Gmail has changed the way I use email over the past year. I used to not check my email for days and sometimes even weeks. This was due to the fact that OSU‘s webmail only allowed 15mbs of storage and no spam filtering (I do believe they have finally impemented a spam filter as of writing this)! I would spend the majority of my email time sorting through spam and trying to delete my email so I would not go over my quota when a team member wanted to send me a file.

Now, I check my email many many times a day. It has almost become a routine.

Pros of Gmail

• search
• no deleting!
• conversations are stored in a message format
• checking email from my cellular phone
• files are available from anywhere when I need them
• able to spoof the from address for other email addresses

Things that could still be improved

• Implementing Google Talk to link with AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc would make it more useful as many people I know do not use Google Talk
• The implementation of Talk into Gmail seemed to have slowed down the overall page load time for Gmail
• When I hit reply from an email sent to my other email addresses and forwarded to Gmail… I want the address it was sent to to show up.

Does anyone know if Google is ever going to offer an email server, like the Google Appliance? It would be awesome to be able to run the gmail interface within a large company, but have the email addresses be support@companyname.com

If anyone would like an activation code, please leave a comment!

The following is a recipe for my latest creation, a version of Kroger’s tuna magic but from much better ingredients!

Preparation Time: 10-15 minutes

Bake Time: 20-25 minutes 

 Ingredients

• 1/2 (8 oz) package of egg noodles
• 1 can of cream of mushroom soup
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1 can of tuna fish
• frozen or fresh vegetables of choice (I used a frozen medley)
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• shredded cheese (optional)
• French fried onions (optional)
• dash of pepper
• dash of paprika
• dash of salt

Start by boiling a large pot of water for the egg noodles.  Add a dash of salt to flavor the noodles once the water starts to boil.  Cook noodles 7-8 minutes.

While waiting for water to boil combine tuna, soup, milk, pepper, and paprika in a small sauce pan and heat on low. This is easier than trying to stir all the ingredients together in the casserole dish.

At the same time, cook fresh or frozen vegetables of choice in another sauce pan.  This reduces the amount of time the dish needs to spend in the oven.

Combine egg noodles and butter to coat in 8″ x 10″ casserole dish.  Add vegetables and soup mixture.  Combine thoroughly and top with as much shredded cheese as desired.

Bake 20 minutes at 375 degrees.  Top with French friend onions if desired and bake 5 more minutes.

Enjoy!

In all the years I have had a web site I have had problems keeping it updated. I believe this was due to the fact that I was always a bit stubborn and wanted to update and completely design a site from the ground up. This just took too much time out of my college life. It also seems that the times have changed and things can be accomplished easier, without losing quality, by using open source software and tweaking it for my needs.

I plan on running this place a bit differently than my previous site as I am using WordPress to publish, manage, and stylize my content. WordPress was my choice after I tried a few other Content Management Systems (CMS) and blogging type tools. This one seemed to work the best for my goals. I intend to use this site to showcase my previous accomplishments, future plans, and also share stories/reviews/information about computer and technology related items. I look forward to always improving on my little place on the World Wide Web.