Google PageRank

It seems that a hot topic is about Google making some changes. These changes have caused a lot of blogs to have lower PageRanks. Why? Everyone has their own ideas.

• Removing AdSense
• Using WidgetBucks
• Selling text links

PageRank isn’t actually all that important to me, but it seems to be important to advertisers.

I decided to check if my PageRank of zero has changed. I didn’t expect it to so soon, but it turns out that it’s now a three! A three? How is that possible? The Soft Tech Reviews domain is only about four months old. I haven’t done very much except write in the blog.

So, the top blogs go down and Soft Tech Reviews goes up. Did Google make a mistake? But like Darren Rowse from ProBlogger said, Forget About PageRank and Build a Better Blog. Although I now have a PageRank of three, I’m not going to become obsessed about it.

Gmail IMAP

Google has added a new feature to Gmail. This feature is Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)! It will allow you to check your e-mail on Google’s server, rather than downloading them to your computer. This means that anytime you check your e-mail from your laptop, mobile phone and work computer, etc., your e-mail will appear as it did on either device. If you placed an e-mail in a specific folder, it will show up in that folder no matter which device you checked with! Same thing with marking e-mail as read.

I like this, because I have a laptop and a desktop computer. I had once setup a shared Outlook file between the two just so I wouldn’t have to read the same e-mails twice. IMAP is much simpler!

To find this new setting, login to Gmail and view the settings page and click on Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab. If you don’t see this tab, then you may not have this feature, yet. Help for setting this up in Thunderbird, Outlook and iPhone, etc. is also available underneath the option for turning it on. Watch this video for setting it up on the iPhone. Or even read How-to: Proper Gmail IMAP for iPhone & Apple Mail. Although the steps are specifically for the iPhone and Apple Mail, I’m sure you can figure out how to do this for other clients (e.g. Outlook or Windows Live Mail).

It appears that some people are seeing this new feature and some aren’t. So, if you check your settings in Gmail and don’t see it, don’t worry, it’s coming!

Thank you for IMAP, Google!

Plans for Soft Tech Reviews

After the talk with Easton Ellsworth, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about what I need to do. Here are my current plans for this blog:

I started to offer free advertising in August and not many were interested, so I am removing the Related Links in the sidebar. If you are interested in advertising here on Soft Tech Reviews, you still can. I will provide free advertising again in the future as a giveaway, possibly to subscribers only. Subscribe if you don’t want to miss out on this. E-mail subscription is available in the menu.

I have decided to write about 3-5 posts a week and during the weekdays only. I will not spend time writing on the weekend. I’m hoping that this will give me more time to write better content and also allow me to do other things, such as coming up with ideas for content.

iPod vs. Zune

I recently listened to the Diggnation podcast, If London’s Calling…, starring Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht. During part of the podcast, they were discussing the old Zune getting new features and then they started talking about the new Zune and the features that the iPod Touch is missing.

I have never really been a fan of the iPod, but I do have one (30GB iPod Video). I love it because it takes up very little space and I can listen to music and podcasts and watch videos no matter where I am. There are a few things I don’t like about it:

• The click wheel is the most annoying way to move through menu options. Sometimes it even causes me to bypass the option I want. Having to remember which part to click to go back is annoying as well. If the click wheel was labeled better, it might be slightly easier.
• The battery drains when I’m not using it. Maybe mine came with a bad battery, I don’t know. But, it could be just a week that I haven’t used the iPod (fully charged battery) and I will turn it on and it tells me it needs to be charged!
• The blinking “Do not disconnect.” icon.
• iTunes may have a few nice features, but it is slow! Let me choose how I want to put my music on my iPod, please. And, in the format I want it in!
• Calendar, Contacts, Notes, etc. I don’t really care about any of that if I can’t edit directly from the iPod.
• It’s not wireless. (I know the iPod Touch has this, but I don’t own one.)

Even though there are several things I don’t like about the iPod, I still like it. But, the Zune has some nice features that the iPod is lacking:

• Playing Windows Media Audio (.wma) and Windows Media Video (.wmv).
• Wireless. (Again, I know the iPod Touch has this feature.)
• FM Radio! There are many times I’d like to listen to just the radio.
• Faster charge time.

I would gladly trade my 30GB iPod Video for either a new Zune or even better, an iPod Touch. I know the iPod Touch is currently at 8GB and 16GB, which is much less than 30GB, but I know the size will eventually increase, right Apple?

Meebo Firefox Extension

Meebo has released a Firefox extension for its web messenger. Lots of people have been waiting for them to release something to eliminate keeping Meebo in a tab. Although this doesn’t mean you can close the tab, it doesn’t need to be currently active to know that you have received a message or that someone is online.

I first heard about this extension from Chris over at Solo Technology. He’s the same one who made it possible to Run Meebo As Its Own Application.

I am impressed with this extension. I don’t install very many extensions, because I don’t like to slow Firefox down, it already uses enough memory by itself. Besides, the browser is perfect as it is.

As you can see from the screenshots, it visually notifies you that you’ve received a new message or that someone has gone online/offline.

What I Like

• I like the notification popups above the system tray.
• I like that there are several different ways of letting me know that I have new messages.
• I like the look of Meebo in the sidebar, even though it could be improved (see What I Don’t Like).

What I Don’t Like

• I like that it shows the recent messages, but does it necessarily need to list all of them? I should be able to customize this to display at least the last five recent messages so my contact list doesn’t scroll so much.
• When listing the recent messages, they should be separated from any messages above or below. It’s easy to see that each message has a timestamp and is in quotes, but they are just too close to each other.
• I like the notification popup above the system tray, but it moves too quickly! I would like to see an option to set the length of time it sits there and how many popups are shown at a time. Currently, if there’s a new message right after another one, it displays the most recent one, so the previous popup disappears too quickly.
• The tab must go. Even though I don’t need to constantly look at it now, it still adds to the memory usage. It would be great if messages could appear in the current tab even if Meebo isn’t the current tab. And, possibly minimize to Firefox’s status bar (or above it).

Overall, I like this extension even with a few annoyances. I hope to see more improvements in the future. Just don’t take away the features that I like, please!