10 Google Gmail Alternatives

Gmail may be one of the most popular email services, but there are many people who feel that it’s far from the best. For starters, there are many users that complained about the new compose window, as they feel it’s less user-friendly and buggy. If you have more than one email account with Google, you can only view one account at a time (in a single tab).

There’s also no way to import your accounts from other services into Gmail. You are free to have more than one tab open for different email accounts, but this is less than ideal. But most importantly Google scans each email message that is sent and received in your account. This is done so that advertisers can better target users and display ads that are more relevant to them although from a Gmail user’s standpoint, this is considered an invasion of privacy.

If for these reasons or other reasons you want to get away from Gmail/Google or just want to try something new, here are 10 great email services other than Gmail for you to try.

Recommended Reading: 10+ Google AdSense Alternatives

Hushmail

Hushmail is a web-based email that also works on iPhone, Android and BlackBerry (via IMAP, POP, or mobile website). With Hushmail you get built-in encryption, no advertisements and a 25GB storage allowance. You can choose from the following domain names: @hushmail.com, @hushmail.me, @hush.com, @hush.ai and @mac.hush.com.

Unfortunately, you can only use email aliases if you upgrade to a Premium account, and you must sign into your account at least once every three weeks to keep it active.

Zoho

Zoho is a secure, ad-free email hosting service that works with your own domain(s). With the free (lite) plan you can host one domain, and have up to 5 users (5GB storage each) and up to 3 groups. If you’d like to host multiple domains, you’ll need to upgrade.

The good news is Zoho can work on any mobile device that supports POP and IMAP, or via the mobile site. Plus, it also works with external email clients that (via POP and IMAP). Even though you can fetch mail from other email accounts in Zoho Mail, currently POP access is the only method (no IMAP).

Mail.com

Mail.com is a free service that lets you choose from over 200 domains; you can choose a domain related to your profession (ie. @graphic-designer.com), your hobbies (ie. @petlover.com), technology (ie. @techie.com) etc. Mail.com also comes with unlimited email storage, spam filters, an antivirus, calendar integration, mail collector, mobile service and 50MB attachments.

Mail Collector is a feature that lets you send and receive messages from all of your external email services (via POP access) from within your Mail.com account. It supports Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo.

Outlook.com

Outlook.com, which replaces Hotmail, brings with it Office Web Apps and SkyDrive, so if you’re a hardcore Microsoft user, you’ll love it. You can import your emails from Outlook Express, Windows Mail or Windows Live Mail. Plus, you can use Outlook.com to send and receive email from your other email accounts (via POP access). It offers a virtually unlimited storage which will automatically increase when needed.

Outlook.com also has deep social integration. You can import your contacts from Facebook for easy access and for chatting, with the Messaging feature. Plus, you’ll also be able to view your friends’ updates, access and publish your Facebook photos, videos, and statuses from Outlook.com.

GMX

GMX owns Mail.com so expect a few similar features such as Mail Collector, unlimited email storage and 50MB attachments from GMX. However GMX only uses the @gmx.com domain but will let you add widgets to your homepage for quick access to Facebook, Twitter, and more from your email account. If you need to transfer larger files, you can use GMX’s secure FileStorage feature.

GMX also uses a sophisticated anti-spam module to help block unwanted emails and will scan your incoming mail for viruses and trojans. There are several different backup systems in use to secure your data and an additional 2GB of space to store your documents, images and videos.

Facebook

Many people don’t realize it, but if you have a Facebook account then you also have a @facebook.com email account. Not only can you email your friends at their Facebook email address, but you can also send email to external addresses (ie. Gmail, Yahoo). When you send messages to external emails, it will show your Facebook email account as the sender.

Sending emails through Facebook is just like sending a private message on Facebook, except instead of entering a name you can enter an email address. With Facebook you can send group messages, see full conversation history, mute or leave conversations you have no interest in, and mark messages as spam.

Inbox.com

With Inbox.com you get 5GB of storage for email, a 50MB attachment limitation, a photo module that lets you easily store, organize, and share your photos with friends and family, an integrated Organizer to help you boost your productivity. It also includes a calendar, reminders, and task manager, plus a Notes feature that is great for lists, ideas, to-dos, and more.

