Opera Mobile 9.7 will support Flash and Ajax

March 26, 2009 by Paul Spoerry Leave a Comment

Ok everybody knows that Pocket Internet Explorer (aka PIE) sucks. CNet reports that Opera Mobile 9.7 will support Flash and Ajax. Opera says Turbo can squeeze down data by 80 percent, clearing through slow and stubborn network connections quicker. Opera Mobile 9.7 boasts that it passes the Acid 3 test of Web standards with 100 percent, and that it supports Google Gears and the Open GL ES standard for graphics acceleration. Oh ya, and it’ll support widgets. NICE!

It’ll originally be targeted at OEM’s (in other words… the handset makers/carriers) but they hinted that end users will get a go at it as well.

Offline Gmail .2 – you can now specify a maximum size for the downloaded attachments

February 12, 2009 by Paul Spoerry Leave a Comment

Offline Gmail has been updated to version 0.2. As with all Google Labs features it isn’t rolled out to all users yet but will show up soon. Once it’s out though you will be able to specify a maximum size for the downloaded attachments. If you don’t need to access attachments when you’re offline, you can disable the download of attachments.

A user of the Gmail Group has a workaround for those who don’t have the new version. “It seems to me that for existing users it’ll appear only when you disable and then again enable Gmail offline. And you won’t have to download your emails again; you can always choose them not to be removed while disabling Gmail offline.” To basically, disable Gears for Gmail, re-enable it once you have v0.2, and you’ll get the new enhancement.

Offline Gmail Attachment Settings

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Offline Google Calendar

February 5, 2009 by Paul Spoerry Leave a Comment

Right on the heals of the announcement that Gmail Goes Offline with Google Gears comes the announcement that Google Calendar is getting the Offline mode treatment as well. Google’s help page mentions that users can decide which calendars are available offline. “Calendar keeps you on time, even when you’re not online. Offline Calendar allows you to access your events through your browser without requiring Internet access. It’s perfect for flaky connections or for when you’re in between meetings and have no idea where you’re supposed to be next. Note that while offline, Calendar will be read-only – it will not be possible to create, edit, or delete events.”

In a very non-Google fashion, Offline Calendar is being rolled out to Google Apps users FIRST. Typically, Google Labs swag gets rolled out to regular old Gmail users first, and then it will eventually make it’s way into the Google Apps users hands. This time around, Google Apps users get first dibs.

Offline Google Calendar will work with multiple calendars, but not on first sync. Your first sync will only grab your default calendar. No worries though, once you’re synced up, you get really basic options on your Settings page to manage which calendars you want synced to your account.

The only downside… it’s read only… at least for the time being.

You can read more About Offline Calendar from Google.

Offline GMail: Is it secure?

January 29, 2009 by Paul Spoerry 2 Comments

Gmail finally provided “offline” mode via Google Gears. So when Gears is enabled you can access your Gmail from your browser any time… even when you’re not online! Ok so that’s cool… but where does it store the data and is the data secure?

When a website attempts to interact with a gears datastore it uses uses the same origin policy as its underlying security model. In a nutshell, the policy permits scripts running on pages originating from the same site to access each other’s methods and properties with no specific restrictions — but prevents access to most methods and properties across pages on different sites. This means that a web page with a particular scheme, host, and port can only access resources with the same scheme, host, and port.

This means a site using Gears:

Database: Can only open databases created for that site’s origin.
LocalServer: Can only capture URLs and use manifests from the site’s origin.

The data is stored locally using a SQLite database. The downer is that your data within this database is NOT encrypted. Gears data files are protected with the user’s operating system login credentials. Users with separate login names cannot access each other’s Gears data files… but this is only enforced by the operating system.

If two users are sharing the same login to the operating system they could theoretically access each other’s Gears data files, just as they could access any other file on the machine.

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WordPress 2.7 and Google Gears

December 13, 2008 by Paul Spoerry 1 Comment

Just upgrade to WordPress 2.7 and wonder how to enable Google Gears?

Gears is a plug-in that extends your browser to create a richer platform for web applications. You can use Gears on websites to let access information offline or provide you with content based on your geographical location. To install Gears, visit http://gears.google.com. It’s pretty cool and really speeds things up. For WordPress it is used to store all images and other web page components from the admin area to you local PC, speeding up access and reducing unnecessary web traffic.

Prior to 2.7 the admin dashboard had a “Turbo” button at the top… you’d click that and if you had Gears installed you were good to go. In WordPress 2.7 the “Turbo” button has been removed.

To enable gears login to your Admin section and go to the Tools SubPanel. Once there you have the ability to use Google Gears to make WordPress work in a “Turbo” mode. In addition, the “Press This” bookmark tool is detailed.