Saturday, November 17, 2007
Official Gmail Blog: 5 little-known Gmail features you may not yet know about
When we began rolling out a new Gmail code architecture a few weeks ago, we also launched some new features to help improve the speed and convenience of managing email. I've been using several of these new additions over the last few weeks, and while they might seem small on their own, they really can add up to save you a lot of time and hassle. That's why I decided to list my five favorite new features that are so new, you may not have noticed them. We are still rolling them out to IE6, international and Google Apps users, but for those of you who noticed a new contact manager among other recent improvements in our latest version, here they are:
5. "Archive and next" shortcut
We added a bunch of new shortcuts to Gmail, but one that I've found to be a true time-saver is what I call the "archive and next" shortcut. When I have a lot of mail, it can be really annoying to have to open a message, click "Back to Inbox" and then select the next email I want to read. So once you enable shortcuts in Settings, you can simply press the left bracket key "[" while viewing a message to archive it, and then immediately open the next oldest one. When I see a long list of unread messages, I like to open the first one and then just hit "[" to swiftly move through my mail and archive as I go. (P.S. By clicking the right bracket "]" you can also move the other way if you want to open newer messages after you archive).
4. Share mail searches with friends
How many times do your friends tell you, "I can't find that email you sent me." Now you can prove that you did indeed send that message, despite the accusations. All you have to do is search for the message using your expert mail searching skills, and when you find it listed in the results, just copy and paste the URL and email it to your friend. When he or she goes to that link while in Gmail, your friend's Gmail will run the same search you ran and will be able to locate that "lost" email instantly. For example, if you wanted to share a search for "pick me up at airport," so flight information can be located, you would send over this URL: http://mail.google.com/mail/#search/pick+me+up+at+airport.
3. Browser navigation and history
Your web browser is now a great way to navigate Gmail. Instead of having to find the right links on the page to move from inbox to messages to other Gmail views, you can use the browser navigation buttons (back and forward) to jump back and forth between emails. You can also open your browser history and click on specific emails that you've read to go right back to them. This allows you to quickly access certain emails without having to re-read your inbox. Browser history is something that often doesn't work well on complex web apps like Gmail, but we've gone to great lengths to make it work right.
2. Bookmark emails
I frequently need to save a single email for a period of time, such as a message that includes an important phone number. But I don't want to create a separate label for one message, and I also don't want to archive all the email that comes in after that message just to keep that thread near the top of my inbox--and hopefully the top of my mind. This problem is now easily solved by a new ability to bookmark specific emails. All emails now have dedicated URLs, so just by adding a browser bookmark while viewing a message, you can return to it whenever you want, just like a regular web page--although you will still have to log in to Gmail if you've signed out.
1. "Filter messages like this"
I find filters to be one of the most useful features in Gmail, but sometimes it can be hard to set them up quickly. So we added a new capability that makes a filter based on the message you are reading, so you can keep track of future similar emails. By clicking on the dropdown menu in the upper right-hand corner of every email (the upside-down triangle), you can now see the option to "Filter messages like this." Not only can you easily create a filter based on the sender, but this is especially handy if you are trying to filter emails sent to mailing lists. We automatically set up a filter for you based on the "list ID" header, which does a better job of finding emails sent to mailing lists.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Upload all your old archived Email to Gmail from outlook, lotus notes, unix
read more | digg story
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Released :: Firefox 3 Beta 1
read more | digg story
Monday, November 05, 2007
iPhone v1.1.2 breaks jailbreak -- coming to the UK on Friday
read more | digg story
Flock 1.0 Released: Next Gen Social browser
read more | digg story
O2 removes 200MB Fair-Use policy for UK iPhon
read more | digg story
Friday, November 02, 2007
Windows Home Server Review
read more | digg story
Monday, October 29, 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Howto: Get IMAP on your GMAIL account + Configure GMail with IMAP4/SSL on Nokia S60, Windows Mobile, iPhone, Sony Ericsson UIQ, Blackberry & Motorola
Google announced the rollout of free IMAP4 over SSL access for GMail. This allows you to keep your Gmail message state information such as whether or not a message has been read, replied to, or deleted synchronized across any IMAP4 client on desktop or mobile device such as Nokia S60, Windows Mobile, Windows Mail Desktop, iPhone, Sony Ericsson UIQ, Blackberry, Outlook 2003/2007, Thunderbird and Mac since these flags are stored on the server unlike POP3.
