Phone numbers in Gmail will appear as links.

It seems like the gap between Gmail voice calling and Skype is getting smaller and smaller. Since Skype has an IPO soon, will upgrades to Gmail voice calling really affect them?

• Microsoft Acquisition of Skype Could Really Help Video Kinect – May 11, 2011
• Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion in Cash – May 10, 2011
• Skype Launches Skype 2.2 Beta for Linux: Download Now – April 12, 2011
• Skype Open Up Advertising: More Revenue Streams Before IPO? – March 7, 2011
• Make Free Video Calls on Your Mac: FaceTime for Mac is Available to Download – February 25, 2011

Google Adds One Click Calling to Gmail Voice Calling originally appeared on: Crenk
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The idea to remove some of the clutter and allow users to integrate social platforms and interact with other sites was vital, especially in an era when so many are looking for the one stop shop of utilities that will serve their needs. Some of the features added include:

• sweep feature which allows users to clear their entire email with one click.
• single-click feature which allows for one click of an email from a specific sender and deleting all of their emails.
• ability to edit Powerpoint and documents in the email whether the user as the application or not.
• active previews of emails to include attachments like photos, videos, and more.
• watch YouTube videos, check social networks all without leaving their inbox.

These changes are big when you consider how long the service has remained stagnant while its competitors made big strides to attract users. Still Hotmail is still considered one of the most widely used email services with over 350 million active users.

While Hotmail has added these new additions is it really enough to sway people away from Gmail for example? Or will Hotmail still prevail due to its simplicity and lack of “bloat”, as it’s called, that Gmail users might experience.

What are your thoughts? A winner for Microsoft? I used to be a Hotmail user but went to Gmail because of the wide offerings available. Hotmail became boring and dull even in the UI experience. Perhaps now it’s got some life breathed into it. We’d like to hear your thoughts.

• AOL Changes the Gameplan – September 11, 2008
• Yahoo Mail Gets International Expansion into New Markets and More Languages – December 7, 2011
• The Advertising Collective: AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft Join Forces – November 9, 2011
• How to Create eMail Aliases in Hotmail – February 4, 2011
• Bing Replacing Google on iPhone 4? – June 1, 2010

Microsoft Changes Look of Hotmail – Thoughts? originally appeared on: Crenk
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Recently I’ve been alerted of a way to make my Gmail productivity even more effective, and that’s with the use of Gtriage. While many of us are inundated with email after email, sometimes finding that hundreds have come into our inbox at any given time away from the computer, who wants to go through all of that?Gtriage does the work of training your inbox instantly, and over time it learns to grow with you and identify which emails are vital and which can be touched later. I won’t say it’s perfect, the key word is train, so while you have parameters to set in the beginning, it will grow with you based on how you feed it information.

Emails that it determines to be important will be labeled “IMPORTANT” and put into a singular folder that is accessible on the desktop or on your mobile. Because the application runs in the background, there’s no apps to install, no third party plugins, no anything, so desktop or mobile, everything just works. It’s a good way to never miss important messages, and if you’ve got the patience to allow it to learn your habits, can be very powerful. I’ve only been using this for a few days, but I’ll probably circle back in 30-60 days to see if it’s really learned who I am and what emails are important to me.

• New Thunderbird Appeals to Masses – December 8, 2009
• Microsoft Changes Look of Hotmail – Thoughts? – May 24, 2010
• Google Mobile: Links Getting Shorter and Smarter – July 30, 2009
• The Ultimate Google Cheat Guide – June 28, 2009
• Google Voice, Get Ready – June 25, 2009

Improve Gmail Productivity Instantly originally appeared on: Crenk
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In the battle over email application supremacy, Thunderbird has been one of the  most highly developed for web application next to Google’s Gmail. Consistently we’re treated to new releases, updates, and efforts to make the user experience more comfortable and seamless with other email providers as it works to be the catch all for all of our digital communication. Most recently Thunderbird introduced a bevy of plug-ins over the summer that increased the usability of the application, but also made it more fun. Millions of dedicated Thunderbird users keep this email client in constant development and whats being released this week is no exception.

