http://www.odeo.com/channels/49033-Gmail-Podcast ChuckTomasi no Be more effective with your Gmail account using this series of short hints, tips, and tricks. Be more effective with your Gmail account using this series of short hints, tips, and tricks. A collection of short tips, tricks, and hints to help you get more from your Gmail account. en 40 Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:59:25 -0800 Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:59:25 -0800 Software How-To http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25423335-Selected-Offline-Messages-and-Password-Tips Try gotoassist express free for 30 days by going to gotoassist.com/techpodcast Back in January 2009, Gmail came out with a labs feature to let you access your Gmail without an Internet connection. The mail was synchronized when you were connected and then you could access it when you were offline. For frequent travelers, this is a terrific feature. You can learn more about it by listenging to the Gmail Podcast episode simply titled Offline from March 1, 2009. The downside of the standard offline mode is that it took a very long time to download the messages or in some cases, all the messages you wanted were not there due to the way the software chooses which messages to download. You might find yourself with plenty of messages from a year ago that have little value, but not all your inbox was synced. Gmail Offline now lets you choose which items to download and how far back to get them. This not only saves download time, but also ensures you have relevant information at your fingert... Try gotoassist express free for 30 days by going to gotoassist.com/techpodcast Back in January 2009, Gmail came out with a labs feature to let you access your Gmail without an Internet connection. The mail was synchronized when you were connected and then you could access it when you were offline. For frequent travelers, this is a terrific feature. You can learn more about it by listenging to the Gmail Podcast episode simply titled Offline from March 1, 2009. The downside of the standard offline mode is that it took a very long time to download the messages or in some cases, all the messages you wanted were not there due to the way the software chooses which messages to download. You might find yourself with plenty of messages from a year ago that have little value, but not all your inbox was synced. Gmail Offline now lets you choose which items to download and how far back to get them. This not only saves download time, but also ensures you have relevant information at your fingertips. For example, my Gmail archive is currently around 30,000 messages. It would take a couple hours to download all those messages, and according to the heuristics, I might not get all of the the ones I want. To setup selected offline messages, you’ll need to enable the “Offline” labs feature from the Labs tab on the Settings screen. Once that is done, you can use the “Offline” tab from the Settings screen. The “Download Options” section of that screen is where you configure how far back you want to sync your conversations and from which labels. The old method would have defaulted to all conversations from all labels. I setup mine to only go back a month and then fine tune it to first, ignore most labels, then chose some like Inbox that I want all conversations, and finally chose a few fairly active labels where I only need the past month. Once I saved those options, I was able to sync my data in a few minutes and take it on the road. This feature really makes Gmail Offline a lot more convenient, but you will need to remember to check the settings from time to time to ensure you add labels as they are needed and remove those that are not. Here’s today’s quick tip – Be sure to change your Gmail password at least a couple times a year. There are people on the Internet who make a career out of trying to steal passwords. Some guidelines to follow when choosing a new Gmail password: Make it unique. Don’t make it the same as your other Internet accounts. If someone compromises your Gmail account, they could have access to lots of other information on the Internet. If you have lots of different passwords to remember, I recommend a password vault program like KeePass available from keepass.info. I use because I have over 100 different passwords to remember at home and work. Use a combination of upper case and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. One common trick is to replace letters with symbols. For example, replace S with a dollar sign, or T with a 7. Don’t use simple words found in the dictionary like “house”, “automobile”, and definitely not “password”. Don’t use personal information that is easy to find such as your street name, dog’s name, and so on. Putting two or more words together with symbols is a good idea. Something like “dino+eggs”, of course replacing some of those letters with numbers or other symbols would make it a much stronger password. Finally, make you password something you are likely to remember. “dino+eggs” would be great if you are a paleontologist, but not necessarily if you are a stock trader. You can change your password by going to google.com/accounts, or if you are starting from Gmail, go to settings, click on the “Accounts and import” tab, then look near the bottom for a link labeled “Google Account Settings”. Try gotoassist express free for 30 days by going to gotoassist.com/techpodcast Back in January 2009, Gmail came out with a labs feature to let you access your Gmail without an Internet connection. The mail was synchronized when you were connected and then you could access it when you were offline. For frequent travelers, this is a terrific feature. You can learn more about it by listenging to the Gmail Podcast episode simply titled Offline from March 1, 2009. The downside of the standard offline mode is that it took a very long time to download the messages or in some cases, all the messages you wanted were not there due to the way the software chooses which messages to download. You might find yourself with plenty of messages from a year ago that have little value, but not all your inbox was synced. Gmail Offline now lets you choose which items to download and how far back to get them. This not only saves download time, but also ensures you have relevant information at your fingertips. For example, my Gmail archive is currently around 30,000 messages. It would take a couple hours to download all those messages, and according to the heuristics, I might not get all of the the ones I want. To setup selected offline messages, you’ll need to enable the “Offline” labs feature from the Labs tab on the Settings screen. Once that is done, you can use the “Offline” tab from the Settings screen. The “Download Options” section of that screen is where you configure how far back you want to sync your conversations and from which labels. The old method would have defaulted to all conversations from all labels. I setup mine to only go back a month and then fine tune it to first, ignore most labels, then chose some like Inbox that I want all conversations, and finally chose a few fairly active labels where I only need the past month. Once I saved those options, I was able to sync my data in a few minutes and take it on the road. This feature really makes Gmail Offline a lot more convenient, but you will need to remember to check the settings from time to time to ensure you add labels as they are needed and remove those that are not. Here’s today’s quick tip – Be sure to change your Gmail password at least a couple times a year. There are people on the Internet who make a career out of trying to steal passwords. Some guidelines to follow when choosing a new Gmail password: Make it unique. Don’t make it the same as your other Internet accounts. If someone compromises your Gmail account, they could have access to lots of other information on the Internet. If you have lots of different passwords to remember, I recommend a password vault program like KeePass available from keepass.info. I use because I have over 100 different passwords to remember at home and work. Use a combination of upper case and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. One common trick is to replace letters with symbols. For example, replace S with a dollar sign, or T with a 7. Don’t use simple words found in the dictionary like “house”, “automobile”, and definitely not “password”. Don’t use personal information that is easy to find such as your street name, dog’s name, and so on. Putting two or more words together with symbols is a good idea. Something like “dino+eggs”, of course replacing some of those letters with numbers or other symbols would make it a much stronger password. Finally, make you password something you are likely to remember. “dino+eggs” would be great if you are a paleontologist, but not necessarily if you are a stock trader. You can change your password by going to google.com/accounts, or if you are starting from Gmail, go to settings, click on the “Accounts and import” tab, then look near the bottom for a link labeled “Google Account Settings”. tag:odeo.com,2009-11-08,25423335 Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:59:25 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Blog http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25364221-Gmail-Notifiers-Compared Welcome the Gmail Podcast, a collection short hints, tips, and tricks to help you get more from your Gmail account. I’m your host, Chuck Tomasi. Try GotoAssist Express Free for 30 days at  http://gotoassist.com/techpodcast Using webmail makes sense. It’s easy to access from any computer, and you don’t need to worry about installing and maintaing software, but the drawback is you have to keep a browser window open to know when you have email. The solution to this is to have a small application installed on your machine that monitors your Gmail account and pops up an alert when you get a message. For notifiers, I found a few options. Gmail Notifier for Windows from Google, Google Notifier for Mac (same thing for Mac with a slightly different name, also available straight from Google), Gmail Notifier from http://gmailnotifier.com, and Notify for the Mac from Vibealicious (http://vibealicious.com/apps/notify/). I know, the names are all very similar. Let’s start with the one that Google... Welcome the Gmail Podcast, a collection short hints, tips, and tricks to help you get more from your Gmail account. I’m your host, Chuck Tomasi. Try GotoAssist Express Free for 30 days at  http://gotoassist.com/techpodcast Using webmail makes sense. It’s easy to access from any computer, and you don’t need to worry about installing and maintaing software, but the drawback is you have to keep a browser window open to know when you have email. The solution to this is to have a small application installed on your machine that monitors your Gmail account and pops up an alert when you get a message. For notifiers, I found a few options. Gmail Notifier for Windows from Google, Google Notifier for Mac (same thing for Mac with a slightly different name, also available straight from Google), Gmail Notifier from http://gmailnotifier.com, and Notify for the Mac from Vibealicious (http://vibealicious.com/apps/notify/). I know, the names are all very similar. Let’s start with the one that Google provides at http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/notifier_mac.html called the Gmail Notifier. It’s pretty basic. It supports Windows and Mac, sits in your system tray or menu bar, monitors your Gmail account and pops up when you get a message. Pretty simple to download, install, and be up and running to monitor your Gmail account. Let’s say you have more than one Gmail account and you chose not to use the multiple account feature on the server to send and receive all your mail in one place. That’s where you might want to use Notify from Vibealicious. It allows you to monitor multiple Gmail accounts at once. It’s only available for Mac, but looks beautiful. It sits in the menu bar with a little icon and number of unread messages next to it. When you click on it, you get a full interface. Like the other tools, Notify is free. Finally, there is Gmail Notifier from http://gmailnotifier.com. Like Google’s product, it supports both Windows and Mac. Similar to Vibealicious, it also supports multiple accounts. It runs in the system tray (or Mac menu bar) like Google’s tool, and when you click on it, you can pop up an index of all your accounts and how many unread messages are in each. It has simple controls to let you manage the message index and select messages for deletion, mark them as read, etc. It even supports Google Calendar alerts. I was caught off guard by the default alert which announced in a female voice “Incoming messages” with my laptop volume a little high. And of course, it’s free. Of the three, Gmail Notifier from gmailnotifier.com is my pick for feature robustness and platform compatibility. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Thanks for listening, and don’t forget to write. Welcome the Gmail Podcast, a collection short hints, tips, and tricks to help you get more from your Gmail account. I’m your host, Chuck Tomasi. Try GotoAssist Express Free for 30 days at  http://gotoassist.com/techpodcast Using webmail makes sense. It’s easy to access from any computer, and you don’t need to worry about installing and maintaing software, but the drawback is you have to keep a browser window open to know when you have email. The solution to this is to have a small application installed on your machine that monitors your Gmail account and pops up an alert when you get a message. For notifiers, I found a few options. Gmail Notifier for Windows from Google, Google Notifier for Mac (same thing for Mac with a slightly different name, also available straight from Google), Gmail Notifier from http://gmailnotifier.com, and Notify for the Mac from Vibealicious (http://vibealicious.com/apps/notify/). I know, the names are all very similar. Let’s start with the one that Google provides at http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/notifier_mac.html called the Gmail Notifier. It’s pretty basic. It supports Windows and Mac, sits in your system tray or menu bar, monitors your Gmail account and pops up when you get a message. Pretty simple to download, install, and be up and running to monitor your Gmail account. Let’s say you have more than one Gmail account and you chose not to use the multiple account feature on the server to send and receive all your mail in one place. That’s where you might want to use Notify from Vibealicious. It allows you to monitor multiple Gmail accounts at once. It’s only available for Mac, but looks beautiful. It sits in the menu bar with a little icon and number of unread messages next to it. When you click on it, you get a full interface. Like the other tools, Notify is free. Finally, there is Gmail Notifier from http://gmailnotifier.com. Like Google’s product, it supports both Windows and Mac. Similar to Vibealicious, it also supports multiple accounts. It runs in the system tray (or Mac menu bar) like Google’s tool, and when you click on it, you can pop up an index of all your accounts and how many unread messages are in each. It has simple controls to let you manage the message index and select messages for deletion, mark them as read, etc. It even supports Google Calendar alerts. I was caught off guard by the default alert which announced in a female voice “Incoming messages” with my laptop volume a little high. And of course, it’s free. Of the three, Gmail Notifier from gmailnotifier.com is my pick for feature robustness and platform compatibility. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Thanks for listening, and don’t forget to write. tag:odeo.com,2009-10-24,25364221 Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:24:20 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25303281-Docs-Preview-and-Got-The-Wrong-Bob Welcome the Gmail Podcast, a collection short hints, tips, and tricks to help you get more from your Gmail account. I’m your host, Chuck Tomasi. Try GotoAssist Express Free for 30 days at gotoassist.com/techpodcast Let’s say you’re a typical Gmail user and your colleagues send you links to a Google document, either a spreadsheet, presentation, or regular text document. Typically, you would click the link to open the document in Google Docs. That’s a little cumbersome when all you need is a quick peek to get a few facts or figures. That’s where the labs feature called “Docs Previews” comes in handy. Like any labs feature, you can find it under setttings, on the labs tab. Enable it and save your settings. Now when you get a link to a Google doc, an option will appear on the bottom of the message to preview the document, almost as if it were an attachment. Sorry, it doesn’t allow you to preview actual Microsoft document attachments like Excel or Word. Another handy labs feature that ca... Welcome the Gmail Podcast, a collection short hints, tips, and tricks to help you get more from your Gmail account. I’m your host, Chuck Tomasi. Try GotoAssist Express Free for 30 days at gotoassist.com/techpodcast Let’s say you’re a typical Gmail user and your colleagues send you links to a Google document, either a spreadsheet, presentation, or regular text document. Typically, you would click the link to open the document in Google Docs. That’s a little cumbersome when all you need is a quick peek to get a few facts or figures. That’s where the labs feature called “Docs Previews” comes in handy. Like any labs feature, you can find it under setttings, on the labs tab. Enable it and save your settings. Now when you get a link to a Google doc, an option will appear on the bottom of the message to preview the document, almost as if it were an attachment. Sorry, it doesn’t allow you to preview actual Microsoft document attachments like Excel or Word. Another handy labs feature that can save you from some potential embarrassment is called “Got the wrong Bob?” This feature looks at the patterns of recipient groups you have sent to and tries to prevent you from including the wrong one. For example, I normally send email to Kreg S, Victor C, and Steve H, about a surprise party we’re planning for Steve R. Well, it’s Saturday morning and I’m feeling a little tired from a long Karate workout the night before. I start typing and the automatic insert changed the order of my lookups for some reason so my quick typing gets me Kreg S, Victor C, and Steve R! It would be a bit of a problem if the mail went to Steve R instead of Steve H – obviously, it would ruin the surprise. Fortunately, I’ve got “Got the wrong Bob?” feature turnd on and it shows a red message just under the recipient box that says “Did you mean Steve H instead of Steve R?” Again, like all other labs features, you can find “Got the wrong Bob?” under the labs tab of the settings screen. As a side note, be aware that the labs feature formerly known as “Suggest More Recipients” has been changed to “Don’t forget Bob”. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Thank you for listening, and don’t forget to write. Welcome the Gmail Podcast, a collection short hints, tips, and tricks to help you get more from your Gmail account. I’m your host, Chuck Tomasi. Try GotoAssist Express Free for 30 days at gotoassist.com/techpodcast Let’s say you’re a typical Gmail user and your colleagues send you links to a Google document, either a spreadsheet, presentation, or regular text document. Typically, you would click the link to open the document in Google Docs. That’s a little cumbersome when all you need is a quick peek to get a few facts or figures. That’s where the labs feature called “Docs Previews” comes in handy. Like any labs feature, you can find it under setttings, on the labs tab. Enable it and save your settings. Now when you get a link to a Google doc, an option will appear on the bottom of the message to preview the document, almost as if it were an attachment. Sorry, it doesn’t allow you to preview actual Microsoft document attachments like Excel or Word. Another handy labs feature that can save you from some potential embarrassment is called “Got the wrong Bob?” This feature looks at the patterns of recipient groups you have sent to and tries to prevent you from including the wrong one. For example, I normally send email to Kreg S, Victor C, and Steve H, about a surprise party we’re planning for Steve R. Well, it’s Saturday morning and I’m feeling a little tired from a long Karate workout the night before. I start typing and the automatic insert changed the order of my lookups for some reason so my quick typing gets me Kreg S, Victor C, and Steve R! It would be a bit of a problem if the mail went to Steve R instead of Steve H – obviously, it would ruin the surprise. Fortunately, I’ve got “Got the wrong Bob?” feature turnd on and it shows a red message just under the recipient box that says “Did you mean Steve H instead of Steve R?” Again, like all other labs features, you can find “Got the wrong Bob?” under the labs tab of the settings screen. As a side note, be aware that the labs feature formerly known as “Suggest More Recipients” has been changed to “Don’t forget Bob”. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Thank you for listening, and don’t forget to write. tag:odeo.com,2009-10-17,25303281 Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:08:08 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25227509-Google-Sync Try GotoAssist Express free for 30 days, by going to gotoassist.com/techpodcast Google Sync can help keep your iPhone/iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian smartphone stay synchronized with calendar, contacts, and email on your Google account wirelessly. This is more commonly known as “push technology” because you don’t have to manually request your calendar, contacts, or email be updated. Most people find push technology more convenient. The advantage is that you get your updates sent automatically to the native apps on your mobile device and those are synced with your Google account information. The downside is that you cannot take advantage of many of the features of the web application such as labels, stars, and archiving in Gmail, for example. Setting up Google Sync was pretty basic. I was able to follow the instructions online and get my iPod Touch setup to sync my email and calendar items in a matter of minutes. The key is to setup the account as a Microsoft Exc... Try GotoAssist Express free for 30 days, by going to gotoassist.com/techpodcast Google Sync can help keep your iPhone/iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian smartphone stay synchronized with calendar, contacts, and email on your Google account wirelessly. This is more commonly known as “push technology” because you don’t have to manually request your calendar, contacts, or email be updated. Most people find push technology more convenient. The advantage is that you get your updates sent automatically to the native apps on your mobile device and those are synced with your Google account information. The downside is that you cannot take advantage of many of the features of the web application such as labels, stars, and archiving in Gmail, for example. Setting up Google Sync was pretty basic. I was able to follow the instructions online and get my iPod Touch setup to sync my email and calendar items in a matter of minutes. The key is to setup the account as a Microsoft Exchange account. Google Sync uses the Microsoft ActiveSync technology to do the heavy lifting. Generally, I still use the web interface or the Gmail applet on my iPod Touch so I can use the cool extras to manage my email. The place where Google Sync has made a big difference for me is the calendar. It sure is handy to have my Google calendar items, which are generally personal, right next to my work items all in the palm of my hand. Now when someone asks me “Are you available next Tuesday?” I have everything I need in one place. It should be noted that the iPhone and iPod Touch require OS v3.0 or higher. You can find step-by-step instructions for your mobile device at m.google.com/sync. Here’s today’s quick tip. You might want to check out the labs feature “Hide Read Labels” if you want to have a little less clutter on the left side of you screen in the labels tab. If you turn on this labs feature, it will only show you the labels that have unread messages in them, in essence, hiding all the labels where the messages are all read. This is particularly useful if you are one of those people who use labels as a to-do list. For example, saving unread messages in a label called “Weekend” will have this folder displayed until you’ve read all the messages, in effect, checking them off your to-do list, then the list goes to hidden. Just another handy way to keep the relevant information at your fingertips while keeping the interface clean. Try GotoAssist Express free for 30 days, by going to gotoassist.com/techpodcast Google Sync can help keep your iPhone/iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian smartphone stay synchronized with calendar, contacts, and email on your Google account wirelessly. This is more commonly known as “push technology” because you don’t have to manually request your calendar, contacts, or email be updated. Most people find push technology more convenient. The advantage is that you get your updates sent automatically to the native apps on your mobile device and those are synced with your Google account information. The downside is that you cannot take advantage of many of the features of the web application such as labels, stars, and archiving in Gmail, for example. Setting up Google Sync was pretty basic. I was able to follow the instructions online and get my iPod Touch setup to sync my email and calendar items in a matter of minutes. The key is to setup the account as a Microsoft Exchange account. Google Sync uses the Microsoft ActiveSync technology to do the heavy lifting. Generally, I still use the web interface or the Gmail applet on my iPod Touch so I can use the cool extras to manage my email. The place where Google Sync has made a big difference for me is the calendar. It sure is handy to have my Google calendar items, which are generally personal, right next to my work items all in the palm of my hand. Now when someone asks me “Are you available next Tuesday?” I have everything I need in one place. It should be noted that the iPhone and iPod Touch require OS v3.0 or higher. You can find step-by-step instructions for your mobile device at m.google.com/sync. Here’s today’s quick tip. You might want to check out the labs feature “Hide Read Labels” if you want to have a little less clutter on the left side of you screen in the labels tab. If you turn on this labs feature, it will only show you the labels that have unread messages in them, in essence, hiding all the labels where the messages are all read. This is particularly useful if you are one of those people who use labels as a to-do list. For example, saving unread messages in a label called “Weekend” will have this folder displayed until you’ve read all the messages, in effect, checking them off your to-do list, then the list goes to hidden. Just another handy way to keep the relevant information at your fingertips while keeping the interface clean. tag:odeo.com,2009-10-03,25227509 Sat, 03 Oct 2009 09:18:36 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25151568-Gmail-Backup Welcome the Gmail Podcast, a collection short hints, tips, and tricks to help you get more from your Gmail account. I’m your host, Chuck Tomasi. Try GotoAssist free for 30 days at  gotoassist.com/podcast This past week I came across a really neat application called “Gmail Backup”. The name says it all. All you do is download and install the tool, provide your Gmail credentials, point it at a folder on your system, and click the Backup button. It takes care of the rest. And best of all, it’s free. There’s a Windows command line and GUI vesion, a command line and GUI Linux version, and a Mac command line version only. I have heard rumors that a GUI version for the Mac is in the works so stay tuned to the Gmail Podcast for more information. Running from the command line actually makes sense if you want to schedule regular backups from a script. See the documentation on their website at www.gmail-backup.com. Regardless of your platform, you will need Gmail IMAP enabled. You’ll find this... Welcome the Gmail Podcast, a collection short hints, tips, and tricks to help you get more from your Gmail account. I’m your host, Chuck Tomasi. Try GotoAssist free for 30 days at  gotoassist.com/podcast This past week I came across a really neat application called “Gmail Backup”. The name says it all. All you do is download and install the tool, provide your Gmail credentials, point it at a folder on your system, and click the Backup button. It takes care of the rest. And best of all, it’s free. There’s a Windows command line and GUI vesion, a command line and GUI Linux version, and a Mac command line version only. I have heard rumors that a GUI version for the Mac is in the works so stay tuned to the Gmail Podcast for more information. Running from the command line actually makes sense if you want to schedule regular backups from a script. See the documentation on their website at www.gmail-backup.com. Regardless of your platform, you will need Gmail IMAP enabled. You’ll find this in the settings under the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab. For Linux users, you will need the wxPython (http://wxpython.org) packages installed. It also requires the ctypes module; which should be included in the Python 2.5 distribution. For earlier versions of Python you can find the package in the repositories of your distribution. I downloaded and installed the Windows XP version and was up and running fairly quickly. I created a new folder under “My Documents” called “My Gmail Backup”. Feel free to put the folder where you like or create multiple fodlers if you plan on backing up multiple accounts. You can even do this after you start the application. Currently my mailbox is using approximately 1.6GB of storage on Gmail and it took a little over an hour to backup the first 600MB before I stopped. I had to relocate which would have interrupted my Internet connection. When I started it back up again, Gmail Backup recognized how much work it had done, took a few minutes to scan past the 9700 messages already backed up and resumed where it left off. Other parameters availble in the application allow you to set a “Before date” to backup all messages before a given date, and all message since a given date. On first invokation, both dates are the same so it backs up all messages. As it retrieves the messages, they are stored in individual “eml” files in your backup directory. The ELM files can be opened by Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, IncrediMail, Thunderbird, and for Mac users, Entourage, and of course Apple’s Mail program. EML files are nice because not only do they preserve the times, sender, and other standard information, they also contain any file attachments that were on the files on Gmail. And yes, Gmail Backup also remembers your labels that you applied to the messages. They are saved in a mapping file called “labels.txt”, although you may run in to problems if your labels contain non-alphanumeric characters (a-z and 0-9). And what would a backup program be without a restore feature? Gmail Backup allows you to re-upload all or part of your backup. If you’ve got multiple Gmail accounts or host your own domain from Gmail, you can backup messages from one account, and restore them to another account simply by providing the right credentials. Again, I recommend visiting the website for full documentation, FAQs, and active forums at www.gmail-backup.com For what it’s worth, there are other ways to backup your Gmail account, including Thunderbird (which has a limitation of 64,000 messages), Fetchmail (a little more technically involved and requires Cygwin to be installed), or Getmail (for you Linux users). I just found Gmail Backup to be quick and easy to use. Here’s today’s quick tip… If you receive an email with a subject something like “Warning code: VX2G99AAJ”, just report it as spam, a phishing attempt, or delete it. The message body says it’s from “The Gmail Team”, however the message header says something quite differently. This is just an attempt to get your user information. Don’t even bother opening the message. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Thanks to you for listening, and don’t forget to write. Welcome the Gmail Podcast, a collection short hints, tips, and tricks to help you get more from your Gmail account. I’m your host, Chuck Tomasi. Try GotoAssist free for 30 days at  gotoassist.com/podcast This past week I came across a really neat application called “Gmail Backup”. The name says it all. All you do is download and install the tool, provide your Gmail credentials, point it at a folder on your system, and click the Backup button. It takes care of the rest. And best of all, it’s free. There’s a Windows command line and GUI vesion, a command line and GUI Linux version, and a Mac command line version only. I have heard rumors that a GUI version for the Mac is in the works so stay tuned to the Gmail Podcast for more information. Running from the command line actually makes sense if you want to schedule regular backups from a script. See the documentation on their website at www.gmail-backup.com. Regardless of your platform, you will need Gmail IMAP enabled. You’ll find this in the settings under the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab. For Linux users, you will need the wxPython (http://wxpython.org) packages installed. It also requires the ctypes module; which should be included in the Python 2.5 distribution. For earlier versions of Python you can find the package in the repositories of your distribution. I downloaded and installed the Windows XP version and was up and running fairly quickly. I created a new folder under “My Documents” called “My Gmail Backup”. Feel free to put the folder where you like or create multiple fodlers if you plan on backing up multiple accounts. You can even do this after you start the application. Currently my mailbox is using approximately 1.6GB of storage on Gmail and it took a little over an hour to backup the first 600MB before I stopped. I had to relocate which would have interrupted my Internet connection. When I started it back up again, Gmail Backup recognized how much work it had done, took a few minutes to scan past the 9700 messages already backed up and resumed where it left off. Other parameters availble in the application allow you to set a “Before date” to backup all messages before a given date, and all message since a given date. On first invokation, both dates are the same so it backs up all messages. As it retrieves the messages, they are stored in individual “eml” files in your backup directory. The ELM files can be opened by Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, IncrediMail, Thunderbird, and for Mac users, Entourage, and of course Apple’s Mail program. EML files are nice because not only do they preserve the times, sender, and other standard information, they also contain any file attachments that were on the files on Gmail. And yes, Gmail Backup also remembers your labels that you applied to the messages. They are saved in a mapping file called “labels.txt”, although you may run in to problems if your labels contain non-alphanumeric characters (a-z and 0-9). And what would a backup program be without a restore feature? Gmail Backup allows you to re-upload all or part of your backup. If you’ve got multiple Gmail accounts or host your own domain from Gmail, you can backup messages from one account, and restore them to another account simply by providing the right credentials. Again, I recommend visiting the website for full documentation, FAQs, and active forums at www.gmail-backup.com For what it’s worth, there are other ways to backup your Gmail account, including Thunderbird (which has a limitation of 64,000 messages), Fetchmail (a little more technically involved and requires Cygwin to be installed), or Getmail (for you Linux users). I just found Gmail Backup to be quick and easy to use. Here’s today’s quick tip… If you receive an email with a subject something like “Warning code: VX2G99AAJ”, just report it as spam, a phishing attempt, or delete it. The message body says it’s from “The Gmail Team”, however the message header says something quite differently. This is just an attempt to get your user information. Don’t even bother opening the message. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Thanks to you for listening, and don’t forget to write. tag:odeo.com,2009-09-19,25151568 Sat, 19 Sep 2009 06:24:12 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25116859-Integrated-Gmail Try gotoassist free for 30 days by going to gotoassist.com/podcast OK Google users, listen up. If you’re like me and use Gmail, Google Reader, Calendar, and many more apps, you likely find yourself wishing there was one single place to see and manage all that information rather than jumping between many different interfaces and applications. Even though Google hasn’t come up with a unified interface, there’s a Firefox add-on that can do it for you called Integrated Gmail. It allows you to pull together your Google applications plus third party sites in the Gmail interface. Listener John writes in that he’s got a netbook and is looking for something to offer him more screen real estate to see his conversation index and messages. I didn’t realize it at first, but Integrated Gmail add-on also offers screen controls to expand the screen usage on the top and left of the screen. Just look for the little green arrows. Whether you are a netbook user or just looking for a page to view all yo... Try gotoassist free for 30 days by going to gotoassist.com/podcast OK Google users, listen up. If you’re like me and use Gmail, Google Reader, Calendar, and many more apps, you likely find yourself wishing there was one single place to see and manage all that information rather than jumping between many different interfaces and applications. Even though Google hasn’t come up with a unified interface, there’s a Firefox add-on that can do it for you called Integrated Gmail. It allows you to pull together your Google applications plus third party sites in the Gmail interface. Listener John writes in that he’s got a netbook and is looking for something to offer him more screen real estate to see his conversation index and messages. I didn’t realize it at first, but Integrated Gmail add-on also offers screen controls to expand the screen usage on the top and left of the screen. Just look for the little green arrows. Whether you are a netbook user or just looking for a page to view all your Google apps, Integrated Gmail is a good choice. Here’s today’s Quick Tip - Hey Google Voice users, Gmail now has a labs feature that allows you play your voice mail messages right in Gmail. Google Voice is a service that allows people to call one number and ring each of your multiple phones. If you are already a Google Voice user, you are used to getting your voice mail notifications as email. After someone leaves a voice message, you get an email with a transcript of the message (with varying degrees of accuracy) and a link to play the message. Previously, if you used the link it would take you to a different page to play it. By using the labs feature, you can play the message right from within Gmail. To use it, go to Settings, then click on the Labs tab, look for Google Voice player, select enable, and save you changes. Now when you get a message, the player will appear right below the message in Gmail. Try gotoassist free for 30 days by going to gotoassist.com/podcast OK Google users, listen up. If you’re like me and use Gmail, Google Reader, Calendar, and many more apps, you likely find yourself wishing there was one single place to see and manage all that information rather than jumping between many different interfaces and applications. Even though Google hasn’t come up with a unified interface, there’s a Firefox add-on that can do it for you called Integrated Gmail. It allows you to pull together your Google applications plus third party sites in the Gmail interface. Listener John writes in that he’s got a netbook and is looking for something to offer him more screen real estate to see his conversation index and messages. I didn’t realize it at first, but Integrated Gmail add-on also offers screen controls to expand the screen usage on the top and left of the screen. Just look for the little green arrows. Whether you are a netbook user or just looking for a page to view all your Google apps, Integrated Gmail is a good choice. Here’s today’s Quick Tip - Hey Google Voice users, Gmail now has a labs feature that allows you play your voice mail messages right in Gmail. Google Voice is a service that allows people to call one number and ring each of your multiple phones. If you are already a Google Voice user, you are used to getting your voice mail notifications as email. After someone leaves a voice message, you get an email with a transcript of the message (with varying degrees of accuracy) and a link to play the message. Previously, if you used the link it would take you to a different page to play it. By using the labs feature, you can play the message right from within Gmail. To use it, go to Settings, then click on the Labs tab, look for Google Voice player, select enable, and save you changes. Now when you get a message, the player will appear right below the message in Gmail. tag:odeo.com,2009-09-12,25116859 Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:06:47 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25041490-Contact-Chooser Try GotoAssist free for 30 days Have you found yourself trying to send a message to someone and you cannot remember their last name? John? John? What was John’s last name? OK, John’s not your closest friend and you don’t send him email all the time. In fact, you don’t even know if you added him to your Gmail contacts, you may have only sent a message to his email address and never used his full name. You start typing j-o-h-n in the To: field and auto-complete comes up with the people who have John in their name and you don’t find the person you are looking for. Was he even in the hundreds of contacts you have listed? Now I have to admit, there are times when I would love to just browse my contacts list, or type a few characters, or even just poke around the contact groups I setup to get a better idea where John might be hiding. The latest update to Gmail answers this question. Google has placed a link on the “To”, “Cc”, and “Bcc” labels that bring up a contact chooser (see the image... Try GotoAssist free for 30 days Have you found yourself trying to send a message to someone and you cannot remember their last name? John? John? What was John’s last name? OK, John’s not your closest friend and you don’t send him email all the time. In fact, you don’t even know if you added him to your Gmail contacts, you may have only sent a message to his email address and never used his full name. You start typing j-o-h-n in the To: field and auto-complete comes up with the people who have John in their name and you don’t find the person you are looking for. Was he even in the hundreds of contacts you have listed? Now I have to admit, there are times when I would love to just browse my contacts list, or type a few characters, or even just poke around the contact groups I setup to get a better idea where John might be hiding. The latest update to Gmail answers this question. Google has placed a link on the “To”, “Cc”, and “Bcc” labels that bring up a contact chooser (see the image.) This works similar to the buttons next to the fields in Microsoft Outlook, only better. If you type in text in the area marked “Search my contacts”, Gmail will start filtering out your people. In my case, I typed “tomasi” and got several of my family members. Now I can just click and choose them. I can also narrow down the search to my groups by using the drop down list just below. This is a nice addition to the auto-complete feature if you’re really not sure how to spell someone’s name or want to quickly select all the Tomasis at once. Here’s today’s quick tip. Listener John wrote in about the Goto Label feature. He says: “One of my computers is a netbook, so the space saving tips catch my ear. The “G” “L” combination to go to a label sounded like a great feature, but there is no drop down reminder. So I have to remember the name of the label. My solution - kind of clunky - was to rename my labels so they all start with “L-“ Now when I enter “G” “L” and then “L”, I see a list of my labels.” Thanks for the tip John. I generally use a dozen or so labels frequently; then there are some obscure ones that may go unused for months and I don’t recall their names or functions. Your suggestion seems to address that nicely. If you’ve got an tip about Gmail, send it along. I’d love to hear from you. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Thanks to you for listening, and don’t forget to write. Try GotoAssist free for 30 days Have you found yourself trying to send a message to someone and you cannot remember their last name? John? John? What was John’s last name? OK, John’s not your closest friend and you don’t send him email all the time. In fact, you don’t even know if you added him to your Gmail contacts, you may have only sent a message to his email address and never used his full name. You start typing j-o-h-n in the To: field and auto-complete comes up with the people who have John in their name and you don’t find the person you are looking for. Was he even in the hundreds of contacts you have listed? Now I have to admit, there are times when I would love to just browse my contacts list, or type a few characters, or even just poke around the contact groups I setup to get a better idea where John might be hiding. The latest update to Gmail answers this question. Google has placed a link on the “To”, “Cc”, and “Bcc” labels that bring up a contact chooser (see the image.) This works similar to the buttons next to the fields in Microsoft Outlook, only better. If you type in text in the area marked “Search my contacts”, Gmail will start filtering out your people. In my case, I typed “tomasi” and got several of my family members. Now I can just click and choose them. I can also narrow down the search to my groups by using the drop down list just below. This is a nice addition to the auto-complete feature if you’re really not sure how to spell someone’s name or want to quickly select all the Tomasis at once. Here’s today’s quick tip. Listener John wrote in about the Goto Label feature. He says: “One of my computers is a netbook, so the space saving tips catch my ear. The “G” “L” combination to go to a label sounded like a great feature, but there is no drop down reminder. So I have to remember the name of the label. My solution - kind of clunky - was to rename my labels so they all start with “L-“ Now when I enter “G” “L” and then “L”, I see a list of my labels.” Thanks for the tip John. I generally use a dozen or so labels frequently; then there are some obscure ones that may go unused for months and I don’t recall their names or functions. Your suggestion seems to address that nicely. If you’ve got an tip about Gmail, send it along. I’d love to hear from you. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Thanks to you for listening, and don’t forget to write. tag:odeo.com,2009-08-29,25041490 Sat, 29 Aug 2009 05:22:01 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/25009696-Enhanced-Gmail-Plugin-for-Blackberry This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist.com. Try it free for 30 days. A few days ago my mobile phone at work was replaced with a Blackberry Curve. I’ve used many smartphones in the past, but this was my first Blackberry. I am still learning my way around the interface, applications, and their options, and I have to admit - I can see the attraction to this platform. It was only a couple days later that my Technorama co-host, Kreg Steppe, let me know that there is a new plugin available for the Blackberry that lets your standard Blackberry mail app work better with Gmail. Until recently you could send and receive email using the standard IMAP protocol, but that fell far short of the functionality that many Gmail users want including labels, stars, and more - causing them to download a separate app to manage their Gmail. Well, those days are over. With the Enhanced Gmail plugin for Blackberry, you can: Add and remove labels and stars from your messages, report spam, perform local... This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist.com. Try it free for 30 days. A few days ago my mobile phone at work was replaced with a Blackberry Curve. I’ve used many smartphones in the past, but this was my first Blackberry. I am still learning my way around the interface, applications, and their options, and I have to admit - I can see the attraction to this platform. It was only a couple days later that my Technorama co-host, Kreg Steppe, let me know that there is a new plugin available for the Blackberry that lets your standard Blackberry mail app work better with Gmail. Until recently you could send and receive email using the standard IMAP protocol, but that fell far short of the functionality that many Gmail users want including labels, stars, and more - causing them to download a separate app to manage their Gmail. Well, those days are over. With the Enhanced Gmail plugin for Blackberry, you can: Add and remove labels and stars from your messages, report spam, perform local and remote searches, archive mail messages, view related messages as a single conversation (also known as threads in other mail programs), and much more. The plugin requires Blackberry Device Software version 4.5 or greater and Google Mail Integration with the Blackberry service. Most of you probably already have this if you have a recent Blackberry. Begin by pointing your Blackberry web browser to blackberry.com/gmail. Be sure to follow the instructions carefully. If you have an existing Blackberry mail setup to Gmail, you will need to remove it and recreate it. It should also be noted that mail synchronization is one way, from the Blackberry device to Gmail. Many changes that happen on the Gmail web interface are not reflected on the Blackberry. To find out more, visit the link to the Blackberry forums, found in the show notes on the Gmail Podcast website. http://supportforums.blackberry.com/rim/board/message?board.id=Hello&message.id=198#M198 Finally, if you use the Blackberry Storm, this functionality is built in to version 2.0.0.13 so you won’t need to download this plugin. I don’t yet know if the enhanced Gmail functionality will be a standard feature of other Blackberry phones in the future. Stay tuned to the Gmail Podcast or visit the website for updates. Here’s today’s quick tip. Gmail now has a feature to email your task list. From the Tasks window, choose the Actions menu, and select “Email Task List”. A new message is composed with all the items in that list shown as bullet items and completed items are crossed off. This is a good way to show project status, or let someone know how busy you are and why you haven’t gotten to something they asked you for. Of course, you’ll want to make sure at least a few things are crossed off so you can backup your claims of being so busy. Finally, Gmail is rolling out the ability to easily import email and contacts from other email systems like AOL, Yahoo, and Hotmail. This feature was announced to new users in June of 2009 and existing users would be able to do this later. Well, now it’s later. if you want a refresher  on the feature and how to access it, you can fid it on the Gmail Podcast recorded June 14, 2009. The short answer is that it is in the settings under accounts. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Special thanks to long time listener and Technorama co-host Kreg Steppe for pointing me to the Blackberry plugin. Thanks to you for listening, and don’t forget to write. This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist.com. Try it free for 30 days. A few days ago my mobile phone at work was replaced with a Blackberry Curve. I’ve used many smartphones in the past, but this was my first Blackberry. I am still learning my way around the interface, applications, and their options, and I have to admit - I can see the attraction to this platform. It was only a couple days later that my Technorama co-host, Kreg Steppe, let me know that there is a new plugin available for the Blackberry that lets your standard Blackberry mail app work better with Gmail. Until recently you could send and receive email using the standard IMAP protocol, but that fell far short of the functionality that many Gmail users want including labels, stars, and more - causing them to download a separate app to manage their Gmail. Well, those days are over. With the Enhanced Gmail plugin for Blackberry, you can: Add and remove labels and stars from your messages, report spam, perform local and remote searches, archive mail messages, view related messages as a single conversation (also known as threads in other mail programs), and much more. The plugin requires Blackberry Device Software version 4.5 or greater and Google Mail Integration with the Blackberry service. Most of you probably already have this if you have a recent Blackberry. Begin by pointing your Blackberry web browser to blackberry.com/gmail. Be sure to follow the instructions carefully. If you have an existing Blackberry mail setup to Gmail, you will need to remove it and recreate it. It should also be noted that mail synchronization is one way, from the Blackberry device to Gmail. Many changes that happen on the Gmail web interface are not reflected on the Blackberry. To find out more, visit the link to the Blackberry forums, found in the show notes on the Gmail Podcast website. http://supportforums.blackberry.com/rim/board/message?board.id=Hello&message.id=198#M198 Finally, if you use the Blackberry Storm, this functionality is built in to version 2.0.0.13 so you won’t need to download this plugin. I don’t yet know if the enhanced Gmail functionality will be a standard feature of other Blackberry phones in the future. Stay tuned to the Gmail Podcast or visit the website for updates. Here’s today’s quick tip. Gmail now has a feature to email your task list. From the Tasks window, choose the Actions menu, and select “Email Task List”. A new message is composed with all the items in that list shown as bullet items and completed items are crossed off. This is a good way to show project status, or let someone know how busy you are and why you haven’t gotten to something they asked you for. Of course, you’ll want to make sure at least a few things are crossed off so you can backup your claims of being so busy. Finally, Gmail is rolling out the ability to easily import email and contacts from other email systems like AOL, Yahoo, and Hotmail. This feature was announced to new users in June of 2009 and existing users would be able to do this later. Well, now it’s later. if you want a refresher  on the feature and how to access it, you can fid it on the Gmail Podcast recorded June 14, 2009. The short answer is that it is in the settings under accounts. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Special thanks to long time listener and Technorama co-host Kreg Steppe for pointing me to the Blackberry plugin. Thanks to you for listening, and don’t forget to write. tag:odeo.com,2009-08-23,25009696 Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:12:32 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24972772-Auto-Unsubscribe This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist - try it free for 30 days. Have you ever wondered what to do with those messages that you get because you are on someone’s mail list? You don’t read them regularly (or at all), but you just don’t see a quick link, or you are not ambitious enough to unsubscribe. Well the geniouses at Google have an answer for that now too. The feature is called auto-unsubscribe. The feature is quite simple to use. Just open the message like you normally would, and click the “Report Spam” button. If the message is recognized as a mailing list, Gmail will present a popup window with an option to unsubscribe or identify the message as actual spam. The main difference is that marking it as spam won’t stop the sender from sending more messages in the future. If you click the option to unsubscribe, Gmail will send back an Unsubscribe request to the list. This request could take up to several days to process, but I found it to be pr... This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist - try it free for 30 days. Have you ever wondered what to do with those messages that you get because you are on someone’s mail list? You don’t read them regularly (or at all), but you just don’t see a quick link, or you are not ambitious enough to unsubscribe. Well the geniouses at Google have an answer for that now too. The feature is called auto-unsubscribe. The feature is quite simple to use. Just open the message like you normally would, and click the “Report Spam” button. If the message is recognized as a mailing list, Gmail will present a popup window with an option to unsubscribe or identify the message as actual spam. The main difference is that marking it as spam won’t stop the sender from sending more messages in the future. If you click the option to unsubscribe, Gmail will send back an Unsubscribe request to the list. This request could take up to several days to process, but I found it to be pretty reliable. I read about this feature several weeks ago, but it took a while before it started working on my account. Here’s today’s quick tip… actually two tips regarding labels. The first is my recommendation to enable the labs feature called Goto Labels. Begin by enabling keyboard shortcuts in your general settings, then enable to labs feature Goto Labels. Now you can use the keyboard shortcut ‘g’ then ‘l’ (letter L) which brings up a quick popup window allowing you to type the label. Like addresses, quick typeahead is available. Using this, combined with the condensed screen options mentioned a few shows ago, this gives you rapid access to your labeled messages while maximizing your screen real estate. Which is very important if you have a smaller screen such as those found on netbook models of portable computers. The screen resolution of many netbooks is 1024×600 which can be a little constraining for people used to much higher resolutions on desktop or full size laptop machines. When you start applying and displaying one or more labels, you lose the effectiveness of the subject line. Fear not, there is a labs feature for this growing problem also. The feature is called “Hide Labels” and it allows you to turn off labels on the conversation index without affecting the functionality of the labels themselves, like the Goto Labels labs feature just mentioned. Now you can use your netbook and enjoy Gmail even more with the Hide Labels labs feature. Finally, it was discovered this week that Gmail has surpassed AOL mail and moved in to third place for online mail services with 37 million users, right behind Hotmail with 47 million, and Yahoo with a commanding lead 106 million unique visitors. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Special thanks to listener Scott Reynolds for his tip on the Goto Labels labs feature. Thanks to you for listening, and don’t forget to write. This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist - try it free for 30 days. Have you ever wondered what to do with those messages that you get because you are on someone’s mail list? You don’t read them regularly (or at all), but you just don’t see a quick link, or you are not ambitious enough to unsubscribe. Well the geniouses at Google have an answer for that now too. The feature is called auto-unsubscribe. The feature is quite simple to use. Just open the message like you normally would, and click the “Report Spam” button. If the message is recognized as a mailing list, Gmail will present a popup window with an option to unsubscribe or identify the message as actual spam. The main difference is that marking it as spam won’t stop the sender from sending more messages in the future. If you click the option to unsubscribe, Gmail will send back an Unsubscribe request to the list. This request could take up to several days to process, but I found it to be pretty reliable. I read about this feature several weeks ago, but it took a while before it started working on my account. Here’s today’s quick tip… actually two tips regarding labels. The first is my recommendation to enable the labs feature called Goto Labels. Begin by enabling keyboard shortcuts in your general settings, then enable to labs feature Goto Labels. Now you can use the keyboard shortcut ‘g’ then ‘l’ (letter L) which brings up a quick popup window allowing you to type the label. Like addresses, quick typeahead is available. Using this, combined with the condensed screen options mentioned a few shows ago, this gives you rapid access to your labeled messages while maximizing your screen real estate. Which is very important if you have a smaller screen such as those found on netbook models of portable computers. The screen resolution of many netbooks is 1024×600 which can be a little constraining for people used to much higher resolutions on desktop or full size laptop machines. When you start applying and displaying one or more labels, you lose the effectiveness of the subject line. Fear not, there is a labs feature for this growing problem also. The feature is called “Hide Labels” and it allows you to turn off labels on the conversation index without affecting the functionality of the labels themselves, like the Goto Labels labs feature just mentioned. Now you can use your netbook and enjoy Gmail even more with the Hide Labels labs feature. Finally, it was discovered this week that Gmail has surpassed AOL mail and moved in to third place for online mail services with 37 million users, right behind Hotmail with 47 million, and Yahoo with a commanding lead 106 million unique visitors. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Special thanks to listener Scott Reynolds for his tip on the Goto Labels labs feature. Thanks to you for listening, and don’t forget to write. tag:odeo.com,2009-08-16,24972772 Sun, 16 Aug 2009 16:34:32 -0700 no Gmail Podcast podcast, Gmail Podcast, gmail, google, labels, Chuck Tomasi, netbook, unsubscribe http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24863935-Invite-Others This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist.com. Try it free for 30 days. This past week I found myself trying to use a website that manages meeting invitations and keeps track of recipients. Unfortunately, I found out that the email sent from this site is blocked by many firewall and spam filters meaning my invitation did not reach all the people I had hoped. It was about that time that I discovered that Gmail has a way to create an event invitation. You can find it just above the text box for your message body when you compose a new email. Begin by composing a message as you normally would by entering names in the “To” field and enter a subject. Next, click on the link just below the subject labeled “Add event notification” - several additional boxes will appear allowing you to provide an event title, location, and starting and ending date and time. You can place more details, such as a meeting agenda, in the body of the message. When you’re done, just cl... This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist.com. Try it free for 30 days. This past week I found myself trying to use a website that manages meeting invitations and keeps track of recipients. Unfortunately, I found out that the email sent from this site is blocked by many firewall and spam filters meaning my invitation did not reach all the people I had hoped. It was about that time that I discovered that Gmail has a way to create an event invitation. You can find it just above the text box for your message body when you compose a new email. Begin by composing a message as you normally would by entering names in the “To” field and enter a subject. Next, click on the link just below the subject labeled “Add event notification” - several additional boxes will appear allowing you to provide an event title, location, and starting and ending date and time. You can place more details, such as a meeting agenda, in the body of the message. When you’re done, just click Send as you normally would. If you did not intend to use the event invitation, use the “remove” link just to the right of the event name. If your invitation is received by an Outlook user, for example, they see it like any other meeting invitation and click on the “Accept” or “Decline” button. If another Gmail user gets the invitation, they can click on one of the options “Yes”, “No”, or “Maybe” next to the question if they are going. As the meeting coordinator you can easily click on “Calendar” at the top of your Gmail screen, locate the event, and see how many people have responded and what their response was. This is important when you need to know whether to bring one or two plates of cookies. I found this much more straight forward to use than the website I had previously tried. There are some things to keep in mind when sending invites. First, if you send an email to 500 or more people, or you send a large number of undeliverable messages, you could find your Gmail account temporarily disabled. For those using a POP or IMAP mail client such as Outlook Express, Thunderbird, or Mac Mail, your sending limit is 100 recipients. If this happens, your account should be re-enabled within 24 hours. Also, if you need to communicate with a large number of people, you might want to consider a Google Group. Creation and setup of Google Groups is a bit beyond the scope of this podcast. I found that while Google Groups are great for shared discussions it can be tricky to use them to send meeting invites since the responses either go back to the entire group, or appear in the event’s attendees list with the group name instead of the individual who replied. Unfortunately, I am in a situation where I want to hand off the meeting invitations to someone else and there doesn’t seem to be a way to share Gmail contacts with a standard or hosted account at this time. The best I can do is export my contacts list and have the new facilitator import it. Quick Tip: Show pictures from people you know. Gmail will now show pictures in email from people you know. If you have sent that person email at least twice before, the images will automatically be inserted in to the message - this very handy for those family photos, holiday shots, or newborn grandchild. You can also click on the link “Display images below” or “Always display images from (current sender)” if the images are not automatically added. The reason they were not displayed before was done as a security precaution from spammers. Gmail would not display images unless you clicked one of those links and that was annoying. Thank you Google for making image viewing a little simpler. This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist.com. Try it free for 30 days. This past week I found myself trying to use a website that manages meeting invitations and keeps track of recipients. Unfortunately, I found out that the email sent from this site is blocked by many firewall and spam filters meaning my invitation did not reach all the people I had hoped. It was about that time that I discovered that Gmail has a way to create an event invitation. You can find it just above the text box for your message body when you compose a new email. Begin by composing a message as you normally would by entering names in the “To” field and enter a subject. Next, click on the link just below the subject labeled “Add event notification” - several additional boxes will appear allowing you to provide an event title, location, and starting and ending date and time. You can place more details, such as a meeting agenda, in the body of the message. When you’re done, just click Send as you normally would. If you did not intend to use the event invitation, use the “remove” link just to the right of the event name. If your invitation is received by an Outlook user, for example, they see it like any other meeting invitation and click on the “Accept” or “Decline” button. If another Gmail user gets the invitation, they can click on one of the options “Yes”, “No”, or “Maybe” next to the question if they are going. As the meeting coordinator you can easily click on “Calendar” at the top of your Gmail screen, locate the event, and see how many people have responded and what their response was. This is important when you need to know whether to bring one or two plates of cookies. I found this much more straight forward to use than the website I had previously tried. There are some things to keep in mind when sending invites. First, if you send an email to 500 or more people, or you send a large number of undeliverable messages, you could find your Gmail account temporarily disabled. For those using a POP or IMAP mail client such as Outlook Express, Thunderbird, or Mac Mail, your sending limit is 100 recipients. If this happens, your account should be re-enabled within 24 hours. Also, if you need to communicate with a large number of people, you might want to consider a Google Group. Creation and setup of Google Groups is a bit beyond the scope of this podcast. I found that while Google Groups are great for shared discussions it can be tricky to use them to send meeting invites since the responses either go back to the entire group, or appear in the event’s attendees list with the group name instead of the individual who replied. Unfortunately, I am in a situation where I want to hand off the meeting invitations to someone else and there doesn’t seem to be a way to share Gmail contacts with a standard or hosted account at this time. The best I can do is export my contacts list and have the new facilitator import it. Quick Tip: Show pictures from people you know. Gmail will now show pictures in email from people you know. If you have sent that person email at least twice before, the images will automatically be inserted in to the message - this very handy for those family photos, holiday shots, or newborn grandchild. You can also click on the link “Display images below” or “Always display images from (current sender)” if the images are not automatically added. The reason they were not displayed before was done as a security precaution from spammers. Gmail would not display images unless you clicked one of those links and that was annoying. Thank you Google for making image viewing a little simpler. tag:odeo.com,2009-07-25,24863935 Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:50:41 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast, gmail invitations event photos groups google http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24827877-Password-Reset-by-SMS This show is sponsored by GotoAssist.com - Try it FREE for 30 days! Let’s face it, sooner or later we all forget a password. There are just so many of them to keep track of. Gmail has made this a little easier by allowing you to recover your password via text message. Begin by going to http://www.google.com/accounts. Under the personal settings, you should see a section labeled “Security”. Click on the link that says “Change password recovery options”. You’ll need to provide your Google Account credentials one more time to verify your account. Once that is done, you can add email addresses to send a reset link, or set a mobile phone number to send a password reset code via text message. To this, click on the link under the section “SMS” labeled “Add a mobile phone number”. Choose your country and enter the mobile number you wish to send the text message to and make sure to check the checkbox labeled “Use this phone number f... This show is sponsored by GotoAssist.com - Try it FREE for 30 days! Let’s face it, sooner or later we all forget a password. There are just so many of them to keep track of. Gmail has made this a little easier by allowing you to recover your password via text message. Begin by going to http://www.google.com/accounts. Under the personal settings, you should see a section labeled “Security”. Click on the link that says “Change password recovery options”. You’ll need to provide your Google Account credentials one more time to verify your account. Once that is done, you can add email addresses to send a reset link, or set a mobile phone number to send a password reset code via text message. To this, click on the link under the section “SMS” labeled “Add a mobile phone number”. Choose your country and enter the mobile number you wish to send the text message to and make sure to check the checkbox labeled “Use this phone number for password recovery via text message”. Finally, click the “Save” button at the bottom. Now if you lose or forget your password, click on the link labeled “Can’t access your account?” in the login box of any Google application. On the right, look for the article labeled “I forgot my password” and click it. This link is also available on the bottom of the page. You will then be taken to the password recovery page where you first need to provide your username. In my case, I entered chuck.tomasi and clicked Submit. You’ll need to enter the text in the captcha page, one of those graphics with squiggly letters. I’ll admit, sometimes these are a little hard to read and I often have to enter more than one. Once you’ve passed that test, you will be given several options to reset your password based on the account options you chose. If you set an alternate email address, you will receive an email to initiate the password reset process. If you setup the SMS option, you’ll get a text message with a recovery code. Here’s today’s quick tip. Fight phishing with new labs feature. If you are unfamiliar with the term, Phishing, with a “ph” is a term used for nefarious email that tries to lure you to a website that impersonates another in order to get secure information from you. The most notable of these are eBay and PayPal. For example, some Internet villain will send you a message that looks like it is from PayPal and take you to a site that looks like PayPal, only to get your login and password and exploit your real account.  This Labs feature in Gmail verifies that an email that says it’s from eBay or PayPal actually is from one of those sources - making it more trustworthy. To use this, go to the Labs tab in Settings, turn on the feature called “Authentication Icon for verified senders”. Now when you see an email from one of these sources, a little gold key appears next to the sender’s name in the message. This currently only works for eBay and PayPal, but I’m sure Google will be extending this functionality in the future. Finally, Google has promoted their first labs feature to a full fledged feature. Tasks is now a permanent fixture on the main page for all Gmail users. This labs feature was so successful that everyone is now able to use it by clicking the Tasks link on the left. While there is still no syncing with other systems, I expect more functionality in Tasks in the future. After all, they already implemented my suggestion to move tasks between different tasks lists. Thank you Google! This show is sponsored by GotoAssist.com - Try it FREE for 30 days! Let’s face it, sooner or later we all forget a password. There are just so many of them to keep track of. Gmail has made this a little easier by allowing you to recover your password via text message. Begin by going to http://www.google.com/accounts. Under the personal settings, you should see a section labeled “Security”. Click on the link that says “Change password recovery options”. You’ll need to provide your Google Account credentials one more time to verify your account. Once that is done, you can add email addresses to send a reset link, or set a mobile phone number to send a password reset code via text message. To this, click on the link under the section “SMS” labeled “Add a mobile phone number”. Choose your country and enter the mobile number you wish to send the text message to and make sure to check the checkbox labeled “Use this phone number for password recovery via text message”. Finally, click the “Save” button at the bottom. Now if you lose or forget your password, click on the link labeled “Can’t access your account?” in the login box of any Google application. On the right, look for the article labeled “I forgot my password” and click it. This link is also available on the bottom of the page. You will then be taken to the password recovery page where you first need to provide your username. In my case, I entered chuck.tomasi and clicked Submit. You’ll need to enter the text in the captcha page, one of those graphics with squiggly letters. I’ll admit, sometimes these are a little hard to read and I often have to enter more than one. Once you’ve passed that test, you will be given several options to reset your password based on the account options you chose. If you set an alternate email address, you will receive an email to initiate the password reset process. If you setup the SMS option, you’ll get a text message with a recovery code. Here’s today’s quick tip. Fight phishing with new labs feature. If you are unfamiliar with the term, Phishing, with a “ph” is a term used for nefarious email that tries to lure you to a website that impersonates another in order to get secure information from you. The most notable of these are eBay and PayPal. For example, some Internet villain will send you a message that looks like it is from PayPal and take you to a site that looks like PayPal, only to get your login and password and exploit your real account.  This Labs feature in Gmail verifies that an email that says it’s from eBay or PayPal actually is from one of those sources - making it more trustworthy. To use this, go to the Labs tab in Settings, turn on the feature called “Authentication Icon for verified senders”. Now when you see an email from one of these sources, a little gold key appears next to the sender’s name in the message. This currently only works for eBay and PayPal, but I’m sure Google will be extending this functionality in the future. Finally, Google has promoted their first labs feature to a full fledged feature. Tasks is now a permanent fixture on the main page for all Gmail users. This labs feature was so successful that everyone is now able to use it by clicking the Tasks link on the left. While there is still no syncing with other systems, I expect more functionality in Tasks in the future. After all, they already implemented my suggestion to move tasks between different tasks lists. Thank you Google! tag:odeo.com,2009-07-18,24827877 Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:15:02 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24784587-No-Longer-Beta This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist.com. Try it free for 30 days. As of July 7, 2009 Gmail is no longer a beta product. After five years, many jokes, and even questions regarding the nature of beta software, Google has dropped the beta tag not only from Gmail, but from the other Google Apps as well, including Calendar, Docs, and Talk. I’m not sure what the trigger was, or what, if anything has changed in the beta to non-beta release. Traditionally in a beta release of software, the publisher releases to a small community of people to test the application and provide feedback on bugs or enhancements. If you have been using Gmail before February 7, 2007 you’ll remember that the limited audience part was dealt with by invitations. You could only start using Gmail if an existing user invited you. However this was somewhat of a gray area because nobody ever seemed to run out of invitations, therefore you could invite people as much as you like. So what was the point? Once the invitat... This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist.com. Try it free for 30 days. As of July 7, 2009 Gmail is no longer a beta product. After five years, many jokes, and even questions regarding the nature of beta software, Google has dropped the beta tag not only from Gmail, but from the other Google Apps as well, including Calendar, Docs, and Talk. I’m not sure what the trigger was, or what, if anything has changed in the beta to non-beta release. Traditionally in a beta release of software, the publisher releases to a small community of people to test the application and provide feedback on bugs or enhancements. If you have been using Gmail before February 7, 2007 you’ll remember that the limited audience part was dealt with by invitations. You could only start using Gmail if an existing user invited you. However this was somewhat of a gray area because nobody ever seemed to run out of invitations, therefore you could invite people as much as you like. So what was the point? Once the invitations were dropped and the product was opened to the public, many thought the beta moniker would also be dropped. Not so. After the development of many of the other features and tweaks including labs, offline capabilities, mobile apps, and dozens of others, many thought the beta tag would be wiped away, but it persisted. Even the support channels seem to be the same as they were in the beta world. So we are left to wonder what caused Google to finally dump the beta tag. Was it constant harassment and joking from the public? I doubt it. Some say it was reluctance from the corporate world to move their enterprise to products that still carry the beta label. I’m not convinced of that argument either. According to the official Gmail Blog there is no real reason, only a lot of speak about WHAT they have done, not WHY they did it. And now that they’ve left the beta world, what benefit is it to us, the Gmail users? What’s more interesting is they created a labs feature called “Back to Beta”. If you to go Settings, then Labs, and enable this you’ll get the “beta” tag back on the Gmail graphic. The IT voice inside my head tells me to be cautious of turning this on. I suspect it will preclude you from recognizing new features that come out in the future because you chose to stay in the beta world with the “back to Beta” plugin. We were all scratching our heads why the product remained in beta for so long and without decent feedback from Google, we are confused even further on what the difference is. Had this been Microsoft, Apple, or some other major software company, an announcement and perhaps ceremony would have been made as their beta product makes it to the public release state. What happened Google? As a footnote, I use one of the themes found in Gmail. I noticed that I still had the beta tag some 24 hours later. I discovered that I needed to change my theme back to default and then back to my normal theme and the beta tag was gone. Here’s today’s quick tip: Actually, it’s more of an FYI. As of late June 2009, Gmail upgraded the maximum size of an attachment from 20MB to 25MB. Be aware that you may not be able to send email attachments that large if the recipient is on another mail system. If your message bounces, you might want to ask them to start using Gmail. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Thanks for listening, and don’t forget to write. This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist.com. Try it free for 30 days. As of July 7, 2009 Gmail is no longer a beta product. After five years, many jokes, and even questions regarding the nature of beta software, Google has dropped the beta tag not only from Gmail, but from the other Google Apps as well, including Calendar, Docs, and Talk. I’m not sure what the trigger was, or what, if anything has changed in the beta to non-beta release. Traditionally in a beta release of software, the publisher releases to a small community of people to test the application and provide feedback on bugs or enhancements. If you have been using Gmail before February 7, 2007 you’ll remember that the limited audience part was dealt with by invitations. You could only start using Gmail if an existing user invited you. However this was somewhat of a gray area because nobody ever seemed to run out of invitations, therefore you could invite people as much as you like. So what was the point? Once the invitations were dropped and the product was opened to the public, many thought the beta moniker would also be dropped. Not so. After the development of many of the other features and tweaks including labs, offline capabilities, mobile apps, and dozens of others, many thought the beta tag would be wiped away, but it persisted. Even the support channels seem to be the same as they were in the beta world. So we are left to wonder what caused Google to finally dump the beta tag. Was it constant harassment and joking from the public? I doubt it. Some say it was reluctance from the corporate world to move their enterprise to products that still carry the beta label. I’m not convinced of that argument either. According to the official Gmail Blog there is no real reason, only a lot of speak about WHAT they have done, not WHY they did it. And now that they’ve left the beta world, what benefit is it to us, the Gmail users? What’s more interesting is they created a labs feature called “Back to Beta”. If you to go Settings, then Labs, and enable this you’ll get the “beta” tag back on the Gmail graphic. The IT voice inside my head tells me to be cautious of turning this on. I suspect it will preclude you from recognizing new features that come out in the future because you chose to stay in the beta world with the “back to Beta” plugin. We were all scratching our heads why the product remained in beta for so long and without decent feedback from Google, we are confused even further on what the difference is. Had this been Microsoft, Apple, or some other major software company, an announcement and perhaps ceremony would have been made as their beta product makes it to the public release state. What happened Google? As a footnote, I use one of the themes found in Gmail. I noticed that I still had the beta tag some 24 hours later. I discovered that I needed to change my theme back to default and then back to my normal theme and the beta tag was gone. Here’s today’s quick tip: Actually, it’s more of an FYI. As of late June 2009, Gmail upgraded the maximum size of an attachment from 20MB to 25MB. Be aware that you may not be able to send email attachments that large if the recipient is on another mail system. If your message bounces, you might want to ask them to start using Gmail. That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Thanks for listening, and don’t forget to write. tag:odeo.com,2009-07-11,24784587 Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:19:58 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24749929-Drag-and-Drop-Labels This show is sponsored by GotoAssist.com - try it FREE for 30 days! Gmail has made some significant changes to the way you label and store conversations. They have now made labels work more like folders in more conventional mail applications by adding drag-and-drop actions. Once again, Google has impressed me with their web programming savvy. Before getting started on the drag and drop feature, you should be aware that your labels have moved and are displayed a bit differently. Labels are no longer in their own little side window, but are now parked right underneath the standard system folders Inbox, Trash, Spam, and so on. You may also notice that all your labels are not displayed as they once were. Only the most used labels are displayed by default. If you don’t like this, click on the little down arrow just below the first few and click “Settings at the top of the new window. You can also get to this location by going in to Gmail Settings and click “Labels”. In this redesigned La... This show is sponsored by GotoAssist.com - try it FREE for 30 days! Gmail has made some significant changes to the way you label and store conversations. They have now made labels work more like folders in more conventional mail applications by adding drag-and-drop actions. Once again, Google has impressed me with their web programming savvy. Before getting started on the drag and drop feature, you should be aware that your labels have moved and are displayed a bit differently. Labels are no longer in their own little side window, but are now parked right underneath the standard system folders Inbox, Trash, Spam, and so on. You may also notice that all your labels are not displayed as they once were. Only the most used labels are displayed by default. If you don’t like this, click on the little down arrow just below the first few and click “Settings at the top of the new window. You can also get to this location by going in to Gmail Settings and click “Labels”. In this redesigned Labels settings screen, you can show or hide any number of the standard folders or your labels quickly and easily. Go ahead and give it a try. You could save yourself a lot of screen real estate. If you don’t like it, just turn them back on. I should point out that if you used the “Right Side Folders” labs feature, that it no longer functions. It is the first of the Gmail Labs features to be retired. A pity, I kind of liked having labels and chat on the right of the screen. OK, now that you’ve got your labels and folders displayed the way you like, it’s time to try that drag and drop feature. You can drag any conversation on to a label or any label on to a conversation. To grab the conversation, click on the dotted area just to the left of the checkbox. Your mouse may change to the shape of a hand with all fingers extended, as opposed to the standard link cursor with just the index finger pointed out. Once you have the message, continue to hold the mouse button and drag the message to the desire label. This moves the message to that label and archives it, effectively treating it like an operation of moving a message into a folder. If you would rather just apply a label and leave the message in the inbox, place your cursor over the desired label and click, then drag the label to the specific message shown on the conversation index. It’s really that simple. Remember, if the label you are looking for is not in the list, try the down arrow to show them all. I have to admit, I’m very impressed with this new way of doings from a developer’s perspective and I’m sure most of you use your mouse a lot to click on that checkbox, conversation, or label. However, I’ve found that I can still process messages many times faster with keyboard shortcuts, so aside from cleaning up my screen by hiding most of the labels and folders, I won’t be using drag and drop too much. If you’re not familiar with the keyboard shortcuts, have a listen to one of the first Gmail Podcasts I did in January 2006 to learn things like “l”, then start typing the first few letters of a label, or using “g” and “i” to go to the inbox quickly. This show is sponsored by GotoAssist.com - try it FREE for 30 days! Gmail has made some significant changes to the way you label and store conversations. They have now made labels work more like folders in more conventional mail applications by adding drag-and-drop actions. Once again, Google has impressed me with their web programming savvy. Before getting started on the drag and drop feature, you should be aware that your labels have moved and are displayed a bit differently. Labels are no longer in their own little side window, but are now parked right underneath the standard system folders Inbox, Trash, Spam, and so on. You may also notice that all your labels are not displayed as they once were. Only the most used labels are displayed by default. If you don’t like this, click on the little down arrow just below the first few and click “Settings at the top of the new window. You can also get to this location by going in to Gmail Settings and click “Labels”. In this redesigned Labels settings screen, you can show or hide any number of the standard folders or your labels quickly and easily. Go ahead and give it a try. You could save yourself a lot of screen real estate. If you don’t like it, just turn them back on. I should point out that if you used the “Right Side Folders” labs feature, that it no longer functions. It is the first of the Gmail Labs features to be retired. A pity, I kind of liked having labels and chat on the right of the screen. OK, now that you’ve got your labels and folders displayed the way you like, it’s time to try that drag and drop feature. You can drag any conversation on to a label or any label on to a conversation. To grab the conversation, click on the dotted area just to the left of the checkbox. Your mouse may change to the shape of a hand with all fingers extended, as opposed to the standard link cursor with just the index finger pointed out. Once you have the message, continue to hold the mouse button and drag the message to the desire label. This moves the message to that label and archives it, effectively treating it like an operation of moving a message into a folder. If you would rather just apply a label and leave the message in the inbox, place your cursor over the desired label and click, then drag the label to the specific message shown on the conversation index. It’s really that simple. Remember, if the label you are looking for is not in the list, try the down arrow to show them all. I have to admit, I’m very impressed with this new way of doings from a developer’s perspective and I’m sure most of you use your mouse a lot to click on that checkbox, conversation, or label. However, I’ve found that I can still process messages many times faster with keyboard shortcuts, so aside from cleaning up my screen by hiding most of the labels and folders, I won’t be using drag and drop too much. If you’re not familiar with the keyboard shortcuts, have a listen to one of the first Gmail Podcasts I did in January 2006 to learn things like “l”, then start typing the first few letters of a label, or using “g” and “i” to go to the inbox quickly. tag:odeo.com,2009-07-03,24749929 Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:19:32 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24736337-Are-You-A-Gmail-Ninja This episode is brought to you GotoMyPC.com. Try it free for 30 days! After three and a half years of doing the Gmail Podcast, the features of this web application are really starting to add up. Some are fairly simple and some are more complex. This past week, Google posted their collection of features to teach you to become a Gmail Ninja. I’ll post a link on the Gmail Podcast web page. The tips are organized in to categories according to rank. For example, a Gmail white belt gets a few messages a day and uses stars to indicate special conversations, uses labels to organize messages, perhaps spices up their environment by applying a theme, and archives instead of deleting. A green belt might use video chat, use tasks, create filters to further organize email, preview attachments without downloading them, avoid email gaffes with the Undo Send labs feature, use the Google Chat status to tell their friends what they are up to, and use the vacation responder to let people know when they... This episode is brought to you GotoMyPC.com. Try it free for 30 days! After three and a half years of doing the Gmail Podcast, the features of this web application are really starting to add up. Some are fairly simple and some are more complex. This past week, Google posted their collection of features to teach you to become a Gmail Ninja. I’ll post a link on the Gmail Podcast web page. The tips are organized in to categories according to rank. For example, a Gmail white belt gets a few messages a day and uses stars to indicate special conversations, uses labels to organize messages, perhaps spices up their environment by applying a theme, and archives instead of deleting. A green belt might use video chat, use tasks, create filters to further organize email, preview attachments without downloading them, avoid email gaffes with the Undo Send labs feature, use the Google Chat status to tell their friends what they are up to, and use the vacation responder to let people know when they are away. A Gmail black belt, uses more advanced features like keyboard shortcuts to navigate quickly through the interface, use more advanced search operators, use the plus sign to create personalized email addresses for later filtering, use Gmail offline, use canned responses, and “EOM” in the subject to avoid the warning message of having no text in the body of a message. And finally, the highest level of Gmail Ninja is the Gmail Master. A master does things like bring Google Docs and Calendar in to Gmail using the sidebar widgets, knows how to sign out of another computer remotely, personalizes their own web clips, always uses https to access their email securely, and hosts their own domain email using Gmail. Which level of Gmail Ninja are you? If you’ve been listening to the Gmail Podcast for a while, my guess is you are a black belt or master. If not, keep listening or go back in the archives to get specific instructions on these, and other, great tips. Tip: Here’s today’s quick tip. Use the Gmail Labs feature “Send and Archive” to add a button to the bottom of the message compose screen that lets you send your response, and archive the conversation in one step. You can add this feature from the Labs tab in the Settings screen – use this and you’ll be one step closer to being a black belt Gmail Ninja. Finally, I have one commentary on a recent feature added to Gmail. I love the features that Google has provided in the Gmail application, both desktop and mobile. This past week, they tweaked the mobile application, as I said they were likely to do in the last Gmail Podcast, to include a finger swipe motion from left to right or right to left at the conversation index that brings up an archive button. I tried this a couple times, but realized it was one of those features that just isn’t for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPod Touch and use finger motions all the time. In fact, I can’t live without them. This particular addtion to the Gmail interface seems like it was done just to see if they could do it. You see, if you use the checkbox for a message, the floating button bar comes up immediately allowing you to archive, delete, or other actions. Is a finger swipe and a button push any faster than two finger taps? I’m not sure. What I am sure is that I often operate on multiple messages, in which case, the finger swipe to archive five messages is much slower (a total of 10 finger motions) than tapping the checkbox five times and hitting the archive button (6 finger motions). Am I being picky? Perhaps. Use what you feel is more comfortable. I’m just offering my opinion about a feature that doesn’t add any value to me. Maybe this is a sign that Google will be adding more finger motions to the interface in the future. Link to the Gmail Ninja page: http://www.google.com/mail/help/tips.html#master This episode is brought to you GotoMyPC.com. Try it free for 30 days! After three and a half years of doing the Gmail Podcast, the features of this web application are really starting to add up. Some are fairly simple and some are more complex. This past week, Google posted their collection of features to teach you to become a Gmail Ninja. I’ll post a link on the Gmail Podcast web page. The tips are organized in to categories according to rank. For example, a Gmail white belt gets a few messages a day and uses stars to indicate special conversations, uses labels to organize messages, perhaps spices up their environment by applying a theme, and archives instead of deleting. A green belt might use video chat, use tasks, create filters to further organize email, preview attachments without downloading them, avoid email gaffes with the Undo Send labs feature, use the Google Chat status to tell their friends what they are up to, and use the vacation responder to let people know when they are away. A Gmail black belt, uses more advanced features like keyboard shortcuts to navigate quickly through the interface, use more advanced search operators, use the plus sign to create personalized email addresses for later filtering, use Gmail offline, use canned responses, and “EOM” in the subject to avoid the warning message of having no text in the body of a message. And finally, the highest level of Gmail Ninja is the Gmail Master. A master does things like bring Google Docs and Calendar in to Gmail using the sidebar widgets, knows how to sign out of another computer remotely, personalizes their own web clips, always uses https to access their email securely, and hosts their own domain email using Gmail. Which level of Gmail Ninja are you? If you’ve been listening to the Gmail Podcast for a while, my guess is you are a black belt or master. If not, keep listening or go back in the archives to get specific instructions on these, and other, great tips. Tip: Here’s today’s quick tip. Use the Gmail Labs feature “Send and Archive” to add a button to the bottom of the message compose screen that lets you send your response, and archive the conversation in one step. You can add this feature from the Labs tab in the Settings screen – use this and you’ll be one step closer to being a black belt Gmail Ninja. Finally, I have one commentary on a recent feature added to Gmail. I love the features that Google has provided in the Gmail application, both desktop and mobile. This past week, they tweaked the mobile application, as I said they were likely to do in the last Gmail Podcast, to include a finger swipe motion from left to right or right to left at the conversation index that brings up an archive button. I tried this a couple times, but realized it was one of those features that just isn’t for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPod Touch and use finger motions all the time. In fact, I can’t live without them. This particular addtion to the Gmail interface seems like it was done just to see if they could do it. You see, if you use the checkbox for a message, the floating button bar comes up immediately allowing you to archive, delete, or other actions. Is a finger swipe and a button push any faster than two finger taps? I’m not sure. What I am sure is that I often operate on multiple messages, in which case, the finger swipe to archive five messages is much slower (a total of 10 finger motions) than tapping the checkbox five times and hitting the archive button (6 finger motions). Am I being picky? Perhaps. Use what you feel is more comfortable. I’m just offering my opinion about a feature that doesn’t add any value to me. Maybe this is a sign that Google will be adding more finger motions to the interface in the future. Link to the Gmail Ninja page: http://www.google.com/mail/help/tips.html#master tag:odeo.com,2009-06-27,24736337 Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:39:12 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24736338-iPhone-and-Android-Enhancements This episode is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com - Get your free 30 day trial today! If you’re an iPhone or Android user, you’ll definitely want to look at the recent changes to the mobile web Gmail interface for those devices. Google has made some major improvements to the UI. First, Gmail mobile now supports labels for your email conversations very much like the desktop version. Now you can add color coded tags to respective emails for managing your inbox while you’re on the go. You can find the Label feature in the new “floating menu bar”, as I call it, that also has buttons labeled “Archive”, “Delete”, and “More”. Click on “More” and select “Label As” just below “Mute”. Another new addition is address auto completion of recipients’ names. Now you can simply start typing a name and Gmail will start filling in the name for you. Finally, my favorite – keyboard shortcuts. Yes, now you can use keyboard shortcuts if you own an Android phone. Most of the same keyboard shortcuts map the s... This episode is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com - Get your free 30 day trial today! If you’re an iPhone or Android user, you’ll definitely want to look at the recent changes to the mobile web Gmail interface for those devices. Google has made some major improvements to the UI. First, Gmail mobile now supports labels for your email conversations very much like the desktop version. Now you can add color coded tags to respective emails for managing your inbox while you’re on the go. You can find the Label feature in the new “floating menu bar”, as I call it, that also has buttons labeled “Archive”, “Delete”, and “More”. Click on “More” and select “Label As” just below “Mute”. Another new addition is address auto completion of recipients’ names. Now you can simply start typing a name and Gmail will start filling in the name for you. Finally, my favorite – keyboard shortcuts. Yes, now you can use keyboard shortcuts if you own an Android phone. Most of the same keyboard shortcuts map the same way they do on the desktop. From the official Gmail blog at Google, “if you’re reading an e-mail you can press ‘u’ to return to the inbox or ‘n’ to move to the next conversation.” Interestingly, these changes to the iPhone and Adroid platform came at the same time in April 2009 when they completely redesigned their mobile application. This is a change from previous enhancements which came out on the larger target audience of the iPhone first. This new Gmail interface is available for iPhone/iPod Touch with OS 2.2.1 versions and Android-powered devices in U.S. English language only. Look for more nice tweaks to the mobile version of Gmail in the future and keep listening to the Gmail Podcast to stay up to date on them. This episode is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com - Get your free 30 day trial today! If you’re an iPhone or Android user, you’ll definitely want to look at the recent changes to the mobile web Gmail interface for those devices. Google has made some major improvements to the UI. First, Gmail mobile now supports labels for your email conversations very much like the desktop version. Now you can add color coded tags to respective emails for managing your inbox while you’re on the go. You can find the Label feature in the new “floating menu bar”, as I call it, that also has buttons labeled “Archive”, “Delete”, and “More”. Click on “More” and select “Label As” just below “Mute”. Another new addition is address auto completion of recipients’ names. Now you can simply start typing a name and Gmail will start filling in the name for you. Finally, my favorite – keyboard shortcuts. Yes, now you can use keyboard shortcuts if you own an Android phone. Most of the same keyboard shortcuts map the same way they do on the desktop. From the official Gmail blog at Google, “if you’re reading an e-mail you can press ‘u’ to return to the inbox or ‘n’ to move to the next conversation.” Interestingly, these changes to the iPhone and Adroid platform came at the same time in April 2009 when they completely redesigned their mobile application. This is a change from previous enhancements which came out on the larger target audience of the iPhone first. This new Gmail interface is available for iPhone/iPod Touch with OS 2.2.1 versions and Android-powered devices in U.S. English language only. Look for more nice tweaks to the mobile version of Gmail in the future and keep listening to the Gmail Podcast to stay up to date on them. tag:odeo.com,2009-06-20,24736338 Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:46:11 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24704217-Import-Mail-and-Contacts This show is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com - Try it free for 30 days! Gmail is rolling out a feature that will allow you to migrate your email and contacts from other email providers including Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, and many others. For years, you’ve heard me – and probably dozens of other people – preaching the virtues of Gmail. To some of us, it practically IS a religion. We want people to convert and Google understood the downfalls of changing from one email service to another. It can be painful to switch all your contacts using some clumsy export and import using a CSV file. No only that, what do you do with all your legacy email? Now Gmail makes it much easier to make the transition. This feature is enabled for all new accounts and is being slowly deployed to all existing accounts. Unfortunately, businesses and schools using Google Apps won’t have this feature available to them any time soon.You’ll know you have it if you go in to Settings and you find a tab labeled “Accounts an... This show is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com - Try it free for 30 days! Gmail is rolling out a feature that will allow you to migrate your email and contacts from other email providers including Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, and many others. For years, you’ve heard me – and probably dozens of other people – preaching the virtues of Gmail. To some of us, it practically IS a religion. We want people to convert and Google understood the downfalls of changing from one email service to another. It can be painful to switch all your contacts using some clumsy export and import using a CSV file. No only that, what do you do with all your legacy email? Now Gmail makes it much easier to make the transition. This feature is enabled for all new accounts and is being slowly deployed to all existing accounts. Unfortunately, businesses and schools using Google Apps won’t have this feature available to them any time soon.You’ll know you have it if you go in to Settings and you find a tab labeled “Accounts and Imports”, formerly just labeled “Accounts”. There you will find a section with a button labeled “Import Mail and Contacts”. Click that and you’ll see choices to import contacts and mail immediately, continue importing email for the next 30 days, allowing you to take Gmail for a test drive, and even apply a Gmail label to all imported mail to quickly identify it as information from your other account. If you don’t have the option, or prefer doing things the more traditional way, you can still use POP3 mail fetching or CSV export and import to retrieve your old information. This show is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com - Try it free for 30 days! Gmail is rolling out a feature that will allow you to migrate your email and contacts from other email providers including Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, and many others. For years, you’ve heard me – and probably dozens of other people – preaching the virtues of Gmail. To some of us, it practically IS a religion. We want people to convert and Google understood the downfalls of changing from one email service to another. It can be painful to switch all your contacts using some clumsy export and import using a CSV file. No only that, what do you do with all your legacy email? Now Gmail makes it much easier to make the transition. This feature is enabled for all new accounts and is being slowly deployed to all existing accounts. Unfortunately, businesses and schools using Google Apps won’t have this feature available to them any time soon.You’ll know you have it if you go in to Settings and you find a tab labeled “Accounts and Imports”, formerly just labeled “Accounts”. There you will find a section with a button labeled “Import Mail and Contacts”. Click that and you’ll see choices to import contacts and mail immediately, continue importing email for the next 30 days, allowing you to take Gmail for a test drive, and even apply a Gmail label to all imported mail to quickly identify it as information from your other account. If you don’t have the option, or prefer doing things the more traditional way, you can still use POP3 mail fetching or CSV export and import to retrieve your old information. tag:odeo.com,2009-06-14,24704217 Sun, 14 Jun 2009 16:35:07 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24660570-Undo-Send This episode is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com - Try it free for 30 days! You’ve just worked a 40 hour day and your brain isn’t functioning at 100%. You’re tired and stressed that the project is behind schedule because of someone not ordering the right part. You write up a quick email and think you’ve got the attachment for the correct order, only to find you forgot the attachment right after you hit the send key. How about this one; you’ve spent hours setting up a surprise party for your co-worker. You’ve got everyone in the recipient list and click the Send key only to discover in your haste that you included the birthday boy in the list. Yes, a similar situation has happened to me. Don’t you wish you could undo that send? It is for situations like this that I highly recommend you try the Gmail Labs feature Undo Send. This feature can save you from embarassment, incomplete thoughts, or even a career ending email. Just turn on Undo Send like you do any other Labs feature under the ... This episode is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com - Try it free for 30 days! You’ve just worked a 40 hour day and your brain isn’t functioning at 100%. You’re tired and stressed that the project is behind schedule because of someone not ordering the right part. You write up a quick email and think you’ve got the attachment for the correct order, only to find you forgot the attachment right after you hit the send key. How about this one; you’ve spent hours setting up a surprise party for your co-worker. You’ve got everyone in the recipient list and click the Send key only to discover in your haste that you included the birthday boy in the list. Yes, a similar situation has happened to me. Don’t you wish you could undo that send? It is for situations like this that I highly recommend you try the Gmail Labs feature Undo Send. This feature can save you from embarassment, incomplete thoughts, or even a career ending email. Just turn on Undo Send like you do any other Labs feature under the Settings link and click the “Gmail Labs” feature. Locate “Undo Send”, click enable to the right, scroll to the bottom, and click “Save Changes”. Now when you send an email, you’ll have an Undo link appear allowing you to grab that message before it gets sent and take you back to the compose screen. Sadly, the feature cannot pull back an email once it has already been sent, it just holds your message for five seconds so you have a chance to hit the proverbial panic button. For some reason, if you close Gmail or your browser crashes, the message will still get sent. I have it turned on and used it several times. If I ever put together a top 10 list of Labs features to enable, this one is definitely on that list. This episode is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com - Try it free for 30 days! You’ve just worked a 40 hour day and your brain isn’t functioning at 100%. You’re tired and stressed that the project is behind schedule because of someone not ordering the right part. You write up a quick email and think you’ve got the attachment for the correct order, only to find you forgot the attachment right after you hit the send key. How about this one; you’ve spent hours setting up a surprise party for your co-worker. You’ve got everyone in the recipient list and click the Send key only to discover in your haste that you included the birthday boy in the list. Yes, a similar situation has happened to me. Don’t you wish you could undo that send? It is for situations like this that I highly recommend you try the Gmail Labs feature Undo Send. This feature can save you from embarassment, incomplete thoughts, or even a career ending email. Just turn on Undo Send like you do any other Labs feature under the Settings link and click the “Gmail Labs” feature. Locate “Undo Send”, click enable to the right, scroll to the bottom, and click “Save Changes”. Now when you send an email, you’ll have an Undo link appear allowing you to grab that message before it gets sent and take you back to the compose screen. Sadly, the feature cannot pull back an email once it has already been sent, it just holds your message for five seconds so you have a chance to hit the proverbial panic button. For some reason, if you close Gmail or your browser crashes, the message will still get sent. I have it turned on and used it several times. If I ever put together a top 10 list of Labs features to enable, this one is definitely on that list. tag:odeo.com,2009-06-06,24660570 Sat, 06 Jun 2009 09:34:06 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24631119-Improved-Search This episode is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com. Try it free for 30 days! Let’s face it, few of us take full advantage of the full power of the Gmail search feature. We look for a keyword or email address and perhaps we add “has:attachment” if we know the message included a picture or something. If done properly, the search would look like “chuck.tomasi@gmail.com filename:(jpg OR png)”. I’m sorry, that’s a little too geeky. Fortunately, Gmail Labs includes a feature that can speed up and simplify the search process. It’s called “Search Autocomplete”. Turn it on by going to Labs under Gmail settings. Now as you type in the search box, Gmail will provide suggestions as you type. The nice thing about this is Gmail also provides the “geeky” way of doing the search. Let’s take the example above. I start typing “Chuck Tomasi” and Gmail provides my address. Now I just type “photos” or “pictures”, select “has photos” from the drop down list and the search query automatically inserts (filenam... This episode is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com. Try it free for 30 days! Let’s face it, few of us take full advantage of the full power of the Gmail search feature. We look for a keyword or email address and perhaps we add “has:attachment” if we know the message included a picture or something. If done properly, the search would look like “chuck.tomasi@gmail.com filename:(jpg OR png)”. I’m sorry, that’s a little too geeky. Fortunately, Gmail Labs includes a feature that can speed up and simplify the search process. It’s called “Search Autocomplete”. Turn it on by going to Labs under Gmail settings. Now as you type in the search box, Gmail will provide suggestions as you type. The nice thing about this is Gmail also provides the “geeky” way of doing the search. Let’s take the example above. I start typing “Chuck Tomasi” and Gmail provides my address. Now I just type “photos” or “pictures”, select “has photos” from the drop down list and the search query automatically inserts (filename:(jpg OR png)). Similarly, you can type in the word “attachment” and Search Autocomplete will list the most common attachment types for you. Gmail includes the geeky query for you so you can tweak it as necessary. Say you want to include GIF image types to your photo search. Just manually change it to “filename:(jpg OR png OR gif)”. Personally, I think Search Autocomplete should be on by default because it really cleans up the search process. You’ll save so much time you can send me a note writing a quick review for this podcast on the iTunes Music Store. This episode is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com. Try it free for 30 days! Let’s face it, few of us take full advantage of the full power of the Gmail search feature. We look for a keyword or email address and perhaps we add “has:attachment” if we know the message included a picture or something. If done properly, the search would look like “chuck.tomasi@gmail.com filename:(jpg OR png)”. I’m sorry, that’s a little too geeky. Fortunately, Gmail Labs includes a feature that can speed up and simplify the search process. It’s called “Search Autocomplete”. Turn it on by going to Labs under Gmail settings. Now as you type in the search box, Gmail will provide suggestions as you type. The nice thing about this is Gmail also provides the “geeky” way of doing the search. Let’s take the example above. I start typing “Chuck Tomasi” and Gmail provides my address. Now I just type “photos” or “pictures”, select “has photos” from the drop down list and the search query automatically inserts (filename:(jpg OR png)). Similarly, you can type in the word “attachment” and Search Autocomplete will list the most common attachment types for you. Gmail includes the geeky query for you so you can tweak it as necessary. Say you want to include GIF image types to your photo search. Just manually change it to “filename:(jpg OR png OR gif)”. Personally, I think Search Autocomplete should be on by default because it really cleans up the search process. You’ll save so much time you can send me a note writing a quick review for this podcast on the iTunes Music Store. tag:odeo.com,2009-05-30,24631119 Sat, 30 May 2009 14:30:48 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast, gmail, photos, search, labs, attachments, improved http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24608839-Sender%E2%80%99s-Time-Zone