Here are a few resources to setup and configure IMAP4 over SSL for a multitude of desktop and mobile clients:
+ Nokia S60
+ Sony Ericsson UIQ3. This tutorial points to a help guide from Synchronica. Just substitute Synchronica’s server names with Google GMail’s IMAP server.
+ Blackberry
+ Apple iPhone
+ Motorola Razr (Note: External guide, similiar to Sony Ericsson above)
+ Windows Mobile
+ Outlook 2003
+ Outlook 2007
+ Thunderbird
+ Windows Mail Desktop
+ Outlook Express
+ Mac Apple Mail
To enable IMAP in your GMail account, goto your Settings, Forwarding and POP/IMAP and select Enable IMAP.
Tip: If you don’t see an IMAP option yet, change your language/locale settings to US English and sign in again.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Google Makes Calendar Available Offline, Gmail Next?
read more | digg story
Gmail gets IMAP
read more | digg story
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
WARNING: device driver updates causing Vista to deactivate
read more | digg story
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Leopard: One big page listing all 300+ new features
read more | digg story
Leopard release: October 26th
read more | digg story
Monday, October 15, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Released: Google Desktop for Linux 1.1 Beta
read more | digg story
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Linux for Business: 50 Apps to Get your Office on Open Source
read more | digg story
Monday, October 08, 2007
Before They Spoiled the Software; 13 Apps that Should have Been Left Alone
read more | digg story
New Blu-ray discs with DRM failing to play on some devices
read more | digg story
Google phone will take on Microsoft, not Apple
read more | digg story
Share your WiFi... please! UK ISP to Customers
read more | digg story
Sunday, October 07, 2007
The Wi-Fi Detector T-shirt
read more | digg story
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Desperate Microsoft Removes WGA From IE7
read more | digg story
Microsoft adds 1-million DRM-free tracks to Zune Marketplace
read more | digg story
More Zune 2 Details: Lossless, Glass Screens, Green is the New Brown
read more | digg story
Top 10 Wi-Fi Boosts, Tweaks and Apps
read more | digg story
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Microsoft's new Zunes: officially in 80, 8, and 4GB sizes
read more | digg story
20 tips to get more juice from your laptop battery
read more | digg story
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Nokia unlocks anti-Apple campaign
read more | digg story
The SonyDrive XEL-1 OLED TV: 1,000,000:1 contrast starting December 1st
read more | digg story
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
The Perfect Server - Gentoo 2007
read more | digg story
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Store, access, share and use your digital documents. With complete privacy. 2GB free!
Store, access, share and use your digital documents. With complete privacy. 2GB free!
Stealth Windows update prevents XP repair
Ever since the Redmond company's recent download of new support files for Windows Update, users of XP's repair function have been unable to install the latest 80 patches from Microsoft.
Review of Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy features and changes
read more | digg story
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Critical Excel 2007 bug cripples users
read more | digg story
Official Gmail Blog: Updates from Google Docs and Google Calendar
The Google Calendar team, along with the mobile team, released an upgrade to the Calendar interface on the iPhone. It is now tailored for the iPhone, and you can now see your different calendars in distinctive colors. You can see the new Calendar interface by going to http://calendar.google.com on your iPhone browser.