All of your messages are automatically scanned for spam, viruses and spyware to keep you protected at all times. Plus, there’s no email scanning for advertising purposes. If you want to receive notifications of new emails, you can install the Inbox.com Toolbar with Email Notifier.

Yandex

Yandex gives you a free @yandex.com email address, with 3GB of storage on Yandex Disk. You can unlock 7GB more if you do a few simple steps like install the Windows program, upload a file or two, or tell a friend about the service. Yandex is popular in Russia but has language support in 9 other languages including English.

Unlike the others on this list, Yandex lets you import your emails using POP or IMAP access. You can also enable the tasks feature, and RSS so you can read your RSS feeds from the same interface. Yandex is also available in iOS and Android Apps or as a mobile version of the site.

Shortmail

One of the cool things about Shortmail is that you can use your Twitter handle as your Shortmail address (ie. twitterusername@shortmail.com). You can also sign up using Facebook or Google, and then create your own email handle. All emails are limited to just 500 characters, but using Shortmail Connect, you can direct shorter emails to your Gmail to your Shortmail and longer ones to your connected Gmail.

You can’t send attachments with your messages, but if attachments from other email services are sent to your Shortmail account you can opt to save them in your Evernote â€" just connect it in Settings. Shortmail is available in email clients and on mobile devices that support IMAP, POP, or SMTP and in an iOS app.

Yahoo Mail

Many people may skip the once-horrible Yahoo Mail but it has really come a long way and is now much more modern! Yahoo Mail can be accessed on your computer, in most email clients that support POP, and on mobile devices (iPhone, Android, Windows). Storage limits have gone unlimited and you can import your contacts from Facebook, Gmail, Outlook and more.

The Spam protection has been upgraded, along with SSL encryption (though you have to turn it on manually). Yahoo’s popular Instant Messaging service is also included in your Inbox, so that you can chat with friends while reading your email. You can also send and receive SMS messages via Yahoo Messenger.

So now that you’re aware of other free email services besides Gmail, what will you choose? Have another one to add to the list, suggest it in the comments.

5 Methods To Serve True Responsive Images

Ethan Marcott, the one who coined the term Responsive Web Design, stated in his article that Fluid Image is one of the ingredients of Responsive Web Design. The problem with Fluid Image, however is that eventhough the image seems to be responsive and could fit nicely in various viewport size, the same image size is downloaded by the users regardless of the medium the image is being viewed on.

This is bad news for users who have a limited data plan but is not in the know, and it makes your site seem ‘slow’ in areas with dismal Internet speed connections.

This is one of the most discussed issues among web developers. And there is a whole lot to do before RWD can be a proper end-solution for building a mobile-optimized website. At the moment there are various emerging techniques and tools that try to solve this hurdle. Let’s look at them a few of them now.

Recommended Reading: 50 Useful Responsive Web Design Tools For Designers

1. Adaptive Image

Adaptive Image is a small PHP script that detects user screen size and deliver the proper image for that screen size. It does not require the changing of your current <img> markup, but the implementation is rather intimidating for less tech-savvy users.

(Image source: AdaptiveImage)

2. Responsive Image Using Cookies

Keith Clark has his approach on serving responsive image with Cookies. It technically detects the screensize by using JavaScript and sizes the proper image size using PHP before it is served and loaded on the page.

However, this technique has a lot of issues and require some more experimenting before it can become a practical solution. You can read his explanation as well as get the code from the article at Clark’s blog, Responsive Image Using Cookies.

3. Sencha.io Src

Sencha is a mobile development framework that allows us to build a native-looking app with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. If you build your app with Sencha, you can utilize its API, Sencha.io Src, for resizing your images in a smart way, based on users device screen size.

The API has a set of functions allowing flexibility over the output. For more technical details, head over to this reference.