This episode of the Gmail Podcast is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com. Try it free for 30 days. OK, here’s a situation. You sit down to read your email from a friend who lives in England. The email has a few questions that really need to be responded to over a phone call. Unfortunately, you cannot remember what time it is in England and you don’t want to wake them up at an unreasonable hour. That’s where the Gmail Labs feature called “Sender Time Zone” comes in handy. To use the feature, click on the Gmail Settings link in the upper right corner of the screen, then locate and click on the Labs tab. Locate “Sender Time Zone” and click “Enable” next to it then scroll to the bottom and click “Save Changes”. Now Gmail takes a peek at the sender’s timezone in the message header and conveniently places a green phone icon next to the people if their local time is between 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM and a red icon if the person is outside that time range. If there is no timezone in the message header... This episode of the Gmail Podcast is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com. Try it free for 30 days. OK, here’s a situation. You sit down to read your email from a friend who lives in England. The email has a few questions that really need to be responded to over a phone call. Unfortunately, you cannot remember what time it is in England and you don’t want to wake them up at an unreasonable hour. That’s where the Gmail Labs feature called “Sender Time Zone” comes in handy. To use the feature, click on the Gmail Settings link in the upper right corner of the screen, then locate and click on the Labs tab. Locate “Sender Time Zone” and click “Enable” next to it then scroll to the bottom and click “Save Changes”. Now Gmail takes a peek at the sender’s timezone in the message header and conveniently places a green phone icon next to the people if their local time is between 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM and a red icon if the person is outside that time range. If there is no timezone in the message header, no icon is displayed. If you click on the “Show Details” link, Gmail will display the time zone information that it uses as well as the current time of the sender. This episode of the Gmail Podcast is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com. Try it free for 30 days. OK, here’s a situation. You sit down to read your email from a friend who lives in England. The email has a few questions that really need to be responded to over a phone call. Unfortunately, you cannot remember what time it is in England and you don’t want to wake them up at an unreasonable hour. That’s where the Gmail Labs feature called “Sender Time Zone” comes in handy. To use the feature, click on the Gmail Settings link in the upper right corner of the screen, then locate and click on the Labs tab. Locate “Sender Time Zone” and click “Enable” next to it then scroll to the bottom and click “Save Changes”. Now Gmail takes a peek at the sender’s timezone in the message header and conveniently places a green phone icon next to the people if their local time is between 9:00 AM and 6:00 PM and a red icon if the person is outside that time range. If there is no timezone in the message header, no icon is displayed. If you click on the “Show Details” link, Gmail will display the time zone information that it uses as well as the current time of the sender. tag:odeo.com,2009-05-26,24608839 Tue, 26 May 2009 03:57:06 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast, gmail timezone time zone sender recipient http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24571007-Suggest-More-Recipients One of the handiest labs features I have found is called “Suggest more recipients”. Like other labs features, you can enable this by going to the Settings link in the upper right, clicking on the labs tab, then locate the feature called “Suggest more recipients”, scroll to the bottom and click “Save Changes”. This podcast is sponsored by GotoMyPC. Try it free for 30 days! Once you have enabled the feature, begin by entering at least two names in the “to”, “cc”, or “bcc” boxes, Gmail will add a link labeled “Also include”. Gmail scans previous messages you have sent and received in groups and provides those email addresses as suggestions. Now when you find yourself communicating with the same three or four people over and over, Gmail will find those names for you and you can simply click on them to ensure you haven’t forgotten anyone. Tip: Gmail Podcast - Title Tweaks Begin by enabling the lab feature. This labs feature changes order of elements in the browser title bar from “G... One of the handiest labs features I have found is called “Suggest more recipients”. Like other labs features, you can enable this by going to the Settings link in the upper right, clicking on the labs tab, then locate the feature called “Suggest more recipients”, scroll to the bottom and click “Save Changes”. This podcast is sponsored by GotoMyPC. Try it free for 30 days! Once you have enabled the feature, begin by entering at least two names in the “to”, “cc”, or “bcc” boxes, Gmail will add a link labeled “Also include”. Gmail scans previous messages you have sent and received in groups and provides those email addresses as suggestions. Now when you find yourself communicating with the same three or four people over and over, Gmail will find those names for you and you can simply click on them to ensure you haven’t forgotten anyone. Tip: Gmail Podcast - Title Tweaks Begin by enabling the lab feature. This labs feature changes order of elements in the browser title bar from “Gmail - Inbox (20) - chuck.tomasi@gmail.com” to “Inbox (20) - chuck.tomasi@gmail.com - Gmail”. This way you are able (most of the time) to see if a new mail has arrived even if Gmail window is minimized. One of the handiest labs features I have found is called “Suggest more recipients”. Like other labs features, you can enable this by going to the Settings link in the upper right, clicking on the labs tab, then locate the feature called “Suggest more recipients”, scroll to the bottom and click “Save Changes”. This podcast is sponsored by GotoMyPC. Try it free for 30 days! Once you have enabled the feature, begin by entering at least two names in the “to”, “cc”, or “bcc” boxes, Gmail will add a link labeled “Also include”. Gmail scans previous messages you have sent and received in groups and provides those email addresses as suggestions. Now when you find yourself communicating with the same three or four people over and over, Gmail will find those names for you and you can simply click on them to ensure you haven’t forgotten anyone. Tip: Gmail Podcast - Title Tweaks Begin by enabling the lab feature. This labs feature changes order of elements in the browser title bar from “Gmail - Inbox (20) - chuck.tomasi@gmail.com” to “Inbox (20) - chuck.tomasi@gmail.com - Gmail”. This way you are able (most of the time) to see if a new mail has arrived even if Gmail window is minimized. tag:odeo.com,2009-05-16,24571007 Sat, 16 May 2009 13:11:31 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24555765-Insert-Images It is no longer necessary to use workarounds to put images in your messages or attach them. There is now a labs feature that allows you to insert images as easily as your favorite word processor. This episode of Gmail Podcast is sponsored by GotoMyPC.com - get a free 30 day trial! Begin by going to Settings and click on the Labs tab. Search for the feature called “Inserting images” and click “enable” next to it then scroll to the bottom and save your settings. Now when you are composing a message, you should see a toolbar icon like this: You’ll want to make sure you are in Rich Formatting mode or the icon won’t show up. If you don’t see it, look for a link that says “Rich Formatting”. Once setup, just click on the little image icon and you can insert images in a couple different ways. First you can upload an image from your computer, or you can provide a web URL to a specific image. To protect you from spammers, Gmail does not display URL based images in messages by default.  If you... It is no longer necessary to use workarounds to put images in your messages or attach them. There is now a labs feature that allows you to insert images as easily as your favorite word processor. This episode of Gmail Podcast is sponsored by GotoMyPC.com - get a free 30 day trial! Begin by going to Settings and click on the Labs tab. Search for the feature called “Inserting images” and click “enable” next to it then scroll to the bottom and save your settings. Now when you are composing a message, you should see a toolbar icon like this: You’ll want to make sure you are in Rich Formatting mode or the icon won’t show up. If you don’t see it, look for a link that says “Rich Formatting”. Once setup, just click on the little image icon and you can insert images in a couple different ways. First you can upload an image from your computer, or you can provide a web URL to a specific image. To protect you from spammers, Gmail does not display URL based images in messages by default.  If you are missing images, you’ll need to click on the link near the top that says “Display images below” or “Always dislay images from…” to see images you embed. It is no longer necessary to use workarounds to put images in your messages or attach them. There is now a labs feature that allows you to insert images as easily as your favorite word processor. This episode of Gmail Podcast is sponsored by GotoMyPC.com - get a free 30 day trial! Begin by going to Settings and click on the Labs tab. Search for the feature called “Inserting images” and click “enable” next to it then scroll to the bottom and save your settings. Now when you are composing a message, you should see a toolbar icon like this: You’ll want to make sure you are in Rich Formatting mode or the icon won’t show up. If you don’t see it, look for a link that says “Rich Formatting”. Once setup, just click on the little image icon and you can insert images in a couple different ways. First you can upload an image from your computer, or you can provide a web URL to a specific image. To protect you from spammers, Gmail does not display URL based images in messages by default.  If you are missing images, you’ll need to click on the link near the top that says “Display images below” or “Always dislay images from…” to see images you embed. tag:odeo.com,2009-05-10,24555765 Sun, 10 May 2009 14:31:51 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24308214-Xoopit Firefox users are going to love this one. It’s an extension called Xoopit. The extension allows you to browse and find file attachments in your Gmail. To get started go to www.xoopit.com and click the “Sign Up Now” button. Yes, you’ll need to provide your Gmail login and password. After doing some research, I found evidence that it is secure from the owners of Xoopit. Once logged in, follow the simple instructions to download the extension and restart Firefox. Xoopit connects with your email and lets you browse photos and videos from YouTube, Flickr, Shutterfly, Kodak, and Picasa. You can easily find and access your files, never misplacing a file attachment again. You can also quickly share to friends, Facebook, or your blog. The extension will take a while to index your mail. It stores this information on the xoopit servers for quick reference. You do not have to wait for it to completely scan your entire inbox to begin using it. Once Xoopit gets enough info... Firefox users are going to love this one. It’s an extension called Xoopit. The extension allows you to browse and find file attachments in your Gmail. To get started go to www.xoopit.com and click the “Sign Up Now” button. Yes, you’ll need to provide your Gmail login and password. After doing some research, I found evidence that it is secure from the owners of Xoopit. Once logged in, follow the simple instructions to download the extension and restart Firefox. Xoopit connects with your email and lets you browse photos and videos from YouTube, Flickr, Shutterfly, Kodak, and Picasa. You can easily find and access your files, never misplacing a file attachment again. You can also quickly share to friends, Facebook, or your blog. The extension will take a while to index your mail. It stores this information on the xoopit servers for quick reference. You do not have to wait for it to completely scan your entire inbox to begin using it. Once Xoopit gets enough information, you can use the widget on the left, or the links at the top of the conversation index to quickly list and browse different file attachments. Links to Youtube videos will show up as icons and take you directly to that video. Photos that are attachments in your email show up as a browsable list of thumbnails. Other files like Word documents, PDF, etc. can be quickly searched with a list and search filter. I also found that it ties in to Facebook and lets you update your status directly from within Gmail. What’s more, as you are reading a message, it will show that person’s contact information in the right margin. You can click on a link and be taken directly to their contact informatino. If they are a friend on Facebook, it will show the familiar “f” icon and you can go directly to their Facebook page. You can also reference your Gmail history directly from the Xoopit website by logging in and seeing it in a twitter or facebook like feed telling you who mailed you an attachment and when. If you like, you can send files to someone else directly from the Xoopit browser. While this may not seem to have any advantage over the Firefox extension, you might want to use it if you find yourself at a computer without Firefox installed. There is also a way to post your photos or videos directly to your blog or facebook. When you open a picture or video, look for the “Post to Blog” link on the bottom and click that. Xoopit supports Wordpress, TypePad, Blogger, and LiveJournal. You can also send the information directly to your Facebook photos with a link on the right. As of this podcast, the Facebook and Wordpress APIs are currently having some issues, I did send some feedback and got very quick response from Xoopit indicating they were working on updates to make them compatible with the latest changes on the other end. Keep your eye on the Gmail Podcast blog at www.chuckchat.com/gmail for up to date information. Firefox users are going to love this one. It’s an extension called Xoopit. The extension allows you to browse and find file attachments in your Gmail. To get started go to www.xoopit.com and click the “Sign Up Now” button. Yes, you’ll need to provide your Gmail login and password. After doing some research, I found evidence that it is secure from the owners of Xoopit. Once logged in, follow the simple instructions to download the extension and restart Firefox. Xoopit connects with your email and lets you browse photos and videos from YouTube, Flickr, Shutterfly, Kodak, and Picasa. You can easily find and access your files, never misplacing a file attachment again. You can also quickly share to friends, Facebook, or your blog. The extension will take a while to index your mail. It stores this information on the xoopit servers for quick reference. You do not have to wait for it to completely scan your entire inbox to begin using it. Once Xoopit gets enough information, you can use the widget on the left, or the links at the top of the conversation index to quickly list and browse different file attachments. Links to Youtube videos will show up as icons and take you directly to that video. Photos that are attachments in your email show up as a browsable list of thumbnails. Other files like Word documents, PDF, etc. can be quickly searched with a list and search filter. I also found that it ties in to Facebook and lets you update your status directly from within Gmail. What’s more, as you are reading a message, it will show that person’s contact information in the right margin. You can click on a link and be taken directly to their contact informatino. If they are a friend on Facebook, it will show the familiar “f” icon and you can go directly to their Facebook page. You can also reference your Gmail history directly from the Xoopit website by logging in and seeing it in a twitter or facebook like feed telling you who mailed you an attachment and when. If you like, you can send files to someone else directly from the Xoopit browser. While this may not seem to have any advantage over the Firefox extension, you might want to use it if you find yourself at a computer without Firefox installed. There is also a way to post your photos or videos directly to your blog or facebook. When you open a picture or video, look for the “Post to Blog” link on the bottom and click that. Xoopit supports Wordpress, TypePad, Blogger, and LiveJournal. You can also send the information directly to your Facebook photos with a link on the right. As of this podcast, the Facebook and Wordpress APIs are currently having some issues, I did send some feedback and got very quick response from Xoopit indicating they were working on updates to make them compatible with the latest changes on the other end. Keep your eye on the Gmail Podcast blog at www.chuckchat.com/gmail for up to date information. tag:odeo.com,2009-03-15,24308214 Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:00:42 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast, gmail, Facebook, flickr, wordpress, Livejournal, typepad, Xoopit http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24241443-Offline I have to admit I was excited to hear about the Gmail Labs feature simply called Offline. The offline feature allows you to use Gmail when you are offline or on a flakey internet connection. To get started with Gmail Offline, begin by going to Settings> Labs. You’ll first need to enable the offline feature and save your settings.You should now see the “offline” icon as a little green circle, or the words “offline” in the upper right by the settings link. Click on this link and walk through the steps of installing Google Gears. Once the installation is complete you make need to restart your browser - the installer will tell you if you need to do so. The process will then begin to synchronize your online folder with a local copy that you can use when you are not online. You can hide the status window at any time by clicking the “X” in the upper right corner of the small window. To see it again, click the little green circle again. The sych ... I have to admit I was excited to hear about the Gmail Labs feature simply called Offline. The offline feature allows you to use Gmail when you are offline or on a flakey internet connection. To get started with Gmail Offline, begin by going to Settings> Labs. You’ll first need to enable the offline feature and save your settings.You should now see the “offline” icon as a little green circle, or the words “offline” in the upper right by the settings link. Click on this link and walk through the steps of installing Google Gears. Once the installation is complete you make need to restart your browser - the installer will tell you if you need to do so. The process will then begin to synchronize your online folder with a local copy that you can use when you are not online. You can hide the status window at any time by clicking the “X” in the upper right corner of the small window. To see it again, click the little green circle again. The sych process will take a while. In my case it took about 20 minutes. From the sync pop-up you can also take some additional actions including: “Sync Now” to resynchronize your offline folder immediately, pause the sync for the next hour, which is always handy if you are in a limited bandwidth situation Disable oflfine Gmail, which allows you a quick way to turn off the offline system and Offline settings - this goes directly to the Settings> Offline tab where you can: Enable/disable offline mode (yes, this is redundant) Set the date range - allowing you to set how far back you want to keep online data locally. By default this is about six months, depending on the number of messages and their size Specify the maximum attachment size - which allows you to limit the synchronization of large file attachments. By default this is unlimited. Create a desktop shortcut and a link to a troubleshooting page to help you out if you have any problems. I ran this on my Windows machine under Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7 and it worked fine in both situations. Using the offline feature allows you to use Gmail in your browser, read, compose, and even archive messages without an internet connection. When you get back online, the changes you made offline will be available online, and new messages on the server will be downloaded automatically without you doing anything special. This really is a useful feature if you use Gmail a lot like I do. Here’s today’s quick tip: Listener Dan Johnson Jr. made me aware of a Phishing attempt via email targeted directly at Gmail users. Phishing, with “ph” is an attempt by someone to gain access to your secured information. In this case, someone is trying to get in to your Gmail account. The message indicates that your Gmail account is scheduled to be deleted. The email asks you for your user name, password, date of birth, and country. If you ever see an email asking for this type of information use the “Report Phishing” option on the “Reply” pulldown on the right side of a message so Gmail can prevent similar messages in the future. One other little cosmetic change to Gmail that I hadn’t noticed earlier was the status bar when doing file attachments. Now when you specify a file attachment an animated gauge will display showing you how much of the attachment has been uploaded. While not necessary, it is a nice touch. I have to admit I was excited to hear about the Gmail Labs feature simply called Offline. The offline feature allows you to use Gmail when you are offline or on a flakey internet connection. To get started with Gmail Offline, begin by going to Settings> Labs. You’ll first need to enable the offline feature and save your settings.You should now see the “offline” icon as a little green circle, or the words “offline” in the upper right by the settings link. Click on this link and walk through the steps of installing Google Gears. Once the installation is complete you make need to restart your browser - the installer will tell you if you need to do so. The process will then begin to synchronize your online folder with a local copy that you can use when you are not online. You can hide the status window at any time by clicking the “X” in the upper right corner of the small window. To see it again, click the little green circle again. The sych process will take a while. In my case it took about 20 minutes. From the sync pop-up you can also take some additional actions including: “Sync Now” to resynchronize your offline folder immediately, pause the sync for the next hour, which is always handy if you are in a limited bandwidth situation Disable oflfine Gmail, which allows you a quick way to turn off the offline system and Offline settings - this goes directly to the Settings> Offline tab where you can: Enable/disable offline mode (yes, this is redundant) Set the date range - allowing you to set how far back you want to keep online data locally. By default this is about six months, depending on the number of messages and their size Specify the maximum attachment size - which allows you to limit the synchronization of large file attachments. By default this is unlimited. Create a desktop shortcut and a link to a troubleshooting page to help you out if you have any problems. I ran this on my Windows machine under Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7 and it worked fine in both situations. Using the offline feature allows you to use Gmail in your browser, read, compose, and even archive messages without an internet connection. When you get back online, the changes you made offline will be available online, and new messages on the server will be downloaded automatically without you doing anything special. This really is a useful feature if you use Gmail a lot like I do. Here’s today’s quick tip: Listener Dan Johnson Jr. made me aware of a Phishing attempt via email targeted directly at Gmail users. Phishing, with “ph” is an attempt by someone to gain access to your secured information. In this case, someone is trying to get in to your Gmail account. The message indicates that your Gmail account is scheduled to be deleted. The email asks you for your user name, password, date of birth, and country. If you ever see an email asking for this type of information use the “Report Phishing” option on the “Reply” pulldown on the right side of a message so Gmail can prevent similar messages in the future. One other little cosmetic change to Gmail that I hadn’t noticed earlier was the status bar when doing file attachments. Now when you specify a file attachment an animated gauge will display showing you how much of the attachment has been uploaded. While not necessary, it is a nice touch. tag:odeo.com,2009-03-01,24241443 Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:30:38 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24135595-Multiple-Inboxes One of the most interesting new features in the Gmail Labs is called Multiple Inboxes. If you need more information on Gmail Labs, check the Gmail Podcast Archives for plenty of details on what it is and how you can enable dozens of useful features. Multiple inboxes gives you a very nice way to see items that would normally be cluttering up your inbox in separate window panes on the same screen. Combined with labels and filters, multiple inboxes makes for a very powerful organization tool. Begin by enabling the Multiple Inboxes feature under Settings> Labs. You’ll notice your main conversation index now shows a sort of split-screen view of your normal conversation index as well as search results on the right. By default it comes up with search results for starred and draft items. To change this, go back in to Settings and you’ll see a new tab labeled “Multiple inboxes”. There you will see five lines, labeled “Pane 0-4″ that you can put in the s... One of the most interesting new features in the Gmail Labs is called Multiple Inboxes. If you need more information on Gmail Labs, check the Gmail Podcast Archives for plenty of details on what it is and how you can enable dozens of useful features. Multiple inboxes gives you a very nice way to see items that would normally be cluttering up your inbox in separate window panes on the same screen. Combined with labels and filters, multiple inboxes makes for a very powerful organization tool. Begin by enabling the Multiple Inboxes feature under Settings> Labs. You’ll notice your main conversation index now shows a sort of split-screen view of your normal conversation index as well as search results on the right. By default it comes up with search results for starred and draft items. To change this, go back in to Settings and you’ll see a new tab labeled “Multiple inboxes”. There you will see five lines, labeled “Pane 0-4″ that you can put in the search conditions you want to display. You can also set a maximum number of conversations you want to display and if you want the panes displayed above, below, or to the right of the inbox. Now, back at your inbox, you’ll see a whole new layout. Using filters, you can immediately label and move messages to their own window for better organization. At the top of each pane you can find a link on the right labeled “View All”. When you click on that link the particular pane will take over and take up the whole index. Be careful not to get carried away with Multiple Inboxes. While they can be a powerful feature to keep you organized, I found the more I tried to configure them with filters, the less organized I became. I thought it would be helpful to take some of my more common messages and bypass the normal inbox by applying them to a label and making them appear in one of the other inboxes. For example, all my incoming notifications from Facebook would simply “appear” in a facebook pane. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a keyboard shortcut to move me to another pane (yet). Maybe something like g 0-4 would be helpful to allow me to select, label, archive, and delete conversations in those other inboxes. Try out the multiple inboxes and see what works for you. I have to say, I’m rather impressed with some of the other changes in Gmail recently. The user interface has been cleaned up and a couple new features added. The buttons on the main index have been given cleaner look. Archive, Report Spam, and Delete are still there, however More Actions has been divided in to “Move to”, which allows you to apply a label and move the message out of the inbox, and label which simply applies a label. “More Actions” is still available, but has been tidied up to simply include “Mark as read”, “Mark as unread”, “Add to tasks”, “Add Star”, “Remove Star”, “Create an event”, “Filter Messages like these”, and “Mute”. For you keyboard shortcut nerds, “v” activates the “Move To” menu, “l” for the label menu, and “.” (period, or dot) still gets “More Actions”. It’s been a challenge to retrain my fingers, but I’m learning. I’ve got dozens of labels and scrolling is quickly becoming impractical. Another nice feature about these new menu options is auto-complete. As you start typing the label name, Gmail will narrow the search down. Once again, I highly recommend keyboard shortcuts for moving between your messages with j and k, select them with “x”, move or label them with “l”, or “v”, archive them with “y”, or delete them with “#”. Applying labels with auto-complete makes organizing your messages a snap. I can quickly narrow down 100 new messages to 10 that I really need to read and reply to in a few minutes. After seeing some of the recent interface changs, it starts to make the filter and label management screens look a little clunky. Keep watching the Gmail Podcast website and listening to the Gmail Podcast, you never know what’s coming next… One of the most interesting new features in the Gmail Labs is called Multiple Inboxes. If you need more information on Gmail Labs, check the Gmail Podcast Archives for plenty of details on what it is and how you can enable dozens of useful features. Multiple inboxes gives you a very nice way to see items that would normally be cluttering up your inbox in separate window panes on the same screen. Combined with labels and filters, multiple inboxes makes for a very powerful organization tool. Begin by enabling the Multiple Inboxes feature under Settings> Labs. You’ll notice your main conversation index now shows a sort of split-screen view of your normal conversation index as well as search results on the right. By default it comes up with search results for starred and draft items. To change this, go back in to Settings and you’ll see a new tab labeled “Multiple inboxes”. There you will see five lines, labeled “Pane 0-4″ that you can put in the search conditions you want to display. You can also set a maximum number of conversations you want to display and if you want the panes displayed above, below, or to the right of the inbox. Now, back at your inbox, you’ll see a whole new layout. Using filters, you can immediately label and move messages to their own window for better organization. At the top of each pane you can find a link on the right labeled “View All”. When you click on that link the particular pane will take over and take up the whole index. Be careful not to get carried away with Multiple Inboxes. While they can be a powerful feature to keep you organized, I found the more I tried to configure them with filters, the less organized I became. I thought it would be helpful to take some of my more common messages and bypass the normal inbox by applying them to a label and making them appear in one of the other inboxes. For example, all my incoming notifications from Facebook would simply “appear” in a facebook pane. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a keyboard shortcut to move me to another pane (yet). Maybe something like g 0-4 would be helpful to allow me to select, label, archive, and delete conversations in those other inboxes. Try out the multiple inboxes and see what works for you. I have to say, I’m rather impressed with some of the other changes in Gmail recently. The user interface has been cleaned up and a couple new features added. The buttons on the main index have been given cleaner look. Archive, Report Spam, and Delete are still there, however More Actions has been divided in to “Move to”, which allows you to apply a label and move the message out of the inbox, and label which simply applies a label. “More Actions” is still available, but has been tidied up to simply include “Mark as read”, “Mark as unread”, “Add to tasks”, “Add Star”, “Remove Star”, “Create an event”, “Filter Messages like these”, and “Mute”. For you keyboard shortcut nerds, “v” activates the “Move To” menu, “l” for the label menu, and “.” (period, or dot) still gets “More Actions”. It’s been a challenge to retrain my fingers, but I’m learning. I’ve got dozens of labels and scrolling is quickly becoming impractical. Another nice feature about these new menu options is auto-complete. As you start typing the label name, Gmail will narrow the search down. Once again, I highly recommend keyboard shortcuts for moving between your messages with j and k, select them with “x”, move or label them with “l”, or “v”, archive them with “y”, or delete them with “#”. Applying labels with auto-complete makes organizing your messages a snap. I can quickly narrow down 100 new messages to 10 that I really need to read and reply to in a few minutes. After seeing some of the recent interface changs, it starts to make the filter and label management screens look a little clunky. Keep watching the Gmail Podcast website and listening to the Gmail Podcast, you never know what’s coming next… tag:odeo.com,2009-02-07,24135595 Sat, 07 Feb 2009 09:40:56 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24061630-Multiple-Inboxes One of the most interesting new features in the Gmail Labs is called Multiple Inboxes. If you need more information on Gmail Labs, check the Gmail Podcast Archives for plenty of details on what it is and how you can enable dozens of useful features. Multiple inboxes gives you a very nice way to see items that would normally be cluttering up your inbox in separate window panes on the same screen. Combined with labels and filters, multiple inboxes makes for a very powerful organization tool. Begin by enabling the Multiple Inboxes feature under Settings> Labs. You’ll notice your main conversation index now shows a sort of split-screen view of your normal conversation index as well as search results on the right. By default it comes up with search results for starred and draft items. To change this, go back in to Settings and you’ll see a new tab labeled “Multiple inboxes”. There you will see five lines, labeled “Pane 0-4″ that you can put in the s... One of the most interesting new features in the Gmail Labs is called Multiple Inboxes. If you need more information on Gmail Labs, check the Gmail Podcast Archives for plenty of details on what it is and how you can enable dozens of useful features. Multiple inboxes gives you a very nice way to see items that would normally be cluttering up your inbox in separate window panes on the same screen. Combined with labels and filters, multiple inboxes makes for a very powerful organization tool. Begin by enabling the Multiple Inboxes feature under Settings> Labs. You’ll notice your main conversation index now shows a sort of split-screen view of your normal conversation index as well as search results on the right. By default it comes up with search results for starred and draft items. To change this, go back in to Settings and you’ll see a new tab labeled “Multiple inboxes”. There you will see five lines, labeled “Pane 0-4″ that you can put in the search conditions you want to display. You can also set a maximum number of conversations you want to display and if you want the panes displayed above, below, or to the right of the inbox. Now, back at your inbox, you’ll see a whole new layout. Using filters, you can immediately label and move messages to their own window for better organization. At the top of each pane you can find a link on the right labeled “View All”. When you click on that link the particular pane will take over and take up the whole index. Be careful not to get carried away with Multiple Inboxes. While they can be a powerful feature to keep you organized, I found the more I tried to configure them with filters, the less organized I became. I thought it would be helpful to take some of my more common messages and bypass the normal inbox by applying them to a label and making them appear in one of the other inboxes. For example, all my incoming notifications from Facebook would simply “appear” in a facebook pane. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a keyboard shortcut to move me to another pane (yet). Maybe something like g 0-4 would be helpful to allow me to select, label, archive, and delete conversations in those other inboxes. Try out the multiple inboxes and see what works for you. I have to say, I’m rather impressed with some of the other changes in Gmail recently. The user interface has been cleaned up and a couple new features added. The buttons on the main index have been given cleaner look. Archive, Report Spam, and Delete are still there, however More Actions has been divided in to “Move to”, which allows you to apply a label and move the message out of the inbox, and label which simply applies a label. “More Actions” is still available, but has been tidied up to simply include “Mark as read”, “Mark as unread”, “Add to tasks”, “Add Star”, “Remove Star”, “Create an event”, “Filter Messages like these”, and “Mute”. For you keyboard shortcut nerds, “v” activates the “Move To” menu, “l” for the label menu, and “.” (period, or dot) still gets “More Actions”. It’s been a challenge to retrain my fingers, but I’m learning. I’ve got dozens of labels and scrolling is quickly becoming impractical. Another nice feature about these new menu options is auto-complete. As you start typing the label name, Gmail will narrow the search down. Once again, I highly recommend keyboard shortcuts for moving between your messages with j and k, select them with “x”, move or label them with “l”, or “v”, archive them with “y”, or delete them with “#”. Applying labels with auto-complete makes organizing your messages a snap. I can quickly narrow down 100 new messages to 10 that I really need to read and reply to in a few minutes. After seeing some of the recent interface changs, it starts to make the filter and label management screens look a little clunky. Keep watching the Gmail Podcast website and listening to the Gmail Podcast, you never know what’s coming next… One of the most interesting new features in the Gmail Labs is called Multiple Inboxes. If you need more information on Gmail Labs, check the Gmail Podcast Archives for plenty of details on what it is and how you can enable dozens of useful features. Multiple inboxes gives you a very nice way to see items that would normally be cluttering up your inbox in separate window panes on the same screen. Combined with labels and filters, multiple inboxes makes for a very powerful organization tool. Begin by enabling the Multiple Inboxes feature under Settings> Labs. You’ll notice your main conversation index now shows a sort of split-screen view of your normal conversation index as well as search results on the right. By default it comes up with search results for starred and draft items. To change this, go back in to Settings and you’ll see a new tab labeled “Multiple inboxes”. There you will see five lines, labeled “Pane 0-4″ that you can put in the search conditions you want to display. You can also set a maximum number of conversations you want to display and if you want the panes displayed above, below, or to the right of the inbox. Now, back at your inbox, you’ll see a whole new layout. Using filters, you can immediately label and move messages to their own window for better organization. At the top of each pane you can find a link on the right labeled “View All”. When you click on that link the particular pane will take over and take up the whole index. Be careful not to get carried away with Multiple Inboxes. While they can be a powerful feature to keep you organized, I found the more I tried to configure them with filters, the less organized I became. I thought it would be helpful to take some of my more common messages and bypass the normal inbox by applying them to a label and making them appear in one of the other inboxes. For example, all my incoming notifications from Facebook would simply “appear” in a facebook pane. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a keyboard shortcut to move me to another pane (yet). Maybe something like g 0-4 would be helpful to allow me to select, label, archive, and delete conversations in those other inboxes. Try out the multiple inboxes and see what works for you. I have to say, I’m rather impressed with some of the other changes in Gmail recently. The user interface has been cleaned up and a couple new features added. The buttons on the main index have been given cleaner look. Archive, Report Spam, and Delete are still there, however More Actions has been divided in to “Move to”, which allows you to apply a label and move the message out of the inbox, and label which simply applies a label. “More Actions” is still available, but has been tidied up to simply include “Mark as read”, “Mark as unread”, “Add to tasks”, “Add Star”, “Remove Star”, “Create an event”, “Filter Messages like these”, and “Mute”. For you keyboard shortcut nerds, “v” activates the “Move To” menu, “l” for the label menu, and “.” (period, or dot) still gets “More Actions”. It’s been a challenge to retrain my fingers, but I’m learning. I’ve got dozens of labels and scrolling is quickly becoming impractical. Another nice feature about these new menu options is auto-complete. As you start typing the label name, Gmail will narrow the search down. Once again, I highly recommend keyboard shortcuts for moving between your messages with j and k, select them with “x”, move or label them with “l”, or “v”, archive them with “y”, or delete them with “#”. Applying labels with auto-complete makes organizing your messages a snap. I can quickly narrow down 100 new messages to 10 that I really need to read and reply to in a few minutes. After seeing some of the recent interface changs, it starts to make the filter and label management screens look a little clunky. Keep watching the Gmail Podcast website and listening to the Gmail Podcast, you never know what’s coming next… tag:odeo.com,2009-02-07,24061630 Sat, 07 Feb 2009 09:40:56 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24010251-Tasks It seems like Gmail is more and more becoming the online version of Microsoft Outlook. In mid-December they added Tasks to the list of features available in the Gmail labs. Tasks are a way to keep track of what you need to do and what you’ve already done. To begin working with Gmail tasks, click on the little green bottle in the upper right. This is really just a shortcut to Settings> Labs. Next, click on the button labeled “Enable” and scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Save Changes”. Once back at the main Gmail screen, take a look on the left. Just under Contacts, you will see a link labeled “Tasks”. When you click it, an embedded window will pop up with your tasks. You can also get this window by using the keyboard shortcut “G” then “K” (short for Goto tasK). Be sure you have keyboard shortcuts turned on by going in to Settings> General and enable keyboard shortcuts. The first time you bring up the... It seems like Gmail is more and more becoming the online version of Microsoft Outlook. In mid-December they added Tasks to the list of features available in the Gmail labs. Tasks are a way to keep track of what you need to do and what you’ve already done. To begin working with Gmail tasks, click on the little green bottle in the upper right. This is really just a shortcut to Settings> Labs. Next, click on the button labeled “Enable” and scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Save Changes”. Once back at the main Gmail screen, take a look on the left. Just under Contacts, you will see a link labeled “Tasks”. When you click it, an embedded window will pop up with your tasks. You can also get this window by using the keyboard shortcut “G” then “K” (short for Goto tasK). Be sure you have keyboard shortcuts turned on by going in to Settings> General and enable keyboard shortcuts. The first time you bring up the tasks window, the list will be empty. If you have some tasks on your mind, you can simply type them in and hit enter after each task to enter the next one. On the right side of each task you will see a little chevron symbol. Clicking that will bring up additional details about the task, allowing you to put in a due date, or add additional notes. For example, I’ve got a trip coming up and I need to get a few things done. One of the tasks I’ll enter is to sign up for an ID card. I enter the task “Sign up for ID card”, then click the chevron to set a date. In the notes section, I’ll enter the web address where I need to go to enter the ID information. Once I have completed a task I simply click on the checkbox to mark it complete. There are lots of other options on the task list window. Like a chat window, you can minimize and maximize the window, and make the task list an independent browser window by clicking on the arrow icon in the upper right of the list. If you wanted it embedded again, click the link on the bottom of the new window labeled “Pop-in”. On the bottom is a link called Actions. From here you can manage your tasks by moving them up down, or changing the indent level. Of course, I recommend using the keyboard shortcuts which are clearly labeled next to the action for fastest manipulation of your tasks. Indenting allows you to see your tasks in more of an outline format, but does not create any dependencies to the heirarchy that I’m aware of. Also on the bottom of the window are icons to add and delete tasks and one of my favorites, the list menu. From here you can refresh a list, add, rename, select, or delete a list - giving you the power to keep your tasks for different projects or topics in separate lists. Just keep in mind that you can only view one list of tasks at a time. I did find one bug in the embedded task window when used with “Labels on Right” labs feature enabled. When I click to the right of the Actions label, I can click “through” the tasks window and get whatever label is underneath. In my case it was all the email I had labeled for the upcoming trip. Now for some real power. Let’s say you are reading an email and recognize you need to take some action on it. Previously, what I would do is label it with something like “@Actions”. It took a couple keystrokes and was fairly effective. Now, while reading the email, I can either use the “More actions” and select “Add to tasks” or type Shift-T to have it added to the task list. The subject is used as the task name. Shift-Enter will show me any details of the task, including a link back to the related email. Even if I archive the email, I can still find it quickly using the task list. There is one thing I found lacking with the multiple lists. Shift-T will add the email to which ever task list was last selected. If I had a work project list selected when I added the task to get an ID card, I have no way to move it to the right list. This seems like a simple thing for Google to fix with a drop down list, much like using multiple calendars. If you are only using one task list, however, you have nothing to worry about. Also lacking is a widget to see the tasks in a sidebar, much like Google Docs, or Calendar. That would seem to be a logical place for a quick glance. For a 1.0 product, it’s not bad for a simple list. Hopefully Google will adopt some of the early suggestions in ot their next release. It seems like Gmail is more and more becoming the online version of Microsoft Outlook. In mid-December they added Tasks to the list of features available in the Gmail labs. Tasks are a way to keep track of what you need to do and what you’ve already done. To begin working with Gmail tasks, click on the little green bottle in the upper right. This is really just a shortcut to Settings> Labs. Next, click on the button labeled “Enable” and scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Save Changes”. Once back at the main Gmail screen, take a look on the left. Just under Contacts, you will see a link labeled “Tasks”. When you click it, an embedded window will pop up with your tasks. You can also get this window by using the keyboard shortcut “G” then “K” (short for Goto tasK). Be sure you have keyboard shortcuts turned on by going in to Settings> General and enable keyboard shortcuts. The first time you bring up the tasks window, the list will be empty. If you have some tasks on your mind, you can simply type them in and hit enter after each task to enter the next one. On the right side of each task you will see a little chevron symbol. Clicking that will bring up additional details about the task, allowing you to put in a due date, or add additional notes. For example, I’ve got a trip coming up and I need to get a few things done. One of the tasks I’ll enter is to sign up for an ID card. I enter the task “Sign up for ID card”, then click the chevron to set a date. In the notes section, I’ll enter the web address where I need to go to enter the ID information. Once I have completed a task I simply click on the checkbox to mark it complete. There are lots of other options on the task list window. Like a chat window, you can minimize and maximize the window, and make the task list an independent browser window by clicking on the arrow icon in the upper right of the list. If you wanted it embedded again, click the link on the bottom of the new window labeled “Pop-in”. On the bottom is a link called Actions. From here you can manage your tasks by moving them up down, or changing the indent level. Of course, I recommend using the keyboard shortcuts which are clearly labeled next to the action for fastest manipulation of your tasks. Indenting allows you to see your tasks in more of an outline format, but does not create any dependencies to the heirarchy that I’m aware of. Also on the bottom of the window are icons to add and delete tasks and one of my favorites, the list menu. From here you can refresh a list, add, rename, select, or delete a list - giving you the power to keep your tasks for different projects or topics in separate lists. Just keep in mind that you can only view one list of tasks at a time. I did find one bug in the embedded task window when used with “Labels on Right” labs feature enabled. When I click to the right of the Actions label, I can click “through” the tasks window and get whatever label is underneath. In my case it was all the email I had labeled for the upcoming trip. Now for some real power. Let’s say you are reading an email and recognize you need to take some action on it. Previously, what I would do is label it with something like “@Actions”. It took a couple keystrokes and was fairly effective. Now, while reading the email, I can either use the “More actions” and select “Add to tasks” or type Shift-T to have it added to the task list. The subject is used as the task name. Shift-Enter will show me any details of the task, including a link back to the related email. Even if I archive the email, I can still find it quickly using the task list. There is one thing I found lacking with the multiple lists. Shift-T will add the email to which ever task list was last selected. If I had a work project list selected when I added the task to get an ID card, I have no way to move it to the right list. This seems like a simple thing for Google to fix with a drop down list, much like using multiple calendars. If you are only using one task list, however, you have nothing to worry about. Also lacking is a widget to see the tasks in a sidebar, much like Google Docs, or Calendar. That would seem to be a logical place for a quick glance. For a 1.0 product, it’s not bad for a simple list. Hopefully Google will adopt some of the early suggestions in ot their next release. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-20,24010251 Sat, 20 Dec 2008 06:59:54 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23785239-Tasks It seems like Gmail is more and more becoming the online version of Microsoft Outlook. In mid-December they added Tasks to the list of features available in the Gmail labs. Tasks are a way to keep track of what you need to do and what you’ve already done. To begin working with Gmail tasks, click on the little green bottle in the upper right. This is really just a shortcut to Settings> Labs. Next, click on the button labeled “Enable” and scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Save Changes”. Once back at the main Gmail screen, take a look on the left. Just under Contacts, you will see a link labeled “Tasks”. When you click it, an embedded window will pop up with your tasks. You can also get this window by using the keyboard shortcut “G” then “K” (short for Goto tasK). Be sure you have keyboard shortcuts turned on by going in to Settings> General and enable keyboard shortcuts. The first time you bring up the... It seems like Gmail is more and more becoming the online version of Microsoft Outlook. In mid-December they added Tasks to the list of features available in the Gmail labs. Tasks are a way to keep track of what you need to do and what you’ve already done. To begin working with Gmail tasks, click on the little green bottle in the upper right. This is really just a shortcut to Settings> Labs. Next, click on the button labeled “Enable” and scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Save Changes”. Once back at the main Gmail screen, take a look on the left. Just under Contacts, you will see a link labeled “Tasks”. When you click it, an embedded window will pop up with your tasks. You can also get this window by using the keyboard shortcut “G” then “K” (short for Goto tasK). Be sure you have keyboard shortcuts turned on by going in to Settings> General and enable keyboard shortcuts. The first time you bring up the tasks window, the list will be empty. If you have some tasks on your mind, you can simply type them in and hit enter after each task to enter the next one. On the right side of each task you will see a little chevron symbol. Clicking that will bring up additional details about the task, allowing you to put in a due date, or add additional notes. For example, I’ve got a trip coming up and I need to get a few things done. One of the tasks I’ll enter is to sign up for an ID card. I enter the task “Sign up for ID card”, then click the chevron to set a date. In the notes section, I’ll enter the web address where I need to go to enter the ID information. Once I have completed a task I simply click on the checkbox to mark it complete. There are lots of other options on the task list window. Like a chat window, you can minimize and maximize the window, and make the task list an independent browser window by clicking on the arrow icon in the upper right of the list. If you wanted it embedded again, click the link on the bottom of the new window labeled “Pop-in”. On the bottom is a link called Actions. From here you can manage your tasks by moving them up down, or changing the indent level. Of course, I recommend using the keyboard shortcuts which are clearly labeled next to the action for fastest manipulation of your tasks. Indenting allows you to see your tasks in more of an outline format, but does not create any dependencies to the heirarchy that I’m aware of. Also on the bottom of the window are icons to add and delete tasks and one of my favorites, the list menu. From here you can refresh a list, add, rename, select, or delete a list - giving you the power to keep your tasks for different projects or topics in separate lists. Just keep in mind that you can only view one list of tasks at a time. I did find one bug in the embedded task window when used with “Labels on Right” labs feature enabled. When I click to the right of the Actions label, I can click “through” the tasks window and get whatever label is underneath. In my case it was all the email I had labeled for the upcoming trip. Now for some real power. Let’s say you are reading an email and recognize you need to take some action on it. Previously, what I would do is label it with something like “@Actions”. It took a couple keystrokes and was fairly effective. Now, while reading the email, I can either use the “More actions” and select “Add to tasks” or type Shift-T to have it added to the task list. The subject is used as the task name. Shift-Enter will show me any details of the task, including a link back to the related email. Even if I archive the email, I can still find it quickly using the task list. There is one thing I found lacking with the multiple lists. Shift-T will add the email to which ever task list was last selected. If I had a work project list selected when I added the task to get an ID card, I have no way to move it to the right list. This seems like a simple thing for Google to fix with a drop down list, much like using multiple calendars. If you are only using one task list, however, you have nothing to worry about. Also lacking is a widget to see the tasks in a sidebar, much like Google Docs, or Calendar. That would seem to be a logical place for a quick glance. For a 1.0 product, it’s not bad for a simple list. Hopefully Google will adopt some of the early suggestions in ot their next release. It seems like Gmail is more and more becoming the online version of Microsoft Outlook. In mid-December they added Tasks to the list of features available in the Gmail labs. Tasks are a way to keep track of what you need to do and what you’ve already done. To begin working with Gmail tasks, click on the little green bottle in the upper right. This is really just a shortcut to Settings> Labs. Next, click on the button labeled “Enable” and scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Save Changes”. Once back at the main Gmail screen, take a look on the left. Just under Contacts, you will see a link labeled “Tasks”. When you click it, an embedded window will pop up with your tasks. You can also get this window by using the keyboard shortcut “G” then “K” (short for Goto tasK). Be sure you have keyboard shortcuts turned on by going in to Settings> General and enable keyboard shortcuts. The first time you bring up the tasks window, the list will be empty. If you have some tasks on your mind, you can simply type them in and hit enter after each task to enter the next one. On the right side of each task you will see a little chevron symbol. Clicking that will bring up additional details about the task, allowing you to put in a due date, or add additional notes. For example, I’ve got a trip coming up and I need to get a few things done. One of the tasks I’ll enter is to sign up for an ID card. I enter the task “Sign up for ID card”, then click the chevron to set a date. In the notes section, I’ll enter the web address where I need to go to enter the ID information. Once I have completed a task I simply click on the checkbox to mark it complete. There are lots of other options on the task list window. Like a chat window, you can minimize and maximize the window, and make the task list an independent browser window by clicking on the arrow icon in the upper right of the list. If you wanted it embedded again, click the link on the bottom of the new window labeled “Pop-in”. On the bottom is a link called Actions. From here you can manage your tasks by moving them up down, or changing the indent level. Of course, I recommend using the keyboard shortcuts which are clearly labeled next to the action for fastest manipulation of your tasks. Indenting allows you to see your tasks in more of an outline format, but does not create any dependencies to the heirarchy that I’m aware of. Also on the bottom of the window are icons to add and delete tasks and one of my favorites, the list menu. From here you can refresh a list, add, rename, select, or delete a list - giving you the power to keep your tasks for different projects or topics in separate lists. Just keep in mind that you can only view one list of tasks at a time. I did find one bug in the embedded task window when used with “Labels on Right” labs feature enabled. When I click to the right of the Actions label, I can click “through” the tasks window and get whatever label is underneath. In my case it was all the email I had labeled for the upcoming trip. Now for some real power. Let’s say you are reading an email and recognize you need to take some action on it. Previously, what I would do is label it with something like “@Actions”. It took a couple keystrokes and was fairly effective. Now, while reading the email, I can either use the “More actions” and select “Add to tasks” or type Shift-T to have it added to the task list. The subject is used as the task name. Shift-Enter will show me any details of the task, including a link back to the related email. Even if I archive the email, I can still find it quickly using the task list. There is one thing I found lacking with the multiple lists. Shift-T will add the email to which ever task list was last selected. If I had a work project list selected when I added the task to get an ID card, I have no way to move it to the right list. This seems like a simple thing for Google to fix with a drop down list, much like using multiple calendars. If you are only using one task list, however, you have nothing to worry about. Also lacking is a widget to see the tasks in a sidebar, much like Google Docs, or Calendar. That would seem to be a logical place for a quick glance. For a 1.0 product, it’s not bad for a simple list. Hopefully Google will adopt some of the early suggestions in ot their next release. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-20,23785239 Sat, 20 Dec 2008 06:59:54 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24061631-Tasks It seems like Gmail is more and more becoming the online version of Microsoft Outlook. In mid-December they added Tasks to the list of features available in the Gmail labs. Tasks are a way to keep track of what you need to do and what you’ve already done. To begin working with Gmail tasks, click on the little green bottle in the upper right. This is really just a shortcut to Settings> Labs. Next, click on the button labeled “Enable” and scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Save Changes”. Once back at the main Gmail screen, take a look on the left. Just under Contacts, you will see a link labeled “Tasks”. When you click it, an embedded window will pop up with your tasks. You can also get this window by using the keyboard shortcut “G” then “K” (short for Goto tasK). Be sure you have keyboard shortcuts turned on by going in to Settings> General and enable keyboard shortcuts. The first time you bring up the... It seems like Gmail is more and more becoming the online version of Microsoft Outlook. In mid-December they added Tasks to the list of features available in the Gmail labs. Tasks are a way to keep track of what you need to do and what you’ve already done. To begin working with Gmail tasks, click on the little green bottle in the upper right. This is really just a shortcut to Settings> Labs. Next, click on the button labeled “Enable” and scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Save Changes”. Once back at the main Gmail screen, take a look on the left. Just under Contacts, you will see a link labeled “Tasks”. When you click it, an embedded window will pop up with your tasks. You can also get this window by using the keyboard shortcut “G” then “K” (short for Goto tasK). Be sure you have keyboard shortcuts turned on by going in to Settings> General and enable keyboard shortcuts. The first time you bring up the tasks window, the list will be empty. If you have some tasks on your mind, you can simply type them in and hit enter after each task to enter the next one. On the right side of each task you will see a little chevron symbol. Clicking that will bring up additional details about the task, allowing you to put in a due date, or add additional notes. For example, I’ve got a trip coming up and I need to get a few things done. One of the tasks I’ll enter is to sign up for an ID card. I enter the task “Sign up for ID card”, then click the chevron to set a date. In the notes section, I’ll enter the web address where I need to go to enter the ID information. Once I have completed a task I simply click on the checkbox to mark it complete. There are lots of other options on the task list window. Like a chat window, you can minimize and maximize the window, and make the task list an independent browser window by clicking on the arrow icon in the upper right of the list. If you wanted it embedded again, click the link on the bottom of the new window labeled “Pop-in”. On the bottom is a link called Actions. From here you can manage your tasks by moving them up down, or changing the indent level. Of course, I recommend using the keyboard shortcuts which are clearly labeled next to the action for fastest manipulation of your tasks. Indenting allows you to see your tasks in more of an outline format, but does not create any dependencies to the heirarchy that I’m aware of. Also on the bottom of the window are icons to add and delete tasks and one of my favorites, the list menu. From here you can refresh a list, add, rename, select, or delete a list - giving you the power to keep your tasks for different projects or topics in separate lists. Just keep in mind that you can only view one list of tasks at a time. I did find one bug in the embedded task window when used with “Labels on Right” labs feature enabled. When I click to the right of the Actions label, I can click “through” the tasks window and get whatever label is underneath. In my case it was all the email I had labeled for the upcoming trip. Now for some real power. Let’s say you are reading an email and recognize you need to take some action on it. Previously, what I would do is label it with something like “@Actions”. It took a couple keystrokes and was fairly effective. Now, while reading the email, I can either use the “More actions” and select “Add to tasks” or type Shift-T to have it added to the task list. The subject is used as the task name. Shift-Enter will show me any details of the task, including a link back to the related email. Even if I archive the email, I can still find it quickly using the task list. There is one thing I found lacking with the multiple lists. Shift-T will add the email to which ever task list was last selected. If I had a work project list selected when I added the task to get an ID card, I have no way to move it to the right list. This seems like a simple thing for Google to fix with a drop down list, much like using multiple calendars. If you are only using one task list, however, you have nothing to worry about. Also lacking is a widget to see the tasks in a sidebar, much like Google Docs, or Calendar. That would seem to be a logical place for a quick glance. For a 1.0 product, it’s not bad for a simple list. Hopefully Google will adopt some of the early suggestions in ot their next release. It seems like Gmail is more and more becoming the online version of Microsoft Outlook. In mid-December they added Tasks to the list of features available in the Gmail labs. Tasks are a way to keep track of what you need to do and what you’ve already done. To begin working with Gmail tasks, click on the little green bottle in the upper right. This is really just a shortcut to Settings> Labs. Next, click on the button labeled “Enable” and scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Save Changes”. Once back at the main Gmail screen, take a look on the left. Just under Contacts, you will see a link labeled “Tasks”. When you click it, an embedded window will pop up with your tasks. You can also get this window by using the keyboard shortcut “G” then “K” (short for Goto tasK). Be sure you have keyboard shortcuts turned on by going in to Settings> General and enable keyboard shortcuts. The first time you bring up the tasks window, the list will be empty. If you have some tasks on your mind, you can simply type them in and hit enter after each task to enter the next one. On the right side of each task you will see a little chevron symbol. Clicking that will bring up additional details about the task, allowing you to put in a due date, or add additional notes. For example, I’ve got a trip coming up and I need to get a few things done. One of the tasks I’ll enter is to sign up for an ID card. I enter the task “Sign up for ID card”, then click the chevron to set a date. In the notes section, I’ll enter the web address where I need to go to enter the ID information. Once I have completed a task I simply click on the checkbox to mark it complete. There are lots of other options on the task list window. Like a chat window, you can minimize and maximize the window, and make the task list an independent browser window by clicking on the arrow icon in the upper right of the list. If you wanted it embedded again, click the link on the bottom of the new window labeled “Pop-in”. On the bottom is a link called Actions. From here you can manage your tasks by moving them up down, or changing the indent level. Of course, I recommend using the keyboard shortcuts which are clearly labeled next to the action for fastest manipulation of your tasks. Indenting allows you to see your tasks in more of an outline format, but does not create any dependencies to the heirarchy that I’m aware of. Also on the bottom of the window are icons to add and delete tasks and one of my favorites, the list menu. From here you can refresh a list, add, rename, select, or delete a list - giving you the power to keep your tasks for different projects or topics in separate lists. Just keep in mind that you can only view one list of tasks at a time. I did find one bug in the embedded task window when used with “Labels on Right” labs feature enabled. When I click to the right of the Actions label, I can click “through” the tasks window and get whatever label is underneath. In my case it was all the email I had labeled for the upcoming trip. Now for some real power. Let’s say you are reading an email and recognize you need to take some action on it. Previously, what I would do is label it with something like “@Actions”. It took a couple keystrokes and was fairly effective. Now, while reading the email, I can either use the “More actions” and select “Add to tasks” or type Shift-T to have it added to the task list. The subject is used as the task name. Shift-Enter will show me any details of the task, including a link back to the related email. Even if I archive the email, I can still find it quickly using the task list. There is one thing I found lacking with the multiple lists. Shift-T will add the email to which ever task list was last selected. If I had a work project list selected when I added the task to get an ID card, I have no way to move it to the right list. This seems like a simple thing for Google to fix with a drop down list, much like using multiple calendars. If you are only using one task list, however, you have nothing to worry about. Also lacking is a widget to see the tasks in a sidebar, much like Google Docs, or Calendar. That would seem to be a logical place for a quick glance. For a 1.0 product, it’s not bad for a simple list. Hopefully Google will adopt some of the early suggestions in ot their next release. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-20,24061631 Sat, 20 Dec 2008 06:59:54 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24010252-Calendar Yes, you heard right. This episode is about the Google Calendar. I’m not running out of Gmail information, on the contrary, I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the cool new stuff coming out. Recently I found a new feature that ties Gmail with the Google Calendar. To begin, I’d like to give you a wonderful use of the Google Calendar that my co-worker Kevin in Raleigh North Carolina told me about. He said that he keeps all his appointments outside normal work hours in his Google Calendar. This way he can share it with his wife and maintain it from anywhere. I started thinking about our family calendar that hangs on the refrigerator at home. There are some drawbacks to this simple, and somewhat effective means of family communication. First, there isn’t always room to write what you want so you have to make shorthand notations, which can be difficult for your spouse to decipher. Second, you cannot check the piece of paper at home if someone at work asks &... Yes, you heard right. This episode is about the Google Calendar. I’m not running out of Gmail information, on the contrary, I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the cool new stuff coming out. Recently I found a new feature that ties Gmail with the Google Calendar. To begin, I’d like to give you a wonderful use of the Google Calendar that my co-worker Kevin in Raleigh North Carolina told me about. He said that he keeps all his appointments outside normal work hours in his Google Calendar. This way he can share it with his wife and maintain it from anywhere. I started thinking about our family calendar that hangs on the refrigerator at home. There are some drawbacks to this simple, and somewhat effective means of family communication. First, there isn’t always room to write what you want so you have to make shorthand notations, which can be difficult for your spouse to decipher. Second, you cannot check the piece of paper at home if someone at work asks “Are you available next Tuesday evening?” This past weekend, I took the three sheets of paper from the refrigerator and entered them in to Google Calendar. I will spare you all the details of setting up and managing a calendar. However, I will let you know that I discovered quite a number of nice features such as notifications via email and SMS, as well as sending a daily agenda to my email box each day just before I wake up - saving me a step of reading my email and reviewing my calendar each morning before we get going. Next, I shared the calendar with my wife Donna and gave her access to modify it. Finally, to appease Donna, I printed out not only a monthly view, but a weekly view as well to better see conflicts. After all, what good is a new piece of technology if you don’t have a process to drive it. I’ll be out of town and she isn’t quite comfortable with managing the calendar from the web yet. OK, you may be saying “Chuck, I’ve been doing that with our family calendar for years. What took you so long?” To that I respond “Thanks” and admit I’m not always on the leading edge of all technologies. OK, here’s the tie in with Gmail. I discovered a Gmail labs feature called “Google Calendar gadget” which displays upcoming events in a window on the left side. There is also one called “Google Docs gadget” to display recently modified Google Docs. The problem is that they appear at the bottom below the chat window and labels so I couldn’t glance and see what is coming up in the calendar. Fortunately, there are also two gadgets called “Right side chat” and “Right side labels” to place those two gadgets on the right side of the screen. This does make the message index a little narrower, and takes a bit of getting used to when looking for the labels or chat - after all they’ve been in the same place for years. However, the calendar and docs gadget now appear right under the Contacts link on the left and offer a quick glance at useful information. Yes, you heard right. This episode is about the Google Calendar. I’m not running out of Gmail information, on the contrary, I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the cool new stuff coming out. Recently I found a new feature that ties Gmail with the Google Calendar. To begin, I’d like to give you a wonderful use of the Google Calendar that my co-worker Kevin in Raleigh North Carolina told me about. He said that he keeps all his appointments outside normal work hours in his Google Calendar. This way he can share it with his wife and maintain it from anywhere. I started thinking about our family calendar that hangs on the refrigerator at home. There are some drawbacks to this simple, and somewhat effective means of family communication. First, there isn’t always room to write what you want so you have to make shorthand notations, which can be difficult for your spouse to decipher. Second, you cannot check the piece of paper at home if someone at work asks “Are you available next Tuesday evening?” This past weekend, I took the three sheets of paper from the refrigerator and entered them in to Google Calendar. I will spare you all the details of setting up and managing a calendar. However, I will let you know that I discovered quite a number of nice features such as notifications via email and SMS, as well as sending a daily agenda to my email box each day just before I wake up - saving me a step of reading my email and reviewing my calendar each morning before we get going. Next, I shared the calendar with my wife Donna and gave her access to modify it. Finally, to appease Donna, I printed out not only a monthly view, but a weekly view as well to better see conflicts. After all, what good is a new piece of technology if you don’t have a process to drive it. I’ll be out of town and she isn’t quite comfortable with managing the calendar from the web yet. OK, you may be saying “Chuck, I’ve been doing that with our family calendar for years. What took you so long?” To that I respond “Thanks” and admit I’m not always on the leading edge of all technologies. OK, here’s the tie in with Gmail. I discovered a Gmail labs feature called “Google Calendar gadget” which displays upcoming events in a window on the left side. There is also one called “Google Docs gadget” to display recently modified Google Docs. The problem is that they appear at the bottom below the chat window and labels so I couldn’t glance and see what is coming up in the calendar. Fortunately, there are also two gadgets called “Right side chat” and “Right side labels” to place those two gadgets on the right side of the screen. This does make the message index a little narrower, and takes a bit of getting used to when looking for the labels or chat - after all they’ve been in the same place for years. However, the calendar and docs gadget now appear right under the Contacts link on the left and offer a quick glance at useful information. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-14,24010252 Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:41:33 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23753010-Calendar Yes, you heard right. This episode is about the Google Calendar. I’m not running out of Gmail information, on the contrary, I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the cool new stuff coming out. Recently I found a new feature that ties Gmail with the Google Calendar. To begin, I’d like to give you a wonderful use of the Google Calendar that my co-worker Kevin in Raleigh North Carolina told me about. He said that he keeps all his appointments outside normal work hours in his Google Calendar. This way he can share it with his wife and maintain it from anywhere. I started thinking about our family calendar that hangs on the refrigerator at home. There are some drawbacks to this simple, and somewhat effective means of family communication. First, there isn’t always room to write what you want so you have to make shorthand notations, which can be difficult for your spouse to decipher. Second, you cannot check the piece of paper at home if someone at work asks &... Yes, you heard right. This episode is about the Google Calendar. I’m not running out of Gmail information, on the contrary, I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the cool new stuff coming out. Recently I found a new feature that ties Gmail with the Google Calendar. To begin, I’d like to give you a wonderful use of the Google Calendar that my co-worker Kevin in Raleigh North Carolina told me about. He said that he keeps all his appointments outside normal work hours in his Google Calendar. This way he can share it with his wife and maintain it from anywhere. I started thinking about our family calendar that hangs on the refrigerator at home. There are some drawbacks to this simple, and somewhat effective means of family communication. First, there isn’t always room to write what you want so you have to make shorthand notations, which can be difficult for your spouse to decipher. Second, you cannot check the piece of paper at home if someone at work asks “Are you available next Tuesday evening?” This past weekend, I took the three sheets of paper from the refrigerator and entered them in to Google Calendar. I will spare you all the details of setting up and managing a calendar. However, I will let you know that I discovered quite a number of nice features such as notifications via email and SMS, as well as sending a daily agenda to my email box each day just before I wake up - saving me a step of reading my email and reviewing my calendar each morning before we get going. Next, I shared the calendar with my wife Donna and gave her access to modify it. Finally, to appease Donna, I printed out not only a monthly view, but a weekly view as well to better see conflicts. After all, what good is a new piece of technology if you don’t have a process to drive it. I’ll be out of town and she isn’t quite comfortable with managing the calendar from the web yet. OK, you may be saying “Chuck, I’ve been doing that with our family calendar for years. What took you so long?” To that I respond “Thanks” and admit I’m not always on the leading edge of all technologies. OK, here’s the tie in with Gmail. I discovered a Gmail labs feature called “Google Calendar gadget” which displays upcoming events in a window on the left side. There is also one called “Google Docs gadget” to display recently modified Google Docs. The problem is that they appear at the bottom below the chat window and labels so I couldn’t glance and see what is coming up in the calendar. Fortunately, there are also two gadgets called “Right side chat” and “Right side labels” to place those two gadgets on the right side of the screen. This does make the message index a little narrower, and takes a bit of getting used to when looking for the labels or chat - after all they’ve been in the same place for years. However, the calendar and docs gadget now appear right under the Contacts link on the left and offer a quick glance at useful information. Yes, you heard right. This episode is about the Google Calendar. I’m not running out of Gmail information, on the contrary, I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the cool new stuff coming out. Recently I found a new feature that ties Gmail with the Google Calendar. To begin, I’d like to give you a wonderful use of the Google Calendar that my co-worker Kevin in Raleigh North Carolina told me about. He said that he keeps all his appointments outside normal work hours in his Google Calendar. This way he can share it with his wife and maintain it from anywhere. I started thinking about our family calendar that hangs on the refrigerator at home. There are some drawbacks to this simple, and somewhat effective means of family communication. First, there isn’t always room to write what you want so you have to make shorthand notations, which can be difficult for your spouse to decipher. Second, you cannot check the piece of paper at home if someone at work asks “Are you available next Tuesday evening?” This past weekend, I took the three sheets of paper from the refrigerator and entered them in to Google Calendar. I will spare you all the details of setting up and managing a calendar. However, I will let you know that I discovered quite a number of nice features such as notifications via email and SMS, as well as sending a daily agenda to my email box each day just before I wake up - saving me a step of reading my email and reviewing my calendar each morning before we get going. Next, I shared the calendar with my wife Donna and gave her access to modify it. Finally, to appease Donna, I printed out not only a monthly view, but a weekly view as well to better see conflicts. After all, what good is a new piece of technology if you don’t have a process to drive it. I’ll be out of town and she isn’t quite comfortable with managing the calendar from the web yet. OK, you may be saying “Chuck, I’ve been doing that with our family calendar for years. What took you so long?” To that I respond “Thanks” and admit I’m not always on the leading edge of all technologies. OK, here’s the tie in with Gmail. I discovered a Gmail labs feature called “Google Calendar gadget” which displays upcoming events in a window on the left side. There is also one called “Google Docs gadget” to display recently modified Google Docs. The problem is that they appear at the bottom below the chat window and labels so I couldn’t glance and see what is coming up in the calendar. Fortunately, there are also two gadgets called “Right side chat” and “Right side labels” to place those two gadgets on the right side of the screen. This does make the message index a little narrower, and takes a bit of getting used to when looking for the labels or chat - after all they’ve been in the same place for years. However, the calendar and docs gadget now appear right under the Contacts link on the left and offer a quick glance at useful information. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-14,23753010 Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:41:33 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24061632-Calendar Yes, you heard right. This episode is about the Google Calendar. I’m not running out of Gmail information, on the contrary, I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the cool new stuff coming out. Recently I found a new feature that ties Gmail with the Google Calendar. To begin, I’d like to give you a wonderful use of the Google Calendar that my co-worker Kevin in Raleigh North Carolina told me about. He said that he keeps all his appointments outside normal work hours in his Google Calendar. This way he can share it with his wife and maintain it from anywhere. I started thinking about our family calendar that hangs on the refrigerator at home. There are some drawbacks to this simple, and somewhat effective means of family communication. First, there isn’t always room to write what you want so you have to make shorthand notations, which can be difficult for your spouse to decipher. Second, you cannot check the piece of paper at home if someone at work asks &... Yes, you heard right. This episode is about the Google Calendar. I’m not running out of Gmail information, on the contrary, I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the cool new stuff coming out. Recently I found a new feature that ties Gmail with the Google Calendar. To begin, I’d like to give you a wonderful use of the Google Calendar that my co-worker Kevin in Raleigh North Carolina told me about. He said that he keeps all his appointments outside normal work hours in his Google Calendar. This way he can share it with his wife and maintain it from anywhere. I started thinking about our family calendar that hangs on the refrigerator at home. There are some drawbacks to this simple, and somewhat effective means of family communication. First, there isn’t always room to write what you want so you have to make shorthand notations, which can be difficult for your spouse to decipher. Second, you cannot check the piece of paper at home if someone at work asks “Are you available next Tuesday evening?” This past weekend, I took the three sheets of paper from the refrigerator and entered them in to Google Calendar. I will spare you all the details of setting up and managing a calendar. However, I will let you know that I discovered quite a number of nice features such as notifications via email and SMS, as well as sending a daily agenda to my email box each day just before I wake up - saving me a step of reading my email and reviewing my calendar each morning before we get going. Next, I shared the calendar with my wife Donna and gave her access to modify it. Finally, to appease Donna, I printed out not only a monthly view, but a weekly view as well to better see conflicts. After all, what good is a new piece of technology if you don’t have a process to drive it. I’ll be out of town and she isn’t quite comfortable with managing the calendar from the web yet. OK, you may be saying “Chuck, I’ve been doing that with our family calendar for years. What took you so long?” To that I respond “Thanks” and admit I’m not always on the leading edge of all technologies. OK, here’s the tie in with Gmail. I discovered a Gmail labs feature called “Google Calendar gadget” which displays upcoming events in a window on the left side. There is also one called “Google Docs gadget” to display recently modified Google Docs. The problem is that they appear at the bottom below the chat window and labels so I couldn’t glance and see what is coming up in the calendar. Fortunately, there are also two gadgets called “Right side chat” and “Right side labels” to place those two gadgets on the right side of the screen. This does make the message index a little narrower, and takes a bit of getting used to when looking for the labels or chat - after all they’ve been in the same place for years. However, the calendar and docs gadget now appear right under the Contacts link on the left and offer a quick glance at useful information. Yes, you heard right. This episode is about the Google Calendar. I’m not running out of Gmail information, on the contrary, I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the cool new stuff coming out. Recently I found a new feature that ties Gmail with the Google Calendar. To begin, I’d like to give you a wonderful use of the Google Calendar that my co-worker Kevin in Raleigh North Carolina told me about. He said that he keeps all his appointments outside normal work hours in his Google Calendar. This way he can share it with his wife and maintain it from anywhere. I started thinking about our family calendar that hangs on the refrigerator at home. There are some drawbacks to this simple, and somewhat effective means of family communication. First, there isn’t always room to write what you want so you have to make shorthand notations, which can be difficult for your spouse to decipher. Second, you cannot check the piece of paper at home if someone at work asks “Are you available next Tuesday evening?” This past weekend, I took the three sheets of paper from the refrigerator and entered them in to Google Calendar. I will spare you all the details of setting up and managing a calendar. However, I will let you know that I discovered quite a number of nice features such as notifications via email and SMS, as well as sending a daily agenda to my email box each day just before I wake up - saving me a step of reading my email and reviewing my calendar each morning before we get going. Next, I shared the calendar with my wife Donna and gave her access to modify it. Finally, to appease Donna, I printed out not only a monthly view, but a weekly view as well to better see conflicts. After all, what good is a new piece of technology if you don’t have a process to drive it. I’ll be out of town and she isn’t quite comfortable with managing the calendar from the web yet. OK, you may be saying “Chuck, I’ve been doing that with our family calendar for years. What took you so long?” To that I respond “Thanks” and admit I’m not always on the leading edge of all technologies. OK, here’s the tie in with Gmail. I discovered a Gmail labs feature called “Google Calendar gadget” which displays upcoming events in a window on the left side. There is also one called “Google Docs gadget” to display recently modified Google Docs. The problem is that they appear at the bottom below the chat window and labels so I couldn’t glance and see what is coming up in the calendar. Fortunately, there are also two gadgets called “Right side chat” and “Right side labels” to place those two gadgets on the right side of the screen. This does make the message index a little narrower, and takes a bit of getting used to when looking for the labels or chat - after all they’ve been in the same place for years. However, the calendar and docs gadget now appear right under the Contacts link on the left and offer a quick glance at useful information. tag:odeo.com,2008-12-14,24061632 Sun, 14 Dec 2008 15:41:33 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23628805-Video-Chat It was only a matter of time before Google integrated video in to their GoogleTalk protocol and made it available directly from Gmail. Well, now you can talk face to face with your friends with voice and video without leaving Gmail. The first step is to ensure you have a camera and the proper drivers installed. If your camera is built in to your machine, you likely don’t have anything to worry about at this point. If, like me, you use a USB camera and move it from machine to machine, you’ll want to go to the manufacturer’s site and download the latest drivers. Next, you will need to install a tiny bit of software from Google on your machine. Start by going to http://mail.google.com/videochat and clicking on the button labeled “Install voice and video chat”. From the looks of it, this is for Windows XP and later users. Keep an eye on the site and keep listening to the Gmail Podcast for updates. The installer takes only a few seconds, however it does requ... It was only a matter of time before Google integrated video in to their GoogleTalk protocol and made it available directly from Gmail. Well, now you can talk face to face with your friends with voice and video without leaving Gmail. The first step is to ensure you have a camera and the proper drivers installed. If your camera is built in to your machine, you likely don’t have anything to worry about at this point. If, like me, you use a USB camera and move it from machine to machine, you’ll want to go to the manufacturer’s site and download the latest drivers. Next, you will need to install a tiny bit of software from Google on your machine. Start by going to http://mail.google.com/videochat and clicking on the button labeled “Install voice and video chat”. From the looks of it, this is for Windows XP and later users. Keep an eye on the site and keep listening to the Gmail Podcast for updates. The installer takes only a few seconds, however it does require that you restart your browser. Once restarted, you will be brought to your Gmail settings with the Chat configuration settings listed. In the listing, you will find a new section labeled “Voice and video chat”. Make sure things are working right by clicking on the link “Verify your settings”. If everything is working, you should see your camera image in the window. If not, try troubleshooting your settings with the link of the same name. As a friendly tip, mine was not working right at first. I simply checked to make sure the camera was selected, changed the microphone to the camera, and hit save settings. When I went back to the chat settings and verified, everything was working fine. Now when you sign in to Gmail chat, you will see a camera icon next to your name and be able to do a video chat with others. If you start a text chat, you can use the link “Video and more” to start a video session. It’s simple and fun. Here’s today’s quick tip: If you find yourself answering the same questions or fending off the same vendors many times, then the Canned Auto Repsonses feature in the Gmail Labs may be for you. You can enable this by going in to the Gmail Labs under Settings or clicking on the little green bottle next to the Settings link in the upper right corner. Once enabled, a new link labeled “Canned autoresponses” will appear just below the To field. Initially there aren’t any responses so when you click on the link the only option will be “New canned response”. Type in your message, for example “Sorry, I’m extremely busy right now. In fact, I only have time for this canned autoresponse. I will respond with a more meaningful message when the stack of things to work gets back to a reasonable chaos. Stay tuned…” then click “New autoresponse”. Answer the prompt to give your canned response a name - like “Extremely busy” and click “OK”. The next time you need to tell someone you are busy click “Canned autoresponse” and select “extremely busy” to have the text automatically typed in. It was only a matter of time before Google integrated video in to their GoogleTalk protocol and made it available directly from Gmail. Well, now you can talk face to face with your friends with voice and video without leaving Gmail. The first step is to ensure you have a camera and the proper drivers installed. If your camera is built in to your machine, you likely don’t have anything to worry about at this point. If, like me, you use a USB camera and move it from machine to machine, you’ll want to go to the manufacturer’s site and download the latest drivers. Next, you will need to install a tiny bit of software from Google on your machine. Start by going to http://mail.google.com/videochat and clicking on the button labeled “Install voice and video chat”. From the looks of it, this is for Windows XP and later users. Keep an eye on the site and keep listening to the Gmail Podcast for updates. The installer takes only a few seconds, however it does require that you restart your browser. Once restarted, you will be brought to your Gmail settings with the Chat configuration settings listed. In the listing, you will find a new section labeled “Voice and video chat”. Make sure things are working right by clicking on the link “Verify your settings”. If everything is working, you should see your camera image in the window. If not, try troubleshooting your settings with the link of the same name. As a friendly tip, mine was not working right at first. I simply checked to make sure the camera was selected, changed the microphone to the camera, and hit save settings. When I went back to the chat settings and verified, everything was working fine. Now when you sign in to Gmail chat, you will see a camera icon next to your name and be able to do a video chat with others. If you start a text chat, you can use the link “Video and more” to start a video session. It’s simple and fun. Here’s today’s quick tip: If you find yourself answering the same questions or fending off the same vendors many times, then the Canned Auto Repsonses feature in the Gmail Labs may be for you. You can enable this by going in to the Gmail Labs under Settings or clicking on the little green bottle next to the Settings link in the upper right corner. Once enabled, a new link labeled “Canned autoresponses” will appear just below the To field. Initially there aren’t any responses so when you click on the link the only option will be “New canned response”. Type in your message, for example “Sorry, I’m extremely busy right now. In fact, I only have time for this canned autoresponse. I will respond with a more meaningful message when the stack of things to work gets back to a reasonable chaos. Stay tuned…” then click “New autoresponse”. Answer the prompt to give your canned response a name - like “Extremely busy” and click “OK”. The next time you need to tell someone you are busy click “Canned autoresponse” and select “extremely busy” to have the text automatically typed in. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-16,23628805 Sun, 16 Nov 2008 15:42:26 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24010253-Video-Chat It was only a matter of time before Google integrated video in to their GoogleTalk protocol and made it available directly from Gmail. Well, now you can talk face to face with your friends with voice and video without leaving Gmail. The first step is to ensure you have a camera and the proper drivers installed. If your camera is built in to your machine, you likely don’t have anything to worry about at this point. If, like me, you use a USB camera and move it from machine to machine, you’ll want to go to the manufacturer’s site and download the latest drivers. Next, you will need to install a tiny bit of software from Google on your machine. Start by going to http://mail.google.com/videochat and clicking on the button labeled “Install voice and video chat”. From the looks of it, this is for Windows XP and later users. Keep an eye on the site and keep listening to the Gmail Podcast for updates. The installer takes only a few seconds, however it does requ... It was only a matter of time before Google integrated video in to their GoogleTalk protocol and made it available directly from Gmail. Well, now you can talk face to face with your friends with voice and video without leaving Gmail. The first step is to ensure you have a camera and the proper drivers installed. If your camera is built in to your machine, you likely don’t have anything to worry about at this point. If, like me, you use a USB camera and move it from machine to machine, you’ll want to go to the manufacturer’s site and download the latest drivers. Next, you will need to install a tiny bit of software from Google on your machine. Start by going to http://mail.google.com/videochat and clicking on the button labeled “Install voice and video chat”. From the looks of it, this is for Windows XP and later users. Keep an eye on the site and keep listening to the Gmail Podcast for updates. The installer takes only a few seconds, however it does require that you restart your browser. Once restarted, you will be brought to your Gmail settings with the Chat configuration settings listed. In the listing, you will find a new section labeled “Voice and video chat”. Make sure things are working right by clicking on the link “Verify your settings”. If everything is working, you should see your camera image in the window. If not, try troubleshooting your settings with the link of the same name. As a friendly tip, mine was not working right at first. I simply checked to make sure the camera was selected, changed the microphone to the camera, and hit save settings. When I went back to the chat settings and verified, everything was working fine. Now when you sign in to Gmail chat, you will see a camera icon next to your name and be able to do a video chat with others. If you start a text chat, you can use the link “Video and more” to start a video session. It’s simple and fun. Here’s today’s quick tip: If you find yourself answering the same questions or fending off the same vendors many times, then the Canned Auto Repsonses feature in the Gmail Labs may be for you. You can enable this by going in to the Gmail Labs under Settings or clicking on the little green bottle next to the Settings link in the upper right corner. Once enabled, a new link labeled “Canned autoresponses” will appear just below the To field. Initially there aren’t any responses so when you click on the link the only option will be “New canned response”. Type in your message, for example “Sorry, I’m extremely busy right now. In fact, I only have time for this canned autoresponse. I will respond with a more meaningful message when the stack of things to work gets back to a reasonable chaos. Stay tuned…” then click “New autoresponse”. Answer the prompt to give your canned response a name - like “Extremely busy” and click “OK”. The next time you need to tell someone you are busy click “Canned autoresponse” and select “extremely busy” to have the text automatically typed in. It was only a matter of time before Google integrated video in to their GoogleTalk protocol and made it available directly from Gmail. Well, now you can talk face to face with your friends with voice and video without leaving Gmail. The first step is to ensure you have a camera and the proper drivers installed. If your camera is built in to your machine, you likely don’t have anything to worry about at this point. If, like me, you use a USB camera and move it from machine to machine, you’ll want to go to the manufacturer’s site and download the latest drivers. Next, you will need to install a tiny bit of software from Google on your machine. Start by going to http://mail.google.com/videochat and clicking on the button labeled “Install voice and video chat”. From the looks of it, this is for Windows XP and later users. Keep an eye on the site and keep listening to the Gmail Podcast for updates. The installer takes only a few seconds, however it does require that you restart your browser. Once restarted, you will be brought to your Gmail settings with the Chat configuration settings listed. In the listing, you will find a new section labeled “Voice and video chat”. Make sure things are working right by clicking on the link “Verify your settings”. If everything is working, you should see your camera image in the window. If not, try troubleshooting your settings with the link of the same name. As a friendly tip, mine was not working right at first. I simply checked to make sure the camera was selected, changed the microphone to the camera, and hit save settings. When I went back to the chat settings and verified, everything was working fine. Now when you sign in to Gmail chat, you will see a camera icon next to your name and be able to do a video chat with others. If you start a text chat, you can use the link “Video and more” to start a video session. It’s simple and fun. Here’s today’s quick tip: If you find yourself answering the same questions or fending off the same vendors many times, then the Canned Auto Repsonses feature in the Gmail Labs may be for you. You can enable this by going in to the Gmail Labs under Settings or clicking on the little green bottle next to the Settings link in the upper right corner. Once enabled, a new link labeled “Canned autoresponses” will appear just below the To field. Initially there aren’t any responses so when you click on the link the only option will be “New canned response”. Type in your message, for example “Sorry, I’m extremely busy right now. In fact, I only have time for this canned autoresponse. I will respond with a more meaningful message when the stack of things to work gets back to a reasonable chaos. Stay tuned…” then click “New autoresponse”. Answer the prompt to give your canned response a name - like “Extremely busy” and click “OK”. The next time you need to tell someone you are busy click “Canned autoresponse” and select “extremely busy” to have the text automatically typed in. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-16,24010253 Sun, 16 Nov 2008 15:42:26 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24061634-Video-Chat It was only a matter of time before Google integrated video in to their GoogleTalk protocol and made it available directly from Gmail. Well, now you can talk face to face with your friends with voice and video without leaving Gmail. The first step is to ensure you have a camera and the proper drivers installed. If your camera is built in to your machine, you likely don’t have anything to worry about at this point. If, like me, you use a USB camera and move it from machine to machine, you’ll want to go to the manufacturer’s site and download the latest drivers. Next, you will need to install a tiny bit of software from Google on your machine. Start by going to http://mail.google.com/videochat and clicking on the button labeled “Install voice and video chat”. From the looks of it, this is for Windows XP and later users. Keep an eye on the site and keep listening to the Gmail Podcast for updates. The installer takes only a few seconds, however it does requ... It was only a matter of time before Google integrated video in to their GoogleTalk protocol and made it available directly from Gmail. Well, now you can talk face to face with your friends with voice and video without leaving Gmail. The first step is to ensure you have a camera and the proper drivers installed. If your camera is built in to your machine, you likely don’t have anything to worry about at this point. If, like me, you use a USB camera and move it from machine to machine, you’ll want to go to the manufacturer’s site and download the latest drivers. Next, you will need to install a tiny bit of software from Google on your machine. Start by going to http://mail.google.com/videochat and clicking on the button labeled “Install voice and video chat”. From the looks of it, this is for Windows XP and later users. Keep an eye on the site and keep listening to the Gmail Podcast for updates. The installer takes only a few seconds, however it does require that you restart your browser. Once restarted, you will be brought to your Gmail settings with the Chat configuration settings listed. In the listing, you will find a new section labeled “Voice and video chat”. Make sure things are working right by clicking on the link “Verify your settings”. If everything is working, you should see your camera image in the window. If not, try troubleshooting your settings with the link of the same name. As a friendly tip, mine was not working right at first. I simply checked to make sure the camera was selected, changed the microphone to the camera, and hit save settings. When I went back to the chat settings and verified, everything was working fine. Now when you sign in to Gmail chat, you will see a camera icon next to your name and be able to do a video chat with others. If you start a text chat, you can use the link “Video and more” to start a video session. It’s simple and fun. Here’s today’s quick tip: If you find yourself answering the same questions or fending off the same vendors many times, then the Canned Auto Repsonses feature in the Gmail Labs may be for you. You can enable this by going in to the Gmail Labs under Settings or clicking on the little green bottle next to the Settings link in the upper right corner. Once enabled, a new link labeled “Canned autoresponses” will appear just below the To field. Initially there aren’t any responses so when you click on the link the only option will be “New canned response”. Type in your message, for example “Sorry, I’m extremely busy right now. In fact, I only have time for this canned autoresponse. I will respond with a more meaningful message when the stack of things to work gets back to a reasonable chaos. Stay tuned…” then click “New autoresponse”. Answer the prompt to give your canned response a name - like “Extremely busy” and click “OK”. The next time you need to tell someone you are busy click “Canned autoresponse” and select “extremely busy” to have the text automatically typed in. It was only a matter of time before Google integrated video in to their GoogleTalk protocol and made it available directly from Gmail. Well, now you can talk face to face with your friends with voice and video without leaving Gmail. The first step is to ensure you have a camera and the proper drivers installed. If your camera is built in to your machine, you likely don’t have anything to worry about at this point. If, like me, you use a USB camera and move it from machine to machine, you’ll want to go to the manufacturer’s site and download the latest drivers. Next, you will need to install a tiny bit of software from Google on your machine. Start by going to http://mail.google.com/videochat and clicking on the button labeled “Install voice and video chat”. From the looks of it, this is for Windows XP and later users. Keep an eye on the site and keep listening to the Gmail Podcast for updates. The installer takes only a few seconds, however it does require that you restart your browser. Once restarted, you will be brought to your Gmail settings with the Chat configuration settings listed. In the listing, you will find a new section labeled “Voice and video chat”. Make sure things are working right by clicking on the link “Verify your settings”. If everything is working, you should see your camera image in the window. If not, try troubleshooting your settings with the link of the same name. As a friendly tip, mine was not working right at first. I simply checked to make sure the camera was selected, changed the microphone to the camera, and hit save settings. When I went back to the chat settings and verified, everything was working fine. Now when you sign in to Gmail chat, you will see a camera icon next to your name and be able to do a video chat with others. If you start a text chat, you can use the link “Video and more” to start a video session. It’s simple and fun. Here’s today’s quick tip: If you find yourself answering the same questions or fending off the same vendors many times, then the Canned Auto Repsonses feature in the Gmail Labs may be for you. You can enable this by going in to the Gmail Labs under Settings or clicking on the little green bottle next to the Settings link in the upper right corner. Once enabled, a new link labeled “Canned autoresponses” will appear just below the To field. Initially there aren’t any responses so when you click on the link the only option will be “New canned response”. Type in your message, for example “Sorry, I’m extremely busy right now. In fact, I only have time for this canned autoresponse. I will respond with a more meaningful message when the stack of things to work gets back to a reasonable chaos. Stay tuned…” then click “New autoresponse”. Answer the prompt to give your canned response a name - like “Extremely busy” and click “OK”. The next time you need to tell someone you are busy click “Canned autoresponse” and select “extremely busy” to have the text automatically typed in. tag:odeo.com,2008-11-16,24061634 Sun, 16 Nov 2008 15:42:26 -0800 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24010254-Labs-2 There have been several additions to the Gmail Labs since I originally told you about it in June of 2008. If you haven’t listened to that podcast, I recommend you go back and listen to it to better understand what Gmail Labs is and how to use these terrific extensions to the software. One of the new features is called “Mail Goggles”. The idea behind it is that it gives you time to gather your senses before sending and email you might regret. By default, Mail Goggles is enabled late at night when you are most likely to send an angry email to your boss, or a message to your ex-girlfriend wishing you had gotten back together. To enable Mail Googles, click on the “Settings” link in the upper right, then the “Labs” tab. Scroll down until you see “Mail Goggles” and enable it. Mail Googles works by making you do a few simple math problems before you can send your mail. The idea is that if you aren’t in the right mind to do some si... There have been several additions to the Gmail Labs since I originally told you about it in June of 2008. If you haven’t listened to that podcast, I recommend you go back and listen to it to better understand what Gmail Labs is and how to use these terrific extensions to the software. One of the new features is called “Mail Goggles”. The idea behind it is that it gives you time to gather your senses before sending and email you might regret. By default, Mail Goggles is enabled late at night when you are most likely to send an angry email to your boss, or a message to your ex-girlfriend wishing you had gotten back together. To enable Mail Googles, click on the “Settings” link in the upper right, then the “Labs” tab. Scroll down until you see “Mail Goggles” and enable it. Mail Googles works by making you do a few simple math problems before you can send your mail. The idea is that if you aren’t in the right mind to do some simple brain work, you aren’t in the right mind to be sending that email to your ex-girlfriend. Another new feature in the labs is Advanced IMAP Controls. This is handy to use if you find your mail client getting bogged down by a large Gmail “All Mail” folder for example. Once enabled, just go to the “Labels” tab under “Settings” and you’ll find a new checkbox next to your labels that reads “Show in IMAP”. Uncheck the box and the corresponding folder will disappear from IMAP. There are also some more obscure options for those of you who want to make Gmail’s IMAP work more like traditional IMAP providers: you can turn off auto-expunge or trash messages when they’re no longer visible through IMAP. The IMAP protocol allows messages to be marked for deletion, a sort of limbo state where a message is still present in the folder but slated to be deleted the next time the folder is expunged. In Gmail’s standard IMAP implementation, when you mark a message as deleted, Gmail doesn’t let it linger in that state — it deletes (or auto-expunges) it from the folder right away. If you want the two-stage delete process, after you’ve enabled the Advanced IMAP Controls, just select ‘Do not automatically expunge messages’ under the ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’ tab in Settings. Here’s today’s Quick Tip. If you like sending short messages where the subject IS the message - like “Call me right away”, and don’t want to be annoyed by that pop up message that says “Send this message without text in the body?” - use EOM (short for End Of Message) or enclose it in parenthesis and Gmail will no longer bother you. There have been several additions to the Gmail Labs since I originally told you about it in June of 2008. If you haven’t listened to that podcast, I recommend you go back and listen to it to better understand what Gmail Labs is and how to use these terrific extensions to the software. One of the new features is called “Mail Goggles”. The idea behind it is that it gives you time to gather your senses before sending and email you might regret. By default, Mail Goggles is enabled late at night when you are most likely to send an angry email to your boss, or a message to your ex-girlfriend wishing you had gotten back together. To enable Mail Googles, click on the “Settings” link in the upper right, then the “Labs” tab. Scroll down until you see “Mail Goggles” and enable it. Mail Googles works by making you do a few simple math problems before you can send your mail. The idea is that if you aren’t in the right mind to do some simple brain work, you aren’t in the right mind to be sending that email to your ex-girlfriend. Another new feature in the labs is Advanced IMAP Controls. This is handy to use if you find your mail client getting bogged down by a large Gmail “All Mail” folder for example. Once enabled, just go to the “Labels” tab under “Settings” and you’ll find a new checkbox next to your labels that reads “Show in IMAP”. Uncheck the box and the corresponding folder will disappear from IMAP. There are also some more obscure options for those of you who want to make Gmail’s IMAP work more like traditional IMAP providers: you can turn off auto-expunge or trash messages when they’re no longer visible through IMAP. The IMAP protocol allows messages to be marked for deletion, a sort of limbo state where a message is still present in the folder but slated to be deleted the next time the folder is expunged. In Gmail’s standard IMAP implementation, when you mark a message as deleted, Gmail doesn’t let it linger in that state — it deletes (or auto-expunges) it from the folder right away. If you want the two-stage delete process, after you’ve enabled the Advanced IMAP Controls, just select ‘Do not automatically expunge messages’ under the ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’ tab in Settings. Here’s today’s Quick Tip. If you like sending short messages where the subject IS the message - like “Call me right away”, and don’t want to be annoyed by that pop up message that says “Send this message without text in the body?” - use EOM (short for End Of Message) or enclose it in parenthesis and Gmail will no longer bother you. tag:odeo.com,2008-10-19,24010254 Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:41:45 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23506611-Labs-2 There have been several additions to the Gmail Labs since I originally told you about it in June of 2008. If you haven’t listened to that podcast, I recommend you go back and listen to it to better understand what Gmail Labs is and how to use these terrific extensions to the software. One of the new features is called “Mail Goggles”. The idea behind it is that it gives you time to gather your senses before sending and email you might regret. By default, Mail Goggles is enabled late at night when you are most likely to send an angry email to your boss, or a message to your ex-girlfriend wishing you had gotten back together. To enable Mail Googles, click on the “Settings” link in the upper right, then the “Labs” tab. Scroll down until you see “Mail Goggles” and enable it. Mail Googles works by making you do a few simple math problems before you can send your mail. The idea is that if you aren’t in the right mind to do some si... There have been several additions to the Gmail Labs since I