Amazon Launches DRM-Free MP3 Store
read more | digg story
Facebook now worth $15 billion?
read more | digg story
YouTube Adding 30-second Ads
read more | digg story
Forget iPhone Bricking: All Third-Party Apps Void Your iPhone Warranty
read more | digg story
10 Reasons You Should be Using Thunderbird
read more | digg story
Monday, September 24, 2007
OPEN SOURCE GOD: 480+ Open Source Applications
read more | digg story
Gmail Wish List: 10 Things I’d Like to See in the New Gmail
read more | digg story
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Digital Trends - Latest Computers
New version of Gmail being tested
read more | digg story
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Vista Ultimate users will have to wait for "extras"
read more | digg story
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Firefox 2.0.0.7 Now Available
read more | digg story
Google will definitely launch its own branded handset based on Linux
read more | digg story
USB 3.0 Brings Optical Connection in 2008
read more | digg story
IBM Jumping Back Into the Office Software Game - with FREE Apps
read more | digg story
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Mozilla Launches New Messaging Company, Thunderbird MailCo!
read more | digg story
OpenOffice.org 2.3.0 Released
read more | digg story
Google Presentation - Googles PowerPoint app goes live
read more | digg story
Microsoft loses anti-trust appeal
read more | digg story
Free software made mandatory in India
read more | digg story
Winamp Goes Where iTunes Doesn't Dare
read more | digg story
Monday, September 17, 2007
Web ad blocking may not be (entirely) legal
read more | digg story
Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) Release Dates
read more | digg story
anySIM is here: open source GUI iPhone unlock app
read more | digg story
Sunday, September 16, 2007
A Offline Gmail Client: Sweet
It’s claimed that a client has already been designed, is in testing, and runs (not surprisingly) on Google Gears. Google has previously offered an offline version of Google Reader using the Gears browser plugin. Other companies embracing the Gears platform include Zoho.
Although the story is unconfirmed by Google at this stage, it would be fair to presume that an offline version of Gmail happening is a given, the only question is when it will be available. Google continues to put together its jigsaw puzzle of office functionality as it builds a serious Microsoft Office competitor.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Top 10 little-known Gmail features (Part 2)
5. Smart links on the right
When you get an email that references an address, look to the right and you'll probably see a link from Gmail pointing you to a map of the address on Google Maps. Gmail also recognizes email text that refers to an event (e.g., 'dinner tomorrow at 8pm'), and will give you a link to add it to your calendar. It'll even pick up on package tracking numbers from UPS and link you directly to the tracking page, so you don't have to copy and paste the number. I really like this last one when I order stuff online and want the instant gratification of knowing a package is on its way.
4. Conversation update notification
It can be really annoying to write up a whole response to an email and click send -- only to discover that someone else has already responded. Gmail has a little feature that helps solve this problem. When you're replying to (or reading) a conversation, and someone else replies, a small notification window pops up to let you know. I sometimes think of it as the "prevent embarrassment" notification. Plus, it can save a lot of time by avoiding the series of follow-up emails needed to clear up the confusion.
3. Advanced search
Most people know that searching your archive is a huge part of what makes Gmail useful. But there are a few search features that you may not know about, which can be really handy. For instance, if I want to narrow down my search to only messages sent from Kevin, I can just add "from: Kevin" to the query. You can even search only for messages with attachments by including "has: attachments," or narrow by date with "after:" and "before:" Check out this whole list of advanced search operators.
2. Offline chat
Offline chat is another feature which makes chatting in the context of your email particularly useful. When you're chatting with a friend and they suddenly go offline, you can keep sending IMs and your friends will receive your messages the next time they open Gmail. The chat will show up as a new item in their inbox. And, of course, if you're still online, your friend can go ahead and reply by chat.
1. Create event
Since I use Gmail and Google Calendar at work (through Google Apps), I'm constantly emailing people about meetings, and scheduling them on everyone's calendars. When I'm writing an email to set up an event, I can actually do it all from within Gmail by clicking the "Add event info" link below the subject line. Then choose the time and location for the meeting or party. When you send the email, the event details will be added to to your Google Calendar, and Gmail will send an invitation to the email recipients to add it to their calendars as well.
Monday, September 10, 2007
iPhoneSIMfree goes retail, let the unlocking begin
Update: The Hackint0sh guys claim they will not be reverse engineering the iPhoneSIMfree software. Ok, well, whatever.
Apple iPod Touch Calendar Can't "Add" Appointments: Why, and What's Else is Being Crippled?
