Google’s 2008 April Fool’s joke - send emails into the past.
Posted in Digg stories, E-Mail, Gmail, Google, Humour, humor 
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Entries Categorized as 'Gmail'
Gmail Custom Time
April 1, 2008
How to Make a Local Backup Of Your Gmail Account
March 20, 2008
Accessing your e-mail in a web browser is all the rage, but rage is all you’ll be feeling when your net access goes down and you don’t have a local backup of your messages. Here are some tips for backing up your inbox. It requires a bit of work to set up, but once you do, you’ll be able to enjoy the goodness of Gmail’s web interface worry-free.
This is something I’ve been meaning to do for ages but I don’t want all my thousands of messages, only some of them downloaded to the desktop. I’ve yet to work out if that is possible.
Posted in Digg stories, E-Mail, Gmail, Google, Mozilla, Thunderbird, backup No Comments »
Essential Shortcuts to Browse through Gmail Faster
March 14, 2008
A story I wrote for Make Use Of. Much has already been said on Make Use Of about keyboard shortcuts but I want to focus specifically on the ones I use most often. I’ve often found that it’s easy to be totally overwhelmed by the sheer volume of shortcuts out there (who can remember them all?) so I’m going to boil it down for you to the absolute essentials and ignore the rest.
Posted in Digg stories, E-Mail, Gmail, Google, Published Work, shortcuts No Comments »
German Google still having hiccups
March 10, 2008
It seems that a few days after the German Google went down for a period of 90 minutes, the site is still experiencing the lingering after-effects.
Gmail is one casualty. For the past couple of days, the site has generally been sluggish and I have also been unable to change photos or details in my contact book :
Posted in E-Mail, Gmail, Google, germany No Comments »
Looking at unread Gmail messages in RSS
March 7, 2008
Google Operating System has an excellent piece on a subject which has been baffling me for ages - getting your Gmail messages to show up in a RSS reader. I’ve never been able to get it to work but it actually turns out that it doesn’t work in Google Reader! In fact the only online reader that it works in is Netvibes! How’s that for weirdness?
Google doesn’t trust their own RSS reader to handle Gmail?
Posted in E-Mail, Gmail, Google, RSS 2 Comments »
Google crashes for 90 minutes in Germany
March 6, 2008
This afternoon, just as my working day was finally starting to kick in (I’m a late starter), Google crashed. Thinking it might be a browser issue (I had installed a Google-related Firefox extension last night), I checked on Opera and Safari. Nothing. Zilch. Google was toast.
This had happened briefly once before, a couple of weeks back. Access to all Google domains from German locations was down but I didn’t wait long to see what was going to happen (I generally don’t have the patience). I just hit the reset switch on the router and the dynamic IP address changed and we were back into Google again instantly. So today we tried the same tack but Google was still down for close to a hour and a half. That meant no Gmail, no GTalk, no Google Reader and of course no search. I was forced to sink really low and use Yahoo. I thought I had died and gone to hell.
Posted in Gmail, Google, backup, germany 2 Comments »
A link from Google?
March 5, 2008
This is a good reason why you should check Google Analytics on a regular basis.
I checked just now and it turned out that Better Than Therapy was linked to by the official Gmail blog!
A link from Google and only 42 visits in the last month? That can’t be right. I had to check further.
Posted in Gmail, Google, Google Analytics 3 Comments »
Google Email Uploader
February 18, 2008
The Google Email Uploader is a desktop utility for Microsoft Windows that uploads email from other desktop email programs (like Microsoft Outlook) into your Google Apps mailbox. The Email Uploader preserves information such as sent dates and sender/recipient data, as well as the folder structure used by the other email program. The Google Email Uploader requires a Google Apps Premier, Education, or Partner Edition account.
http://code.google.com/p/google-email-uploader/
Posted in E-Mail, Gmail, Google, Software No Comments »
Gmail’s new filter feature - “mark as read”
February 15, 2008
I don’t believe it! Gmail has made an addition to their filter options! Now when you are setting up a filter to divert email to a label, you can have Gmail automatically mark the email as read :
So what are the advantages of this? Well for a start, I automate a lot of backups to be emailed to me each day. This blog for example is backed up by a Wordpress plugin and emailed to me. I also get backups of my Stumbleupon, Delicious and Digg accounts emailed to me. These bypass the inbox, thanks to a filter, and sit in a label.
But before they would sit there unread and I had to go to each email and mark them as read. This was irritating and tedious as you can imagine. But now…..Gmail can automatically and quietly mark them as read when they come in and I need never know they are there. This is excellent therefore for emails that arrive purely as backup and you don’t need to actually open the email unless you need the backup later.
