The only thing Facebook messages have ever been good for is getting a friend's real contact info so you can talk outside of Facebook. But what happens when you lose that critical message with your buddy's new address or screenname? Facebook fails you, and you have to scroll back through all your messages to find the right one. Not anymore! The 'Book has introduced a search bar for your inbox.
Rejoice! A new feature that should have been there all along! We think this is a step in the right direction, even though it's not exactly the highly-touted data portability we're still waiting for. At least this gives us something better to do on Facebook than tend to our very impressive L'il Green Patch.
Been spending the week gearing up for SXSW and then realized that you forgot to book tickets to Austin? Worry not, Download Squad will be bringing you blow by blow coverage from SXSW Interactive over the next few days. In the meantime, sit back, relax, and check out some of the top stories from the week that was.
Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 8 beta
Microsoft released the first beta version of IE8 this week, and while it's explicitly for developers and not early adopters, we rushed out to test it, and were severely disappointed with its performance. Sure, it renders the Acid2 test properly -- sometimes, but it does a pretty poor job with many other sites, including Download Squad. And many of you told us you were having even bigger problems. Check out the IE8 reviews and comments left by Download Squad readers. Microsoft launches Office Live Workspace beta
IE8 wasn't the only Microsoft beta to launch this week. The company also pushed the first public version of Office Live Workspace out the door. And while the service does provide users with a way to store and share Office documents online, we can't help but wonder whether people who have gotten used to actually being able to create and edit documents online with services like Zoho and Google Docs are going to care.
For the sake of this article, we're going to assume that you understand the benefits of being a filer rather than a piler. If you'd like to get to an empty inbox, but are facing what seems to be an insurmountable pile, take heart; we've all been there. Even for people that are meticulous filers, there are times, such as returning from a trip, where the amount of email facing you seems impossible.
Sometimes when we get overly focused on the end goal we make our task seem impossible, and it doesn't need to be. There's a simple formula you can follow that will help you meet your goal of an empty inbox. If you decide to follow it, your inbox won't be empty today, or even tomorrow, but in a matter of days, most likely less than a week, it will.
It's called Inbox 0.5. The idea is to ensure that you get through at least half of the emails you are facing. Here's how it works:
It's day one, and you're looking at 700 emails staring you in the face first thing in the morning. It's your task to get down to 350 by the end of the day. It sounds hard, but here's the thing. Most of that email is bulk mail subscriptions and the like, or simply out of date. If you can group or sort based on email subject or thread, do so - it will help you dispose of a huge number of emails once you've caught up to date with the most recent one.
It seems like a lot (and it is), but you'll probably find that getting through the first 350 messages is the easiest batch you will face.
There are a number of ways to sort and deal with the huge volume of read and unread e-mail populating your inbox. You could organize your messages using tags like those in Gmail, or folders like those used by Yahoo! Mail and Microsoft Outlook. For some reason, you can even download a graphics-intensive program that represents your e-mail as people wearing skimpy outfits and frolicking on a beach.
Carolin Horn and Florian Jenet took a slightly more whimsical (and decidedly impractical) approach with Anymails. The program, developed as part of an MFA thesis, represents e-mail messages graphically. Each message fits into one of six categories, family and friends, school, job, e-commerce, unclassified and spam.
Each message is assigned a picture depending on which group it falls into. The image swims around the screen interacting with your other messages. The images also pulsate. The size, speed of movement and of pulsation depends on the message of a condition. Newer messages are large and opaque, older emails are small and transparent. An unread e-mail is hairy and swims quickly while a message you've already read has less hair and swims more slowly. If you've responded to a message it practically sits dead in the water.
Overall, Anymails is an interesting way to look at your e-mail. But it's certainly not practical. Even the makers of 3D Mailbox realized that the quickest way to deal with your inbox is by presenting a block of text at the bottom of the screen.
