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Last week, we launched Google Voice in Gmail
to let you make calls right from your computer. The uptake has been
amazing and 10,000,000 calls later, we wanted to offer some tips and
tricks on how you, as a loyal Google Voice user, can unlock additional
features when you setup Gmail to receive calls with your Google Voice
number. If you haven’t already hooked it up, go to Google Voice, click
on settings and check the box next to Google Chat in your list of
forwarding phones.

Now, you’ll be able to make and receive calls
to your Google Voice number right in Gmail. Plus, you’ll have access to
a bunch of handy features, like:

Call screening
Not
sure who’s calling you? Instead of hitting “Answer” or “Ignore” when
you get a call in Gmail, click the “Screen” button. The caller will be
sent to your voicemail and you can listen in while they leave you a
message. If you decide you want to take the call, just click “Join” at
any time to pick up.

If you would like to setup Google Voice or Google Apps for your company, call 678pc for a free estimate today!

678.404.1001

678PC is located in Atlanta, Georgia but can work remotely from anywhere in the US.

If you’re a widescreen lover who’d prefer your browser take up fewer

vertical pixels and are happy to sacrifice a few horizontally to your
tabs, Chrome’s new side tabs feature (available in the Dev channel) is
a nice option.

The eagle-eyed Chrome watchers at Download Squad and gHacks noticed earlier today that the side tabs feature was added to the latest Chrome Dev channel release; you just need to add the --enable-vertical-tabs flag to your Chrome shortcut to enable them. Here’s how:

You’ll notice that when you toggle side tabs, Chrome sometimes
hiccups in rendering the new view. Simply resizing your window should
redraw the interface and fix the hiccup. Firefox extension Tree Style Tab
accomplishes something similar for the Firefox crowd, but the
functionality is on its way to getting baked in by default in Chrome.

For most office workers, being glued to their desks while typing away at their computers for an average of 8 hours a day is already a part of their normal routine. However, sitting at the computer all day may not exactly be good for the body, as it can bring about back aches due to bad posture and eye strain, among other effects. If your work is also deskbound, or if you face the computer screen for hours, you would have these eye strain symptom:

• 1. Redness
• 2. Tearing
• 3. Itching
• 4. Swelling
• 5. Burning
• 6. Blurred vision
• 7. Headaches
• 8. Sensitivity to glare
• 9. Difficulty adjusting to light
• 10. Worsening of nearsightedness and
• 11. Decreased concentration

Any of these symptoms can also be related to more serious diseases; each needs to be considered in the context in which it occurs.Using your eyes intently for hours in an enclosed space without resting contributes not only to eye strain but also to other health problems.

When a person stares at one spot for a long period of time, the brain is focused on balancing everything-keeping the head, neck, and other parts of the body from moving. These days, people stare most intently at the computer screen. This is particularly hard on the eyes, because they’re not looking at the entire screen, but only at microimages on it. In contrast, when you watch TV, you’re following a panorama on the screen, which doesn’t require the brain to be so fixated or the body to be so restricted.

Working at a computer for long periods at a time without a break can result in a condition called “computer fatigue syndrome,” which encompasses a host of symptoms:

• 1. Eyestrain;
• 2. Heaviness of the eyelids (eye fatigue);
• 3. Blurred vision;
• 4. Flickering sensations in vision; and
• 5. Headaches

At the same time, neck and back pain can also develop and if you are also facing the same then you should also try Yoga meditation exercises for Computer users . From studies, very few people know how to rest their eye effectively. The following eye relaxation exercises will help you to relax and reduce eye fatigue. You should repeat the relaxation exercise after every 30 minutes of computer work.

1. Palming

1. Sit comfortably on a chair. Rub your hands together until they feel warm.

2. Close the eyes and cover them lightly with your cupped palms. Avoid applying pressure on your eye balls. Place the palm so that the nose remain uncovered, and the eyes remain behind the slight hollow of the palms.

3. Make sure that no light rays enter the eyes, and leave no gaps between fingers or between the edge of the palms and the nose.

4. You may still see other lingering traces of colors. Imagine deep blackness and focus on the blackness.

5. Take deep breaths slowly and evenly, think of some happy incident; or visualise a distant scene.

6. Repeat the palming for 3 minutes or more.

2. Looking at Distant Objects

Our eyes are relax when they are made to look at distance.

If you are feeling strain after working at your computer for some time, simply look out of a window or at distant objects about 5 meters away from your work area.

If you eyes feel strained, they can be rested by doing this eye relaxation exercise (i.e. looking at distant objects) for a few minutes.

3. Rythmic Movements – Head Movement

1. Close your eye. With your head, slowly and gently form a figure of 8 in air.

2. Move and breathe rythmically.

3. Continue for 3 minutes or more.

4. Rythmic Movements – Round Swing

1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, arms hanging loosely at your sides.

