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: ,

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: , , , ,

Need to add a little more stress to your To Do list?

April 3, 2009 By Leave a Comment

forcedo-1

If you one of those people who procrastinate and only get things done under pressure, maybe Forcedo.com is right for you.  It’s a free web service-To Do list, not unlike Gmail Tasks or Remember the Milk.  Forcedo  has a little extra punch in that it allows you to set a duration for how long you think a task should take.  When you start the task, you click a countdown timer and then try to beat the clock.

It’s cute, if a little gimmicky.  I find it difficult to believe anyone will use it for very long, but it could be useful to try a couple of tasks with the timer to see whether it helps, or how far off is your ability to estimate the time it takes to perform a task.

It took me 24 minutes to write this post, but I stopped and read my email, tut, tut, Dan.

forcedto-2

[via webworkerdaily.com]



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It used to be called dialing while drinking

October 7, 2008 By 2 Comments

gmail_logo

Now the problem is emailing while drinking.  Nothing can be worse than having a couple of martinis with the folks from work and deciding it’s finally time to send an email to an ex- or to finally set the boss straight.

The Google gang has come to your rescue with Google Goggles.  If you choose to use this functionality in your Gmail (it’s in the Labs menu), when you try and send an email at a suspicious time on say a Friday or Saturday night (this is configurable), you’ll be asked a series of small math problems (you can set the difficulty) that have to be successfully answered before the message will be set.

If you keep the difficulty set to low, you’ll have no problem answering the questions without a calculator, but it will stop you long enough to think – do I really want to send this note?

Via webmokey

Also, if you don’t keep up with slang – “Beer Goggles” is an expression meaning that possible “romance” may set in later in the evening when other people start to look better to you as a result of your imbibing a few beers.

gg_setup

gg_quiz

Filed Under: email Tagged With: , ,
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