There are certain phrases like addresses, greetings, custom signatures that repeat themselves quite often — which may be a bother, especially if you’re not into typing. Text expansion utilities are great for such tasks. You can create snippets that expand to your liking, thereby greatly reducing your work. Not only that, if you often misspell some words, you can use these tools to provide system-wide auto-correction tailored to your needs. Autokey is one such utility for your Linux computer.

You can install Autokey via your distro’s package manager. For example, this is how you would install it on Ubuntu. You can search for Autokey in the Synaptic Package Manager and mark it for installation or you can use "sudo apt-get install Autokey" instead.

Once installed, you will find it listed under Application > Accessories on your Gnome desktop. Go ahead and fire it up. You will be greeted by a relatively clean and simple UI to begin with. Click and expand ‘My Phrases’. Now click on ‘First Phrase’ to see what Autokey has to offer.

A ‘phrase’ is basically a snippet of text that would be expanded or triggered whenever the criteria you specify is met. You can start by giving your phrase a name that will be used to identify it. This text will neither be expanded, nor would it be the expansion. Phrase contents is where you should enter the expanded version of the text. This may be something you type often; like an address, your email signature or anything. At this point, you have essentially created a phrase.

Now you need to tell Autokey when and how you want to trigger this phrase. There are a couple of options at your disposal here:

• You can create an abbreviation for your text which when encountered, will be replaced by the text you specified above.
• You can also create hotkeys that can be used to trigger a phrase.

Let’s look at an example to see Autokey in action. Say, you want to create an email signature phrase for one of your email accounts. Here is how you will go about it:

• Click on the Autokey icon in the tray and choose configure.
• Right-click on any folder and choose ‘New Phrase’. You can create additional folders if you want to organise your phrases better.
• Type in a name for your phrase. Lets call it ‘myMuoSign’
• Next, in the phrase description box, type in the email signature that you want to use

  

• Now, check "Use Abbreviation" in the Abbreviation tab towards the bottom.
• Type in the Abbreviation that you would like to be expanded (say muosign) for the text you entered.

That is it, you are done with a basic phrase that just works. Now whenever you type ‘muosign’ it will be expanded to the email signature that you typed above. While we are here, let’s look at some additional options that Autokey offers.

First off, you can also trigger the phrase with a hotkey. To do so, you simply configure a hotkey in the Hotkey tab. Choose a modifier (or a combination of modifiers) listed in the tab and then click on ‘set key’. The next key you press along with the modifiers (Ctrl, Shift, Alt, Windows Key) you selected will form the hotkey that you can use to insert the text phrase at any location.

The third tab, Window Filter allows you to limit the scope of text expansion for this particular phrase. You can tell Autokey to expand just the text if you are working inside Firefox. All you have to to is to specify a pattern that would match the text in the title of the window where you want the expansion to take place. *Firefox* would work nicely.

You can also have Autokey ask for confirmation before expanding the text. You can make certain phrases what Autokey calls, tray phrases. Such phrases are available for insertion via the tray icon. In addition, Autokey lets you temporarily disable expansion from the tray menu as well.

Autokey is a great tool if you do a lot of typing on your computer. With a set of well crafted abbreviations and hotkeys, you can greatly reduce your typing efforts. Have you been using clever hacks to achieve something similar? Why not share with us in the comments?

Software can get outdated, you might have cruft and then there are chores related to the operating system itself – registry, virus cleaning and the likes.

While you might have to shop around in the local market for hardware maintenance, for software PC maintenance we have some very good free utilities that you should check out.

1. Cleaning Tools

As is obvious from the name, these help you keep your system clean. What they clean your system of, depends on what you are using. There are registry cleaners, file system cleaners, secure file erasers and general purpose all in one solutions.

Most of these operate on the registry, optimizing it for performance. There are others which delete temporary files and dangling shortcuts. While the gain is not substantial, you might experience a snappier performance if you have not cleaned up your computer for a while.

As for the solutions available – CCleaner is well known in the field. It can clean browser tracks and cookies for almost all popular browsers out there, take care of unused icons, invalid shortcuts, DLLs and clean the MRU and recent document history as well.

