In light of Gmail's updated e-mail import feature, which was released on Wednesday, we put together a short video to show you how to use it.
The good news is that it's incredibly easy. So easy anyone can do it. Then again, if you're new to Gmail (which is just the type of person this feature is aimed at), the process can be confusing.
We take you through the steps of entering in your old information, and what it looks like when the process is all done. To see this in glorious HD, head over to CNET TV.
If video's not your thing, here's a step-by-step slideshow that shows you how to do it:
Last week's guide to becoming an expert at YouTube was quite popular, so we decided to do a follow-up in video form.
Included are some of our tips from the guide that could have used a little help from on-screen examples. We think you'll find they're quite a bit easier to understand once you see the before and after; especially in the case of YouTube's machine tags, which can change the way other people see your videos.
In just a few minutes we cover:
• How to make YouTube always play the high quality stream
• Focus on just the player, and not all the other page elements with tools like Theeter
• Setting the specific time when a video starts
• Creating a self-playing list, and embedding it somewhere
• Changing the way your video looks with YouTube's machine tags
I've embedded it below. You can also catch it in its full-HD glory over on CNET TV.
As an avid Twitter user, I'm constantly trying to find ways to extend its functionality and make it more than a place to converse with friends and discuss what's going on in my life.
Doing that can be quite simple. More often than not, I'll employ "Remember the Milk" or a similar tool that lets me use Twitter to manage my tasks. These tools typically work well and help me achieve my single desire: to fully exploit Twitter and get everything I can out of it.
But in recent weeks, I've realized that I've been missing the boat in a very big way. In the past I've used sites like Bloglines, Google Reader, and others to track prominent sites, and find out what kind of stories they're covering each day. Some are related to technology, while others focus solely on sports. No matter the topic, the RSS reader made it easy to find out what's going on in the world without being forced to go to all the different sites individually.
But in recent weeks, I've realized that each day I use the best feed reader of them all and I didn't even know it: Twitter. Since then, I've used it exclusively as a replacement to my RSS reader and I couldn't be happier. Believe it or not, Twitter is the best way to find all the best news.
People, people, people
I'm a firm believer that you should follow everyone who follows you on Twitter. I think it would make the community a better place and by doing so, you actually get more out of the service than by only following a select group of friends.
But I've realized now that it goes beyond just knowing other people. I now know that by following other people, your chances of getting more news, and getting it faster goes way up. And that's precisely why Twitter users have kept me from having to rely on my RSS reader for news.
Remember when US Airways flight 1549 landed safely in the Hudson River? I didn't hear about it in my RSS reader and I didn't even see it on TV. No, first I heard about it from folks on Twitter.
I simply checked Twitter to see what some of my followers were up to and almost immediately, a deluge of discussions on Flight 1549 cropped up. I immediately went to my RSS reader and discovered something I didn't expect: ... Read more
I've just been informed by the engineering team here that we have completed integration of the Facebook Connect log-in system with CNET. Now, when you want to comment on a blog post on a CNET site, or add a user review, you can log in with your Facebook ID and password. If your computer is already logged in to Facebook, you won't have to log in at all.
There's a one-time step you might have to take first: If you already have a CNET ID and password, you can connect your CNET account and your Facebook account. Just log out of CNET, log back in using the Facebook option, and follow the step to merge your IDs. From that point on, you can sign in to CNET with your Facebook ID if you're not already logged in to Facebook.
Log in to CNET with your Facebook ID. Handy.
As I've said before, the benefit for us, and for other sites that use this tool, is that Facebook Connect makes it easier to log in to our sites (since more people are likely to frequently use and remember their Facebook credentials than their various IDs for different sites), and also users who contribute to our stories can have that activity reflected on their Facebook streams. That's basically free advertising for CNET. Sending CNET comments to Facebook is completely optional for users, though, if you feel that your CNET activity would clutter your Facebook feed.
Drop a note to editor@webware.com if you want to share feedback on our implementation with the team that did it.
Previous stories:
Facebook Connect: Scary but good
In ID platform race, Facebook Connect grabs lead.
On Tuesday we shot a "first look" video of Google's new Chrome browser for CNET TV. In case you're on a Mac, running Linux, or if you're avoiding going through Google's entire list of feature videos, we've broken out some of the ones that set it apart from the competition.
- Tab dragging off the browser and back in
- The omnibar search box/address bar
- Customized start page
- Incognito/"porn" mode
What's demoed:
If you want to see the widescreen, high-resolution version, click here to be taken to the CNET TV viewer. You can also catch up on all of our coverage of Chrome on this page.
(Credit:
CNET Networks / Josh Lowensohn)
Just a quick note to let you know Webware publisher CNET has a new iPhone-optimized version of its site that went live earlier Tuesday. As a result you can now read our stories a little easier while on the go.