(Image source: Sencha)

4. HTML5 Picture Element

This seems to be the future standard of responsive image. A new element called <picture> is proposed to allow us to set different sources of images, and also to refer to the breakpoint for which the source of image should be served, like so:

  <picture id="images">
     <source media="(min-width: 45em)" srcset="large-1.jpg 1x, large-2.jpg 2x">
     <source media="(min-width: 18em)" srcset="med-1.jpg 1x, med-2.jpg 2x">    
  </picture>
  

This element, however, is still in a Working Draft stage. It is not yet applicable. Until then you can use a Polyfill called Picture Fill.

Picture Fill

Picture Fill is a tiny JavaScript library that is developed by Scott Jehl. It mimics how <picture> works using the <span> element.

  <span data-picture data-alt="A giant stone face at The Bayon temple in Angkor Thom, Cambodia">
          <span data-src="small.jpg"></span>
          <span data-src="medium.jpg" data-media="(min-width: 400px)"></span>
  </span>
  

Plugins

If you are using WordPress as your publishing platform, you are lucky, as there are several plugins that serve the image in a way similar to the <picture> element.

If you use Drupal, there is a project called Picture that works the same way.

5. Focal Point

Focal Point is a framework that allows developers to “crop” images and control the focus on its focal point for responsive design. This technique is purely done with CSS; the author simply adds the classes in the element that contains the image.

It is worth noting though that the trick in this technique is by using overflow:hidden to hide part of the image. So the image is not (technically) cropped, which means we end up of downloading the same image size. In addition, this also might not work in the case where the image is not wrapped with an element.

(Image source: Noupe)

Final Thought

As said, there isn’t yet one implementation that sets a standard to answer this issue completely. These techniques and tools although listed above as solutions, have their own drawbacks and none can come out as the final solution for every case.

It is also unsure whether the new proposed property, <picture> will be a recommended solution in the future. So, until then, it seems that we are stuck with Fluid Image.

8 Things To Do When Your Writer Quits

Before we begin, let’s set the record straight. If you are a webmaster or ecommerce website owner who cannot write… you need a good content writer. There are some very talented people out there that write wonderful content.

And to keep the balance of the force, there are also some unscrupulous writers that will take your money (usually upfront) through less than dignified means then disappear into the vastness of the World Wide Web. With that said, once you find a talented freelance content writer, hold onto him or her as if they were the last one on the planet.

The good ones are either booked solid for months or have moved on to more gainful endeavors. Even talented content writers you can keep do not remain content writers forever. Just like everything else in life, if someone is good at something, other opportunities will open for them to expand and broaden their horizons.

Recommended Reading: 12 Signs That You Are a Writer At Heart

Woes Of The Site Owner

Unfortunately, you as a site owner have little to no control over when your writer needs to take leave, and it’s almost always in some of the worst scenarios possible. You may be in the middle of a huge marketing or branding campaign that just took off, or you might have a large boost in readership in your blog and require a steady in-flow of content, next few week’s worth.

"I’m leaving for greener pastures" is the last and worst possible thing you could hear at this precise moment. So what do you do?

8 Things To Do Instead Of Panicking

1. Take Affirmative Action

As the Master and Commander your ship, it’s time to take charge. Whatever you do, let it not be panic. Panic, at this point, would not only be counterproductive, it makes things that much worse. It is not the end of the world until the deadline, which means there is still time before the iceberg hits the ship.

If you are in panic mode, get a hold of yourself, then:

2. Hot off the Press

New content writers are pouring onto the Internet each day and the demand is still higher than the supply. The US Labor Statistics department tells us that at least 14 million Americans were self employed in 2012. If even a small percentage of that is in content writing, (And it is) there is one out there for you.

Just stop worrying about getting one and go get one. Just be careful how you go about it. Weeding out the bad from the good is a delicate process.

Read Also: Guest Posts: 10 Tips To Distinguish The Good From The Bad

3. You May Already have A Replacement

Don’t have time to engage someone you can’t risk trusting? Have you spoken to your team or family lately then? Perhaps a friend in the writing business? You will be surprised at how many people you know that write or know someone who writes, dreams of writing, or are pursuing it already.

And you can get an inside look into the personality of new writer, if he or she is someone you can bank on for steady content, right from the horse’s mouth.