Another popular choice is nCleaner. nCleaner offers similar functionality along with scan scheduling, a tweaks manager, services manager, a resource monitor and system advisor.

2. Uninstaller

The Windows Control Panel provides functionality that lets you remove unwanted applications from your computer. It does a decent job for the occasional use that you might put it to. However, if you try out a number of software, or if you have experienced a stubborn software that refuses to uninstall, you should look into some of the 3rd party software managers and uninstallers.

Revo Uninstaller and IObit Uninstaller are the better ones out there. They offer features like letting you track the most storage hungry software or the ones you rarely use in addition to managing installed Windows updates. Such software usually features a force uninstall mode that lets you override settings or locked files that may be preventing an uninstaller from functioning.

3. Software Updater

Keeping software up to date is important. Not only for keeping up with the latest features but also for bug fixes and security updates. Many software these days have an update feature built in, web browsers being an excellent example. The software can talk to a server and let you know of important updates or newer versions.

For other software that do not have the feature built in or if you are more interested in a Linux-like centralized update mechanism, you can have a look at some of the previously covered software updaters. AppSnap, QWinApt or Techtracker should be a good place to start.

In addition there are other ways like subscribing to update feeds and some additional tools are detailed here.

4. System Info Tools

While these do not help with maintenance in a direct way, these are certainly indispensable when you need to figure out what is going on with the computer. There are tools that let you view detailed information about your computer and then there are those which can let you monitor the performance of the computer and what is going on inside.

5. Troubleshooter/Fixer

It is very difficult to offer a generalized solution for each and every problem your computer might run into. There can be network issues, security issues, slowdown due to cruft or under performing hardware, each asks for a different course of action.

That being said, there are certain issues that crop up frequently and are encountered by many users. Automated detection and fixes are available for many such problems.

Windows troubleshooting is a good place to start. In addition there are software like FixWin and Microsoft’s FixIt center that take care of such common problems for you. If you are still stuck, hop over to MakeUseOf Answers, and we will try to help you along!

Many problems can also be attributed to viruses and spyware, so you should keep a good antivirus or malware removal tools like McAfee’s Stinger and Malicious Software Removal tool handy.

If you know of any other good PC maintainance software that we might have missed, give us a heads up in the comments!

Evolution does that for Linux, but Thunderbird falls short of the much needed integration. This is where SpiceBird comes in. SpiceBird is built on top of Mozilla’s offerings so you will feel at home if you have been using Thunderbird. SpiceBird also brings much more to the table when compared to Thunderbird, as you shall see.

You can download and install SpiceBird here for both Windows and Linux. The installer is around 12MB in size and installs in a snap. Once installed, fire it up and you will see a tabbed interface. The various tabs give you access to all the features SpiceBird has to offer. This is in contrast to Thunderbird where the tabs don’t quite feel they have been utilized to the fullest out of the box.

Let’s briefly look at the various tabs (and thus the features) of SpiceBird.

The Home Tab

The home tab is a lot like your iGoogle page. You can add and manage tiny widgets to it. These widgets can be used to display a preview of your inbox(es) or time in different zones or you can use them to keep up with your favorite RSS feeds.

You can display upcoming tasks or add one of the many iGoogle gadgets available out there. The possibilities are almost limitless and you can add just about any gadget you have on your iGoogle page to the home tab.

Click on Add Applets in the tool bar and then choose Google Gadget. Now, copy the address of the iGoogle Gadget from the gadget’s description and paste it on the page. This should load the gadget in your SpiceBird home tab.

You can drag and drop widgets onto the page and arrange them to your liking. What’s also nice is the fact that SpiceBird picks up your default system theme and tries to mimic it.

The Inbox Tab

The dialog seems familiar? Yes, it is the same you get when you configure a new account with Thunderbird. The Inbox tab will seem familiar to most Thunderbird users. It looks and functions the same as well.

You can configure your mail accounts, which will appear on the left side. You can open an e-mail in a new tab or new window if you prefer. In addition you will find that you can use most of Thunderbird’s functionality out of the box with SpiceBird.

Contacts, Calendar & Tasks Tab

We can safely group these together under one header as they all work as you would expect any contacts or calendar application to work. You can add your chat accounts in the Contacts tab and use them to manage and store your contacts.