To get there, just navigate to CNET.com on your phone and it will automatically detect that you're using Safari and give you a finger-friendly version of all of CNET's properties including our sister gadget blog Crave, iPhone Atlas, and MacFixIt.
Don't have an iPhone? Just point your phone's browser to iPhone.cnet.com
We're clearly a little behind the times compared with some early-adopting sites, but if you're standoffish about using a mobile feed reading service like Google Reader (which I'd recommend after its last update), this might be a viable alternative. Also worth noting is that you can listen to CNET's podcasts (including the Real Deal, which has Webware's Rafe Needleman on it), watch videos from CNET News and CNET TV, as well as grab full product reviews if you're out and about.
Social-news company Loomia announced Wednesday that it has launched a new application called SeenThis, which connects news sites with social-networking sites so users can learn what their people on their friends' lists have been reading. Loomia's inaugural partners in SeenThis are The Wall Street Journal, NBC Universal, and CNET Networks, parent company of CNET News.com.
Like many other "recommendation engines," Loomia's technology can suggest content items to a reader based on what he or she has already viewed. SeenThis goes a step further by using social-networking sites' APIs--the one that the current content partners are using is Facebook--to gather what people on a reader's friends' list or within his or her regional, company, or school networks have been viewing on a partner site. So, for example, a WSJ.com reader might see that eight people from his Facebook friends list have read the latest doomsday story about the housing crisis, or that members of his alumni network on Facebook have been browsing the travel section.
CNET Networks will be using SeenThis on its business news properties: BNET, TechRepublic, and ZDNet. NBC Universal, meanwhile, will focus on video so that viewers can learn which NBC.com videos their social-networking contacts have been viewing.
Perhaps because of the brouhaha that surrounded Facebook's Beacon advertising program, Loomia has stressed that SeenThis is opt-in only. A Facebook user, for example, has to install the SeenThis application before it starts tracking habits on partner sites.
The release from Loomia on Wednesday hinted that SeenThis will expand to other social networks as time goes on.
Rocker Trent Reznor is angry with CNET News.com.
On Monday afternoon, the leader of the band Nine Inch Nails posted a blog at NIN.com and accused me of misquoting him in a question-and-answer interview titled: "Trent Reznor: Why won't people pay $5." He suggests in his post that he did not make statements supporting a music tax on ISPs that appeared in the January 10 article. He also implies that CNET had some kind of hidden agenda when he writes in his post that the story was "written before I was involved."
It's not uncommon for celebrities and politicians to accuse the press of misquoting them. Sometimes it's true. Not here.
Below is the recording of Reznor's comments in question.
Reznor gave me permission to tape the interview and the words in the story are as he said them. I've also included what was said immediately prior and following the comments about the ISP tax so you can hear the context in which he made them.
You'll notice that I didn't quote everything he said; that's common practice. (We spoke for an hour and the final transcription of the interview was more than 4,000 words long. Normally our stories are between 1,000 and 1,200 words. We wanted to give him as much room as possible to speak and made an exception by publishing his interview at more than 1,800 words, already longer than usual.)
Reznor is a fascinating interview. He is frank and always says something controversial. He certainly was in our interview. Click the button below and listen for yourself.
We've just witnessed a potentially disturbing marriage of basic street crime and the instant worldwide audience provided by video sharing and social networking sites such as YouTube and MySpace.
Criminals have often recorded their exploits for fun, but the ease of online sharing means that almost everyone can now witness assorted muggings, fights, and robberies from the safety of a laptop screen. At the same time, crimes posted to the Web get instant attention from law enforcement and the press, essentially acting as online wanted posters for the perpetrators. A perfect example is a recent subway attack video first discovered on YouTube on November 7, and since covered by the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Court TV's The Smoking Gun Web site, and other media outlets.
The video, allegedly shot by a New York film student named Kadejra Holmes, shows a group of teenage girls riding New York's A train, arguing with, and eventually attacking, a male passenger. After the incident, Kadejra posted the video on YouTube, naming the clip, "Jump Up to Get Beat Down," after an old Brand Nubians track called "Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down."
Holmes was soon contacted by The Smoking Gun, and after she denied being part of the group, claiming to be just an innocent bystander with a video camera, she deleted the video from YouTube and took down her MySpace page. But, nothing that's been posted online is ever really gone, and popular blogs such as Gawker as well as the Web sites of New York's daily newspapers have all reposted the video and written about the attack.
In Thursday's New York Post, Holmes' parents claim, "... their daughter did not know the teens involved in the assault and had just captured the incident on camera as she innocently rode the train," but they also admit that she had been arrested back in September for taking part in a separate subway attack.
Police are reportedly trying to identify both the attackers and the victim from the video.
I co-hosted the Buzz Out Loud podcast with Molly Wood today. Topic (suprise): Gphone. What else? Also covered: Why the Asus eee PC rocks and why the Foleo was killed too early.