2. Gaze at a low-lying distant object, Shift your weight to your right foot, and swing your upper body to the right, letting the heel of your left foot come up off the floor. Watch your surroundings as you swing. Breathe rythmically.

If you can see a tree out the window or in the distance, notice how it seems to move opposite to the direction you are swinging.

3. Return to the original position.

4. Continue to swing to your left similarly.

5. While doing this eye relaxation exercises, breathe rythmically and blink as you sway.

Blinking cleans and lubricates the eyes, which is especially important if you spend a lot of time in front of a computer.

6. Continue for at least 2 – 3 minutes. Repeat 100 times daily.

5. Rythmic Movements – Bar Swings

1. Find a window or a door which has verticle bars or grill.

2. Gaze through the bars, and look at distant objects.

3. Sway slowly and rythmically, just like the pendulum of a clock. Keep your breathing rythmically too.

4. Transfer your weight from one foot to the other, and keep your body muscles limp and lax.

5. Repeat 100 times daily, blinking as you sway. Blinking cleans and lubricates the eyes, which is especially important if you spend a lot of time in front of a computer.

6. Continue for 2 – 3 minutes or more.

6. Face and Eye Massage

This eye relaxation exercise is effective in relieving the tension in the facial and eye muscles.

1. Soak a tower in warm or hot water. Rub your forehead, cheeks and neck vigorously with the tower. However, do not rub your eyes.

2. After this, gently massage your forehead and your closed eyelids with finger tips.

7. Splash Water on Closed Eyes

1. Sprinkle cold water from a running tap on the closed eyes for a few seconds.

2. Allow the water on the face to dry on its own, and do not wipe your face dry.

8. Hot and Cold Compresses

This eye relaxation exercise helps to improve the blood circulation around the eyeballs and face.

1. Soaked small towers in hot and cold water.

2. Apply first tower (either the warm or cold one) and compress it to your face, eyebrows, closed eyelids and cheeks.

3. Apply the other, make sure you end the session with a cold compress.

These compresses open up the small blood vessels of the face and eyeballs, and therefore relieve eye strain.

Warnings

• There has never been any peer reviewed research demonstrating improvement in visual clarity by exercise. Some people have weakness in the ability to turn their eye in or out. You may have esotropia (eye naturally turned in) or exotropia (eye naturally turned out). Exercise may help these conditions.
• Consult your optometrist (eye doctor) before doing any of these exercises. The last thing you want to do is add further strain to your eyes, or damage them permanently.
• When doing these exercises, make sure that you’re not facing anybody, or that they know you’re doing eye exercises. Otherwise they might think you’ve gone nuts.
• Doing these exercises when you wear contacts may cause them to suction to your eyeball. They might also move around and possibly become folded and/or dislodged, which can be extremely uncomfortable as well.
• Do not apply pressure on your eyes.
• Wash your hands before doing these exercises to avoid getting irritants in your eye.

Precautions

To reduce computer eye strain (and body strain you develop while working at your computer) include the following:

• Set up your computer correctly. The viewing distance from the screen to the eyes should be seventeen to twenty-six inches. The correct viewing angle is 10 to 20 degrees from midscreen to the top of the screen.
• Place reference material next to the screen, with the screen and reference material at the same distance from your eyes to reduce computer eye strain.
• Adjust screen brightness and contrast properly.
• Make sure overall room illumination is no more than three times brighter than the screen.
• Use a desk lamp, if possible, instead of an overhead light to reduce computer eye strain.
• Control glare from overhead lights and uncurtained windows. Use an anti-glare screen, set up a partition, or move your terminal to an area where glare is less of a problem.
• Rest your feet firmly on the floor. The upper thighs should not touch the supporting surface of the desk or computer table.

Remember to take frequent vision breaks and perform some eye relaxation exercises(discussed above) to reduce computer eye strain.

Online
privacy expectations are evolving, but whether Facebook likes it or
not, a lot of us want the privacy settings we signed up for when we
joined the service. Here’s how to use Facebook’s new privacy controls to regain your original privacy.

These days, Facebook seems seriously invested in a struggle to rule
the entire internet, incorporating features from nearly every social
service that pops up (see Twitter, Foursquare, FriendFeed, etc.). The
problem is, not every application fills the same niche, and in order to
compete with other social tools, Facebook has slowly and surely changed
from a primarily private service to a very public one.

Users have always known and expected that Twitter, for example, is a
public service. Sure, you can make your account private, but its very
nature as a public microblogging service is that people can use it and
have their voice heard by the many. Conversely, the idea of Facebook
was always connecting with your real life friends, and sharing things
with them and them alone. That’s why everyone flocked to it over
MySpace in the first place.

Yet, as Facebook tries to spread itself across all of cyberspace, it
makes your activity more and more public, trying to squeeze itself into
the niches of Twitter and Digg, all the while becoming a shadow of its
former self. Thankfully, Facebook’s new privacy controls, while
certainly not perfect, do make it easier to control your social
experience on the site. We’ve gone through the new privacy settings
extensively, and have created this guide to help you take Facebook back
for yourself, making it what you signed up for, not what Facebook is trying desperately to make it.