originally told you about it in June of 2008. If you haven’t listened to that podcast, I recommend you go back and listen to it to better understand what Gmail Labs is and how to use these terrific extensions to the software. One of the new features is called “Mail Goggles”. The idea behind it is that it gives you time to gather your senses before sending and email you might regret. By default, Mail Goggles is enabled late at night when you are most likely to send an angry email to your boss, or a message to your ex-girlfriend wishing you had gotten back together. To enable Mail Googles, click on the “Settings” link in the upper right, then the “Labs” tab. Scroll down until you see “Mail Goggles” and enable it. Mail Googles works by making you do a few simple math problems before you can send your mail. The idea is that if you aren’t in the right mind to do some simple brain work, you aren’t in the right mind to be sending that email to your ex-girlfriend. Another new feature in the labs is Advanced IMAP Controls. This is handy to use if you find your mail client getting bogged down by a large Gmail “All Mail” folder for example. Once enabled, just go to the “Labels” tab under “Settings” and you’ll find a new checkbox next to your labels that reads “Show in IMAP”. Uncheck the box and the corresponding folder will disappear from IMAP. There are also some more obscure options for those of you who want to make Gmail’s IMAP work more like traditional IMAP providers: you can turn off auto-expunge or trash messages when they’re no longer visible through IMAP. The IMAP protocol allows messages to be marked for deletion, a sort of limbo state where a message is still present in the folder but slated to be deleted the next time the folder is expunged. In Gmail’s standard IMAP implementation, when you mark a message as deleted, Gmail doesn’t let it linger in that state — it deletes (or auto-expunges) it from the folder right away. If you want the two-stage delete process, after you’ve enabled the Advanced IMAP Controls, just select ‘Do not automatically expunge messages’ under the ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’ tab in Settings. Here’s today’s Quick Tip. If you like sending short messages where the subject IS the message - like “Call me right away”, and don’t want to be annoyed by that pop up message that says “Send this message without text in the body?” - use EOM (short for End Of Message) or enclose it in parenthesis and Gmail will no longer bother you. There have been several additions to the Gmail Labs since I originally told you about it in June of 2008. If you haven’t listened to that podcast, I recommend you go back and listen to it to better understand what Gmail Labs is and how to use these terrific extensions to the software. One of the new features is called “Mail Goggles”. The idea behind it is that it gives you time to gather your senses before sending and email you might regret. By default, Mail Goggles is enabled late at night when you are most likely to send an angry email to your boss, or a message to your ex-girlfriend wishing you had gotten back together. To enable Mail Googles, click on the “Settings” link in the upper right, then the “Labs” tab. Scroll down until you see “Mail Goggles” and enable it. Mail Googles works by making you do a few simple math problems before you can send your mail. The idea is that if you aren’t in the right mind to do some simple brain work, you aren’t in the right mind to be sending that email to your ex-girlfriend. Another new feature in the labs is Advanced IMAP Controls. This is handy to use if you find your mail client getting bogged down by a large Gmail “All Mail” folder for example. Once enabled, just go to the “Labels” tab under “Settings” and you’ll find a new checkbox next to your labels that reads “Show in IMAP”. Uncheck the box and the corresponding folder will disappear from IMAP. There are also some more obscure options for those of you who want to make Gmail’s IMAP work more like traditional IMAP providers: you can turn off auto-expunge or trash messages when they’re no longer visible through IMAP. The IMAP protocol allows messages to be marked for deletion, a sort of limbo state where a message is still present in the folder but slated to be deleted the next time the folder is expunged. In Gmail’s standard IMAP implementation, when you mark a message as deleted, Gmail doesn’t let it linger in that state — it deletes (or auto-expunges) it from the folder right away. If you want the two-stage delete process, after you’ve enabled the Advanced IMAP Controls, just select ‘Do not automatically expunge messages’ under the ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’ tab in Settings. Here’s today’s Quick Tip. If you like sending short messages where the subject IS the message - like “Call me right away”, and don’t want to be annoyed by that pop up message that says “Send this message without text in the body?” - use EOM (short for End Of Message) or enclose it in parenthesis and Gmail will no longer bother you. tag:odeo.com,2008-10-19,23506611 Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:41:45 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24061635-Labs-2 There have been several additions to the Gmail Labs since I originally told you about it in June of 2008. If you haven’t listened to that podcast, I recommend you go back and listen to it to better understand what Gmail Labs is and how to use these terrific extensions to the software. One of the new features is called “Mail Goggles”. The idea behind it is that it gives you time to gather your senses before sending and email you might regret. By default, Mail Goggles is enabled late at night when you are most likely to send an angry email to your boss, or a message to your ex-girlfriend wishing you had gotten back together. To enable Mail Googles, click on the “Settings” link in the upper right, then the “Labs” tab. Scroll down until you see “Mail Goggles” and enable it. Mail Googles works by making you do a few simple math problems before you can send your mail. The idea is that if you aren’t in the right mind to do some si... There have been several additions to the Gmail Labs since I originally told you about it in June of 2008. If you haven’t listened to that podcast, I recommend you go back and listen to it to better understand what Gmail Labs is and how to use these terrific extensions to the software. One of the new features is called “Mail Goggles”. The idea behind it is that it gives you time to gather your senses before sending and email you might regret. By default, Mail Goggles is enabled late at night when you are most likely to send an angry email to your boss, or a message to your ex-girlfriend wishing you had gotten back together. To enable Mail Googles, click on the “Settings” link in the upper right, then the “Labs” tab. Scroll down until you see “Mail Goggles” and enable it. Mail Googles works by making you do a few simple math problems before you can send your mail. The idea is that if you aren’t in the right mind to do some simple brain work, you aren’t in the right mind to be sending that email to your ex-girlfriend. Another new feature in the labs is Advanced IMAP Controls. This is handy to use if you find your mail client getting bogged down by a large Gmail “All Mail” folder for example. Once enabled, just go to the “Labels” tab under “Settings” and you’ll find a new checkbox next to your labels that reads “Show in IMAP”. Uncheck the box and the corresponding folder will disappear from IMAP. There are also some more obscure options for those of you who want to make Gmail’s IMAP work more like traditional IMAP providers: you can turn off auto-expunge or trash messages when they’re no longer visible through IMAP. The IMAP protocol allows messages to be marked for deletion, a sort of limbo state where a message is still present in the folder but slated to be deleted the next time the folder is expunged. In Gmail’s standard IMAP implementation, when you mark a message as deleted, Gmail doesn’t let it linger in that state — it deletes (or auto-expunges) it from the folder right away. If you want the two-stage delete process, after you’ve enabled the Advanced IMAP Controls, just select ‘Do not automatically expunge messages’ under the ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’ tab in Settings. Here’s today’s Quick Tip. If you like sending short messages where the subject IS the message - like “Call me right away”, and don’t want to be annoyed by that pop up message that says “Send this message without text in the body?” - use EOM (short for End Of Message) or enclose it in parenthesis and Gmail will no longer bother you. There have been several additions to the Gmail Labs since I originally told you about it in June of 2008. If you haven’t listened to that podcast, I recommend you go back and listen to it to better understand what Gmail Labs is and how to use these terrific extensions to the software. One of the new features is called “Mail Goggles”. The idea behind it is that it gives you time to gather your senses before sending and email you might regret. By default, Mail Goggles is enabled late at night when you are most likely to send an angry email to your boss, or a message to your ex-girlfriend wishing you had gotten back together. To enable Mail Googles, click on the “Settings” link in the upper right, then the “Labs” tab. Scroll down until you see “Mail Goggles” and enable it. Mail Googles works by making you do a few simple math problems before you can send your mail. The idea is that if you aren’t in the right mind to do some simple brain work, you aren’t in the right mind to be sending that email to your ex-girlfriend. Another new feature in the labs is Advanced IMAP Controls. This is handy to use if you find your mail client getting bogged down by a large Gmail “All Mail” folder for example. Once enabled, just go to the “Labels” tab under “Settings” and you’ll find a new checkbox next to your labels that reads “Show in IMAP”. Uncheck the box and the corresponding folder will disappear from IMAP. There are also some more obscure options for those of you who want to make Gmail’s IMAP work more like traditional IMAP providers: you can turn off auto-expunge or trash messages when they’re no longer visible through IMAP. The IMAP protocol allows messages to be marked for deletion, a sort of limbo state where a message is still present in the folder but slated to be deleted the next time the folder is expunged. In Gmail’s standard IMAP implementation, when you mark a message as deleted, Gmail doesn’t let it linger in that state — it deletes (or auto-expunges) it from the folder right away. If you want the two-stage delete process, after you’ve enabled the Advanced IMAP Controls, just select ‘Do not automatically expunge messages’ under the ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’ tab in Settings. Here’s today’s Quick Tip. If you like sending short messages where the subject IS the message - like “Call me right away”, and don’t want to be annoyed by that pop up message that says “Send this message without text in the body?” - use EOM (short for End Of Message) or enclose it in parenthesis and Gmail will no longer bother you. tag:odeo.com,2008-10-19,24061635 Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:41:45 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24010255-Not-Spam One of the main reasons I, and many others, love Gmail is for its excellent spam filtering capabilities. Spam is a term used for those annoying advertisements typically regarding your health or finance. In some cases this content can be as high as 90% of your email traffic. Gmail does a pretty good job at automatically recognizing this type of content and moves from your inbox to a separate location labeled “Spam”. However, nothing is foolproof and every once in a while a conversation ends up in the spam folder by mistake. Fortunately, there is a quick and easy way to retrieve the email and identify it as a valid message; at the same time have Gmail learn not to make the mistake again. By clicking the Spam link on the left you will be shown all the conversations that have been identified as questionable content. At the top of the conversation index, you’ll see a couple buttons. The first is labeled “Delete forever”. This moves any selected conversations... One of the main reasons I, and many others, love Gmail is for its excellent spam filtering capabilities. Spam is a term used for those annoying advertisements typically regarding your health or finance. In some cases this content can be as high as 90% of your email traffic. Gmail does a pretty good job at automatically recognizing this type of content and moves from your inbox to a separate location labeled “Spam”. However, nothing is foolproof and every once in a while a conversation ends up in the spam folder by mistake. Fortunately, there is a quick and easy way to retrieve the email and identify it as a valid message; at the same time have Gmail learn not to make the mistake again. By clicking the Spam link on the left you will be shown all the conversations that have been identified as questionable content. At the top of the conversation index, you’ll see a couple buttons. The first is labeled “Delete forever”. This moves any selected conversations to the Trash folder. After 30 days they are completely removed from the system. The second button is labeled “Not Spam”. By selecting one or more conversations and then clicking “Not Spam”, the content will be moved back to your Inbox and Gmail will learn not to make the same mistake. If you are Gmail search savvy, there’s a catch to this. First, click on the Spam link on the left and take a look at the search box at the top of the screen. See how it says “in:spam”? As of this writing there is a minor bug in Gmail. If you type the search “in:spam” manually, you will be brought to a standard search results screen which does not have a “Not Spam” button. Ironically, you are now looking at all the mail that has been tagged as spam, but you still have the option to report it as spam with the “Report Spam” button. Hopefully Google will correct this oversight at some point. Here’s today’s quick tip: If you have used the Gmail contacts to create groups of people, you can type the group name and address multiple recipients with one single label. For example, if I want to send my entire family an email, and I have created a group called “Tomasi family”, I can compose a new message and use the address “Tomasi family” in the To, Cc, or Bcc line for quicker addressing.   One of the main reasons I, and many others, love Gmail is for its excellent spam filtering capabilities. Spam is a term used for those annoying advertisements typically regarding your health or finance. In some cases this content can be as high as 90% of your email traffic. Gmail does a pretty good job at automatically recognizing this type of content and moves from your inbox to a separate location labeled “Spam”. However, nothing is foolproof and every once in a while a conversation ends up in the spam folder by mistake. Fortunately, there is a quick and easy way to retrieve the email and identify it as a valid message; at the same time have Gmail learn not to make the mistake again. By clicking the Spam link on the left you will be shown all the conversations that have been identified as questionable content. At the top of the conversation index, you’ll see a couple buttons. The first is labeled “Delete forever”. This moves any selected conversations to the Trash folder. After 30 days they are completely removed from the system. The second button is labeled “Not Spam”. By selecting one or more conversations and then clicking “Not Spam”, the content will be moved back to your Inbox and Gmail will learn not to make the same mistake. If you are Gmail search savvy, there’s a catch to this. First, click on the Spam link on the left and take a look at the search box at the top of the screen. See how it says “in:spam”? As of this writing there is a minor bug in Gmail. If you type the search “in:spam” manually, you will be brought to a standard search results screen which does not have a “Not Spam” button. Ironically, you are now looking at all the mail that has been tagged as spam, but you still have the option to report it as spam with the “Report Spam” button. Hopefully Google will correct this oversight at some point. Here’s today’s quick tip: If you have used the Gmail contacts to create groups of people, you can type the group name and address multiple recipients with one single label. For example, if I want to send my entire family an email, and I have created a group called “Tomasi family”, I can compose a new message and use the address “Tomasi family” in the To, Cc, or Bcc line for quicker addressing.   tag:odeo.com,2008-09-21,24010255 Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:01:50 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast, Gmail Blog http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23379592-Not-Spam One of the main reasons I, and many others, love Gmail is for its excellent spam filtering capabilities. Spam is a term used for those annoying advertisements typically regarding your health or finance. In some cases this content can be as high as 90% of your email traffic. Gmail does a pretty good job at automatically recognizing this type of content and moves from your inbox to a separate location labeled “Spam”. However, nothing is foolproof and every once in a while a conversation ends up in the spam folder by mistake. Fortunately, there is a quick and easy way to retrieve the email and identify it as a valid message; at the same time have Gmail learn not to make the mistake again. By clicking the Spam link on the left you will be shown all the conversations that have been identified as questionable content. At the top of the conversation index, you’ll see a couple buttons. The first is labeled “Delete forever”. This moves any selected conversations... One of the main reasons I, and many others, love Gmail is for its excellent spam filtering capabilities. Spam is a term used for those annoying advertisements typically regarding your health or finance. In some cases this content can be as high as 90% of your email traffic. Gmail does a pretty good job at automatically recognizing this type of content and moves from your inbox to a separate location labeled “Spam”. However, nothing is foolproof and every once in a while a conversation ends up in the spam folder by mistake. Fortunately, there is a quick and easy way to retrieve the email and identify it as a valid message; at the same time have Gmail learn not to make the mistake again. By clicking the Spam link on the left you will be shown all the conversations that have been identified as questionable content. At the top of the conversation index, you’ll see a couple buttons. The first is labeled “Delete forever”. This moves any selected conversations to the Trash folder. After 30 days they are completely removed from the system. The second button is labeled “Not Spam”. By selecting one or more conversations and then clicking “Not Spam”, the content will be moved back to your Inbox and Gmail will learn not to make the same mistake. If you are Gmail search savvy, there’s a catch to this. First, click on the Spam link on the left and take a look at the search box at the top of the screen. See how it says “in:spam”? As of this writing there is a minor bug in Gmail. If you type the search “in:spam” manually, you will be brought to a standard search results screen which does not have a “Not Spam” button. Ironically, you are now looking at all the mail that has been tagged as spam, but you still have the option to report it as spam with the “Report Spam” button. Hopefully Google will correct this oversight at some point. Here’s today’s quick tip: If you have used the Gmail contacts to create groups of people, you can type the group name and address multiple recipients with one single label. For example, if I want to send my entire family an email, and I have created a group called “Tomasi family”, I can compose a new message and use the address “Tomasi family” in the To, Cc, or Bcc line for quicker addressing.   One of the main reasons I, and many others, love Gmail is for its excellent spam filtering capabilities. Spam is a term used for those annoying advertisements typically regarding your health or finance. In some cases this content can be as high as 90% of your email traffic. Gmail does a pretty good job at automatically recognizing this type of content and moves from your inbox to a separate location labeled “Spam”. However, nothing is foolproof and every once in a while a conversation ends up in the spam folder by mistake. Fortunately, there is a quick and easy way to retrieve the email and identify it as a valid message; at the same time have Gmail learn not to make the mistake again. By clicking the Spam link on the left you will be shown all the conversations that have been identified as questionable content. At the top of the conversation index, you’ll see a couple buttons. The first is labeled “Delete forever”. This moves any selected conversations to the Trash folder. After 30 days they are completely removed from the system. The second button is labeled “Not Spam”. By selecting one or more conversations and then clicking “Not Spam”, the content will be moved back to your Inbox and Gmail will learn not to make the same mistake. If you are Gmail search savvy, there’s a catch to this. First, click on the Spam link on the left and take a look at the search box at the top of the screen. See how it says “in:spam”? As of this writing there is a minor bug in Gmail. If you type the search “in:spam” manually, you will be brought to a standard search results screen which does not have a “Not Spam” button. Ironically, you are now looking at all the mail that has been tagged as spam, but you still have the option to report it as spam with the “Report Spam” button. Hopefully Google will correct this oversight at some point. Here’s today’s quick tip: If you have used the Gmail contacts to create groups of people, you can type the group name and address multiple recipients with one single label. For example, if I want to send my entire family an email, and I have created a group called “Tomasi family”, I can compose a new message and use the address “Tomasi family” in the To, Cc, or Bcc line for quicker addressing.   tag:odeo.com,2008-09-21,23379592 Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:01:50 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast, Gmail Blog http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24061636-Not-Spam One of the main reasons I, and many others, love Gmail is for its excellent spam filtering capabilities. Spam is a term used for those annoying advertisements typically regarding your health or finance. In some cases this content can be as high as 90% of your email traffic. Gmail does a pretty good job at automatically recognizing this type of content and moves from your inbox to a separate location labeled “Spam”. However, nothing is foolproof and every once in a while a conversation ends up in the spam folder by mistake. Fortunately, there is a quick and easy way to retrieve the email and identify it as a valid message; at the same time have Gmail learn not to make the mistake again. By clicking the Spam link on the left you will be shown all the conversations that have been identified as questionable content. At the top of the conversation index, you’ll see a couple buttons. The first is labeled “Delete forever”. This moves any selected conversations... One of the main reasons I, and many others, love Gmail is for its excellent spam filtering capabilities. Spam is a term used for those annoying advertisements typically regarding your health or finance. In some cases this content can be as high as 90% of your email traffic. Gmail does a pretty good job at automatically recognizing this type of content and moves from your inbox to a separate location labeled “Spam”. However, nothing is foolproof and every once in a while a conversation ends up in the spam folder by mistake. Fortunately, there is a quick and easy way to retrieve the email and identify it as a valid message; at the same time have Gmail learn not to make the mistake again. By clicking the Spam link on the left you will be shown all the conversations that have been identified as questionable content. At the top of the conversation index, you’ll see a couple buttons. The first is labeled “Delete forever”. This moves any selected conversations to the Trash folder. After 30 days they are completely removed from the system. The second button is labeled “Not Spam”. By selecting one or more conversations and then clicking “Not Spam”, the content will be moved back to your Inbox and Gmail will learn not to make the same mistake. If you are Gmail search savvy, there’s a catch to this. First, click on the Spam link on the left and take a look at the search box at the top of the screen. See how it says “in:spam”? As of this writing there is a minor bug in Gmail. If you type the search “in:spam” manually, you will be brought to a standard search results screen which does not have a “Not Spam” button. Ironically, you are now looking at all the mail that has been tagged as spam, but you still have the option to report it as spam with the “Report Spam” button. Hopefully Google will correct this oversight at some point. Here’s today’s quick tip: If you have used the Gmail contacts to create groups of people, you can type the group name and address multiple recipients with one single label. For example, if I want to send my entire family an email, and I have created a group called “Tomasi family”, I can compose a new message and use the address “Tomasi family” in the To, Cc, or Bcc line for quicker addressing.   One of the main reasons I, and many others, love Gmail is for its excellent spam filtering capabilities. Spam is a term used for those annoying advertisements typically regarding your health or finance. In some cases this content can be as high as 90% of your email traffic. Gmail does a pretty good job at automatically recognizing this type of content and moves from your inbox to a separate location labeled “Spam”. However, nothing is foolproof and every once in a while a conversation ends up in the spam folder by mistake. Fortunately, there is a quick and easy way to retrieve the email and identify it as a valid message; at the same time have Gmail learn not to make the mistake again. By clicking the Spam link on the left you will be shown all the conversations that have been identified as questionable content. At the top of the conversation index, you’ll see a couple buttons. The first is labeled “Delete forever”. This moves any selected conversations to the Trash folder. After 30 days they are completely removed from the system. The second button is labeled “Not Spam”. By selecting one or more conversations and then clicking “Not Spam”, the content will be moved back to your Inbox and Gmail will learn not to make the same mistake. If you are Gmail search savvy, there’s a catch to this. First, click on the Spam link on the left and take a look at the search box at the top of the screen. See how it says “in:spam”? As of this writing there is a minor bug in Gmail. If you type the search “in:spam” manually, you will be brought to a standard search results screen which does not have a “Not Spam” button. Ironically, you are now looking at all the mail that has been tagged as spam, but you still have the option to report it as spam with the “Report Spam” button. Hopefully Google will correct this oversight at some point. Here’s today’s quick tip: If you have used the Gmail contacts to create groups of people, you can type the group name and address multiple recipients with one single label. For example, if I want to send my entire family an email, and I have created a group called “Tomasi family”, I can compose a new message and use the address “Tomasi family” in the To, Cc, or Bcc line for quicker addressing.   tag:odeo.com,2008-09-21,24061636 Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:01:50 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast, Gmail Blog http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24010256-The-Bottom-Line It helps to step back and take a look at the Gmail interface once in a while - you never know what you’ll see that you hadn’t spotted before. This week I took a close look at the bottom center of the screen. While I was familiar with some of the items, I notice something new. I also realized that I hadn’t discussed any of these items with you. So let’s go through them together. Just below the blue bar that indicates the end of the conversation index or currently viewed conversation you should see several lines of text. The first is a helpful hint, such as common keyboard shortcuts, the fact that you can forward your mail to one Gmail account, or noting the availability of Gmail in multiple languages. These messages change every few minutes so don’t forget to glance down there from time to time for a bit of new information. You can typically find out more on these items by clicking on the Help link in the upper right corner of the Gmail screen. The next ... It helps to step back and take a look at the Gmail interface once in a while - you never know what you’ll see that you hadn’t spotted before. This week I took a close look at the bottom center of the screen. While I was familiar with some of the items, I notice something new. I also realized that I hadn’t discussed any of these items with you. So let’s go through them together. Just below the blue bar that indicates the end of the conversation index or currently viewed conversation you should see several lines of text. The first is a helpful hint, such as common keyboard shortcuts, the fact that you can forward your mail to one Gmail account, or noting the availability of Gmail in multiple languages. These messages change every few minutes so don’t forget to glance down there from time to time for a bit of new information. You can typically find out more on these items by clicking on the Help link in the upper right corner of the Gmail screen. The next line of information, in green, is the amount of space you have available and how much of that is being consumed. This is always handy to know - like looking at the fuel gauge on your car now and then. If I’ve learned anything from using Gmail over the past several years, this amount also changes - it goes up, so don’t forget to take a look. I don’t know when Google decided to add the next line of information, but I noticed it only recently - and I like it. It tells you when the latest activity was on your Gmail account. What’s more, if you’re running Gmail from multiple computers, it will tell you when and where it was accessed. This is a great security feature and kind of fascinating too. I was using Gmail at work and noticed it said there was one other connection to this account. I clicked on the Details link and it said it was my home IP address. This made sense because I often leave the web interface running at home. If I had seen something suspicious, I could have clicked a link and sign out all other sessions - leaving my current connection at work still working. Since there are multiple ways to access Gmail, there is a log of other connections from web, mobile, IMAP, or POP. Check these periodically to make sure it coincides with your use habits. If not, I recommend you change your Gmail password as soon as possible. Just under the connection information is a line that allows you to change the method in which Gmail is displayed. Most of the time, the software detects what browser you have and the interface is rendered appropriately. The links at the bottom allow you to change between standard view with extended capabilities, basic HTML - which works on older browsers, and even turn off the chat interface on the left hand side. For more information, click the link labeled Learn More on the line second from the bottom. And finally, at the very bottom of the screen, is the copyright, a link to the Google Blog - with plenty of articles about Gmail from the developers themselves, a link to be part of the Gmail team - complete with pictures and job descriptions, and finally a link to what else? - the Google home page. Whether you have listened to every Gmail Podcast or just getting started, I encourage you to explore every facet of every screen in Gmail and experiment. Like me, you’ll discover that it is so much more than an inbox. It helps to step back and take a look at the Gmail interface once in a while - you never know what you’ll see that you hadn’t spotted before. This week I took a close look at the bottom center of the screen. While I was familiar with some of the items, I notice something new. I also realized that I hadn’t discussed any of these items with you. So let’s go through them together. Just below the blue bar that indicates the end of the conversation index or currently viewed conversation you should see several lines of text. The first is a helpful hint, such as common keyboard shortcuts, the fact that you can forward your mail to one Gmail account, or noting the availability of Gmail in multiple languages. These messages change every few minutes so don’t forget to glance down there from time to time for a bit of new information. You can typically find out more on these items by clicking on the Help link in the upper right corner of the Gmail screen. The next line of information, in green, is the amount of space you have available and how much of that is being consumed. This is always handy to know - like looking at the fuel gauge on your car now and then. If I’ve learned anything from using Gmail over the past several years, this amount also changes - it goes up, so don’t forget to take a look. I don’t know when Google decided to add the next line of information, but I noticed it only recently - and I like it. It tells you when the latest activity was on your Gmail account. What’s more, if you’re running Gmail from multiple computers, it will tell you when and where it was accessed. This is a great security feature and kind of fascinating too. I was using Gmail at work and noticed it said there was one other connection to this account. I clicked on the Details link and it said it was my home IP address. This made sense because I often leave the web interface running at home. If I had seen something suspicious, I could have clicked a link and sign out all other sessions - leaving my current connection at work still working. Since there are multiple ways to access Gmail, there is a log of other connections from web, mobile, IMAP, or POP. Check these periodically to make sure it coincides with your use habits. If not, I recommend you change your Gmail password as soon as possible. Just under the connection information is a line that allows you to change the method in which Gmail is displayed. Most of the time, the software detects what browser you have and the interface is rendered appropriately. The links at the bottom allow you to change between standard view with extended capabilities, basic HTML - which works on older browsers, and even turn off the chat interface on the left hand side. For more information, click the link labeled Learn More on the line second from the bottom. And finally, at the very bottom of the screen, is the copyright, a link to the Google Blog - with plenty of articles about Gmail from the developers themselves, a link to be part of the Gmail team - complete with pictures and job descriptions, and finally a link to what else? - the Google home page. Whether you have listened to every Gmail Podcast or just getting started, I encourage you to explore every facet of every screen in Gmail and experiment. Like me, you’ll discover that it is so much more than an inbox. tag:odeo.com,2008-07-15,24010256 Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:38:18 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24061638-The-Bottom-Line It helps to step back and take a look at the Gmail interface once in a while - you never know what you’ll see that you hadn’t spotted before. This week I took a close look at the bottom center of the screen. While I was familiar with some of the items, I notice something new. I also realized that I hadn’t discussed any of these items with you. So let’s go through them together. Just below the blue bar that indicates the end of the conversation index or currently viewed conversation you should see several lines of text. The first is a helpful hint, such as common keyboard shortcuts, the fact that you can forward your mail to one Gmail account, or noting the availability of Gmail in multiple languages. These messages change every few minutes so don’t forget to glance down there from time to time for a bit of new information. You can typically find out more on these items by clicking on the Help link in the upper right corner of the Gmail screen. The next ... It helps to step back and take a look at the Gmail interface once in a while - you never know what you’ll see that you hadn’t spotted before. This week I took a close look at the bottom center of the screen. While I was familiar with some of the items, I notice something new. I also realized that I hadn’t discussed any of these items with you. So let’s go through them together. Just below the blue bar that indicates the end of the conversation index or currently viewed conversation you should see several lines of text. The first is a helpful hint, such as common keyboard shortcuts, the fact that you can forward your mail to one Gmail account, or noting the availability of Gmail in multiple languages. These messages change every few minutes so don’t forget to glance down there from time to time for a bit of new information. You can typically find out more on these items by clicking on the Help link in the upper right corner of the Gmail screen. The next line of information, in green, is the amount of space you have available and how much of that is being consumed. This is always handy to know - like looking at the fuel gauge on your car now and then. If I’ve learned anything from using Gmail over the past several years, this amount also changes - it goes up, so don’t forget to take a look. I don’t know when Google decided to add the next line of information, but I noticed it only recently - and I like it. It tells you when the latest activity was on your Gmail account. What’s more, if you’re running Gmail from multiple computers, it will tell you when and where it was accessed. This is a great security feature and kind of fascinating too. I was using Gmail at work and noticed it said there was one other connection to this account. I clicked on the Details link and it said it was my home IP address. This made sense because I often leave the web interface running at home. If I had seen something suspicious, I could have clicked a link and sign out all other sessions - leaving my current connection at work still working. Since there are multiple ways to access Gmail, there is a log of other connections from web, mobile, IMAP, or POP. Check these periodically to make sure it coincides with your use habits. If not, I recommend you change your Gmail password as soon as possible. Just under the connection information is a line that allows you to change the method in which Gmail is displayed. Most of the time, the software detects what browser you have and the interface is rendered appropriately. The links at the bottom allow you to change between standard view with extended capabilities, basic HTML - which works on older browsers, and even turn off the chat interface on the left hand side. For more information, click the link labeled Learn More on the line second from the bottom. And finally, at the very bottom of the screen, is the copyright, a link to the Google Blog - with plenty of articles about Gmail from the developers themselves, a link to be part of the Gmail team - complete with pictures and job descriptions, and finally a link to what else? - the Google home page. Whether you have listened to every Gmail Podcast or just getting started, I encourage you to explore every facet of every screen in Gmail and experiment. Like me, you’ll discover that it is so much more than an inbox. It helps to step back and take a look at the Gmail interface once in a while - you never know what you’ll see that you hadn’t spotted before. This week I took a close look at the bottom center of