4. Go Social

Or you can go social with it. LinkedIn.com is the premier website for getting the word out when it comes to Business to Customer or Business to Business marketing as well as a wonderful brand recognition opportunity. One good content writer and six social media websites can create more buzz about your website than two dozen magazine ads. On LinkedIn, content writers abound.

5. Be my Guest

Guest posting is something that comes in handy from time to time. Put out a call for guest posts. Usually, all the guest blogger wants in return is a link in the content, and another link or two in their bio. Some guest bloggers earn for their submissions but for what it’s worth, you get good content at half the time it takes to find a long term replacement for your writer.

Read Also: 35 Tips Tricks To Manage And Handle Multi-Author Blogs

6. Editors are worth their Weight in Gold

If you own an ecommerce website and blog, hiring an editor is a fantastic way to increase your ROI. They will not only ensure your readers see what they need to see, when they need to see it, they also edit the work of your content writers, and can even replace them temporarily. Just make sure not to take advantage of the editor’s writing skills too often.

7. Draw Ideas From The Web

The Internet is a wondrous place. It is filled with all kinds of information on just about every subject you could possibly imagine... including you and your ecommerce endeavors. If your content writer disappears, there is plenty of material on the Internet to pursue and from which to draw ideas.

Don’t however fall into the trap of copying content at liberty. Original content is still gold even in desperate times.

8. Unleash the Writer in You

Have you tried to write your own content? If anyone knows what kind if content you want, it is you. You may not write the best content in the world, but I can guarantee it will not be the worst either. In fact, you may write better than some freelance content writers out there, because no one knows what your readers want better than you.

Read Also: Tips And Tricks For Writing Fast (And Professionally!)

The End Result

The point of all this is really much simpler than 8 reasons not to panic and how to help yourself. If you panic; nothing gets done. If you need a content writer, do not rush into anything. Take your time and find the one that is right for you. In the meanwhile, follow these simple tips to get through the rough patch and always keep your chin up.

Pimp Your PC – 25 CPU Coolers You Should See

Like the way we expect a man to be able to know his way around a car, we expect geeks to be able to fix his own PC â€" whether it be a software- or hardware-related issue. So when a desktop PC overheats, causing a loss in performance, a geek or gamer’s first thought would be to improve cooling to the CPU.

Changing a CPU cooler cannot be done on pre-built PC, the kind you buy off the shelves. This is why a common trait of a geek is being able to build their own, cheaper and often better-performing desktop PC. Whether or not you are into building or modding your PC, be sure to check out these 25 CPU Coolers that make your system look and perform cooler.

Recommended Reading: 15 PC Keyboards With Cool Design

Shadow Rock 2. [$75.43]

Zalman Reserator 3 Max. [$129.87]

Cooler Master Hyper T4. [$32.89]

NOFAN CR-95C. [$68.68]

Phanteks PH-TC14PE. [$84.99]

Thermaltake SpinQ. [$59.99]

Asus Artic Square. [$49.99]

Coolermaster GeminII. [$58.95]

Prolimatech Armageddon. [$99.32]

Zalman CNPS9900DF. [$93.67]

Cooler Master Hyper 103. [$32.00]

Cooler Master V8 GTS. [$99.99]

Cooler Master V10. [$109.99]

Coolermaster X6. [$40.05]

Coolgate 2012. [$60.02]

Enermax ETS T40-TA. [$47.95]

Grand Karma Cross 2. [$64.80]

Lion Square. [$51.44]

Rosewill RCX-Z300. [$14.99]

Thermaltake NiC C4. [$50.95]

Thermaltake V1. [$27.99]

Thermaltake BigTyp14Pro. [$64.99]

SilverArrow SB-E Extreme. [$99.90]

Zalman CNPS5X Performa. [$19.99]

Swiftech MCX-VCore. [$59.95]

Download Web Videos To Your IPhone For Free With VDownload

Ever stumbled upon a viral or a long tech related video which you would play again and again to rewatch (say when you’re travelling and away from data connection) or show to friends? Android devices might have it more flexible when it comes to downloading a video onto the device but for iOS devices and users, it’s always "there’s an app for that".

