TechLoaf.blog

Ok, so I’ve talked a lot about Gmail. I have switched completely to it. I never open Thunderbird anymore. I only open Outlook for its PIM features (Actually, I stopped using Outlook for email about 2 years ago. It was just too dang bulky!) So what did it take to complete the switch? It took the Gmail Notifier by Google.

The Gmail Notifier runs in your system tray. It instantly notifies
you when you have new mail in your Gmail account. There are several
Firefox extensions that do that but they have one issue. They do not
have the ability to click on a ‘mailto:’ link and have your system open
up in Gmail’s compose window. The Google toolbar will do that. It will
also check for new mail. But when I loaded it, it REALLY slowed down my
computer. Even my MOUSE slowed down! Yikes.

So back to the Gmail Notifier... Once you install it, it runs in the
System Tray. It automatically notifies you when you have new Google
mail. It does that by turning a cool blue color and by playing the
Windows system sound for new mail! Pretty dang sweet. Also, this cool
little tool allows you to click on any ‘mailto:’ link on your system
and open up a Gmail compose window. Once I found this feature, I left
Outlook and Thunderbird behind.

You can download the Gmail Notifier from here.

IMO, the Gmail interface is the best thing going right now. It has just the right amount of features and a simple interface. That is why I like to use Gmail for ALL of my email addresses. Basically, there are three ways to do it. Two of them I talked about in my post about how to prevent spam. Those ways would be 1) forwarding your email to Gmail and 2) using Gmail for pop access. Most of your email can be channeled through Gmail with one of these methods.

There is another way to use Gmail for non-Gmail addresses. It is called “Google Apps for Domains.” GAD is currently FREE for the regular edition.

There is a charge for the premium edition which has a 10GB storage
size. Basically, GAD allows you to use Gmail directly with your domain
name email. For example, let’s say you have a domain of your own,
”yourdomain.com.“ You would then register yourdomain.com with GAD.
After approval, you would need to have your hosting company make some
changes to your domain. Then, you would surf to “mail.yourdomain.com”
and a Gmail interface for your email would load into your browser! This
interface has all of the features that regular Gmail has with a few
differences. It’s a relatively easy and inexpensive way to offer a
wonderful email program for free.

Check out Google Apps for Domains here.

This article is part of 'Gmail Week,' February 26-March 3, 2007

Get your own Chitika Mini-Mall!

Gmail (Google Mail) has changed the online world of email forever. Huge amounts of storage along with an intuitive interface are just a couple of its great features. One of the biggest differences of this service is Gmail’s folderless organizational system. It was a little weird for me at first, but I love it now. Let's look at making this system work for you...

Just one look at my old Yahoo mail box and you would notice
something right away… I have a ton of folders! Folders for emails from
family members, emails related to work, etc. etc. etc. I have too many
for one page!

Well Gmail takes the opposite approach from Yahoo. Gmail does not have
folders. Instead Gmail uses a three layered approach to organizing
email: archiving, labels, and stars.

1) Archiving – Once you read and act on your email message, just
archive it. Archiving it moves it out of your inbox but it still stays
in Gmail’s index. You have access to one of the best search engines on
the internet if you ever need to find your email. BTW, I try to never
let my inbox get larger than 1 page (50 messages).

2) Labels – If you have emails that require special action, you can
apply a label to it. I like this feature, but I do like to use more
than a few labels. There is a link from your inbox that allows you to
bring up all of your messages related to any of your labels.

3) Stars – You can also apply a star to an email to help you organize.
In true Web 2.0 fashion, Gmail doesn’t really tell you what the star is
specifically for, just that it’s there. It sort of reminds me of the
‘poke’ on Facebook. Anyway, I use the star to mark emails that I need
to act on quickly. I use the labels for things that need longer term
sorting. You can decide which is best for you.

Once you get used to this different way of thinking, it really becomes
helpful. It will help you simplify your life and work smarter.