After a lengthy discussion in Apple's support boards about an image published in iLounge's "The Beat is On" galleries, the company has removed the words "entering calendar events" from its US features page, as you can see in this screenshot:
However, the full text can still be read in other international pages (like Canada, United Kingdom, Spain or France), which still carry the original US english copy.
After apparently pulling Bluetooth functionality at the last second, it seems like Apple is trying to further create distinctions between the two devices, positioning the iPhone as a productivity platform and the touch as an entertainment device. Fortunately, if the move is confirmed in the final release of the product, the hackers will come later to the rescue.
[Update Sept. 10th 04:37AM]
A reader points out that Microsoft also does artificial product segmentation. Like with the Home edition of Windows, it includes the Internet Information Server component, which can't be used unless you hack the OS. However, this doesn't make artificial crippling right for the consumer.
I can fully understand Apple removing the CSR Bluetooth chip to make the iPod touch cheaper than the iPhone. It's a cost-saving measure, and they owe to their shareholders to save money and increase profits. But taking a line of code out of a program to make some people buy the iPhone is a dodgy and surprising move by Apple. It may be normal for Redmond, but certainly not for Cupertino. As with shareholders, they also owe their customers some respect.
And yes, it's Apple's choice and they can do whatever they want as a company. However, these practices are quite different from what Apple has been doing in the past with all their products, including Mac OS X vs Mac OS X Server. Segmentation is fine, but having a phone and EDGE and SMS and Bluetooth built in in the iPhone is enough feature differentiation to justify the current $100 price gap. Why limit a simple piece of software and risk customer alienation?
Obviously, there is a limit to product segmentation and the increasing uproar in Apple's discussion pages demonstrates that people don't get this kind of artificial crippling. Hopefully, Apple will get the message and change this before the product becomes available. [Thanks Jason]
Apple Sells 1 Millionth iPhone
Update: The Hackint0sh guys claim they will not be reverse engineering the iPhoneSIMfree software. Ok, well, whatever.
20+ Sidebar Plugins for Power Bloggers
27 Firefox Addons to Make You a Powerful Blogger
1 . Feed Sidebar - The Feed Sidebar is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox Web browser that displays the new items from your Live Bookmarks in the sidebar.
2 . Flickr Sidebar - This Flickr sidebar is used for viewing and searching photo lists.
3 . Wordpress.com Sidebar - Get quick access to your wordpress.com account from your browser sidebar. Easy to use.
4 . Another Delicious Sidebar - A sidebar for accessing del.icio.us bookmarks. Now able to edit and delete links.
5 . Netscape Friends' Activity Sidebar - The Friends' Activity Sidebar (FAS) extension helps you keep tabs on what stories your Netscape friends are submitting, commenting, and voting.
6 . Alexa Sidebar Again - It just retrieves the What's Related information from their free service.
7 . MetaTags - This sidebar displays page meta-information (metatags, links, etc.) Has automated search engine submission menu.
8 . Wikalong - Wikalong is a Firefox Extension that embeds a wiki in the Sidebar of your browser, which corresponds to the current page you are viewing.
9 . KeywordBar - Shows a sidebar with all bookmarks that contain a defined keyword
10 . FlashTracer - While running any .swf Flash file in your browser you can see all the output generated by the "trace" flash functions in this sidebar component.
11 . Content Preferences - displays widgets for modifying the Text Zoom, Page Style, and Character Encoding settings (which are normally housed in the View menu).
12 . Navibar - The Navibar Extension adds a new sidebar containing a tree-representation of the current website depending on a special sitemap format.
13 - EditCSS - Stylesheet modifier in the Sidebar.
14 - del.icio.us Complete - It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others.
15 . GMarks - includes a sidebar, a toolbar, a quick search with Home+Home similar to Google Desktop's Ctrl+Ctrl search, and full content search of your bookmarked pages.
16 . Twitbin - Twitbin allows for the sending and receiving of messages on twitter via your firefox sidebar.
18 . Toodledo - You no longer need to signin to our website just to add a quick todo.
19 . dragdropupload - A Sidebar allows to drop files from a listing.
