Back Up Your Google Account to Your Mac with CloudPull

Do you use all or most of Google’s services on a regular basis? If so, I’m sure you’ll find a backup service like CloudPull extremely helpful. CloudPull is a Mac app that can back up your Google account to your Mac, which conveniently makes your information available for offline use and access. Additionally, it supports multiple accounts.
CloudPull supports: Gmail (and Google Apps email), Google Contacts, Google Calendar, Google Drive, and Google Reader. It will perform a backup every hour, and “maintain old point-in-time snapshots of your account for 90 days.”
The cool thing about using CloudPull to back up your Google account is that the backups are created in standard file formats. This means that your items can be easily imported into Apple programs. For instance, your email messages can be imported into Apple Mail. Likewise, your contacts can be imported into Apple Contacts, calendar events can be imported into iCal, etc.
If you’re ready to get started, here’s how to back up your Google account with CloudPull Free.

Setup and Usage

1. Install CloudPull from the Mac App Store and open it.
2. On the welcome screen, you can choose to subscribe to CloudPull news alerts and/or be added to their mailing list.

3. On the next screen, you can choose to run CloudPull automatically when you log into your Mac, or you can run it manually when you choose to.

4. On the next screen, you’ll need to enter your Google account email address and password. You will also need to select the services that you want backed up.

Note: You will need to have IMAP enabled in your account in order to back up your email. Your Inbox, Sent Mail, Drafts and All Mail system labels will also need to have the “show in IMAP” option selected.

5. Afer you click on “continue,” your username and password will be verified. You will then choose the labels from your Gmail or Google Apps email account that you want CloudPull to back up.

6. Finally, CloudPull will begin to pull in your data. If you have a large amount of data, this could take awhile. If you’re like me and have a really slow Internet connection at home, then of course it can take hours for your initial backup to finish.

7. Your items can be accessed and organized via CloudPull’s email-like interface. Each item type will have its own set of options. All items can also be opened in their respective Apple applications (i.e. email in Apple Mail, contacts in Google Contacts, etc).

Final Thoughts

CloudPull is an awesome way to back up your Google account and organize it in a user-friendly interface, but there are a few cons to the service. For starters, this is the free version. If you want to upgrade to the Premium version, it will cost you $10.
The free version of CloudPull only allows you to back up one Google account. So power users like me (with 4 different Google accounts), will not benefit much from the free version. The Premium version supports up to 10 different Google accounts.
The Premium version also has the option to run CloudPull as a background application; meaning it can run without appearing in the Dock or Force Quit window. Whatever you decide, you can’t deny that this is a handy app with a lot of benefits.
How do you backup your Google data?

Install Live Wallpaper in Ubuntu 12.10 Desktop

This simple and brief tutorial is going to show you a simple tool that replace your boring default wallpaper with a completely animated OpenGL wallpaper. Livewallpaper replaces your current wallpaper with an animated wallpaper. At the moment you can choose between the following live wallpapers:

• Galaxy
• Nexus
• Noise
• Photoslide

Install Live Wallpaper using PPA:
Hit Ctrl+Alt+T to open up a terminal, then run following 3 commands to install livewallpaper in Ubuntu 12.10 & 12.04:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fyrmir/livewallpaper-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install livewallpaper livewallpaper-config livewallpaper-indicator
After installation, launch livewallpaper from Unity Dash and you get the animated desktop. Launch livewallpaper-config or indicator to switch and configure wallpapers.

Porteus 2.0 RC2

The second release candidate for Porteus, Slackware-based live image set with a choice of KDE 4, LXDE, Razor-qt and Xfce desktop environments, is now ready for testing: "The Porteus community is pleased to announce Porteus 2.0 RC2, the latest development release of our Standard and Xfce editions. We've cleaned up several minor bugs that were present in RC1 and have added some new features. Please give this a thorough test so we can continue refining everything for 2.0 final. Here is our changelog from 2.0 RC1: Linux kernel upgraded to 3.7.5; fixed a bug with linuxrc not ejecting CDs in copy2ram mode; added a function to rc.M which disables discrete video card for PCs with dual graphics setup; rc.services - added a function for setting brightness when booting on battery...." Read the rest of the release announcement for a complete changelog. Download (MD5): Porteus-v2.0-rc2-x86_64.iso (224MB), Porteus-XFCE-v2.0-rc2-x86_64.iso (187MB).

Linux Deepin 12.12 Alpha

A preview version of Linux Deepin 12.12, a popular Chinese community distribution, has been unleashed for testing. This is the first version that ships with the brand new Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE), which replaces GNOME Shell as the default desktop. DDE along with its Deepin System Settings (DSS) is regarded as a milestone for the Deepin project. DSS is implemented with the Deepin UI library and it features automatic screen brightness adjustment, support for the Chinese lunar calendar, convenient network configuration, and so on. Also included in Deepin 12.12 Alpha is Deepin Software Center 3.0 Alpha, where the software applications are reorganized with better classification. Multimedia utilities for video and audio playback as well as screenshots have been upgraded to new versions for testing. Check the complete release announcement (in Chinese) for more information including known issues. Download: deepin_12.12_alpha_zh-hans_amd64.iso (702MB, MD5).