a novel idea for increasing a developer's ability to test out new JavaScript framework on a variety of browsers at once. And the fact that this an open-source project is cooler still: Aspiring testers can load the framework onto their own servers and set up their own test routines at will.

TestSwarm was developed by one of the Mozilla Foundation's JavaScript Tool Developers, John Resig, to deal with the scalability issues that factor into JavaScript code testing. To Resig, the proper testing platform includes at least five different browsers split into 12 total versions per operating system. Although he doesn't go into this length in his example, you should triple that number to factor in the Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 operating environments.

Factor these (now) thirty-six tests against an average of ten test suite iterations--a minimum number of variances that Resig runs in a common jQuery testing environment. That's three hundred and sixty runs for every test you create, more if you're expanding to include OSX and Linux platforms. And did I mention that the best results tend to occur when actual human beings are behind the testing instead of some automated attempt at user interaction? Yeaaaah...

So how did Resig address this grand problem of JavaScript testing scalability? You should know--you're a part of the solution, after all.

To a user, the TestSwarm client just simply works. When you load up the page, the program checks to see what browser you're using and determines whether it's one that is needed for a round of tests. If so, TestSwarm pops up a little window and asks you for your help. If you choose to enter a username and agree to join the fun, you're placed in a holding queue. The TestSwarm client checks for new tests to run on your machine over a set interval of time. If a particular test screws up, a detailed note is sent back to TestSwarm to help developers identify the root cause of the issue. They also receive a giant color-coded chart that shows off the different tests and browser permutations, as well as a visual representation of tests that succeeded, succumbed to minor errors, or completely fell apart.

As a concept, I think TestSwarm is an awesome way to go about using the power of a community to spare one poor person (or a group of people/suckers) from having to run an absurd amount of test iterations in the name of usability. It's analogous to the successful efforts one sees from the many distributed computing applications floating around the Internet. And just as there seems to be an infinite number of [subject]@home distributed programs, I would kill anywhere from three to six people to get a variant of TestSwarm themed for CSS/HTML checks. Instead of looking for faults in JavaScript runs, the client could load up a target Web page into a connected user's browser, find some way to finagle a screenshot or otherwise record the look of the page, and email that back to the original developer. Gone are the hours spent checking the look of a single page across squillions of platforms.

It's an awesome idea--at least, I think so. But what do users get for their contributions to either TestSwarm or the now-aptly named TestMurph?

Such is a question that invariably arises whenever I think of distributed computing applications or, really, even the open-source world in general. The two travel down similar paths in this regard. In distributed computing, you're contributing to an effort larger than yourself for (mostly) bragging rights and respect among your Internet peers. The same holds true for TestSwarm. While I don't necessarily mind helping some dude test out his JavaScript, am I going to open up a tab for the TestSwarm loading area every time I start a version of Firefox? Not really.

Sure, Resig could turn TestSwarm into a downloadable application that launches browser windows during your computer's idle time. But that's a pretty hefty amount of code spread across multiple operating systems, not to mention an increased amount of steps and potential annoyances for users looking to help out. It's a catch-22 if I ever heard one: To increase TestSwarm's popularity and applicability, one has to increase the program's complexity and user interactivity. But unless TestSwarm is exposed to as many permutations of browsers, operating systems, and setups as possible, the entire point of the platform dies away.

To his credit, Resig has opened the doors with an innovative idea for online testing that's sure to be replicated, modified, and distributed in the days to come. In fact, there's been a bit of interest in corporate versions of TestSuite, which bodes well for future TestSwarm spin-offs. I just hope that, for all his work and creativity, the single variable out of Resig's control doesn't ultimately prove to be the suite's undoing. Were there only some equally innovative way to encourage the adoption of the experiment by its chief guinea pigs--that's the real question here.

David Murphy (@ Acererak) is a technology journalist and former Maximum PC editor. He writes weekly columns about the wide world of open-source as well as weekly roundups of awesome, freebie software. Befriend him on Twitter, especially if you have an awesome app or game you're dying to recommend!