Video Download Free does exactly what its name implies: it allows you to download videos off websites to your iOS devices. It’s also very simple to use and the best part is it’s free. Here’s how you can enjoy your videos offline on your iPhone or any other iOS device.

Recommended Reading: 15 (More) iPhone Tips & Tricks You Probably Don’t Know

Using VDownload

Video Download Free will show as VDownload on your iOS device after installation. The app has a built-in web browser where you can download videos from certain websites.

There are 2 methods to download videos off websites. The method varies between the websites so you’ll have to experiment.

To download just press the browser’s middle button at the bottom then choose Save Videos.

On some sites you may have to play the video first, where it’ll then prompt you to Cache Video to Memory aka download it.

You can see the download progress by tapping the Downloads button. Once it is finished, you can find and watch it under Videos. Although the app has ads as you navigate through the website, you won’t see any while watching your downloaded videos.

Some videos might be named in code after downloading it, but you can easily rename it, or categorize it under folders. You can also save it to your device’s photo gallery by tapping on Save to Albums.

Conclusion

We tested the app on a few websites and found that you can download videos from YouTube, Instagram, Vine, MetaCafe and CollegeHumour. Websites that are not supported are Vimeo, Blip.TV and DailyMotion.

Editorially – An Elegant Markdown Online Editor For Collaborative Writing

As writers for print make the transition to becoming writers for Web, they come across many writing apps that (try to) cater for both mediums yet fail to provide all the necessary tools that are actually required. Well, that is about to change. Let me introduce to you a new, reinvented way to write, share and collaborate on your web projects using Editorially.

Editorially is a minimalistic text editor that spares you the bells and whistles and lets you get down to just putting your ideas onto paper. You can write on it like you do on your word processor then export the final result in HTML, as well as work simultaneously with your editor, colleagues and/or clients.

Recommended Reading: Writing web content with MarkDown

Writing Distraction-Free

When you are in Editorially, most of what you see is plenty of whitespace for you to scribble on. No toolboxes, no formatting guides; all that matters is you and what you want to write. That said, there are some great traits hidden away in a sticky bar on the top of the writing space.

Hidden in fluid and simple drop-down menus are your tools to do things like create new documents, save your current version, export your content, talk to collaborators, find and compare current and previous versions and more.

Version Control

A common problem in publishing is the need to work out multiple versions of the same article. Stay on top of all these different versions and stay in control with the timeline.

You can compare old and current versions, which are dated and even attributed to the person who made the changes. Choose to revert to a particular version, anytime you find it necessary. This is a very nice and convenient feature that takes you away from catastrophe of over-riding versions and changes.

Collaborative Writing

You can invite fellow Editorially users to work on the same document at the same time. Assign roles â€" reviewer, editor, owner â€" to make things much, much easier to manage or improve on.

• Reviewers can read comment and chat.
• Editors can read, chat, comment re-name and edit.
• Owners can do all the above plus delete, invite and so on.

Even better, discuss the post right outside the writing space with the built-in chat with text highlighting support to get colleagues all in the same page.

Writing With markdown

Another way Editorially makes writing with it simple, is the use of Markdown. Rather than use tags, formatting on Editorially is done with hashes, asterisks and brackets.

Here is a cheatsheet of the formatting used.

To get the final copy in HTML form, just export the content when it is done. Cick the gear icon in the middle of the bar to reveal the option to Export. You will also find a handy word/character count.

Advantages

• True distraction-free editor
• Chat with your co-workers fast and easy
• Compare past and current writing; revert if necessary
• Collaborate, edit and write with multiple people at the same time
• Save your versions and changes with notes and mini-popups
• Easily export to HTML for publishing

Disadvantages

• No import or export to other services like Evernote, Google Docs and so on
• HTML exports are still a little buggy with double asterisks and bullet lists (do check before you publish)
• You cannot customize the editor styles
• Timeline of versions does not include images yet

Conclusion

I believe Editorially will help many people improve their writing efficiency and increase their productivity. Editorially is still in private beta and they are still ironing out the creases as we speak. Sign up at their site to get an invite (although I have a couple more to give away). While we’re on that subject, check out 6 Rules To Getting The Perfect Format.