just an asterisk

It’s a bit of a misnomer actually – rich text doesn’t have anything to do with riches or wealth. In fact, it’s not even the correct name, as Microsoft has sole proprietorship of the term “rich text” so our emails are technically “enriched text” (which probably would have been a better name…)

But anyway…

Here is what is really important:  Gmail has always supported signatures, but they were lame. You could write in plain text and split it into multiple lines. This all changed today when Gmail introduced “rich text” signatures, so I thought I’d walk through what you can do now.

Part 1: Rich is mostly about formatting

To see your signature, go to Settings and then the General tab. You’ll see the signature window about half-way down the page.

As you can see from my screenshot above, rich formatting gives you that toolbar that you’ve seen above your Gmail for so long. Using the simple buttons like bold, italic and underline, you can add basic flourishes. There are also font options, colors and high-lighting for your spicy new signature. One of my favorite additions is that you can insert true links into your emails.  For example, you can put a link to “my site” rather than spelling out the web address of your homepage.

Part 2: Inserting photos

Inserting photos into your signature is now much easier, although it still requires a bit of work. The first step is to click on this little button:

Once you’ve done this, you’ll be asked for a website where you’ve stored your photo. Yes, I realize that it’s a bit of a pain to have to keep the image online, but as you can see, once you have the link it is very easy to include a photo – even a very stupid one.

When you’re done typing the address, you should see the image appear in the box below the address field (as mine did above). Click OK to finish.

When you’re done with part 1 and/or part 2, don’t forget to save your work! You wouldn’t want to lose it!

Have fun with the new signatures. Feel free to brag about any cool ideas in the comments!
~ab

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion about what “cloud computing” really means.

“Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information, are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like the electricity grid.” (Wikipedia)

I’m a geek and the above, although well intentioned is about as easy to understand as the other buzzy language I hear on the topic.  Let’s write our own definition (in a few parts): Read more »

I haven’t written very much lately, as my travels and day job have worn me out.  However, it’s a big day.  I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Toronto trying to get a feel for my new MacBook Pro.   Even though it’s only day 1 (well day 2 if you count the flight), I can see that this is going to change how this blog continues forward.

Why?  Well I’m learning!  Apple is not my strong suit and everything is new.  That said, every feature pleasantly surprises me.  Each time I think “there must be a way to…”, I stumble upon what I’m looking for, amazed that it’s there, without code or effort.  What had worried me about the transition was this: I’m a pretty geeky dude.  Won’t it be hard to transition the hard stuff from Windows to Mac?  The answer?  Not even a little bit.

Google Calendar and Gmail were both quick to setup (a Google search put me on the right path).  Microsoft Office was a simple install.  My programming environment in Windows (Komodo Edit) is available for Mac, so no transition there.   Skype and Dropbox were the same story.  To be honest, if we discount the time for my downloads, I’ve probably set the entire machine up, super-user environment and all in less than 3 hours.  That even includes the time I’ve spent playing with it… Pretty amazing.

Given the fun I’m having, I’ve decided that just an asterisk is going to follow me on my new adventure into Mac land, writing about the land of the apple from the big apple.  That said, my day job still requires a PC and I’m sitting on a ton of windows hardware, so JAA will have to be about more than just the domain of Steve Jobs.  We’ll see where the balance lies after a few months…

I guess this is really a post about posts that I’ll write in the future.  Keep an eye out for a Mac post soon and feel free to send questions to ab@justanasterisk.com.  I’d love to have ideas of what to try next.  We’ll explore this lovely transition together.

Best,

~ab

If I haven’t made it clear yet – I’m a Google man.  I’ve been pretty much in awe of nearly every Google has churned out for years.  However, Bing is … fun.  I’m not sure if it boosts your productivity and I’m sure that the results are inferior (I’ve done a bit of checking), but the format is very pleasing to the eye and everyone needs a backup.  Moreover, it’s a Microsoft product, so you might see it appearing elsewhere in the near future (like on your new PC). Read more »