Google Squares the Web, but Clearly, Some Results are Being Divided by Zero

Justin Kerr — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:19:18 -0500

On Wednesday, Google officially unveiled its newest lab project called Google Squared, which attempts to organize search results into a spreadsheet style layout. Although it might appear at first glance that this is a Wolfram Alpha competitor, Google is quick to defend the original aspects of the service. Unlike Wolfram Alpha, Google isn’t actually performing any calculations, and they will simply continue to do what they do best, present information that has been cached from the web. The idea behind squared is to help organize your search results so that you get all of the relevant information you’re looking for in one shot. It is hoped that this will minimize the amount of times users will need to refine their original search terms in order to get the results they are looking for.

The system isn’t quite perfect however, and ARS Technica was able to achieve some pretty humorous results by searching for the term “NYC population”. While reviewing the results, I noticed that Google populated a column named “status”, and listed Queens as “hospitalized”. Another column is titled “white” and the associated image is a heard of deer wandering around an army base. That’s not to say the system is totally broken however, and when it works, it works extremely well. A quick search for the term “Palm Pre” for example, turned up categories such as memory, weight, dimensions, display, etc. They clearly have some work to do on making the columns more relevant, but it certainly is an encouraging start.

Give Google Squared a spin and let us know what you think.

Hulu Launches Hulu Labs With New Desktop Client

Andy Salisbury — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:20:32 -0500

Just this week Hulu launched their new service, Goog—err, Hulu Labs in the interest of letting their users get a more hands on approach to the development of the site.

“To help us learn from user feedback […], we’re excited to open up a new Hulu Labs section on the site today. At Hulu Labs, we’ll provide sneak peeks at some of the upcoming releases from our product roadmap, some of which are personal projects and hobbies our devs have been cooking up,” wrote Eric Feng, Hulu’s CTO on their official blog. “From new recommendation algorithms to tools for building custom widgets to a time-based view for browsing your favorite shows, we’ll be sharing a variety of these new creations with you at Hulu Labs and looking forward to your thoughts on how to make these products better.”

They also released the beta for Hulu Desktop, an application that has been optimized to let you watch all of your favorite shows (so long as they’re hosted on Hulu) on your desktop or media center PC. The UI has been designed with a small Microsoft or Apple remote in mind, making it a very reasonable contender for all the media center PCs out there.

Image Credit: Hulu

Inline Images Come to Gmail

Andy Salisbury — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:05:23 -0500

Google, never one to sit idly by while there are small improvements to be made on their own web-based email client, announced this week that they would be releasing a new, experimental feature that would allow users to insert images into an email rather then sending them as attachments.

The new feature, aptly named “Inserting images,” will allow users to send email messages with inline images that show up at an exact, user-defined location inside the body of the message. Once you enable the feature in the Labs tab in Gmail’s settings, you’ll be all set to go. So be sure to check it out and let us know what you think!

Image Credit: Google

No BS Podcast #43: Now With 200 Percent More Scolding

Maximum PC Staff — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 03:11:37 -0600

This week, Dave, Will, Gordon, and Jeremy talk about all the super-secret doings in the Maximum PC lab: . We also discuss:

The ins-and-outs of overclocking!
Disasterous new computer cases!
The Best Week of Video Games Ever!11!!1!

All that, plus some Ask the Doctor goodness and Gordon's Rant of the Week.

REMEMBER! Two new contests have been unveiled! For your chance to win a SanDisk Sansa Connect MP3 player, you can either:

Photoshop your Black Friday experience (or dream Black Friday experience, if you slept in.)
Make a mash-up of an Apple/PC ad!

All the critical details are in the podcast -- the Photoshop contest ends November 30 at 10am PST and the video contest ends December 14 at 10am PST. Submit entries for the Photoshop contest to maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com with the subject line "Black Friday." Hold on to your video entries for now. We'll give you an awesome place to put them soon!

To learn more about Intel-sponsored LAN parties, go here.

Do you have a tech question? A comment? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337. Also, get your game on with the editors of Maximum PC by joining our Steam group!

Modders and modding aficionados, check out Mod Shop: submit and vote on the coolest mods around—and win prizes!

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