This open source email client created from the team out of Mozilla Messaging has made this email client accessible in over 50 languages and has recently announced over 2,000 updates. Some of these updates are very visible, others work behind the scenes, but there is no doubt that these developers are working hard for the dedicated users who rely on this app as their primary email application.

The biggest change is the user’s ability to search. The refined search allows you to find your email by keyword, sender, topic, and time frame, narrowing down the returns you get. Pin-pointing emails can be difficult, but this new search feature is sure to be a win. Paired with the search function is the ability to work multiple open tabs inside the email client, similar to the Firefox tabbing system. This allows users to keep multiple emails or folders open as they move from message to message.

And these are just a few of the benefits for the new Thunderbird. Be sure to check out Thunderbird 2 or the new release candidate for Thunderbird 3.

• Improve Gmail Productivity Instantly – February 23, 2010
• Mozilla Removes Dangerous Add-On – July 17, 2010
• How to Create a Temporary Mail Account – July 3, 2010
• Firefox 3.6.4 with Tab Crash Protection – June 23, 2010
• Flock Changing Out Firefox Framework for Chrome – June 16, 2010

New Thunderbird Appeals to Masses originally appeared on: Crenk
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This is what you usually when you are reading an email with a long link:

And Smart Links converting it like this:

Of course these links, at least for now, will only work with Google related sites: Google Maps, Google Sites web pages and YouTube videos (but they are expecting to make it available soon for Google Docs as well).

There’s an important disclaimer about the use of this feature: only works with plain text emails.

• Hajj Pilgrimage Live to Watch on YouTube for Free – November 4, 2011
• iOS 5 to Still Have Google Maps – May 30, 2011
• YouTube To Launch Movies On Demand Service: Key iTunes Competitor – April 26, 2011
• Watch Live: Royal Wedding to be Streamed Live on YouTube – April 19, 2011
• YouTube Videos Now Allows You to Alter Playback Speed – February 19, 2011

Google Mobile: Links Getting Shorter and Smarter originally appeared on: Crenk
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There’s a lot to find when surfing the net late at night, and thanks to RSS Feeds, a lot of the internet can come to you with some nice key words.

For those of you that want to sharpen your skills in searching, perhaps get more power out of Gmail, or even maximize your RSS efforts in Google Readers, this interactive guide is right up your alley.

This guide is not necessarily supported by Google, but they are aware of it, and having used some of these amazing “hacks” to get out of my google applications, it works and you’ll be happy to have used it.

Read the GOOGLE GUIDE!

• Top 10 Google Tools for Entrepreneurs – January 5, 2009
• Google Chrome OS Supporting PC Apps? – June 16, 2010
• How to Download Spotify App Clients for Windows and Mac – December 2, 2011
• Tiny Tiny RSS: Open Source Google Reader Alternative – July 12, 2011
• Infographic: Smartphone Apps – June 15, 2011

The Ultimate Google Cheat Guide originally appeared on: Crenk
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Not convinced yet? There is more:

• Integration with Gmail contacts and phones.
• Recording conversations.
• Manage and listen your voice mails. Including forwarding voice mails to other users.
• Forward calls or messages to other six phones.
• Text and phone calls within the US completely free.
• Conference calls up to four members per conference.
• You can set up rules to route each call to a specific number. For example, customers call -> automatically routed to my business phone; daughters call -> rings every phone; wife calling -> blocked
• Google Voice can even transcript voice mail via e-mail. Yeap, that is right, you dont have time to listen your voice mails? Google Voice can send it that message as an e-mail with 90% accuracy in the transcript.
• Service cost? Completely Free.
• Availability? Currently available only for GrandCentral customers. But it is expected an official Google statement about general availability of this service.

Here are some videos about the Google Voice usability and features.

Even though we dont have any confirmation about the release of this new feature, get ready because I am sure it is going to change the way you communicate.

