Finally, the online and offline worlds take a big leap toward convergence with Google’s gmail going offline. It works through a program called Google Gears that stores your data on your browser. I’ve been using Google Gears for offline access my “Remember The Milk”
Finally, the online and offline worlds take a big leap toward convergence with Google’s gmail going offline. It works through a program called Google Gears that stores your data on your browser. I’ve been using Google Gears for offline access my “Remember The Milk” online to-do list app`for a while now and it works seamlessly. I also use a lot of Gmail “Labs” features – beta releases of features that may be included in the standard version at some point – and have had nary a problem.
“Once you turn on this feature, Gmail uses Gears to download a local cache of your mail. As long as you’re connected to the network, that cache is synchronized with Gmail’s servers. When you lose your connection, Gmail automatically switches to offline mode, and uses the data stored on your computer’s hard drive instead of the information sent across the network. You can read messages, star and label them, and do all of the things you’re used to doing while reading your webmail online. Any messages you send while offline will be placed in your outbox and automatically sent the next time Gmail detects a connection. And if you’re on an unreliable or slow connection (like when you’re “borrowing” your neighbor’s wireless), you can choose to use ‘flaky connection mode,’ which is somewhere in between: it uses the local cache as if you were disconnected, but still synchronizes your mail with the server in the background.”
This is good news since I know some people who download their Gmail to other programs for offline access or don’t use Gmail at all because of that. So far, Google Apps email doesn’t have the feature – they tend to roll things out more slowly there – but if you’re like me, you have your Google Apps email forwarded into your Gmail account so you can get everything through one access point.
One other thing to note. When I went to start my offline setup it indicated that because of my volume of email (about 1gb) the program would only keep 3 months of emails, except for several folders, which it seemed to identify as useful on its own. It’s always amazing what you can do when you through billions of bucks at a problem!
All of our projects are fun, some more than others. The Website for the book The Lost City of Z was a lot of fun, partly because David Grann, writer for the venerable New Yorker Magazine, was great to work with. A self-confessed luddite, he quickly became an enthusiastic participant in his site, jumping in to add and revise copy, and always with valuable input. Here’s what he said…
“Bud Parr and Sonnet Media did something truly amazing with the website for The Lost City of Z. They not only made the site into a place where one can easily access information about the book but they also made it as visually arresting and alluring as the heart of the jungle.”
The book, which traces the disappearance of intrepid Amazonian explorer Percy Fawcett, is fantastic, by the way. It will be released on February 24th and is already being made into a film by Brad Pitt.
For David’s site we used the Expression Engine content management system, as we do on all of our sites, and created a Flash slide show to introduce the book on the home page, an image gallery, media page, and a calendar and news page.
We are very happy when we help bring great films to a new audience through the Web and working on The Greatest Silence, which won a Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, was a rewarding experience. Lisa Jackson’s film about the heinous crimes being committed against women in the Congo is an important work and hopefully through the Website Lisa’s team will enable more outreach and get the word out.
Lisa says: “Yeah Bud - you have done such an amazing job transforming our paleolithic site and turning it into something new, powerful, connecting and affecting. Thank you so much compadre.”
For this project we did a complete redesign of an existing site and incorporated a blog, screening calendar, outreach pages, Flash-based slide shows and trailer, all in an easily to update content management system.
The word google has been used as a verb for a decade now and since it became an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006 it has been part of our daily lexicon. Anyone who lives their life online has googled (the company insists on the lowercase and that one when referring to the company
The word google has been used as a verb for a decade now and since it became an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006 it has been part of our daily lexicon. Anyone who lives their life online has googled (the company insists on the lowercase and that one when referring to the company that we use the uppercase) themselves and for good reason: it’s part of the conversation.
Don’t imagine that it’s just the ultimate in narcissism, if you’re online – that is, you blog or take part in blog conversations – you want to know if someone is talking to you directly, that is, if someone is mentioning you or linking to you. Your referral stats are helpful, but they only work on a link to your site and specifically if someone clicks on the link.∗
A lot of people ask me how they can improve traffic to their site; well this is the most important thing you can do (besides hiring a great publicist). If you’re going to blog you are walking into a very busy café and you’ll never be a part of the conversation if you’re a wallflower. Pay attention to what others are blogging about in your field or subject of interest, comment on their sites and know if they mention you.
Here’s how. There’s only one catch: Google expects you to have a gmail address (if you don’t want to use gmail, that’s fine, think of this as a log-in instead of an email for daily use). They make it pretty easy to get a gmail address (a frankly, I think they’re great and use one for my personal email) and not too hard to set up forwarding to your regular address. Then just go to http://google.com/alerts. Put in your search term, such as “Bud Parr” or “Sonnet Media.” You can leave the “Type” box at comprehensive (this searches news, blogs, etc.). I’d recommend setting the “How Often” option to “As it Happens”.
That’s it, you’ll start getting emails whenever someone mentions you on the whole World Wide Web. If you need help with any of this, just “drop a line”: http://sonnetmedia.net/contact
∗I tell all my clients that if you link to someone, click on the link. You’ll know that you made the link right and you’ll essentially be letting the other person know that you’ve linked to them because you can probably count on them to be checking their referral stats.
The 2008 French Prizes for Best First Novels were announced in Paris on Tuesday, November 18th. Le Prix du Premier Roman Etranger (Best First Foreign Novel Prize) went to Dans la Ville des Veuves Intrépides (Tales from the Town of Widows) by Colombian author James Cañón.
We are very happy when we help bring great films to a new audience through the Web and working on 
Here’s how. There’s only one catch: Google expects you to have a gmail address (if you don’t want to use gmail, that’s fine, think of this as a log-in instead of an email for daily use). They make it pretty easy to get a gmail address (a frankly, I think they’re great and use one for my personal email) and not too hard to set up forwarding to your regular address. Then just go to http://google.com/alerts. Put in your search term, such as “Bud Parr” or “Sonnet Media.” You can leave the “Type” box at comprehensive (this searches news, blogs, etc.). I’d recommend setting the “How Often” option to “As it Happens”. 