This article is part of 'Gmail Week,' February 26-March 3, 2007

Web 2.0 is all about content, simplicity, intuitiveness, and community. Another feature that is commonly associated with Web 2.0 is tagging. Tagging allows the Web 2.0 user to attach short descriptions, or tags, to their data. Two sites that have made tagging huge are Flickr and Del.icio.us. These two sites epitomize Web 2.0, and a huge reason they do so is their use of tags. This blog also uses tags. Tags help the user find data they have stored. Let’s say I have uploaded a picture to my Flickr page. I can give tags to the picture to help me find it later. Later, I can retrieve the picture (and others related to it) using the tags I put on it. Tagging is my favorite feature of Web 2.0!

That said, it really surprises me that Gmail doesn’t offer tagging.
They already have many great organizational features such as labels and
stars. Now, imagine a small text box next to the ‘Archive’ button that
would allow you to add tags. Tagging would be icing on the cake. It
seems to me that it is the next logical step in their evolution.

This article is part of 'Gmail Week,' February 26-March 3, 2007

I must say that I write this article with a twinge of guilt. Yahoo was my first search engine. Yahoo Mail was my first permanent online email account. I have a twinge of guilt because Yahoo Mail has always been there for me. But, times have changed. A new mail program has come into my life and let me tell you, it has swept me off my feet. Well, it has for now at least. You see, Yahoo is web 1.0 in many ways, but Gmail stereotypifies all that is web 2.0. One day, most likely, there will be a web 3.0 mail client and I will run to it. But for now, Gmail is the one I love.

For the uninitiated, I want to write about why Gmail is better than Yahoo Mail (YM). I'll tell you, the differences are huge. Here we go...

1) Gmail is more streamlined than Yahoo Mail - Gmail has a cleaner,
simpler interface. Gmail has AJAX technology built in, so new mail
comes and the whole page does not have to load. But it is still
cleaner. It's even cleaner than the old YM interface. I really do not
like the new YM interface. It is just so bulky.

2) Gmail has a
better spam filter than Yahoo Mail - I get hundreds of spam emails
everyday. My Gmail box will get a few spams a month in it. My Yahoo box
gets at least 10 a day in it. Enough said. You can read more about
Gmail and spam in my article about how to deal with spam here.

3)
Gmail allows forwarding AND pop email access for FREE - What a great
feature. I recently asked YM if they were going to allow free pop
access like Gmail and I received a rude 'no' from the customer service
rep. That was the nail in the coffin for me leaving YM!

4) Gmail
has more storage space than Yahoo Mail - When Gmail first came out with
1GB of space, I was only allowed 25MB with my YM account. Gmail now
STARTS with 2GB and goes up from there. I am at 2.8GB right now. My YM
account only allows 1GB.

5) Gmail has a better search function
than Yahoo! Mail - I hate to sound harsh, but sheesh, what a sorry
search interface YM has! They are the original major search company.
They should have it down by now. The Gmail search interface is simple,
intuitive, and effective.

6) Gmail has a better PDA interface
than Yahoo Mail - This was what made me decide to switch to Gmail in
the first place. To their credit, Yahoo was one of the first companies
to have a wap (cell phone compatible) page. But, that interface has
HARDLY changed in five years! So now, with Yahoo, you have two choices,
'wap' and adavanced html. I have a Windows Mobile 5.0 pocket pc phone.
With Yahoo, I can only use their wap page. Gmail has an intermediate
page they call 'basic html.' It works great on my PDA phone and has
many of the features found in the regular Gmail interface.

I hope you find this helpful!
Randy

This article is part of 'Gmail Week,' February 26-March 3, 2007

Sometimes people overlook how Gmail can actually SIMPLIFY their life. The truth is IT CAN! Gmail is amazing. I use it everyday to simplify my life. It's more than just an email program. You can use it to:

1) REDUCE YOUR SPAM TO ALMOST NOTHING - I wrote about this earlier this week. It's amazing how simple and cheap it is to use Gmail to eliminate your spam.

2)
READ ALL OF YOUR EMAIL IN ONE LOCATION - Gmail is innovative in
multiple ways. This is one of my favorites. Properly configured, I can
use Gmail as a tool to read ALL of my emails from my many different
accounts. My post about spam also tells how to set up Gmail for all of your email acounts.