• Google Voice and Sprint Integration Is Available Now – March 21, 2011
• Google is Offering $4 Billion Dollars to Buy Twitter? – November 20, 2010
• Apple Approves Google Voice iPhone Apps – September 20, 2010
• Google Can Now Buy and Sell Energy – February 23, 2010
• Improve Gmail Productivity Instantly – February 23, 2010

Google Voice, Get Ready originally appeared on: Crenk
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Here’s how it looks:

For every new mail you also have a preview that you can check by only hover your mouse over the Gmail Manager area.

The installation procedure it is the same used for any Firefox Add-on, and the configuration panel it’s quite simple as well. You can have different options for each account configured: Notifications, toolbar and check for new messages frequency.

Instead of having different tabs with your accounts, or even different browsers to be able to log in with separate Gmail accounts, this is a great option for you to optimize your time. Give it a try.

• Google Adds One Click Calling to Gmail Voice Calling – March 11, 2011
• Microsoft Changes Look of Hotmail – Thoughts? – May 24, 2010
• Improve Gmail Productivity Instantly – February 23, 2010
• New Thunderbird Appeals to Masses – December 8, 2009
• Firefox Add-On: Download Torrents without the Torrent – November 12, 2009

Gmail Manager: Firefox Add-On originally appeared on: Crenk
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In less than a year, Zemanta has made a name for itself in the blogosphere. By becoming the premier add-on to the FireFox browser, bloggers now had access to an amazing set of tools to provide further depth to their posts. With hundreds of thousands of downloads, it seemed like a surefire winner, and there was little doubt that Zemanta has room to expand, but where and when?

Zemanta late last year supported another FireFox add-on called ScribeFire, a simple blogging tool that opened up in your browser without having to log into any other site or leave the page you are on. This allowed for amazingly quick posting to the blog of your choice, but also provided the same depth that you had available to you from within most popular blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, and TypePad.

Recently it was announced that Zemanta has made another move towards mass market exposure, it has integrated with Gmail and Yahoo Mail, offering users of those mail clients the ability to attached related articles, pictures, and keywords to their emails that the recipients might need to fully understand the topic. I personally can’t imagine a better mass exposure opportunity than attaching yourself to two of the largest mail clients on the internet today.

Zemanta is a key tool that I recommend all bloggers install, but now with mail enhancements, I’m happy to see them growing. I’ve always been a big supporter of their efforts as it’s nice to see innovative ways to breathe life into a long standing medium like blogging.

It’s apparent that Zemanta will continue to offer what it always has; by offering photo suggestions, article suggestions, and keyword suggestions, as you type, updating every 300 words, there is bound to be another leap into further integration.

Perhaps a jump into an office platform for document and presentation creation, like Microsoft Office or OpenOffice. Only time will tell!

• 5 Firefox To-Do Plug-ins – July 25, 2008
• MonkeyFly: Customise Your Twitter Easily and for Free – January 9, 2010
• New Thunderbird Appeals to Masses – December 8, 2009
• Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Early Beta – October 16, 2009
• Firefox 3.7 with Office-like Ribbon? – September 28, 2009

Zemanta Now Available on Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and ScribeFire originally appeared on: Crenk
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A solution, however, is afoot. Zentact, brought to us by among others, Eric Marcoullier of MyBlogLog fame, aims to collate your contacts into one place and allow you to share bits and pieces as you browse.

After signing up and adding in a few personal details, you can simply import your contacts from Hotmail, LinkedIn, Gmail and Outlook via a CSV address book and after a few seconds, they are on your system.

Next, and I highly recommend this, download the Firefox extension, all will be revealed shortly.

Now, the genius part. Each contact is taggable with their likes and dislikes and when a web page which has tags that match your contacts, if you installed the extension, a smart little box will flash up in the top right hand corner of your screen with the list of contacts who’s interests are relevant to the site. You can then send them a link and be merrily on your way. Remember, social.

Now the one down side to this is that if you have hundreds of contacts, it takes ages to go through them all tagging away. I’d recommend doing it bit by bit, adding tags as you go – this will take longer but does two things:

It lets you see who you will really be sharing with – there’s no point in having 300 contacts if you only ever talk to six of them regularly anyway, which means you can quickly identify those defunct e-mail addresses you’ve not used in years or people who don’t share common interests.