20 . MediaPlayerConnectivity - Allow you to launch embed video of website in an external application with a simple click
21 . LinkCounter - Display a count of links of a web page and frames.
22 . Alexa Sparky - Get Alexa data in your statusbar!
23 . SearchStatus - Display the Google PageRank, Alexa rank and Compete ranking anywhere in your browser, along with fast keyword density analyser, keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, Alexa info and more.
24 . RankQuest SEO Toolbar - quick access to more than 30 intuitive SEO tools. Alexa Rank and Page Rank provided by Alexa and Google respectively ensures the popularity of the site.
25 . PDF Download - if you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML), if you want to view it outside Firefox with your default or custom PDF reader.
26 . Clipmarks - You can save your clips privately or publicly, email them to friends, or post them directly to your blog.
27 . ScribeFire - full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.
Credit to: http://blogtrench.blogspot.com for this great addons guide.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Productivity enhancers for Thunderbird
read more | digg story
iPhoneSIMfree begins fulfilling bulk orders, apparently will not unlock end
read more | digg story
Sunday, September 02, 2007
5 little-known Gmail features
read more | digg story
CNN confirms iPhoneSIMfree's iPhone SIM unlock hack
read more | digg story
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Major Skype Outage In Progress
Related Stories
At 2PM GMT (9AM ET, 6AM PT) Skype announced that its engineering team had discovered a software issue that is expected to be resolved "within 12 to 24 hours." The original entry, which has been removed, read: "Due to peer-to-peer network issues there are problems with Skype login. This issue is being investigated. We will give new updates when the issue has been resolved. We apologise for any inconvenience." Skype has pulled its client downloads from the site until the problem is fixed.
Skypeophiles here at Ars tell us that some users are showing up on contact lists already, but they are nonetheless having problems connecting to them for voice or text chat. A chat message I sent to one user arrived after 30 minutes, and we could both "see each other" as being "online" on our contacts list, even though we weren't.
Skype's recommendation is that you leave your client running, so that it can authenticate to the service once it returns to normal.
Oh, you fickle VOIP (?)
What makes this Skype outage surprising is how often it doesn't happen. This is the most significant outage for the service in years, yet we already foresee scores of headlines trumpeting the flaws of VOIP communications based on this outage alone. That's unfortunate because we think Skype network performance has been spectacular on average, given that it's free and heavily used. In fact, it would appear that the Skype P2P network is indeed in fine shape, it's just that the authentication system (which authenticates but also provides location services for routing purposes) is hosed.
On the other hand, for the first time in many, many weeks, I'll be forced to use a real telephone for business as opposed to Skype. It's like traveling back in time to be with Alexander Graham Bell. Or not.
When we learn more about the cause, we'll update here.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Nokia announces product advisory for BL-5C battery
---
This is a product advisory for the Nokia-branded BL-5C battery manufactured by Matsushita Battery Industrial Co. Ltd. of Japan between December 2005 and November 2006. This product advisory does not apply to any other Nokia battery.
Nokia has identified that in very rare cases the affected batteries could potentially experience over heating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge. Nokia is working closely with relevant local authorities to investigate this situation.
Nokia has several suppliers for BL-5C batteries that have collectively produced more than 300 million BL-5C batteries. This advisory applies only to the 46 million batteries manufactured by Matsushita between December 2005 and November 2006. There have been approximately 100 incidents of over heating reported globally. No serious injuries or property damage have been reported.
Consumers with a BL-5C battery subject to this advisory should note that all of the approximately 100 incidents have occurred while charging the battery. According to Nokia's knowledge this issue does not affect any other use of the mobile device. Concerned consumers may want to monitor a mobile device while charging that contains a BL-5C battery subject to this product advisory.
While the occurence in the BL-5C batteries produced by Matsushita in the time-period specified is very rare, for consumers wishing to do so, Nokia and Matsushita offer to replace for free any BL-5C battery subject to this product advisory.