The Calendar provides standard functionality without the Google Calendar sync which is a big blow. You can still import and export iCal files if that suffices for you.

You can also create tasks inside the tasks tab, set task priorities, categorize them as you see fit and even mark the progress on your tasks.

All in all SpiceBird works well and does a good job of providing a single interface for tasks that you need to perform daily. The tabbed interface to track your tasks, calendar and emails all in one application is a big plus. The ability to add Google Gadgets to the start page is awesome.

That being said, it’s not all praises for SpiceBird.

The application would gain immense popularity if they can offer sync with popular services like Google Calendar and Remember the Milk. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if this is indeed preventing users from adopting SpiceBird as their default application. Also there is a lot of scope for improvement with regards to integration between all the features that SpiceBird provides. I could view my tasks, events and mail on the homepage, but I had to toil around to add an event to the mail.

How do you like your e-mail clients? All in one solutions or plain simple email goodness? We would love to hear your thoughts.

Once you are online, you can view which of your friends are online and they will be able to see you online as well. Generally, Facebook only provides the options to go offline or online. Apart from this, the only other status available is ‘Idle’ which appears next to your name after a prolonged period of inactivity.

But how can you be invisible on Facebook to certain users? This is how.

You can also create lists to group your friends in Facebook. The lists appear in the chat interface as well. In addition, you can also create new lists to group your friends from the chat window. This is the functionality that we would be using to appear offline. For completeness, here is how you create a list from the chat interface.

• Click on the Friend Lists label in the chat window. A dialog will pop up asking you for list name.

  

• Key in a name for the list and hit Enter. This will create a list in your chat window.
• When the list is empty, Facebook displays a message letting you know that you can drag and drop friends’ names to make them a part of the list. Go ahead, choose the ones that you want to put in a list and they will be added.

  

• Lists, as you might expect, are persistent; meaning that they will be there just as you left them the last time you logged out of Facebook. You can create as many lists as you want to group your friends; and as I will show you, to appear offline to them.

For this purpose, we need at least one list in your chat window. Follow the steps detailed above to create a list, you can name your list anything that you want. I have named one of my lists as "invisible". As soon as the list is created, you will notice a "toggle button" next to the list name in your chat window.

This button lets you appear online or offline to a list of friends depending upon its state. Coupled with the fact that you can easily drag and drop contacts in and out of a list, this is a good trick to appear online to a select list of friends and appear offline to others. Just drag the contacts you want to appear offline to into the "invisible" list and then click on the toggle button/switch next to "invisible" so that it switches to gray. You will now appear offline to contacts in the "invisible" list, while everyone else can see you online.

Caveats You Should Be Aware Of

• The entire method works well, as I mention above. However, those with a keen eye would have noticed that once you go offline to a list of contacts, you seize to see them online in your list as well. This means you cannot tell if they are still logged in or if they have logged out. This is not much of a hindrance if you want to stay away from certain contacts, but it is not the true “invisible” behavior either. Just so you know.
• The would also not work if you decide to use third party applications for Facebook chat.

  

• Due to the way Facebook chat lists work, you cannot add contacts to the list once you have toggled it to offline. If you want to move another contact into the list or move any out of the "invisible" list you have to toggle it to online, then edit it and go offline again. Hardly elegant, for my liking at least

Other than these minor caveats, you can edit the lists to your liking and delete them altogether if you don’t feel the need to use them anymore. The lists you create in chat are also visible in the Account > Edit Friends section, just like any other lists you create.

Go ahead, give this a try and let us know it works for you. Do you use the invisible functionality on other IM networks? Would you like Facebook to provide this functionality directly?

The word to really pay attention to is “Interface”. If you have any experience at all with programming, all kinds of abstractions and contracts must be coming to your mind when you hear the word “interface” but we are more interested in the classical meaning of the term.

An interface is a common boundary between two separate systems. It is the means or the medium via which these two systems communicate.

Definition

An API is the interface implemented by an application which allows other applications to communicate with it.

Why Is It Needed?

In one word – communication. You might ask why communication is so important. Just imagine Notepad couldn’t copy-paste to and from Microsoft Word or Google Chrome. Imagine having to type each and every time although the text is already there in some other application. This is only one of the examples of communication between applications and all this communication is made possible via APIs.

