What about Bob? or Sergey?

October 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment

google-labs
Gmail Labs are the experimental additions to Google’s web-based mail service. Some are muy useful, like being able to add emails to a “to do” list, others not so much, like changing the Gmail logo back to show that the service is still in beta, as it was for so long.

For awhile the additions were coming hot and heavy, lately we haven’t seen much new — until today.  Gmail added two new ones – “Got the Wrong Bob?” and “Don’t forget Bob” .

  • Got the wrong Bob? – Gmail checks to make sure the “Bob” you’re including in your email is the right one based on who you email most often.  When I send to Mark, I mean my brother, not some guy I worked with in a former life.  Addressing email to the wrong person can, of course, be more embarrassing that my example.
  • Don’t forget Bob – With “Don’t forget Bob,” you can start composing an email to a group of people, and Gmail will suggest other contacts you might want to include.

To enable either or both,  go to the labs icon in the upper right of your Gmail screen, click it, find the Bob’s and enable them.

labs-icon

Since it is Google, wouldn’t “Got the wrong Sergey” have been catchier?

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Filed Under: gmail, Technology Tagged With: ,

Gmail has had its Bar Mitzvah

July 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment
gmail-logo

Old Gmail

New Gmail

New Gmail

What’s new with Google Gmail? Well. after being introduced in 2004, Google finally slashed the Beta designation from Gmail.

Other Google apps that have joined the community are Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Talk, and Google Video for Business.

Now, if that’s what you were waiting for — you can start using them now.

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Filed Under: gmail, Technology

What’s up with old friends? Updates to our favorite apps.

May 15, 2009 By 2 Comments

Here at Enquiring Mimes we have a set of Web apps that we use every single day.  We’re always happy to see them improved, so here’s a summary of what’s new around our world of working online.

Oh yeah, it’s also a good time to give them a try if you haven’t yet.

gmail_logoGmail – Our always favorite web mail has made it easier to perform Google searches while you’re reading your email.  Through the Labs technology, you can place a Web Search widget into your sidebar that when searched, does not disrupt emails you might be reading or writing.  Also, new today, Google has made it much easier to import email from older web email services (read Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL).  Now you have no excuse not to move to Google, Jim.

gcal_logo Google Calendar – The Google To-do list function called Tasks which had previously been integrated into Gmail is now also available in Google Calendar.  It’s a good way to create tasks with due dates and be able to see the To-Do items created in Gmail in your calendar.

zoho_logo Zoho – The Zoho office suite continues to develop and evolve, some of the more recent updates include being able to gadgetize (a word?) your Zoho documents and apps and put them in blogs, websites and Facebook.  Zoho is an excellent alternative to Google Docs for a free web office suite plus extras.  It is now spiffily accessible from mobile devices such as the iPhone.

evernote_logo Evernote – The best note-taking, information sharing uber-app around continues to update their product.  Recently they’ve added support for Blackberry mobile devices, the ability to direct your Twitter messages to Evernote account and localization into Russian.  We’re still waiting for Evernote for the Android G1.

mindmeister_logo MindMeister – This web-based mind mapping tool continues to be spruced up and enhanced.  What’s new includes localizations for German and Japanese, inline images, new formatting and a new widget for embedding your mind maps externally.  Since mind mapping is not a skill that’s in everyone’s repertoire,  playing with Mindmeister is well worth the time.  If you are of us who find it easier to visualize your world rather than just see it as lists, you’ll be surprised to find how intuitive it can be to create a mind map of exactly what’s on your mind.

vlc_rc1

VLC – While not a web app, VLC, the open source video do-everything is approaching their production 1.0 release with a release candidate.  The RC sports a spiffy new user interface and, as always, VLC is the best and easiest way to view your digital videos.

Filed Under: Evernote, freeware, gmail, Productivity, Updates Tagged With: , , , , ,

This is all Merlin Mann’s Fault – Don’t mix Inbox Zero with Gmail

May 5, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Trying to do the right thing, I was.  Yesterday, I had accumulated about 1200 emails in my Gmail Inbox, with about 1000 of them unread.  Now I knew this amount of mail and unread messages in my inbox was wrong, I knew I was not keeping to the ideals of Merlin Mann‘s Inbox Zero techniques.

Inbox Zero being a discipline  to process email as you go along and not keep tons of unread mail that will hold you a guilty hostage to not Getting Things Done.

Anyway, my heart was in the right place, I was about halfway through the message and then zap.  My Gmail web interface goes away and I get this message:

gmail-screen

It’s all telling me that they’re locking down my Gmail account for up to 24 hours because of “suspicious” activity.  Now maybe they consider my cleaning up my inbox “suspicious activity”.  They give this list of items that might have caused the lockdown, 4 out of 5 I know I haven’t done.

#5 says your browser can be doing it to you.  Well that would be fine and dandy except I’m using Google’s own browser, Chrome.

They let me back into my email after about 6 hours and I get through another hundred or so.  Today the quest starts again and just as I was down to about 100 messages, zap.  I’m being unusual again.

I’m now waiting them out, again.

What have I learned?

The cursed lockdown only seems to affect the Gmail web interface.  If you already have an email client configured for IMAP you can continue to use your account.

As much as I have bored everyone by tireless pushing Gmail as the only true path for email, Google’s lockdown ability proves that Gmail has a troubling hold over your email that always hangs over your head like a pile of excrement.

As far as Merlin Mann?  I guess it wasn’t really his fault, except Inbox Zero does inject a level of guilt in your dealings with email that’s a pretty strong motivator for a Jewish-guy like me.

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Filed Under: email, gmail Tagged With: , , , ,

Handy new Gmail feature for faithful, even if only a catch-up for the rest of the world

April 13, 2009 By 1 Comment

gmail_logoGmail recently introduced a shiny new feature, while not new to the wide world of email, adds a useful  capablity for us Gmail fans.   You can now insert an image into your email messsage, not as an attachment, which had been previously available, but directly into the body of the message.  Great for spicing up your email and particularly good for sending images to folks like, my mom, who fully understands email, but attachments — not so much.

Images can be uploaded from your computer or taken from the web.

To use, go to the Labs feature in Gmail and enable Inserting Images which will add an image button to your Compose toolbar.

google_insertingimages
gmail_image

Read more — Gmail blog.

Filed Under: gmail, New features, Technology
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