Matt Silverman

Gmail inbox getting full?  Mine was too.  For some inexplicable reason, Google does not allow you to run a simple search of your inbox where you can sort by attachment size.  There are some options to get your Gmail account under control, most useful of which is searching for particular file types.   Run a search for the most commonly large file types, and optionally add a date modifier so you only look at mail older than a certain date.

Enter this into the search box:
filename:(mpg OR mpeg OR avi OR wmv OR zip OR bmp OR mp3 OR wma OR mov) before:2007/12/31

I did not exclude JPG or JPEG because pictures are often a useful thing to save.  I still recommend going through each e-mail before doing a mass-delete with the above search query, but this will at least give you a useful workaround while Google works on a sortable attachment filter.

Google is well aware of the need for this feature, but feel free to cast your vote on their suggestion page, like I did.

$20 leather jacket at CVS… So tempting.

It really makes you wonder sometimes.  Is there a market for $20 Leather Jackets?  Does anyone come to CVS looking for a jacket?  Perhaps we will never know.

Why do you deliver at 11pm Pinkberry? Why?

The chocolate is super sweet, almost too much so.  I would not recommend larger than the small size.  Mochi goes very well with the chocolate too.

I have to admit, I am a little disheartened.  I was convinced that building a large Twitter following would at least give a great platform for promoting things.  I was always curious about numbers though.  If I posted a link, what % of my followers would actually click it?

http://twitpic.com/jlu6g – 62 views as of writing.  While I have a paltry 135 Followers, it seems that roughly 46% of them clicked on the link I posted.  Keep in mind, this view count is based off of pageviews to that page, so if one person viewed it multiple times it would count towards the same total.  So let’s make a more conservative estimate of 35% of my followers actually clicked the link.  Not too bad.

I still had envy for someone like Ashton Kutcher though.  Well, maybe not.  But I did have a little intrigue about his almost 4,000,000 followers on Twitter.

When he posts a link, if using my conservative estimate of 35% conversion ratio in clicks, that would mean he would get a whopping 1,400,000 clicks on every link he tweets.  Then again, 35% is a rather generous conversion ratio, what with all the spam accounts and all.  So let’s be VERY conservative.  10% conversion ratio.  Surely, at least 10% of the people “following” Ashton Kutcher are at least visiting the links he posts.  10% conversion ratio would be roughly 400,000 clicks.  That is still spectacular.  He is a marketing machine, right?  If only there was some way to actually see how many clicks his links get.

Oh, yeah, bit.ly.  That’s right, they offer pretty neat stats on every link shortened by them.  So I decided to look at some recent @aplusk data.

I made a typo right?  I wish I had.  It turns out that the links Ashton tweeted averaged 7,500 clicks per link.  This amounts to a shocking 0.19% percent conversion ratio.

The lesson?  Quality over quantity when it comes to a Twitter following.  If only .19% Ashton’s followers are clicking his links, at BEST 0.4% of his followers actually even read a word he says.

With a fresh Ubuntu install, I realized that to play any video file including saved DVDs, .WMV, .AVI, DIVX, etc.,  it is necessary to get what is called a “restricted” extras pack for Ubuntu.  My understanding is that this does not come with it by default, because they want to keep Ubuntu completely legitimate in terms of licensing, etc.

Download the Ubuntu Restricted Extras Pack by clicking here.

After installing this, everything magically worked!

For more details visit the Ubuntu page on RestrictedFormats.