What Is It Really?

You cannot run an API like you would run say a Notepad application. This is because APIs are generally invisible to the end users like you and me. APIs are carefully thought out pieces of code created by programmers for their applications that allow other applications to interact with their application.

APIs are specially crafted to expose only chosen functionality and/or data while safeguarding other parts of the application which provides the interface. Creating an API is indeed time well spent, because ultimately the more applications that interact with your application the more popular it becomes.

An excellent example is Twitter. Most people prefer their favorite Twitter client instead of the web interface. You can interact with Twitter whether you are using a mobile phone, a smart phone, an iPod or a computer. This has been made possible by the excellent Twitter API.

What Is It Good For?

As we have seen, APIs facilitate communication allowing different applications to communicate effectively with each other. So these are really well suited for extending a platform and for mashups. We have already seen Twitter as an example of how APIs are useful in extending a platform. When you combine data or functionality from more than one application to create another application, you have essentially created a mashup.

Such mashups are extremely popular on the Internet these days. The Internet thrives on communication so it is an ideal place to take advantage of APIs. It is a common practice to expose part of your functionality or data as an API to others on the Web. They can then tap into what you offer, combine it with what they (or someone else) offers and then provide improved and added functionality to their users.

Yelp for example has data on restaurants, hotels, shopping destinations and other local services but it would be a wasteful and tedious job if they set out to create their own Maps engine to let users know where the various destinations are. So instead they tap into the Google Maps API and plot their data on top of it, thereby increasing the utility of their service to the end user. This is a typical use of an API.

Popular APIs You Can Use Or Try

APIs are all over the place. The most popular ones are the Web APIs like Google Maps API, Twitter API and the Flickr API. These are not the only ones though. You can find a complete, classified and searchable directory of APIs at Programmable Web and WebMashup. Here you can see the level of interest in an API, what services are provided by the API and which services are making use of the API.

How you actually use an API depends upon your needs and your level of expertise. You might want to create the next big thing on the Internet, in which case you would most likely need to program for the Web using languages such as PHP, ASP.NET, Java or Python. A good starting point is to visit the official API page for the service you choose. Look for libraries others have written in the language of your choice. Usually these libraries make your job a lot easier and faster. Twitter for example mentions a number of these libraries on its API wiki. You can also find tutorials, official documentation and best practices on these pages.

APIs have existed in one form or another for a very long time. The first communication between cooperating applications may or may not have been through an officially documented API, but nowadays they are an important component of your application especially if yours is a Web application.

Have you ever created or used an API? We would love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

Let’s just turn the tables a bit. How about an iPhone remote control app that lets you control your iPhone using your computer?  Especially if you bitten by the texting bug! Now you can type fast and do work on your laptop while having the iPhone open in a separate application on your computer. Interested? Let’s see how you can do it.

We are going to be using the iPhone as a VNC server. Apple, of course wouldn’t allow such a feat to be accomplished on their cherished device, so you won’t find any such application in the Apple App Store. However, you might be aware that another very popular platform exists where you can get free and paid apps that you won’t find on Apple’s App Store. I am talking about Cydia.

Before we proceed any further I must mention a disclaimer. Jailbreaking has recently been legalized in the United States but you might want to check your local laws if you are outside the United States. Also keep in mind that jailbreaking will void your Apple warranty.

We need a jailbroken device for Cydia and we need Cydia for Veency which is the app that lets you connect to your iPhone remotely via VNC and thus control it from your computer. Veency is of course not the only app that jailbroken device owners might be interested in. There are lots of them available via Cydia that let you tweak your iPhone in ways no other app on the App Store would let you do.

Jailbreaking is easier than ever before with the latest app called jailbreakme. The actual process is however beyond the scope of our discussion here.

Installing Veency

• Open Cydia on your iPhone. Let it download the packages and do its thing. Now go to search and look for Veency.

• Click or tap on Veency. You will be able to see details of the Veency Package. Browse through them to know more about it.
• Once satisfied you can click the Install button towards the top right.
• Cydia will ask for confirmation before proceeding and show you a summary of what will be changed

• Confirm and Veency will be downloaded and installed on your iPhone.