Posted in E-Mail, Gmail, Productivity 7 Comments »
Creating filters in Gmail and organizing your email
February 15, 2008
A friend of mine who owns a Gmail address asked me just now how to set up a filter in Gmail for emails with “FW” in the title. After walking her through it, I thought I would just expand on it a little here. With the new Gmail expanding into 37 new languages, I thought it would be a good idea to go back to basics for a while.
Heavy Gmail users may have mastered how to set up filters and labels but the smaller users may not have worked it out yet. Since filters and labels are the backbone of how Gmail works (and by far its biggest strength), every Gmail user should learn how to set them up and use them. Not using the filters and labels is like going to visit a hooker and only asking for a hug (OK, a dodgy analogy there but I am not an analogy expert!).
I have my Gmail set up to the point where every known contact has their own label and emails from them go directly there. Only people I have never talked to before or rarely talk to end up in my actual inbox. Any emails with “FW” or “Fwd” in the title is assumed to be a joke or a photo and those are sent to their own folder so they don’t distract me. I then go back to them later when I am bored and I have some spare time on my hands.
Using this method, I have cut down on distractions where Google Talk notifies me of new emails and as a result, my productivity is much better.
So here’s how to do it :
If the email is already in your inbox and you want to filter future similar emails from that person or emails with the same subject title, then it is very easy. When the email is open, go to the top right hand corner of the email and drop down the little menu :
Choose “filter messages like these”. This then takes you to the filter page where everything from that email is pretty much filled in. But just to be sure, press “test search” to see what comes up.
On the next page after that (just follow the buttons), it will ask you what you want done with that email. You can automatically trash it, automatically archive it, label it, forward it to another email address, star it or mark it as read (this last one appears to be a new feature!). Choose the label option, choose what label you want and decide if you want the email to have something else. Want it to bypass the inbox? Then choose the archive option. Want a star on that email? Then the star option. You get the idea.
When everything is configured the way you want it, save it all and exit. All future emails with that criteria will now be handled the way you want them to.
But what if the email is not yet in the inbox? Then you are basically going to have to make the filter from scratch and guess what criteria you would need. As an example, let’s take my friend’s dilemma and say that we want all forwarded emails to be moved to their own folder. First make a label where you want the emails to go. You can make this by going to the green label box on the left hand side - at the bottom is a link that says “edit labels”. Click on that and at the bottom of the next page is a box where you can name new labels. Let’s say we name the label “forwards”.
Once you have your “forwards” label set up, go to “settings” (top right hand side of the page) then “filters” then “create a new filter”. In the next box that comes up, add “FW or FWD” in the subject line (this means that all emails with FW or FWD in the subject line will be filtered). If you want to only apply the filter to a certain person, add their email address in the “from” field. You can also specify other keywords and whether or not the email should have an attachment :
Don’t worry if you initially muck it up. You can always go back in later and refine it the way you want it. Everything is reversible.
On the next page, again choose what you want done with the email and save everything.
Setting up filters is like everything else in life - practice makes perfect. When you’ve done one, you’ll find the next one easier to do. I’m off now to check out the new “mark as read” filter option.
Posted in E-Mail, Gmail, Productivity, Tutorials No Comments »
Are you an email piler or filer?
February 11, 2008
When it comes to email, are you a piler or a filer? That’s the question posed by Download Squad and I think it’s a good topic to discuss as email is now a big part of our everyday lives. I am also interested in the psychological aspects of it all.
I’m a filer without doubt. It’s greatly helped by the fact that Gmail has lots of storage space and an “archive” button. Without Gmail, I would be struggling. I get on average around 50 -75 emails a day, sometimes more and it is a combination of friends, family, a few newsletters, story tips sent in by people and work-related conversations. I have noticed a surge recently in PR agencies sending me news releases which I guess must be a side-product of working for Make Use Of, Google Tutor, Search Engine News and Geeks Are Sexy.
When an email comes in, my immediate focus is on getting that email dealt with and put away. Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts are extremely helpful in that regard. The filters are even better because then I can have certain mails re-directed to certain labels so only the most important stuff actually ends up in my inbox. Low level stuff like blog comments, trackbacks, website notifications, forwarded jokes and so on can be tucked away for later.
My girlfriend on the other hand is a BIG piler. She has over 100 emails in her inbox with many more scattered across multiple folders. She uses Outlook Express for her emails and it is the proverbial email battlefield. She keeps EVERYTHING including bills paid last year, pizza delivery confirmations, the whole lot. I wouldn’t dare to go near her inbox to find something as I would be there forever having a severe migraine! When she cleans out her inbox and goes from 100 emails to 90, she considers that a major achievement. I meanwhile am banging my head on the wall and muttering some Swahili death chant.