3)
PERMANTLY STORE ALL OF YOUR EMAIL ONLINE - Gmail is setup to deliver
ads to you based on the content of your emails. This is all done
mechanically so it is not an invasion of privacy. The more emails you
store the better ads Gmail can serve up. To encourage this, they offer
an ample 2GB of email storage space. It grows the longer you stay with
Gmail. I'm at 2.8GB with my main account! The advantage for us is that
we can archive ALL of our email, thus safely storing it forever. Very
nice feature.

4) STORE NEEDED FILES, PERMANENTLY OR TEMPORARILY
- I use my Gmail account as a storage facility almost everyday. I do
that by emailing files to myself. For example, I keep a list of
articles I want to write for my blog. After I edit the list, I email it
to myself at my Gmail account. Then I archive the email, saving the
file forever. I've used this method to safely store files, transfer
files, and move files for a temporary purpose. Having Gmail really
helps me in this way.

I hope you find this helpful!
Randy

This article is part of 'Gmail Week,' February 26-March 3, 2007

There are tons of awesome uses for Gmail. One of the best uses for Gmail is to rid your life of SPAM! Billions of emails are sent out as spam every year. Soon that figure will be everyday. Countless millions of dollars in productivity are wasted by workers around the world as we wade through the piles of spam. Most people just get a new email address when the spam gets too bad. Others spend money for solutions such as Choicemail. Gmail allows you to keep your old address (in most cases) AND get rid of spam, all for FREE!

Here’s how to rid your life of spam...

1) SET UP A GMAIL ADDRESS FOR NON-PERSONAL USE – Since Gmail is free,
you can set up as many accounts as you need. So you’ll need to get a
Gmail address that is ONLY for non-personal transactions such as
ordering stuff online, signing up for services, etc. Do not give this
email out for personal correspondence. You might be thinking, I can do
this with ANY email address, can’t I? Yes, that is true, but eventually
you will be overloaded with spam. Gmail has an incredible spam filter
so when the spam comes, Gmail will handle most of it. By most, I mean
99.99%.

Here’s another advantage to using Gmail: Gmail NEVER
loads images in emails unless you tell it to. Spammers use images to
verify that you are real. Once they do, they will spam the heck out of
you. Gmail protects you by never loading the image. Right now, my Yahoo
mailbox is full of spam partially because this feature is turned off by
default in Yahoo.

2) SET UP ANOTHER GMAIL ADDRESS FOR PERSONAL
USE – You can send an invite to yourself from your non-personal Gmail
address. Once you get this address set up, ONLY use it in cases where
you know the other party involved will not give it away to spammers.

3)
USE GMAIL TO ACCESS YOUR NON-GMAIL ACCOUNTS – If you are like me, you
have several email addresses that you use. If the accounts come with a
FORWARDING feature or a POP ACCESS feature, then you are in luck! Using
your personal Gmail address, Go to the ‘Settings’ page, then to
‘Accounts.’ From that page, you can set up all of your emails to be
accessed through Gmail. When you do this, Gmail will run every email
you get through their spam filter! Also, you can tell Gmail to reply to
every email you get using the email address it was sent to!

For
example, say some sends you an email to your address at
mail@yourdomain.com. Gmail would retrieve the email and put it in your
inbox (assuming it’s not spam). You see the email and reply to it.
Gmail would automatically put mail@yourdomain.com as the ‘reply to’
address. It’s totally seamless.


If you like, you can have
your non-personal Gmail address forwarded to your personal account.
That way, all of your mail is coming together in one place, almost
totally spam-free! Don’t worry about running out of space. Gmail starts
with 2gb of space and GROWS as you use it. My main Gmail account has
2.8GB of space available as we speak!

I hope you find this helpful. I hope you are successful in ridding your life of spam!

This article is part of 'Gmail Week,' February 26-March 3, 2007

I am really enamored by anything Google does. It's sad, but they have earned their reputation with me. Gmail is especially awesome. So this week, I am dedicating the entire week to Gmail. And no, I do not work for Gmail! Enjoy!

Post 1 How to Rid Your Life of Spam NOW!

Post 2 Four Ways Gmail Can Simplify Your Life

Post 3 Six Reasons Why Gmail is Better Than Yahoo Mail

Post 4 TAGS! TAGS! TAGS! One Improvement Gmail Really Needs

Post 5 Making Gmail's Organizational System Work For You

Post 6 How to Use Gmail for non-Gmail email addresses