Using Veency

From a configuration point of view you only need to ensure that WiFi is switched on your iDevice before you can access it remotely. You will also need to know the IP address that gets assigned to your device. You already know this if you assigned it manually.

Else you can find the IP address assigned to your device by visiting Settings > General. Then click on the blue arrow next to WiFi network name and you should find your settings listed there.

Accessing Remotely

Your iDevice now has a VNC server installed. So you should be able to connect easily using a VNC client. We have covered a number of them before. TightVNC stands out if you are on Windows. Download and install it from here. A portable version is also available if you are so inclined. Once that is out of the way, fire it up.

Next up you need to enter the IP address we determined above. And confirm the VNC request:

Once you are connected you will be able to use your iPhone remotely via your computer.

This is especially handy when typing long messages or accessing your iPhone in another room. There are certain downsides as well. Since you are using this with the mouse you won’t be able to replicate all the ground breaking gestures that make the iPhone so special.

I didn’t get the opportunity to test the setup with a magic mouse or magic trackpad. It would be interesting to know how things behave with these devices in the equation. Maybe some of you can let us know?

The effect is relatively simple to create (although not entirely obvious). A panoramic photo works best.

Most digital cameras these days have a setting that let you create panoramas. Even if your camera doesn’t have such a setting you can click a couple of photos where the right end of a photo overlaps with the left hand side of the next photo, then import them inside Photoshop to stitch a panorama. There are also a number of tools specially designed to help you stitch a panorama.

A photo with tall structures and a relatively uniform bottom or top part (like a sky or river) works best for this kind of effect. Another very important requirement is that the left and right edge of the photo should be as similar as possible, or else you will be able to make out where the two ends join. I discuss at the end of this article how you can remedy this.

• Open up the image in Photoshop or GIMP if you so prefer.

• Now we need to make our image a square. In Photoshop you would go to Image > Image Size, uncheck Constrain Proportions and then make the height the same as the width. (In GIMP you would use Image > Scale image and unlink the Width and Height)

• Now choose Image > Image Rotation and rotate the image by 180 degrees (GIMP: Tools > Transform Tools > Rotate). This step is optional but you might need to play around. Whatever is on top after this step will become the inside of the circle and whatever is at the bottom will become the outside environment of the final image!

• We are almost there, just one last step left. Go to Filters > Distort > Polar Coordinates and in the dialog that shows up choose “Rectangular to Polar“. (In GIMP use Filters > Distorts > Polar Coordinates)

• That’s it, the effect is done. Depending upon the image you chose, you might have to add a couple of finishing touches to your image. One of the most common problems that shows up is a harsh noticeable edge between what was previously the left and right ends of the image.

Let’s see how we can quickly get rid of it:

• The easiest way is to duplicate one edge of the image and paste it as a new layer on top of the image.
• Move this duplicated edge over to the other end (if you duplicated the left edge move it over to the right and vice versa). Once in place you need to decide if the two ends look similar now, don’t worry about the fact that you created a hard noticeable joint in the process, we will get rid of it in a moment.

• If the two edges look similar, then all we need to do is blend in the harsh edge. This can be done by adding a layer mask to the duplicated edge layer and then painting with a soft black brush on the layer mask. This will start revealing the bottom layer and things will start to blend in. Don’t go too far with this, as soon as the hard obvious edge disappears, stop right there.
• Now repeat the steps above and this time you should get a “seamless” result!

You can now rotate the image around and add a bit of contrast to give it that “out of the world” look! Feel free to try other variations and to play with the contrast and colors to add a bit more to your image.

We would love to hear your thoughts about the effect and see some of the results as well.

WinGuard Pro offers to simplify a lot of these tasks by providing a number of such functions bundled together in a tiny little utility.

You can download the WinGuard Pro computer security and access control software here. The download size is under 1 MB and the software installs in a snap. It does however require you to restart your computer. Once you log back in, you can access WinGuard Pro and its features.

The main user interface for WinGuard Pro is the configuration tool. The tool is locked on first run and the default password is “LETMEIN“. Key it in to get access to WinGuard Pro’s feature set. Let’s review some of the features and have a look at what WinGuard Pro offers.