The BL-5C batteries which are subject to the product advisory were used with the following Nokia models or separately as accessories:
Nokia 1100, Nokia 1100c, Nokia 1101, Nokia 1108, Nokia 1110, Nokia 1112, Nokia 1255, Nokia 1315, Nokia 1600, Nokia 2112, Nokia 2118, Nokia 2255, Nokia 2272, Nokia 2275, Nokia 2300, Nokia 2300c, Nokia 2310, Nokia 2355, Nokia 2600, Nokia 2610, Nokia 2610b, Nokia 2626, Nokia 3100, Nokia 3105, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3125, Nokia 6030, Nokia 6085, Nokia 6086, Nokia 6108, Nokia 6175i, Nokia 6178i, Nokia 6230, Nokia 6230i, Nokia 6270, Nokia 6600, Nokia 6620, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6631, Nokia 6670, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, Nokia 6682, Nokia 6820, Nokia 6822, Nokia 7610, Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia N72, Nokia N91, Nokia E50, Nokia E60
“Nokia” and “BL-5C” are printed on the front of the battery. On the back of the battery, the Nokia mark appears at the top, and the battery identification number (consisting of 26 characters) is found at the bottom. If the battery identification number does not contain 26 characters, it is not subject to this product advisory.
If you are interested to know if your battery is part of this product advisory, please follow the two steps below:
1) Switch off your mobile device and check the battery model. If your battery is not a BL-5C model, you are not included in this product advisory and your product will not be replaced.
2) If your battery is a BL-5C model, remove the battery and check the 26-character identification number from the back of the battery. Enter the identification number in the field below and you will be advised if your battery may be replaced.
www.nokia.com/batteryreplacement
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Google Pack Adds StarOffice
Google Pack, the collection of applications recommended by Google, includes a new software: StarOffice, an office suite developed by Sun. In 2000 Sun released StarOffice's source code, which became the foundation of OpenOffice.org, an open source project sponsored by Sun.
StarOffice 8 is a full-featured office suite that contains a word processor, a spreadsheet tool, applications for presentations, databases, math formulas and drawing. It has support for most Microsoft Office formats (except for the formats introduced in Office 2007), but it can also export documents as PDF out of the box. The software normally costs $70, but it's available for free in Google Pack. It's worth noting that StarOffice has a huge installer (more than 140 MB), so you should download it only if you have a fast Internet connection.
It will be interesting to see why Google didn't choose to include OpenOffice.org, the primary difference between StarOffice and OpenOffice.org being that StarOffice includes some proprietary components like clip-art graphics, fonts, templates and tools for Microsoft Office migration.
The next step would probably be the addition of a plug-in that lets you synchronize local documents with Google Docs & Spreadsheets, so you can have the best of the both worlds: edit complicated documents offline, collaborate and store files securely online. For now, StarOffice is integrated with Google Search and Google Desktop.
Essential Gmail Filters to Unclutter Your Inbox
One of the problems with opening your inbox and finding 20 new messages is that it can be overwhelming. The work required to sort through it all, delete unwanted messages, skip over unimportant ones, and finally get to the urgent ones, can be very daunting.
You don’t have time to do that every day. Let Gmail do it for you.
Of course, you can actually adapt these for the the “rules” of whatever email program you prefer, but the language I use is specific to Gmail filters. It shouldn’t be hard to adapt it to other programs such as Outlook or Hotmail or Yahoo.
The process of setting these filters up will actually take a couple of days (not the entire two days), as you add names and words to the filters to make sure they catch everything you need. But once you’ve set them up, your inbox will be what you need it to be: just the need-to-see stuff.
Gmail Filter Assistant. If you use Firefox (and you probably should be), use the Gmail Filter Assistant script for Greasemonkey (you’ll have to install the Greasemonkey extension first if you haven’t yet). It’ll make the whole process easier — you can create a filter from an email in seconds.
Filter 1: killfile. This is the first process of weeding unwanted emails from your inbox. Gmail should already be catching almost all of your spam (I think I get one spam in my inbox a week). So now you want to delete those emails that you know you never read and that just waste your time. Create a filter with the email addresses or subject lines of common emails you get that you don’t need to read, and make the action of the filter be “delete it”. Here are some common ones:
- Newsletters or mailing lists.