(The amount of data you want and expect Facebook to share publicly
varies from person to person; below, we’ve highlighted the settings
that we think align most closely with both what we think of as good
settings and what feels closest to Facebook’s earlier privacy settings.)

The screenshots throughout the guide depict the recommended
settings we describe, and you can click on them to view a larger, more
readable version.

Note: Remember that Facebook’s new privacy settings will roll
out to users over the next couple of weeks, so if you don’t have them
yet, keep an eye on your Facebook page for a popup at the top of your
news feed (shown above).

Control Your Basic Directory Information

Facebook’s new system
splits your privacy settings up into four sections. The first, brand
new section is your directory information, which controls the kind of
information that people searching for you would use to identify you.
This includes your friend list, education and work, hometown/current
city, and interests and other pages. This also includes settings on who
can search for you, send you friend requests, and send you messages.
This section works much like the old privacy settings: once you click
on “view settings” under basic directory information, you’ll be able to
choose who can view each specific type of item, whether that be
“everyone”, “friends of friends”, or just friends.

While Facebook recommends you keep all this information public, so
people searching for you can tell who you are, it doesn’t all seem
necessary. Your interests, pages, and hometown can likely be set to
“friends only”, as shown above. We’d recommend setting your education
and work to “friends and networks”, so people you are not friends with
but that go to the same school or work in the same office can easily
find you. The rest can be set to public, unless you’d really prefer
that you initiate all friend requests yourself—which is fine—but for
most people, being in Facebook’s search results helps people find you.
I’ve personally set “send me messages” and “see my friend list” to
friends of friends, which is still fairly public, but rarely will
anyone not connected to me by someone else need to do either of those
things, so I’ve set them accordingly. That part is really up to you.

Privatize Your Personal Information

The most revamped section is the “Sharing on Facebook” section,
which has been greatly simplified. This section includes your more
personal details, like statuses, photos, posts, bio, contact
information, and so on. Facebook has a few quick links on the side to
set everything to public, private, or their recommended settings, which
honestly are still a bit too open for our tastes. Thus, our
recommendation is simple: just hit the “friends only” link on the
sidebar, then hit the “apply settings” button. There’s no reason the
rest of the world needs to see all this information if you’re using
Facebook in the same way you did back in 2005, and there’s no reason to
make it complicated and use custom settings (unless you really, really
want everyone to know your favorite quotations).

Lock Down Those Annoying Applications

Down in the corner of the main privacy settings page is the
“applications and websites” section, which controls access to your
information outside Facebook. Click on the edit settings button and
take a look at what applications you are using, if any. While your
first instinct may be to turn off all platform applications, take note
of the fact that if you use, say, Facebook for Android or the previously mentioned Desktop Notifications Mac app,
this will make them unusable. In addition, if you link your Twitter
account with Facebook, or use iPhoto to upload pictures to Facebook,
you’ll need applications active to do so these types of things as well.

Thankfully, the applications menu is a bajillion times simpler than
the old one, so you can use custom settings without worrying about
spending all day tweaking them. All you need to do is click the “remove
unwanted or spammy applications” link and remove the applications you
don’t want on your account at all. Keep the ones you need, and move on.

You’ll
probably want to completely lock down the rest of this page. Set “game
and application activity” to friends only (although this very well may
not matter depending on the apps you use). The other three options have
“edit settings’ buttons that take you to windows with one or many
checkboxes, all of which you should probably uncheck. You don’t need to
share your personal information with any applications, nor do you
probably want your information all over other sites. Showing up in
Google searches is up to you, though if you’re using Facebook purely
for personal reasons, you might as well uncheck that box as well.

Block Crazy People and Excruciatingly Annoying Applications

The last section is your block list, which you probably won’t tweak
too much at the moment, but it is beneficial to become acquainted with
the feature itself. Here, you can block specific users (such as overly
friendly high school acquaintances and angry ex-girl/boyfriends) by
name or email, as well as block invites from particularly spammy
applications. While this would be a good time to enter in any people or
applications that come to mind, remember that you can also block them
from pretty much anywhere on Facebook, so as you discover how annoying
that application or person is, you can just click the block button on
your news feed or their profile.

Obviously, these are merely recommendations from those of us at
Lifehacker that are fairly privacy conscious, but not enough to quit
Facebook altogether. You can tweak the settings to your liking anywhere
you want. The main idea of this guide was to use Facebook’s new privacy
settings (which are rather simple and give you a good amount of
control) to bring the Facebook experience back a few years, when you
spoke its name with a positive tone and not one of spite. Have the new
privacy settings rolled out for you yet? If so, let us know what you
think of them and our recommendations in the comments.