Once you log into the Configuration tool, you are presented with a tabbed interface that gives you access to WinGuard Pro’s features.

Lock down programs or tasks

WinGuard Pro lets you lock down specific programs, folders or tasks via the Tasks tab. Just place a check against the application/feature or folder that you want to lock down and WinGuard Pro will prevent the standard user from accessing the program/feature or the folder.

Now whenever Notepad is accessed, the user will have to enter a password before he/she can use it. There are a number of options available that you can lock via a simple check within this tab. The options range from the command prompt, System Restore, etc. with security in mind; to Windows Media Player, Messenger with parental controls in mind.

File and Folder Encryption

WinGuard Pro also lets you encrypt and decrypt files and folders according to your choice. Be warned that this might not be the solution you are looking for if you want to encrypt an entire partition or a USB drive. Truecrypt is your best bet in that case. However, if you want to encrypt a folder or two without getting obsessed with encryption and all the plethora of options that accompany any decent encryption software, WinGuard Pro lets you do that.

Just browse for the folder you want to encrypt, choose a folder and you are done. To read files, click the Decrypt button, browse to the folder and key in your password!

Prevent selected actions on the computer

Next up, lets have a look at the More tab. In here, you can lock down actions like file download and software installation along with certain Windows features like Task Manager and Windows Explorer. You can also go a step beyond and lock down all browsers if you so please.

In addition, there are other options that can help you streamline how WinGuard Pro functions and behaves. You can for instance, exclude the Administrator account from all the access control features. That is you will be able to log in as the administrator and do all your chores as if WinGuard Pro never existed. All other accounts except the Administrator account are treated as the Standard user accounts. You can also deploy the same configuration to different computers by using the Import/Export functionality.

On the whole, WinGuard Pro is a feature-rich, no fuss and functional software for access control. On the down side, it’s not free from issues. The UI could be improved a lot. As an example, consider this – what do you expect to see when you want to browse for a folder that you want to encrypt? A browse button perhaps? In here, you would have to click on the label to get the browse dialog. Everything detailed above is available in the free version of the software. You can also purchase a premium version of the software that gives you finer control over application lock down and folder encryption. The premium version is also available as a 60-day trial.

What are you favorite access control software for Windows? Let us hear about them in comments.

However, people have been wondering how in the world would you be able to use such an OS for all the tasks that you might need to do on your computer? Well if Google had its way, you would see Google services for everything. With Docs and Spreadsheets being constantly improved, PDF support and viewing being added, Gmail getting better by the day and photo editing support within Picasa, they have many of the common uses covered.

Now, add to that the fact that the Chrome web browser lets you install apps a lot like you do on your mobile phones. Yes, you read that right, there are plans for a Chrome Web Store, that will be housing web apps, games and utilities you will be able to add to your browser and do all kinds of things.

While we have showed you how you can try out the Chrome OS, you don’t have to go that far to try out Chrome Web Apps. All you need is the Dev Channel of Google Chrome. Google Chrome web browser, if you don’t know, has a number of channels. The Dev channel gets updates faster than the BETA channel, but is believed to be less thoroughly tested.

However, I always run the Dev channel and from my experience I can say that if you are not running a production critical task, you can perhaps run the Dev channel safely (there might be an odd crash or two).

Get The Dev Channel

If you are starting anew with Google Chrome, subscribing to a particular channel is easy. All you need to do is download and run the appropriate installer and it will install the Google Chrome version corresponding to that particular channel.

Here are the links to various installers:

• Stable channel: http://www.google.com/chrome?platform=win
• Beta channel: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=betachannel
• Dev channel: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=devchannel

If however you already have Google Chrome installed on your computer and you decide to switch channels, you should back up your profile data and then install Google Chrome from the required channel.

Enable Web Apps Support

Once you have the Dev channel running on your computer, you still need to enable support for Web Apps. Remember that this is an experimental feature for now so keep it in mind if you see stability issues (it has been working like a charm for me).

Here is what you need to do:

• Add the “–enable-apps” and “–apps-panel” switch to the Chrome executable. You can either run chrome.exe from the command line with this switch or create a batch file for the same. An even better solution is to modify the Chrome shortcut to include the switch, within the target box, just like this:

• Fire up Chrome and it should start with web apps support enabled. To verify, just hit “Ctrl + T” and you should see a floating panel instead of the new tab’s page!