- Emails from companies letting you know about sales or deals.
- People who only forward you chain mail or joke emails. Yes, this would include your Aunt Edna, if that’s all she sends you.
- Notifications that you don’t need to read. For example, I have Google Calendar email me my agenda each day, but if it says “No scheduled items” then I have Gmail delete it. Similarly, I don’t need to read notifications of pingbacks to my blog.
Filter 2: urgent. You probably know the people whose emails you need to read right away. Create a filter with their email addresses, with the action “Apply the label: Urgent”. You can add other things to the filter, in the “Has the words” field, such as words in the subject line or body of the email that you need to see right away. Examples might include “payment” or “invoice”, but which words you need to see right away depend on you.
In addition, you can tell people that if they want you to respond to an email right away, to put the word “urgent” in the subject line.
The “urgent” emails will be left in your inbox, but it’s important to label them “urgent” because of the next filter.
Filter 3: low-priority. Create another filter with the word “urgent” in the “doesn’t have” field, and give the filter two actions: “Apply the label: Low-priority” and “Skip the inbox”. This will get all your non-urgent emails out of your inbox. You may need to tinker with these filters a little to ensure that the right emails are being filtered out of your inbox. For example, if someone always puts the word “urgent” in their emails, but you don’t consider them urgent, you’ll need to create a second “low-priority” filter with their email address in the “Has the words” field.
Now all of your low-priority emails — the ones you don’t want to delete but don’t need to read right away — are out of the inbox and in a separate folder called “low-priority”. I suggest you go through this folder only once a day or every other day (or even once a week). Going through it throughout the day defeats the purpose of getting the non-urgent emails out of your inbox.
Getting your filters right. Now, there will be some emails, especially in the beginning, that get put in the wrong place. For the first couple of days, you’ll probably need to adjust all three filters to ensure that things work right. Look through your Trash folder, and your low-priority folder, to see if emails are being put their when they shouldn’t be.
But once you finish the tinkering process, your inbox should be a place of heaven.
Bonus filter: Spam. This doesn’t really concern your inbox, but if you go through your spam folder and empty it out every day, just so you don’t have the “unread” count next to the spam label, try this filter: “Has the words: is:spam” with the action “Delete it”. Now your spam folder should be emptied automatically.
++Bonus: “This little hack doesn’t require a single tweak to your Gmail settings. Instead, just use the plus/tag every time you enter your address into an online form. Our favorite method is to use the name of the site you’re visiting as the tag, so it’s easy to track later on. So if you buy some vintage kicks at Raresneakers.com, enter your email address as username+raresneakers@gmail.com.
Gmail ignores the plus sign and everything that comes after it, so messages sent to that address will still make their way to you. But if that site sells your address to its spamifying associates, you’ll know just by peeking at the To address in the header. How you choose to exact revenge is entirely up to you.
You can also use this tip to set up filters for registration codes, listservs, and anything else!”
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Google accounts with 9030Mb +
To wrap up the mystery of the increased Gmail storage many of you saw today: Google just released a shared storage program. This new offer merges the storage of different Google products into a single storage back-end. At this time, the Picasa Web Albums photo application as well as Gmail are part of the mix. But we can expect more services to be added to this program in the future. Google Documents (containing word processing documents, spreadsheets, and likely presentations soon, too) is a likely contender. Separate premium accounts, like the one Picasa offered before, are being removed in the meantime.
Now, if you need more storage for any particular application which is part of the shared storage program, you can buy some. The offers range from 6 extra gigabyte for $1/ year up to 250 gigabyte for $500/ year, as the table below shows (your payment will be processed with Google Checkout; note you will not receive the upgrade instantly, and Google says it may take “up to 24 hours" for your new storage amount “to appear in all services”). Especially for those of you for whom Gmail’s “you’ll never need to delete another message” claim was false as the inbox was overflowing, the extra 6 or 25 gigabytes may be worth it.