What are you? A filer or a piler?
Posted in E-Mail, Gmail, Productivity 6 Comments »
25 Incredible Skins and Tools for the Gmail Power User
February 8, 2008
Gmail is one of those rare things unanimously loved by everyday web users and tech-heads alike. The possibilities are endless. It can be anything from a simple email client to your central nervous system on the web. This article highlights some of the very best tips, tools and hacks hand-picked from hundreds of resources. The super-clean skin is not so great but the drag-drop-upload tool is absolutely wonderful.
Posted in Gmail, Web Tools 2 Comments »
Migrate All Your Old Gmail to a New Gmail Address
February 8, 2008
With Gmail’s easy-to-use Mail Fetcher feature and POP3 access, you can easily import all of your old emails to your new address. Although I personally think it is a lot easier to IMAP them all into Thunderbird and then re-upload them all into the new email address.
Posted in Gmail, Google, Lifehacker, Thunderbird, Tips No Comments »
Remember the Milk releases a Gmail to-do list! Sweet!
December 20, 2007
I’m a pretty happy chappie today. Despite feeling like my head is going to fall off because of the flu, I am nevertheless a well organised sick person thanks to a spiffy Firefox extension released by Remember the Milk (hereafter referred to as RTM - because I am lazy).
In fact it’s so great I had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn’t December 25th already! Everyone is going nuts about it.
I’m sure, if you’re reading a blog like this, that you all know what RTM is (you internet-savvy daredevil that you are). But if you were looking for therapy, accidently stumbled upon this blog and desperately looking for the exit, I’ll just briefly explain that RTM is a web-based reminder / to do service. I set up an account at the very beginning but I have never really used it because a) I am more of a sticky notes kind of guy for writing reminders and b) I need to have something staring me in the face all day long for me to use it. The phrase “out of sight, out of mind” really does apply to me.
So since I normally have Gmail open all day and I work in front of a computer, I was really waiting for Gmail to introduce their own to-do feature. The sticky notes thing wasn’t really working out anymore as I was drowning in them. But I was mystified as to why Google was dragging their feet bringing out a feature like this. Isn’t a to-do list a natural extension of an email service, a calendar and a online word processing suite? Some were speculating that Google wasn’t doing it because they had probably decided just to go the easy (and usual) route and buy someone out. Maybe even RTM. Maybe RTM made this Gmail extension as if to say “want to buy us Google? Come and get us!”.
Anyway, whatever the reasons for RTM making this extension, it is still a really great extension and if you use both Gmail and Firefox then this is a “must-have” extension. I always avoid writing “must-have Firefox extensions” blog posts as the internet is full of these kinds of crappy posts but I have to make an exception in this case. Get this one.
One of the things I really like about the extension is that if you give a specific label to an email (such as “to-do” then the email is automatically added to your RTM to-do list. When you un-label the email, it disappears from your RTM list.
The actual list itself sits to the right of the screen. So your inbox gets pushed to the left a bit like three people squeezing into the back seat of a car (with the poor inbox being the crushed pig in the middle!) . If you then go to your Gmail settings, there is now a sub-tab where you can configure your RTM extension to get it the way you want it.
All we need now is for Lifehacker to update their Better Gmail extension to get the RSS reading list underneath the inbox and I’ll have my Gmail nerve center back!
Posted in Firefox, Gmail, Mozilla, Productivity No Comments »
AIM’s Smarterchild is my new know-it-all chat Gmail buddy
December 6, 2007
Yesterday I reported on Google Tutor that Gmail has rolled out AIM Messenger support on the integrated GTalk / Gmail client. Although that support doesn’t extend as far as the standalone GTalk client which I use every day. Bummer.
I saw a comment on Steve Rubel’s Twitter (which I subscribe to) and then I was reading today on Lifehacker that AIM has a bot called SmarterChild which you can put on your AIM contact list (and now subsequently on your GTalk list) and you can ask it any question and it will answer. My initial reaction to this was that you have search engines like Google for queries like this. But I am a sucker for time-wasting toys and so I was asking it things like “what is the 33rd President of the United States?” and it answered correctly! Although I then asked it if it wanted to go out for a drink and it told me that the human / machine barrier was insurmountable!
But apart from providing you info on past US presidents and giving you the brush-off when you try to flirt with it, SmarterChild also offers a reminder service. So if you want to be reminded to phone someone at 3.00pm, just tell it to ping you at 2.55pm and give you a reminder.
To add it to your AIM list, just add the username smarterchild and say “hi”. It’ll then give you a list of options.
Posted in Gmail, Instant Messaging No Comments »
