Just when you thought you knew everything Yale had to offer, here come three of Yale's best kept secrets to help you make the most of your time online.

Yale File Transfer
I use this site probably once a week. It allows you to avoid those annoying email size limits by uploading them to a website and then sending a link to download them. I've used to to send tons of picture archives to YDN and a bunch of other stuff.

The best part of this one is that people outside of Yale can use it to send things to someone at Yale. It requires a NetID login. To use it click: "A Yale person who wants to send files...". Enter the recipient, and get started sending massive files.

Email Aliases
Perhaps the best thing I've ever found at Yale. In case you didn't know, my email is actually charles.croom, but through this nifty utility you can use up to three aliases. So I use charlie.croom, which means my email address is intuitive. I could also get chuck.croom, etc. For anyone who goes by a name different from their given name...this site is a MUST. It takes a couple days to go through, and you have to be on the Yale network to get to the site, but it's well worth it. Enjoy nickname.lastname!

Mailman Lists
How many panlists are you on right now? Heck, you probably don't even know all the panlists you're on. Panlsits are basically a collection of email addresses that get combined into one "panlist" nothing special. Enter Mailman. Mailman lists are the same thing, except you can specify a HUGE number of options. Prevent people not on the list from sending mail to people on the list, handling replies so that you don't get double messages, prefix all message subjects with [organization], digest messages (meaning people send 100 messages to the list per day, but these all get lumped together into a "daily digest") and tons more.

If you are sick of dealing with panlists, step up to the big leagues and try a mailman list. It's what YDN Photo, the VQ, and YDC use. Everyone on the list will appreciate the subject prefixing as they can immediately identify what the message relates to.

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Hopefully these power user tips will help make your daily Yale life less hectic. Let me know if there's any other tips like these that I haven't found out about. I'd love to hear about them.

It's been a busy week at Yale. Lots of mid-terms and such. However, I did manage to sneak off to Boston Thursday night for a Mika concert. Which was probably the most awesome concert ever...in history. It was just so much fun, and he is really a great songwriter performer.

Unfortunately, on the way there, my phone decided to stop working (The blackberry Tour's keyboard stopped working). I took it in to Verizon in Boston at 7:00 at night, and they said there was nothing they could do but to have a new one shipped out. So that was kind of a bummer for my weekend until, at 10AM the next day, I got a package with my new phone in it. What service! After an hour to transfer my old phone to the new one through my computer, I was back up and running. While I'm not crazy about the Tour, it's been nice to have around, and I'm glad I made it through the weekend with one.

Since I'm on such a technology roll, I'm just finishing up prepping my computer to upgrade to Windows 7. Who knows what it will break on my computer...I have Linux installed on a different partition in case things go really bad, but from what I'm heard it's just a simple upgrade and I won't even have to re-install my programs...which is good because I definitely don't have the CDs for most of them. Well time to get started...wish me luck, and see you on the Windows 7 side soon...

Well I suppose it's not exactly a paradox, but I love that word. Anyways, being a tech-nerd, I want to take a look at some of my favorite ads from HP, Apple, and AirTran. Pros and Cons, and looking at the principles behind them. Read more to get started watching some videos!

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Since I know that everyone likes to stay up-to-date on my blog, I thought I'd take a second to alert you to RSS Feeds. If you don't know what an RSS feed is, it's basically a very lightweight summary of various sites, like a news ticker. It's extremely versatile, in fact, you can get headlines right in Outlook, on your sidebar in Vista, and probably somewhere on Macs as well. This way, you can see if there's a new post or photo without ever checking my site.

I have been wondering for awhile how to put RSS feeds into the sidebar on Vista. When you hit the configure button on the RSS widget, it doesn't show up there. Here's how to fix it:

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1. Open Internet Explorer

2a. Visit: http://www.charliecroom.com/gallery/index.php?x=rss
On that page, you should see a button up top that says add to my feeds. Click it!

2b. Visit: http://charliecroom.com/index.php?tempskin=_rss2 and do the same thing!

3. Now in your sidebar you can configure it to show headlines from my blogs! (Add the widget multiple times to get feeds from multiple sources, or you can "manage your feeds" and put them in a common folder)

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If you use firefox, you can visit the above sites and it will present you with a similar bar in yellow asking if you'd like to add it. You can use the drop-down menu and add it to various applications including Outlook.

Of course you can always just stop by the site whenever you like! It's always fun to see the rotating headers, and it's always fun to show the photoblog to friends Pretty pictures! Back to studying for me now, Spring Break....so....close...

Now that I finally have some time on my hands again, I thought I'd get back to what blogging is really about. Random things! As I sit in Computer Science class and check my bank statements, I couldn't help but consider a few Internet Security related ideas. So here are some tips, of course with mathematical calculations and statistical probability, about how to make your password stronger.

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