6 GB | $20.00 per year (Was showing $1.00 per year) |
25 GB | $75.00 per year |
100 GB | $250.00 per year |
250 GB | $500.00 per year |
Gmail Going Huge: 9000MB+
Reports we’re getting in the mail say that some Gmail users have seen their storage bumped to over 9GB today - 9030MB, to be exact. If not a glitch (and why would it be?), it means Google is playing catch-up with Yahoo, which now provides unlimited storage.
With no other info, we can only assume the accounts are currently being selected at random. As someone who is just about to exceed his Gmail limit, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Instant Messaging Toolbox: 90+ IM Tools
read more | digg story
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Friday, August 03, 2007
Microsoft Works to become a free, ad-funded product
Microsoft’s next version of its small-business/home productivity suite, due imminently, will be free and ad-funded.
Microsoft Works 9.0 — which will be the new product’s name, if
Microsoft opts to stick with its current nomenclature — might also
debut at some point as Microsoft-hosted low-end productivity service,
as many have been speculating. A hosted version of Works would give
Microsoft a head-to-head competitor with Google Docs & Spreadsheets
and other consumer- and small-business focused services, analysts have
said.
For the time being, however, the new version of Works will be
ad-funded, according to Satya Nadella, the newly minted Corporate Vice
President of Microsoft’s Search & Advertising Platform Group.
Nadella told me during an interview on July 27 that Microsoft recently
released the new ad-funded version of Microsoft Works.
If Works 9.0 is out, I haven’t found it yet — other than a couple
download links on torrents and other sharing sites. Anyone else seen it?
(I’ve asked Microsoft for more information on the new ad-funded Works suite. No word back yet. Update:
Even though Microsoft’s own vice president discussed the product, no
one will talk. The official comment, via a Microsoft spokeswoman:
“We’re always looking at innovative ways to provide the best
productivity tools to our customers, but have nothing to announce at
this time.”)
Nadella added that Works will be just “the first of the ad-funded
software we are going to do.” When I asked for other examples of
products Microsoft might decide to make free and ad-funded, he
mentioned Office Accounting Express
— a product which is currently available as both a free download and as
a component of certain Office Live paid subscriptions. He also said
software downloads/shareware was another category ripe with products
that could be free and ad-funded.
The decision to make Works ad-funded is not coming out of the blue.
Microsoft Works 8.0, which Microsoft introduced in 2004, sells for $49.95. It introduced the 8.5 OEM update to Works in 2006. Microsoft Works
includes an address book, calendar, database, dictionary, PowerPointŠ¾
Viewer, basic Word, and templates. Traditionally, a number of PC makers
have preloaded the Works product on low-end PCs. But with its Office Ready PC program,
Microsoft has begun pushing PC makers to preload higher-margin
Microsoft Office rather than the cheaper Microsoft Works, on new
machines.
In his October 2005 “Internet Services Disruption” memo, Chief
Software Architect Ray Ozzie noted that “(p)roducts must now embrace a
‘discover, learn, try, buy, recommend’ cycle – sometimes with one of those phases being free, another ad-supported,
and yet another being subscription-based.” He added: “Groups should
consider how new delivery and adoption models might impact plans, and
whether embracing new advertising-supported revenue models might be
market-relevant.”
Even before Ozzie outlined his marching orders, Microsoft was
mulling an ad-funded version of Works. According to a document seen by
News.com in 2005, Microsoft was already running the numbers on what it
would take to do an ad-funded version of its low-end suite. According
to that report:
“If ad revenues exceed 67 cents per year, we could
actually give Works away and still make more money,” two Microsoft
researchers and one person from MSN stated in a paper presented to Chairman Bill Gates at a Thinkweek brainstorming session earlier this year.”
Do you think a free, ad-funded version of Microsoft Works — even if
it’s not a “service” — will help Microsoft fight off Google and other
Web-based productivity suite vendors? Do you still expect Microsoft to
release a non-ad-funded, paid version of Works as a subscription
service at some point.
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Monday, July 30, 2007
Google Will Kill Microsoft With Web Apps
read more | digg story
Sunday, July 29, 2007
How To Use Firefox
read more | digg story