Secondly, it makes the whole process a lot smoother – you may like a tag binge, but frankly I’d rather be spending my time actually looking at what I came to see rather than typing in long lists of keywords, especially ones that are tricky to spell.

Now, it will take a while for you and Zentact to get to know each other, but the more contacts you tag and the more sites sites you send, the better Zentact becomes at recommending what is suitable for whom. This is a great service and especially suitable for anyone who is on a lot of social networks but can’t quite keep up with what is going on with who. Now you can build your relationships easily and stay in touch better.

We are lucky enough to have a handful of guest invites so you can try the private beta version of this site and tell all your friends about, which you can get by clicking here. Incidentally, you can tell your friends about it via Zentact and you can then invite them to join in this most social of networks.

• Crenk Interviews… Zentact – January 7, 2009
• Attack Of The Music Communities – April 8, 2008
• 3 Sites for Digital Holiday Cards – December 2, 2009
• Social Networking with 6rounds Expands Online Community – November 4, 2009
• Stop Dreaming – Start Doing With VOIS – March 12, 2009

Build Better Relationships with Zentact originally appeared on: Crenk
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2009 is here and for a great many of us are looking at some huge opportunities before us. Whether you’re suffering because of the economy, or taking your idea and making it a reality, there is always risk involved going out on your own. As an entrepreneur the rules of the game change, and while you are your own boss, there is a lot you have to answer to when it comes to ensuring your success and proper execution of your idea.

As such, there is a big need for the right tools for the right job. Just like approaching any big project, the right tools can make you, the wrong tools will break you. I’ve taken the time to do a post on the top 10 tools that an entrepreneur can use to keep their professional life and business life in check. I’ve chosen Google tools simply because they all sync with one another. There are a lot of people out there that may naysay Google products, but having everything sync together just makes things easier.

1. GMail
A lot of services out there offer great email services, but GMail was one of the first out of the gate to offer a substantial amount of storage with the ability to manipulate the interface. Many of the competitors could not offer what GMail has offered and since then have copiedGMail’s efforts in an attempt to eat up some of the market share for email users. There are a lot of Google Labs additions that make GMail more useful so make sure you get an account and explore what it has to offer.

2. GCal (Google Calendar)
Once again this calendar works hand in hand with its email companion. From GMail you can instantly add events to GCal, and within the GCal interface you can send email reminders for specific events. SMS messages are also available making this calendar even more useful by having your event reminders go straight to your mobile device. Within GCal you can color code different calendar needs, such as one color for personal appointments, another color for professional appointments, etc. This allows you to see everything at once, or only the calendar events you choose to see by deselecting the colored tabs you wish not to see. The diversity makes this a must have, and the ability to access it from any computer is the icing on the cake for any professional.

3. GDocs (Google Documents)
Microsoft Office has taken a lot of heat for not diversifying itself over the years. It’s still the most widely used software package out there for all of our project and document uses. Still, the idea of cloud computing, and online word processing has eaten up a lot of that market share, and as more and more turn to online alternatives,GDocs is a clear leader in this movement. You have the ability to type your documents and save them for access from any computer you canlogin from. Along with saving them “in the cloud,” you can also include contributors to your document or include other readers as well. The versatility once again shows how vital this tools is for everyday business use.

4. Google Alerts
If you’ve got a brand out there, whether it’s you or a specific product, find out what people are saying about you. Google Alerts allows you to setup announcements based on keywords. Google will then focus on these keywords and when they are mentioned will collect the information and alert you of the mention. It’s also useful when looking for trending topics, or what other people are saying about the market you are in. Take heed, if you’re not listening to the chatter of the global users, you’re missing a lot!

5. Google Bookmarks
There’s a lot to be said about social bookmarking, but what if you’re not into socializing with others, and simply want to keep a record of key sites you want access to from any computer. Google Bookmarks will sync on any computer you have the toolbar set up on, but if you’re traveling, simply login through Google site and you will find everything you marked as key for your studies, research, and product ideas. You can add notes to the bookmarks and even add keywords to make them searchable for later.