It's hard to know where to start when trying to describe the new free email client 3D Mailbox. Even after finding ourselves slack-jawed at the website and the video of this software in action, we still wanted to reserve final judgment until we'd actually had a chance to get under the hood and check it out for ourselves. Although we were never able to actually get the software to work, despite trying it on four different PCs, it's probably just as well because what little time we did spend with 3D Mailbox had us reaching for our antacids faster than you can say, "Who thought this up?"
Text just not good enough for sending your important email? How about some video for the tired eyes in the morning that just don't feel like reading!
Azooca, a new video email service that has just launched, provides users with a new way to send email. Azooca's video emails let users send, receive and organize video messages through its video email inbox. The Azooca email inbox can hold up to a 250MB for attachments and incoming video messages.
To start recording video messages users get just the basics, record, play and stop in their email composition window. Video clips are unfortunately capped at one minute in length, but can be saved in draft format and sent at a later time. It is a simple enough to use application, just watch out because there have been numerous reports about messages getting dumped into junk and spam folders.
Here at Download Squad HQ, we sign up for a lot of new products and web services. And there's nothing quite as painful as putting your email address out there for yet another possible spammer.
That's where temporary email services come in. Need to enter an address to sign up for that new free service? Sign up for an email account that will expire in 10 minutes, wait for your registration info to come in, and kablooey, your temporary mailbox implodes and nobody can trace you.
While these services are great, we're not sure how useful this top 20 list of "temporary and disposable email services" is. Don't get us wrong, there's nothing particularly wrong with any of these services. But do you really need 20? The internet is full of top 5, top 10, and top 101 lists.
The top 10 Firefox extensions is one thing. But sometimes you just don't need that many options. One will do. So feel free to click on through and pick one at random. We'd recommend not reading the full list for fear you'll hurt your brain trying to decide which is actually best.
CuBee takes the clutter out of your email inbox. It's a rich content email and messaging system which allows users to send out emails containing large files like video, pictures, animation, and notes.To add a little bit of Web 2.0 cuteness, messages can be sent inside a digital envelope with an emoticon to express feelings.
CuBee is integrated into ZCubes, a website where users can seamlessly browse, search, edit, paint, draw, watch, listen, print, network, work, and just about everything else you would care to do online.
Wishroll has a service on right now for Valentine's Day where you can set up your own special Valentine's inbox. The service is called Valentinr, and takes the form of a widget, button or link on your web site. This link directs friends and site visitors to your personal Valentine inbox where they have the chance to write a customized Valentine's Day love note to you. When Valentine's notes are sent, you get to see how many you have received, but the notes only actually come into view on Valentine's Day, February 14th, at 6am for you to read. I know this is late notification for this neat tool, but bookmark it for next year, and have some fun with it.
UPDATE: Sorry for the typo..Valentines day did not get changed to the 4th this year! Thanks Toothpick Guy!
If your email volume is anything like mine, it's totally insane. Thousands of messages constantly streaming in and, only a tiny fraction of those are messages you need to see.
Surprising then, that only a few years ago I was literally living inside Microsoft Outlook. Rigid folders, the nightmarish rules "wizard", and that annoying inbox chime that dings regardless of which folder your new distraction message ultimately wound up.
I completely believe that Gmail saved my life. Okay, that's pushing it. Gmail didn't save my life. What Gmail (and a little bit of GTD-inspired respect for my own time) did was save my attention span. Some careful filtering and a bit of common sense returned a half hour or more of uninterrupted concentration per day.
That's 2.5 hours a week, over 10 hours a month and more than one whole day per year.
The only thing Facebook messages have ever been good for is getting a friend's real contact info so you can talk outside of Facebook. But what happens when you lose that critical message with your buddy's new address or screenname? Facebook fails you, and you have to scroll back through all your messages to find the right one. Not anymore! The 'Book has introduced a search bar for your inbox. 
Been spending the week gearing up for 
It's hard to know where to start when trying to describe the new free email client 
If your email volume is anything like mine, it's totally insane. Thousands of messages constantly streaming in and, only a tiny fraction of those are messages you need to see. 
