According to MozillaZine - users should update to Firefox 0.9.1 and Thunderbird 0.7.1.

Donate $5 or more to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and qualify to win a Gmail account. 31+ Gmail invites are up for grabs.
[ via kottke.org ]

I gave 45 Gmail invites to Gmail Machine to randomize off - but the site hasn't updated in the past 3 days - and the person's e-mail address was hacked - yadda yadda... So I decided I will post my latest batch of Gmail invites in the comments here. If the Gmail Machine comes back up, I will post more there - since I really like the idea.

Please only take one per person - posting thanks in the comments would be nice too.

I haven't seen anyone cover some of the undocumented filters trick you can do with Gmail. Gmail doesn't even have a "how to" on filters yet. The reason they don't have a "how to" is because it's pretty dang simple (oh yea, and its in beta still).

You can setup a filter to automatically do actions on an e-mail such as: Skip the Inbox (Archive it), Star it, Apply a label, or Move it to the Trash. These filters can be based upon a combination of: From, To, Subject, Has the words, Doesn't have the words, and Has attachment.

I haven't pushed the limited, but from this tricks 'n' tidbits page I see that Gmail currently has a limit of 20 filters.

So I offer the follow tip for creating less filters: Use "|" (OR) and "*" (wildcard) characters to catch multiple e-mail addresses and apply a general filter.

Example 1:
Starring and Labeling e-mails from specified buddies of mine. I setup a label called "Buddies". Then I go and create a new filter. The "From" field can contain multiple e-mail addresses, but not a comma delimited list like one might first expect. You need to separate each e-mail address with a "|" (pipe) which means "OR".

From: joe.shmoe@hotmail.com|Bob.Dole|geek@foo.com

The above example will catch e-mail from either joe.shmoe@hotmail.com, Bob.Dole@gmail.com (notice in my filter I didn't specify "@gmail.com", this is because you don't need the domain when referencing other Gmail users - same for when composing an e-mail), or geek@foo.com.

Click "Next Step"...

Then just select the "Star it" option, and select the "Buddies" label. Now all new messages from these three friends will be starred and labeled automatically.

Example 2:
Very similar to example 1 but now using "*" wildcards. This filter catches all e-mail from vendors I frequently make on-line purchases with. Some vendors like Amazon.com will use multiple e-mail addresses when I make a single purchase - one when I first place my order and then another when my items ship.

First I create a filter "On-line Shopping". Then I go and create new filter with the following...

From: *@amazon.com|*@paypal.com|*@ebay.com|*@buy.com|*@thinkgeek.com

The above covers a few places that I purchase items from - your list of course will vary, but you get the idea. And depending upon how avid of an eBay seller/buying you are - you may want a separate label.

Personally, I "Star it" and apply the "On-line Shopping" label to this filter as well. Then, when an order arrives and the transaction is complete, I manually unstar and "Archive" the e-mail, and it will always be available by the label search.

So, I hope I was able to open a few eyes to the possibilities of using filters. Now... to test Regular Expressions in filters???

Ray Camden recently posted an entry to his blog that is a fantasic idea - A mute button for your web browser. His idea is simple and brilliant. Unfortunately the comments on his entry go every which way and people are posting about disabling Macromedia Flash altogether, making a context menu item to mute an object, Flash designers making their animation silent by default, or muting the entire PC. All these ideas are wrong, but if you stay on topic it's a great idea.

How many of you play music / talk radio all day long on your computer (using WinAmp, iTunes, etc.), and are annoyed when you are browsing the web and all of a sudden there is additional music or talking on top of whatever you are currently trying to listen to. It's annoying as can be.

Now - if there was a browser feature or extension to mute the browser as a whole (this includes MIDI sounds, background sounds, embedding audio/video files such as Quick time movies, Real Media, Window Media Player, Macromedia Flash, etc).

Firefox does a builtiful job of blocking pop-up automatically, and displaying a little icon in the corner alerting me a popup was blocked, and gives me the open to display the popup if I wish. It boogles my mind sometimes that this tiny icon catches my attention and works so well, but it does.

Now... if it could so the same with audio feeds, and just display a simple icon saying that sound is blocked, and if you click on it, it will let the sound play. This feature would have to not interfere with any other applications. It would have to be browser window specific, and in the case of "tabbed" browsers (Moz, Opera, Safari, etc) it would have to be browser tab specific. I find when I browse the web I will open 15+ tabs at a time, and often 1 of these tabs has a web page that is playing music or making some type of noise, and it's annoying... I usually try and hunt it down and close it quickly so I can enjoy the rest of the pages in peace.

So... if there is any one else that aggrees that this is a needed browser feature, spread the word, link to Ray's entry, and if you are capible of making an Firefox extension yourself, please do so. And then e-mail me.

Download Firefox 0.9. Never before have I really felt so strongly about a single product as I do about Firefox. It's almost lame. If I was famous I would be offering to endorse this product. Too bad my days as the cinnamon guy didn't make me a superstar. I have been using Firefox/Mozilla since [still trying to locate date/blog entry], I think Firefox (which was then called Phoenix) was in version 0.4. And even then it rock my browsing world.

And apparently I am not the only one, according to recent browser statistics Mozilla now commands over 11% of the browser market share (up from 4.6% last May). Go Moz go!

So for the first time ever I noticed "WiFi Interference". Interestingly enough, it happened two times within the same hour.

I was transferring about 4 GB of files from my desktop to my notebook which was right next to my couch on an end table. While transferring, I received a phone call. We have Siemens brand wireless phones. And the call was constantly cutting out making it almost impossible to talk. This has never happened before.

After that, I decided to play some Viewtiful Joe on my Nintendo GameCube. I use the Nintendo WaveBird wireless controllers which under normal circumstances are just awesome. The best wireless controller I have ever owned. But during the on-going transfer the controller would either not send the signal, or the signal was being "cut up". Meaning that if I held the D-pad left, that Nintendo received a signal as if I was repeatedly pressing left briefly.

So both the phone call and the game play was in a state of un-usability.

Do you have any experiences of WiFi interference? If so drop me a comment.

Also... I am wondering how I can remedy this. If I switch from 802.11b to 802.11g would the frequencies be different? If you have any answers please post a comment as well.