6. GReader (Google Reader)
Many of us subscribe to RSS feeds, but for those of us that don’t, it would be a good addition to our business arsenal. Google Reader takes all of our RSS subscriptions and groups them in one place for you to read. You can keep track of all the news you follow within your industry, or recreational purposes, and mark favorites, share with others, email them directly to your contacts. Keeping track of what’s happening on all the sites you visit through a tool like GReader can save you a lot of time.

7. Google AdSense
Have a site where your product is featured, or perhaps a blog promoting your company? Why not make money off the site with Google AdSense? It’s all possible by finding keywords that Google decides are searched enough to be of value. By matching ads to your sites content, the author can earn money when traffic to your site clicks on the ads. You have the choice of whether to offer ads via text or images, but either way the readers of your site will find them useful. The amount of money made varies on your traffic and the amount of ads.

8. Google Analytics
With a solid idea, a site with popular traffic, you can keep tabs on the success and popularity of the site by subscribing to Google Analytics. The tool basically monitors all back-end information for your site. where your traffic is coming from, how many visitors to you site daily, weekly, monthly, etc. It will share with you how long people are on your site and what they are reading, giving you the opportunity to market yourself just right to keep the readers coming to visit.

9. Google Pages
Any entrepreneur needs a place to display a portfolio of work, somewhere to share their resume, or feature ideas for a close group to critique. Google Pages gives you that opportunity to design a site with easy to follow templates to choose from and internal tools that make it easy to include text, images, and files. You have the ability to customize the URL and decide whether you want to keep the site private or publish it publicly. Either way, the opportunity is too good to pass up, create something now and let the world or a few close friends know what you’re up to.

10. Grand Central
Finally, an acquired entity, Grand Central is an amazingly easy way to customize all of your business calls. Think of Grand Central as a landing site for all of your phone calls. When calls come in, before they get to you, your Grand Central settings will kick in. Ring all your phones or just a few. Route calls to different voicemail boxes each with unique greetings, but have them all in the same inbox. Block callers, have callers leave the reason why they are calling before you answer. All of this is possible with Grand Central and never waste time with wrong numbers or pointless chatter again. During business time, make every minute count!

• The Ultimate Google Cheat Guide – June 28, 2009
• Tiny Tiny RSS: Open Source Google Reader Alternative – July 12, 2011
• Get the Most Out of Google Alerts – March 28, 2011
• Improve Gmail Productivity Instantly – February 23, 2010
• New Thunderbird Appeals to Masses – December 8, 2009

Top 10 Google Tools for Entrepreneurs originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

For the longest time AOL was an island unto itself. Until just recently AOL users were isolated from other users. The homepage was closed off to competitors, the ISP itself is not open to offering it’s users options, but rather forces them to believe that AOL is all there is.

Interestingly enough, as internet users wise up, and are introduced to various social media networks, connecting over the net with blogs and micro-blogging tools, the internet is a whole new world for users and professionals alike. AOL is finally facing this reality and has added a new feature right off their homepage. They are actually offering users the opportunity to select other email clients as opposed to forcing users to type in the desired destination.

As noted in the photo below you can see how Yahoo, Gmail, have all found a spot right on the AOL homepage (Hotmail access has also been added). This is a welcome addition for AOL users considering the response on the AOL blog post.

What does this mean for AOL? How will this impact their users and will they turn away from AOL Mail? No likely, many of us have multiple accounts for various uses; junkmail, newsletters, subscriptions, purchases, contact with friends and family. AOL is quoted as saying, “We realize that AOL.com is not the only web site that you use and that you may, like many of us, have multiple email accounts with different providers.” So AOL looks to become the official “launchpad” for all their users online experience. This will prevent them from having to type in the address of their preferred email providers and instead provide instant access with a simple click.

AOL confesses that not all of their users will appreciate the change, but for those that don’t, they have made it easy for users to change out the panels in the menu with other popular selections such as Music, Radio, and eBay options to name a few.

