Ever think Gmail looks rather plain and boring? Give it some spice with Gmail Redesigned.

Step 1

Install the Stylish FireFox extension.

Step 2

Click View Source on this page.

**Update**: GlobexDesigns.com is now unavailable.

Please downloaded this text file and paste it into a new Stylish script (embedded Images);
Or install the Firefox extension here > http://sonco.synthasite.com/gmail-redesigned.php

Step 3

Click On the Stylish shortcut on the status bar. Followed by, Add File to Stylish…

Step 4

Add a description and click Save on the dialog box.

Now test it out! Fire up Gmail and stare at the eye candy.

I recently purchased a new phone using ebay – the LG Shine. I wanted a new stylish phone for a reasonable price, around $100. I found a barely used Silver LG Shine and purchased it for $118.00. I always do my research before purchasing new tech, so I knew I was probably going to be getting something worth my money.

My first impressions of the phone were that of thinking it’s “rather cool.” I really liked the slide LCD screen to reveal the keypad. The quality of the phone is really nice. It has a heavy metal-like industrial weight to it. The phone feels sturdy and built well.

The dimensions of the phone are 3.93 x 1.99 x 0.59 inches. The phone feels and looks much more compact and sleek than my old phone. I am a person who hates having things in my pants pockets, but this phone is comfortable and small enough to the point where I often forget which pocket I put it in.

The 2 megapixel camera is relatively nice. I have not used it much but it seems fairly decent for a phone. The phone also supports bluetooth, which I have used a lot for transferring custom made ringtones and wallpapers. Although the phone is not officially supported by Bitpim, users have reported getting it working with the software. I have not tried it on my linux machine, but I have yet to be successful with syncing to my Macbook Pro.

I find the bluetooth on the phone to be a little dodgy. For the most part I can sync the phone to my mac, but after 2 – 3 file transfers the phone fails to sync. I have to continuously restart the phone to ‘reset’ the bluetooth so I can use it again. Apparently this problem is pretty common among the LG Shine. Given the problem, I must admit I absolutely love the quick and easy file transfer via bluetooth. Transferring MP3 ringtones, and wallpapers is pretty effortless (when bluetooth decides to work).

I didn’t like the small menu scroll-button upon initial use. After a week of playing with it I have been able to get a feeling of the right pressure to apply for the buttons to function properly. I still find the scroll button difficult to use at times. Another downfall I find with the phone is the fact that you cannot customize the functions of the main buttons. For example, pressing the scroll-button right will bring up the ‘IM’ screen to start AIM, Yahoo messenger etc. Since I do not use this feature, I wish I was able to change the function of the button to bring up another menu. So there are limits to customizing the phone’s button, which rather sucks.

Overall I would give the phone a 8.5/10 stars. LG needs to improve the bluetooth and give the user control over the button functions. Other than that, I am in love with this phone. It’s beautiful, the sound quality is great, and the phone is fun to play with.

Links:
LG Shine
Bitpim
LG Cell Phone Forums (Great community and support)

Below is a list of Mac apps that i feel are a must have. I use most of them on a daily basis and feel they are the best within their category.

Web Browser

Minefield – An optimized version of Firefox for Mac OS X. Cost – Free

Instant Messenger

Adium – By far the best Instant Messenger for OS X. Adium supports a huge number of popular chat protocols including AIM, Facebook, Gmail and IRC, to name a few. It is also hugely customizable with hundreds of themes on the adium website. Cost – Free

File Transfer

Transmit – Probably the best FTP application i have found for the mac. The only gripe i have with it is that it’s not free. Cost – $29.99

Cyberduck - Another great FTP/SFTP application i use, or used to use. Cost – Free

Transmission – A super lightweight and fast BitTorrent client. Open Source = kickass. Cost – Free

Customization

Candybar – Complete control over most icons on your system. Dock icons, Application icons, you name it. Even change the background of the 3D Dock. Cost – $29.00

Continue Reading…

Last night I ran into a small problem after tweaking my dock via Candybar. The dock ‘Size’ slider became greyed out (disabled), not letting me resize the dock. My google searching showed results but no one had a real answer.  I tried repairing permissions, which didn’t fix a thing. I also tried deleting ‘com.apple.dock.plist’ which also failed to fixed my dock. I found the solution today while just tinkering with the settings of my mac.

The solution lies within TinkerTool.

See my micro-sized dock… and the size slider is disabled.

Continue Reading…

Wow. Some sexy tech candy in my hands right now. I just bought a new 15.4″ Macbook Pro and a 16GB iPod Touch today.

The Macbook Pro:

• Operating System: Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard
• Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo – 6MB L2 Cache – 800Mhz FSB
• Memory: 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM – 2x1GB
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB of GDDR3 SDRAM and dual-link DVI
• Display: 15.4″ WXGA+ Widescreen
• Hard Drive: 250GB Serial ATA @ 5400 rpm
• Optical Drive: 8x slot-loading SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• Communication: Gigabit LAN and WLAN AirPort Extreme (802.11n) – Built-in Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR

The iPod Touch:

• Hard Drive: 16GB
• Display: 3.5″ (diagonal) widescreen multi-touch display
• Audio/Photo/Video Support
• Communication: Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)

Apple’s products are always designed to be so damn sexy….