How To Use Web Apps

After you have switched to the Dev Channel and enabled support for Web Apps, you will want to play with some web apps and see how they feel and behave.

Head over to the extensions manager inside Google Chrome. Enter chrome://extensions in the address bar.

• Expand the Developer Mode link towards the top right corner.

• Click on “Load Unpacked Extensions”. Browse to Users/<your username>/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/Application/<Chrome version>/Resources folder (for Windows users, Mac Users look inside ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/, Linux users - ~/.config/google-chrome/). There you will find 3 default apps provided by Google for Gmail, Docs and Calendar. Click on any of these folders and choose OK. This will install the web app.

• Now hit Ctrl + T and you should see something like this :

• Click on Gmail and it will load as a separate Application tab towards the left of your tab bar.

Go on, give it a try and let us know how you like it. Would it be possible to create web apps that will replace desktop apps and let you use and work only from your browser?  It is also easy to create your own Chrome web apps but that is however best left for another day!

Until very recently, you had to resort to various hacks, tools or different browsers if you wanted to use multiple Google accounts at a given time. However, now there is an official Google way, which allows you to sign into multiple accounts at the same time.

How to use the feature is not entirely evident, partly because you wouldn’t know it exists until you happen to stumble upon it. Let’s see how to enable multiple sign-in and then we shall look at the pros and cons of the feature.

To Enable Multiple Sign-in

• Log into one of the Google services such as Gmail, Reader, Calendar or Docs. Click on settings and most likely you will have an option to edit the Google Account settings. For example in Gmail you can find such an option under the accounts tab, in Reader it shows up as a menu option in the settings drop down.

• You can also visit the Google Account Settings directly if need be.
• Once you are there, notice that the “Multiple Sign-in” option is off by default. Click on the Edit link next to the option to change this.

• You will be taken to a page that details what Multiple sign-in is, how it works and what services currently support it. Click on the radio button next to On and it enables a set of checkboxes.

• Each of these checkboxes highlight an important aspect of multiple sign-in. You should read through them and check them once you have read the points.
• Now click Save towards the bottom and this should enable multiple sign-in.

Use Multiple Sign-in

Following the above steps, multiple sign-in should be enabled for your Google Account. Reload any of the Google services or log back in and you will see a drop down arrow besides your Google Account ID. Click on it to reveal “Sign in to another account“. Click it and you should be taken to the log in page asking for credentials to another account.

Once you are successfully logged into the second account you will be able to view each of them in the same drop down menu and switch back and forth between the accounts with a simple click.

The Pros & Cons

As always there are some pros and cons that you should consider when you choose to enable multiple sign in. First off, the biggest advantage is the fact that you don’t have to rely on third party tools, different browsers or the incognito mode to sign into different accounts. Having such a feature coming straight out of Google’s machines is a lot more reliable.

You can easily have two Gmails or two Google Calendars (or any other supported) accounts open in separate tabs in the same browser, which is a lot better and more productive. All you have to do is load Gmail in two tabs and then switch accounts in one of the tabs.

The obvious shortcomings of the feature is that it is not available for all Google Products at this moment. In particular it is limited to Gmail, Calendar, Reader, Code, Voice and Sites, which if you ask me covers pretty much all of the products where you might want to use multiple sign ins often.

Another potential pitfall is the fact that enabling multiple sign-in disables offline Gmail and Calendar functionality, which is something you should keep in mind, if you use these products offline.

I Need Multiple Sign In On Other Products

Yeah, we hear you. Chances are you might want to use multiple Google accounts with other products as well. For such cases, your options are essentially the same that you had before Google came along with this offering, namely:

• Use two different browsers. Most of us have Internet Explorer on our computers and installed an additional browser, so this can work out pretty good.
• Use Private Browsing Mode (or Incognito Mode) to log in with another account simultaneously, considering of course that this will bypass history and stored sessions.
• Use one of the third party tools like notifiers, Gmail Manager, CookieSwap etc.

Thinking of potential uses of the feature already? Why not share them with others in the comments section?