With the emergence of a fully customizable homepage, AOL is taking a step in the right direction with their new approach. It is even hinted, according to Techcrunch, that come October AOL could add access to “bookmark[ing], social networks and a RSS reader.” At this rate AOL users will now have a one stop shop for all their online needs, and this is what AOL is banking on.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this new approach by AOL. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been an AOL homepage user, and even longer since I was a subscriber to their ISP, but I find this approach innovative for them, if not a little late. I think this will keep AOL in the game, and I look forward to see what other ideas they plan to roll out.

• Microsoft Changes Look of Hotmail – Thoughts? – May 24, 2010
• The Advertising Collective: AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft Join Forces – November 9, 2011
• Journalistic Debacle, Get A Clue! – December 3, 2008
• Yahoo Mail Gets International Expansion into New Markets and More Languages – December 7, 2011
• Carol Bartz Gets Fired as Yahoo CEO Over the Phone – September 7, 2011

AOL Changes the Gameplan originally appeared on: Crenk
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ReminderFox

This neat little plug-in goes for simplicity. While not necessarily an official “to-do” application, I find it almost necessary for those that seem to forget the important dates. People that forget birthdays, anniversaries, parties, and other date based events, ReminderFox will send out an alarm or an alert to remind you of what’s coming up. This plug-in has no aspirations to be a full calendar application, but rather makes its home at the bottom right of your browser ready to announce the days you NEED to remember!

ToDo Cue (experimental)
ToDo Cue unfortunately was very buggy in my use of this plug-in. It relies on the user creating simple, let me stress that again…simple, to-do lists. Once installed a side bar will appear in both your Gmail and Gcal accounts with the lists of things to-do in priority order. I was only able to get sustainable functionality with the older version of Gmail, which did me little good as I have updated it. There are a lot of other tools that do the same with better results. This plug-in needs more work, but remember, it is still labeled experimental, just not sure if it will ever be ready.

Todo Reminder
I found this to be the plug-in with the most potential. Currently the plug-in is very effective with event reminders. Things like parties, birthdays, get togethers, anniversaries, etc. What I loved about it is that alerts not only come via email, but you can set yourself up with SMS alerts. If more than one person is involved, take it further by setting up group alerts. This will make sure everyone is on task and aware of what is coming up. I especially found the one mouse click addition through emails and pages very effective when needing to list something quickly. The site says further development is needed, but I think this little plug-in has a great future in the productivity field.

Delegate to Remember the Milk
A lot of you have heard of Remember the Milk. If you’ve not, no worries, Remember the Milk (RtM) is simply another way to create your to-do lists with functionality with both web apps and mobile apps. There are a great number of power users for RtM, and as such, this plug-in is very popular. For starters, if you follow the GTD (Getting Things Done) philosophy, then this plug-in will be very effective. A “remember” button is added to all of your emails for quick task managing directly from you email. No bothering with cut and paste, simply click and the message is tasked into your RtM account. Yes, it’s that simple!

GTD Inbox
GTD Inbox is a plug-in that tries to do a whole lot. Unfortunately in this endeavor it tends to fail on a lot of fronts. This plug-in completely changes the face of your Gmail inbox by adding the functionality of GTD (mentioned above). For hardcore GTD’ers, the layout will be very familiar with intuitive clicks to productively manage all of your information. Similar to the RtM plug-in, you have a button that will take your emails and place them into your task list. You have the ability to create labels, ticklers, and build the productivity method that best suits your needs. This productivity juggaurnaut is definitely not an entry level “to-do” plug-in and may confuse first time users of GTD. A little buggy with newer versions of Gmail, but useful if you can understand it.

There are more I am sure, and even more being created for Firefox 3, but share your favorite To-Do Plug-ins here and let’s all get more done.

• Zemanta Now Available on Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and ScribeFire – February 16, 2009
• 4 Firefox Plugins to Stop Time Wasting – July 29, 2008
• Mozilla Removes Dangerous Add-On – July 17, 2010
• MonkeyFly: Customise Your Twitter Easily and for Free – January 9, 2010
• New Thunderbird Appeals to Masses – December 8, 2009

5 Firefox To-Do Plug-ins originally appeared on: Crenk
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