better

I was told about this add on from a colleague and have been hooked for good. I use the Gmail domain services for my email and have loved it since I was accepted into the beta program. I like the way that Gmail “just works”. It is simple in design and every feature always seems to just do what I need it to.

Until now I never thought about changing the interface. I like to play around with options if they are there but simply because they weren’t, I didn’t give it much thought until now. Bettergmail2 is a Firefox add on that allows you to customize the look and feel of the interface. If you play with it a little you can get your Gmail to look quite similar to a stand alone email client. Something that some of us are used to and liked from the past. In the end there are 3 skins plus other options to change the feel of Gmail.

It also has many other features including the forcing of HTTPS (secure HTTP) when accessing your account, force mailto links to use Gmail to send and automated showing of the CC and BBC fields.

So… go get it! You won’t be disappointed. Remember that you need Firefox and you also need to have a Gmail account to use this add on. If you have your own domain email with Google, click on the advance button on the tool and put in your domain as indicated. It works great!

I have been a cordless phone user for the majority of my life. Given that I am in my early 30’s it stands to reason that most people my age have been as well. There will always be that one story of a friend in a group that still has a single rotary phone in the house… makes me smile.

My parents went through a number of brands and so have my wife and I since being together. Our latest model is more than a year old but still in very good shape. It was a really popular model at the time made by Panasonic, came with 3 handsets, 3 chargers and the handsets would also act as intercom units to each other. The set that my wife and I had before that was also a Panasonic but it was a 2 unit model with similar features. We actually still have the other set but their batteries are finished and that was the main reason for the upgrade.

The big question and the reason for which I am writing this article is “How come my old 900mhz phones are so much better that my new 5.4 Ghz phones?”. Well I did some google searching and some investigating and from what they say in this article it seems that there is a few more variables than just the frequency.

“There are 3 main factors that affect the quality and strength of a cordless phone’s signal: traffic, how the frequency handles obstructions, and output wattage.” says Jim Hanks, the author of the article. That means that even though most of the marketing surrounding a phone upgrade or their performance is concentrated on the frequency, there is a real possibility that you don’t see an improvement or perhaps even worse; you notice deterioration.

This is what we have seen with our newest of the phone sets. Both Panasonic, both very good phones, but we notice that the audio quality and signal distance at which is operates is much better with our old 900mhz units.

The reason I brought this up is because we all talked about the frequency questions 5-10 years ago but if you are looking for a phone now, I recommend buying from a reputable store that will accept a return if you are not satisfied.

Happy calling, don’t let the phone bills get out of hand!