the screen. While I was familiar with some of the items, I notice something new. I also realized that I hadn’t discussed any of these items with you. So let’s go through them together. Just below the blue bar that indicates the end of the conversation index or currently viewed conversation you should see several lines of text. The first is a helpful hint, such as common keyboard shortcuts, the fact that you can forward your mail to one Gmail account, or noting the availability of Gmail in multiple languages. These messages change every few minutes so don’t forget to glance down there from time to time for a bit of new information. You can typically find out more on these items by clicking on the Help link in the upper right corner of the Gmail screen. The next line of information, in green, is the amount of space you have available and how much of that is being consumed. This is always handy to know - like looking at the fuel gauge on your car now and then. If I’ve learned anything from using Gmail over the past several years, this amount also changes - it goes up, so don’t forget to take a look. I don’t know when Google decided to add the next line of information, but I noticed it only recently - and I like it. It tells you when the latest activity was on your Gmail account. What’s more, if you’re running Gmail from multiple computers, it will tell you when and where it was accessed. This is a great security feature and kind of fascinating too. I was using Gmail at work and noticed it said there was one other connection to this account. I clicked on the Details link and it said it was my home IP address. This made sense because I often leave the web interface running at home. If I had seen something suspicious, I could have clicked a link and sign out all other sessions - leaving my current connection at work still working. Since there are multiple ways to access Gmail, there is a log of other connections from web, mobile, IMAP, or POP. Check these periodically to make sure it coincides with your use habits. If not, I recommend you change your Gmail password as soon as possible. Just under the connection information is a line that allows you to change the method in which Gmail is displayed. Most of the time, the software detects what browser you have and the interface is rendered appropriately. The links at the bottom allow you to change between standard view with extended capabilities, basic HTML - which works on older browsers, and even turn off the chat interface on the left hand side. For more information, click the link labeled Learn More on the line second from the bottom. And finally, at the very bottom of the screen, is the copyright, a link to the Google Blog - with plenty of articles about Gmail from the developers themselves, a link to be part of the Gmail team - complete with pictures and job descriptions, and finally a link to what else? - the Google home page. Whether you have listened to every Gmail Podcast or just getting started, I encourage you to explore every facet of every screen in Gmail and experiment. Like me, you’ll discover that it is so much more than an inbox. tag:odeo.com,2008-07-15,24061638 Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:38:18 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/23081941-The-Bottom-Line It helps to step back and take a look at the Gmail interface once in a while - you never know what you’ll see that you hadn’t spotted before. This week I took a close look at the bottom center of the screen. While I was familiar with some of the items, I notice something new. I also realized that I hadn’t discussed any of these items with you. So let’s go through them together. Just below the blue bar that indicates the end of the conversation index or currently viewed conversation you should see several lines of text. The first is a helpful hint, such as common keyboard shortcuts, the fact that you can forward your mail to one Gmail account, or noting the availability of Gmail in multiple languages. These messages change every few minutes so don’t forget to glance down there from time to time for a bit of new information. You can typically find out more on these items by clicking on the Help link in the upper right corner of the Gmail screen. The next ... It helps to step back and take a look at the Gmail interface once in a while - you never know what you’ll see that you hadn’t spotted before. This week I took a close look at the bottom center of the screen. While I was familiar with some of the items, I notice something new. I also realized that I hadn’t discussed any of these items with you. So let’s go through them together. Just below the blue bar that indicates the end of the conversation index or currently viewed conversation you should see several lines of text. The first is a helpful hint, such as common keyboard shortcuts, the fact that you can forward your mail to one Gmail account, or noting the availability of Gmail in multiple languages. These messages change every few minutes so don’t forget to glance down there from time to time for a bit of new information. You can typically find out more on these items by clicking on the Help link in the upper right corner of the Gmail screen. The next line of information, in green, is the amount of space you have available and how much of that is being consumed. This is always handy to know - like looking at the fuel gauge on your car now and then. If I’ve learned anything from using Gmail over the past several years, this amount also changes - it goes up, so don’t forget to take a look. I don’t know when Google decided to add the next line of information, but I noticed it only recently - and I like it. It tells you when the latest activity was on your Gmail account. What’s more, if you’re running Gmail from multiple computers, it will tell you when and where it was accessed. This is a great security feature and kind of fascinating too. I was using Gmail at work and noticed it said there was one other connection to this account. I clicked on the Details link and it said it was my home IP address. This made sense because I often leave the web interface running at home. If I had seen something suspicious, I could have clicked a link and sign out all other sessions - leaving my current connection at work still working. Since there are multiple ways to access Gmail, there is a log of other connections from web, mobile, IMAP, or POP. Check these periodically to make sure it coincides with your use habits. If not, I recommend you change your Gmail password as soon as possible. Just under the connection information is a line that allows you to change the method in which Gmail is displayed. Most of the time, the software detects what browser you have and the interface is rendered appropriately. The links at the bottom allow you to change between standard view with extended capabilities, basic HTML - which works on older browsers, and even turn off the chat interface on the left hand side. For more information, click the link labeled Learn More on the line second from the bottom. And finally, at the very bottom of the screen, is the copyright, a link to the Google Blog - with plenty of articles about Gmail from the developers themselves, a link to be part of the Gmail team - complete with pictures and job descriptions, and finally a link to what else? - the Google home page. Whether you have listened to every Gmail Podcast or just getting started, I encourage you to explore every facet of every screen in Gmail and experiment. Like me, you’ll discover that it is so much more than an inbox. It helps to step back and take a look at the Gmail interface once in a while - you never know what you’ll see that you hadn’t spotted before. This week I took a close look at the bottom center of the screen. While I was familiar with some of the items, I notice something new. I also realized that I hadn’t discussed any of these items with you. So let’s go through them together. Just below the blue bar that indicates the end of the conversation index or currently viewed conversation you should see several lines of text. The first is a helpful hint, such as common keyboard shortcuts, the fact that you can forward your mail to one Gmail account, or noting the availability of Gmail in multiple languages. These messages change every few minutes so don’t forget to glance down there from time to time for a bit of new information. You can typically find out more on these items by clicking on the Help link in the upper right corner of the Gmail screen. The next line of information, in green, is the amount of space you have available and how much of that is being consumed. This is always handy to know - like looking at the fuel gauge on your car now and then. If I’ve learned anything from using Gmail over the past several years, this amount also changes - it goes up, so don’t forget to take a look. I don’t know when Google decided to add the next line of information, but I noticed it only recently - and I like it. It tells you when the latest activity was on your Gmail account. What’s more, if you’re running Gmail from multiple computers, it will tell you when and where it was accessed. This is a great security feature and kind of fascinating too. I was using Gmail at work and noticed it said there was one other connection to this account. I clicked on the Details link and it said it was my home IP address. This made sense because I often leave the web interface running at home. If I had seen something suspicious, I could have clicked a link and sign out all other sessions - leaving my current connection at work still working. Since there are multiple ways to access Gmail, there is a log of other connections from web, mobile, IMAP, or POP. Check these periodically to make sure it coincides with your use habits. If not, I recommend you change your Gmail password as soon as possible. Just under the connection information is a line that allows you to change the method in which Gmail is displayed. Most of the time, the software detects what browser you have and the interface is rendered appropriately. The links at the bottom allow you to change between standard view with extended capabilities, basic HTML - which works on older browsers, and even turn off the chat interface on the left hand side. For more information, click the link labeled Learn More on the line second from the bottom. And finally, at the very bottom of the screen, is the copyright, a link to the Google Blog - with plenty of articles about Gmail from the developers themselves, a link to be part of the Gmail team - complete with pictures and job descriptions, and finally a link to what else? - the Google home page. Whether you have listened to every Gmail Podcast or just getting started, I encourage you to explore every facet of every screen in Gmail and experiment. Like me, you’ll discover that it is so much more than an inbox. tag:odeo.com,2008-07-15,23081941 Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:38:18 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24010257-Gmail-Labs The people at Google have found a creative way to let you try various experimental features of Gmail and provide feedback. They call it Gmail Labs. You can access these new features by clicking on the Settings link in the upper right, and then clicking on the tab labeled “Labs”. Some of these features are cosmetic such as date formats or removing the number of new messages from the various locations where messages are stored; others provide improved capabilities or time saving features like customizable keyboard shortcuts. Have a look in the Labs tab of the settings screen from time to time and see if there is anything of interest that might improve your Gmail experience. You can choose to enable or disable any of them by using the appropriate radio button choice to the right of each option. When you’ve chosen which features to turn on or off, click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the screen. According to the help page, there are a few things to keep in... The people at Google have found a creative way to let you try various experimental features of Gmail and provide feedback. They call it Gmail Labs. You can access these new features by clicking on the Settings link in the upper right, and then clicking on the tab labeled “Labs”. Some of these features are cosmetic such as date formats or removing the number of new messages from the various locations where messages are stored; others provide improved capabilities or time saving features like customizable keyboard shortcuts. Have a look in the Labs tab of the settings screen from time to time and see if there is anything of interest that might improve your Gmail experience. You can choose to enable or disable any of them by using the appropriate radio button choice to the right of each option. When you’ve chosen which features to turn on or off, click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the screen. According to the help page, there are a few things to keep in mind when you try these features out. First, they may break at any time. Remember, this is experimental software. Second, they may be removed from the feature set at any time. And third, they may work so well, that they may be promoted to regular features in Gmail. If you use any of the Labs features and suspect you are having problems, you can temporarily disable them by modifying your web address, or URL, to https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0. Feel free to provide feedback, report bugs, or suggest new features to Google by joining the Google group gmail-labs. Look under the “More” menu at the top of the screen for Groups, or follow the link in the show notes for this episode on the website. Here’s a comment from listener Douglas E. Welch over at Technology IQ. It seems he had a stuck key on his keyboard and as a result, inadvertantly locked out his Gmail account “up to 24 hours” due to invalid access attempts. As Douglas stated in his blog posting, “It is a little distressing that a rather simple computer malfunction can result in a day-long lockout and the fact that there is no appeal process for such a lockout.”. Hopefully Google will remedy the situation and provide some sort of support mechanism for accidental technical difficults such as this in the future. The people at Google have found a creative way to let you try various experimental features of Gmail and provide feedback. They call it Gmail Labs. You can access these new features by clicking on the Settings link in the upper right, and then clicking on the tab labeled “Labs”. Some of these features are cosmetic such as date formats or removing the number of new messages from the various locations where messages are stored; others provide improved capabilities or time saving features like customizable keyboard shortcuts. Have a look in the Labs tab of the settings screen from time to time and see if there is anything of interest that might improve your Gmail experience. You can choose to enable or disable any of them by using the appropriate radio button choice to the right of each option. When you’ve chosen which features to turn on or off, click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the screen. According to the help page, there are a few things to keep in mind when you try these features out. First, they may break at any time. Remember, this is experimental software. Second, they may be removed from the feature set at any time. And third, they may work so well, that they may be promoted to regular features in Gmail. If you use any of the Labs features and suspect you are having problems, you can temporarily disable them by modifying your web address, or URL, to https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0. Feel free to provide feedback, report bugs, or suggest new features to Google by joining the Google group gmail-labs. Look under the “More” menu at the top of the screen for Groups, or follow the link in the show notes for this episode on the website. Here’s a comment from listener Douglas E. Welch over at Technology IQ. It seems he had a stuck key on his keyboard and as a result, inadvertantly locked out his Gmail account “up to 24 hours” due to invalid access attempts. As Douglas stated in his blog posting, “It is a little distressing that a rather simple computer malfunction can result in a day-long lockout and the fact that there is no appeal process for such a lockout.”. Hopefully Google will remedy the situation and provide some sort of support mechanism for accidental technical difficults such as this in the future. tag:odeo.com,2008-06-08,24010257 Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:47:15 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22615436-Gmail-Labs The people at Google have found a creative way to let you try various experimental features of Gmail and provide feedback. They call it Gmail Labs. You can access these new features by clicking on the Settings link in the upper right, and then clicking on the tab labeled “Labs”. Some of these features are cosmetic such as date formats or removing the number of new messages from the various locations where messages are stored; others provide improved capabilities or time saving features like customizable keyboard shortcuts. Have a look in the Labs tab of the settings screen from time to time and see if there is anything of interest that might improve your Gmail experience. You can choose to enable or disable any of them by using the appropriate radio button choice to the right of each option. When you’ve chosen which features to turn on or off, click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the screen. According to the help page, there are a few things to keep in... The people at Google have found a creative way to let you try various experimental features of Gmail and provide feedback. They call it Gmail Labs. You can access these new features by clicking on the Settings link in the upper right, and then clicking on the tab labeled “Labs”. Some of these features are cosmetic such as date formats or removing the number of new messages from the various locations where messages are stored; others provide improved capabilities or time saving features like customizable keyboard shortcuts. Have a look in the Labs tab of the settings screen from time to time and see if there is anything of interest that might improve your Gmail experience. You can choose to enable or disable any of them by using the appropriate radio button choice to the right of each option. When you’ve chosen which features to turn on or off, click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the screen. According to the help page, there are a few things to keep in mind when you try these features out. First, they may break at any time. Remember, this is experimental software. Second, they may be removed from the feature set at any time. And third, they may work so well, that they may be promoted to regular features in Gmail. If you use any of the Labs features and suspect you are having problems, you can temporarily disable them by modifying your web address, or URL, to https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0. Feel free to provide feedback, report bugs, or suggest new features to Google by joining the Google group gmail-labs. Look under the “More” menu at the top of the screen for Groups, or follow the link in the show notes for this episode on the website. Here’s a comment from listener Douglas E. Welch over at Technology IQ. It seems he had a stuck key on his keyboard and as a result, inadvertantly locked out his Gmail account “up to 24 hours” due to invalid access attempts. As Douglas stated in his blog posting, “It is a little distressing that a rather simple computer malfunction can result in a day-long lockout and the fact that there is no appeal process for such a lockout.”. Hopefully Google will remedy the situation and provide some sort of support mechanism for accidental technical difficults such as this in the future. The people at Google have found a creative way to let you try various experimental features of Gmail and provide feedback. They call it Gmail Labs. You can access these new features by clicking on the Settings link in the upper right, and then clicking on the tab labeled “Labs”. Some of these features are cosmetic such as date formats or removing the number of new messages from the various locations where messages are stored; others provide improved capabilities or time saving features like customizable keyboard shortcuts. Have a look in the Labs tab of the settings screen from time to time and see if there is anything of interest that might improve your Gmail experience. You can choose to enable or disable any of them by using the appropriate radio button choice to the right of each option. When you’ve chosen which features to turn on or off, click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the screen. According to the help page, there are a few things to keep in mind when you try these features out. First, they may break at any time. Remember, this is experimental software. Second, they may be removed from the feature set at any time. And third, they may work so well, that they may be promoted to regular features in Gmail. If you use any of the Labs features and suspect you are having problems, you can temporarily disable them by modifying your web address, or URL, to https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0. Feel free to provide feedback, report bugs, or suggest new features to Google by joining the Google group gmail-labs. Look under the “More” menu at the top of the screen for Groups, or follow the link in the show notes for this episode on the website. Here’s a comment from listener Douglas E. Welch over at Technology IQ. It seems he had a stuck key on his keyboard and as a result, inadvertantly locked out his Gmail account “up to 24 hours” due to invalid access attempts. As Douglas stated in his blog posting, “It is a little distressing that a rather simple computer malfunction can result in a day-long lockout and the fact that there is no appeal process for such a lockout.”. Hopefully Google will remedy the situation and provide some sort of support mechanism for accidental technical difficults such as this in the future. tag:odeo.com,2008-06-08,22615436 Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:47:15 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24061639-Gmail-Labs The people at Google have found a creative way to let you try various experimental features of Gmail and provide feedback. They call it Gmail Labs. You can access these new features by clicking on the Settings link in the upper right, and then clicking on the tab labeled “Labs”. Some of these features are cosmetic such as date formats or removing the number of new messages from the various locations where messages are stored; others provide improved capabilities or time saving features like customizable keyboard shortcuts. Have a look in the Labs tab of the settings screen from time to time and see if there is anything of interest that might improve your Gmail experience. You can choose to enable or disable any of them by using the appropriate radio button choice to the right of each option. When you’ve chosen which features to turn on or off, click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the screen. According to the help page, there are a few things to keep in... The people at Google have found a creative way to let you try various experimental features of Gmail and provide feedback. They call it Gmail Labs. You can access these new features by clicking on the Settings link in the upper right, and then clicking on the tab labeled “Labs”. Some of these features are cosmetic such as date formats or removing the number of new messages from the various locations where messages are stored; others provide improved capabilities or time saving features like customizable keyboard shortcuts. Have a look in the Labs tab of the settings screen from time to time and see if there is anything of interest that might improve your Gmail experience. You can choose to enable or disable any of them by using the appropriate radio button choice to the right of each option. When you’ve chosen which features to turn on or off, click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the screen. According to the help page, there are a few things to keep in mind when you try these features out. First, they may break at any time. Remember, this is experimental software. Second, they may be removed from the feature set at any time. And third, they may work so well, that they may be promoted to regular features in Gmail. If you use any of the Labs features and suspect you are having problems, you can temporarily disable them by modifying your web address, or URL, to https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0. Feel free to provide feedback, report bugs, or suggest new features to Google by joining the Google group gmail-labs. Look under the “More” menu at the top of the screen for Groups, or follow the link in the show notes for this episode on the website. Here’s a comment from listener Douglas E. Welch over at Technology IQ. It seems he had a stuck key on his keyboard and as a result, inadvertantly locked out his Gmail account “up to 24 hours” due to invalid access attempts. As Douglas stated in his blog posting, “It is a little distressing that a rather simple computer malfunction can result in a day-long lockout and the fact that there is no appeal process for such a lockout.”. Hopefully Google will remedy the situation and provide some sort of support mechanism for accidental technical difficults such as this in the future. The people at Google have found a creative way to let you try various experimental features of Gmail and provide feedback. They call it Gmail Labs. You can access these new features by clicking on the Settings link in the upper right, and then clicking on the tab labeled “Labs”. Some of these features are cosmetic such as date formats or removing the number of new messages from the various locations where messages are stored; others provide improved capabilities or time saving features like customizable keyboard shortcuts. Have a look in the Labs tab of the settings screen from time to time and see if there is anything of interest that might improve your Gmail experience. You can choose to enable or disable any of them by using the appropriate radio button choice to the right of each option. When you’ve chosen which features to turn on or off, click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the screen. According to the help page, there are a few things to keep in mind when you try these features out. First, they may break at any time. Remember, this is experimental software. Second, they may be removed from the feature set at any time. And third, they may work so well, that they may be promoted to regular features in Gmail. If you use any of the Labs features and suspect you are having problems, you can temporarily disable them by modifying your web address, or URL, to https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0. Feel free to provide feedback, report bugs, or suggest new features to Google by joining the Google group gmail-labs. Look under the “More” menu at the top of the screen for Groups, or follow the link in the show notes for this episode on the website. Here’s a comment from listener Douglas E. Welch over at Technology IQ. It seems he had a stuck key on his keyboard and as a result, inadvertantly locked out his Gmail account “up to 24 hours” due to invalid access attempts. As Douglas stated in his blog posting, “It is a little distressing that a rather simple computer malfunction can result in a day-long lockout and the fact that there is no appeal process for such a lockout.”. Hopefully Google will remedy the situation and provide some sort of support mechanism for accidental technical difficults such as this in the future. tag:odeo.com,2008-06-08,24061639 Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:47:15 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24010258-Contacts-Sync-with-Mac-Address-Book Before I dig in to this I would like to thank my long time friend, co-worker, and mentor, Scott Reynolds for passing on this wonderful tip for Gmail. Those of you with iPhones, Macs and Gmail will find this very helpful. This is based on a recent article at googlemac.blogspot.com showing how you can sync your Mac address book with your Google contacts. Before you start, we strongly recommend that you back up your Mac Address Book. You can do that in the File menu by choosing Export, Addressbook Archive. That way if anything goes wrong, you’ll still have your original data. The key to syncing your Google contacts is in the Mac Address Book. Go to the Address Book menu, choose Preferences. Under the General heading, at the bottom of the screen check the box that says “Synchronize with Google”. It will ask you for your Google login and password - use the credentials you normally use to get access to your Gmail. Now start up iSync under the Mac Applications menu. Click... Before I dig in to this I would like to thank my long time friend, co-worker, and mentor, Scott Reynolds for passing on this wonderful tip for Gmail. Those of you with iPhones, Macs and Gmail will find this very helpful. This is based on a recent article at googlemac.blogspot.com showing how you can sync your Mac address book with your Google contacts. Before you start, we strongly recommend that you back up your Mac Address Book. You can do that in the File menu by choosing Export, Addressbook Archive. That way if anything goes wrong, you’ll still have your original data. The key to syncing your Google contacts is in the Mac Address Book. Go to the Address Book menu, choose Preferences. Under the General heading, at the bottom of the screen check the box that says “Synchronize with Google”. It will ask you for your Google login and password - use the credentials you normally use to get access to your Gmail. Now start up iSync under the Mac Applications menu. Click “Sync Devices”. Depending on how many contacts you have, it may take a few minutes to synchronize all the changes. When it’s done, click on the Card menu and select “Look for duplicates”. You can resolve conflicts one at a time by choosing which card you want to take precedence, or you can merge the changes by highlighting one or more cards and click “Merge cards” or using the keyboard shortcut Cmd-Shift-| (that’s a verticle pipe character). Click “Sync Devices” one more time and your contacts in your Mac Address Book and Google contacts are now in sync. To keep things in sync in the future, just use iSync periodically. It’s a bit manual, but once setup, it’s only a couple mouse clicks away. Here’s today’s quick tip: Fiona King over at collegedegrees.com has posted an article titled “57 tips of highly effective Gmail users“. If you’re a long time listener to the Gmail Podcast you’ll recognize many of these and I encourage you to go over and take a look - there are some great nuggets of information like backing up your messages, cleaning out your contacts, or tricking out your labels. If you’ve got a great idea or heard about a new feature in Gmail, or something that works with or enhances Gmail, I’d love to hear from you. Visit the website at chuckchat.com or drop me an email at gpodcast@gmail.com. Before I dig in to this I would like to thank my long time friend, co-worker, and mentor, Scott Reynolds for passing on this wonderful tip for Gmail. Those of you with iPhones, Macs and Gmail will find this very helpful. This is based on a recent article at googlemac.blogspot.com showing how you can sync your Mac address book with your Google contacts. Before you start, we strongly recommend that you back up your Mac Address Book. You can do that in the File menu by choosing Export, Addressbook Archive. That way if anything goes wrong, you’ll still have your original data. The key to syncing your Google contacts is in the Mac Address Book. Go to the Address Book menu, choose Preferences. Under the General heading, at the bottom of the screen check the box that says “Synchronize with Google”. It will ask you for your Google login and password - use the credentials you normally use to get access to your Gmail. Now start up iSync under the Mac Applications menu. Click “Sync Devices”. Depending on how many contacts you have, it may take a few minutes to synchronize all the changes. When it’s done, click on the Card menu and select “Look for duplicates”. You can resolve conflicts one at a time by choosing which card you want to take precedence, or you can merge the changes by highlighting one or more cards and click “Merge cards” or using the keyboard shortcut Cmd-Shift-| (that’s a verticle pipe character). Click “Sync Devices” one more time and your contacts in your Mac Address Book and Google contacts are now in sync. To keep things in sync in the future, just use iSync periodically. It’s a bit manual, but once setup, it’s only a couple mouse clicks away. Here’s today’s quick tip: Fiona King over at collegedegrees.com has posted an article titled “57 tips of highly effective Gmail users“. If you’re a long time listener to the Gmail Podcast you’ll recognize many of these and I encourage you to go over and take a look - there are some great nuggets of information like backing up your messages, cleaning out your contacts, or tricking out your labels. If you’ve got a great idea or heard about a new feature in Gmail, or something that works with or enhances Gmail, I’d love to hear from you. Visit the website at chuckchat.com or drop me an email at gpodcast@gmail.com. tag:odeo.com,2008-05-31,24010258 Sat, 31 May 2008 19:24:56 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/22615437-Contacts-Sync-with-Mac-Address-Book Before I dig in to this I would like to thank my long time friend, co-worker, and mentor, Scott Reynolds for passing on this wonderful tip for Gmail. Those of you with iPhones, Macs and Gmail will find this very helpful. This is based on a recent article at googlemac.blogspot.com showing how you can sync your Mac address book with your Google contacts. Before you start, we strongly recommend that you back up your Mac Address Book. You can do that in the File menu by choosing Export, Addressbook Archive. That way if anything goes wrong, you’ll still have your original data. The key to syncing your Google contacts is in the Mac Address Book. Go to the Address Book menu, choose Preferences. Under the General heading, at the bottom of the screen check the box that says “Synchronize with Google”. It will ask you for your Google login and password - use the credentials you normally use to get access to your Gmail. Now start up iSync under the Mac Applications menu. Click... Before I dig in to this I would like to thank my long time friend, co-worker, and mentor, Scott Reynolds for passing on this wonderful tip for Gmail. Those of you with iPhones, Macs and Gmail will find this very helpful. This is based on a recent article at googlemac.blogspot.com showing how you can sync your Mac address book with your Google contacts. Before you start, we strongly recommend that you back up your Mac Address Book. You can do that in the File menu by choosing Export, Addressbook Archive. That way if anything goes wrong, you’ll still have your original data. The key to syncing your Google contacts is in the Mac Address Book. Go to the Address Book menu, choose Preferences. Under the General heading, at the bottom of the screen check the box that says “Synchronize with Google”. It will ask you for your Google login and password - use the credentials you normally use to get access to your Gmail. Now start up iSync under the Mac Applications menu. Click “Sync Devices”. Depending on how many contacts you have, it may take a few minutes to synchronize all the changes. When it’s done, click on the Card menu and select “Look for duplicates”. You can resolve conflicts one at a time by choosing which card you want to take precedence, or you can merge the changes by highlighting one or more cards and click “Merge cards” or using the keyboard shortcut Cmd-Shift-| (that’s a verticle pipe character). Click “Sync Devices” one more time and your contacts in your Mac Address Book and Google contacts are now in sync. To keep things in sync in the future, just use iSync periodically. It’s a bit manual, but once setup, it’s only a couple mouse clicks away. Here’s today’s quick tip: Fiona King over at collegedegrees.com has posted an article titled “57 tips of highly effective Gmail users“. If you’re a long time listener to the Gmail Podcast you’ll recognize many of these and I encourage you to go over and take a look - there are some great nuggets of information like backing up your messages, cleaning out your contacts, or tricking out your labels. If you’ve got a great idea or heard about a new feature in Gmail, or something that works with or enhances Gmail, I’d love to hear from you. Visit the website at chuckchat.com or drop me an email at gpodcast@gmail.com. Before I dig in to this I would like to thank my long time friend, co-worker, and mentor, Scott Reynolds for passing on this wonderful tip for Gmail. Those of you with iPhones, Macs and Gmail will find this very helpful. This is based on a recent article at googlemac.blogspot.com showing how you can sync your Mac address book with your Google contacts. Before you start, we strongly recommend that you back up your Mac Address Book. You can do that in the File menu by choosing Export, Addressbook Archive. That way if anything goes wrong, you’ll still have your original data. The key to syncing your Google contacts is in the Mac Address Book. Go to the Address Book menu, choose Preferences. Under the General heading, at the bottom of the screen check the box that says “Synchronize with Google”. It will ask you for your Google login and password - use the credentials you normally use to get access to your Gmail. Now start up iSync under the Mac Applications menu. Click “Sync Devices”. Depending on how many contacts you have, it may take a few minutes to synchronize all the changes. When it’s done, click on the Card menu and select “Look for duplicates”. You can resolve conflicts one at a time by choosing which card you want to take precedence, or you can merge the changes by highlighting one or more cards and click “Merge cards” or using the keyboard shortcut Cmd-Shift-| (that’s a verticle pipe character). Click “Sync Devices” one more time and your contacts in your Mac Address Book and Google contacts are now in sync. To keep things in sync in the future, just use iSync periodically. It’s a bit manual, but once setup, it’s only a couple mouse clicks away. Here’s today’s quick tip: Fiona King over at collegedegrees.com has posted an article titled “57 tips of highly effective Gmail users“. If you’re a long time listener to the Gmail Podcast you’ll recognize many of these and I encourage you to go over and take a look - there are some great nuggets of information like backing up your messages, cleaning out your contacts, or tricking out your labels. If you’ve got a great idea or heard about a new feature in Gmail, or something that works with or enhances Gmail, I’d love to hear from you. Visit the website at chuckchat.com or drop me an email at gpodcast@gmail.com. tag:odeo.com,2008-05-31,22615437 Sat, 31 May 2008 19:24:56 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/24061640-Contacts-Sync-with-Mac-Address-Book Before I dig in to this I would like to thank my long time friend, co-worker, and mentor, Scott Reynolds for passing on this wonderful tip for Gmail. Those of you with iPhones, Macs and Gmail will find this very helpful. This is based on a recent article at googlemac.blogspot.com showing how you can sync your Mac address book with your Google contacts. Before you start, we strongly recommend that you back up your Mac Address Book. You can do that in the File menu by choosing Export, Addressbook Archive. That way if anything goes wrong, you’ll still have your original data. The key to syncing your Google contacts is in the Mac Address Book. Go to the Address Book menu, choose Preferences. Under the General heading, at the bottom of the screen check the box that says “Synchronize with Google”. It will ask you for your Google login and password - use the credentials you normally use to get access to your Gmail. Now start up iSync under the Mac Applications menu. Click... Before I dig in to this I would like to thank my long time friend, co-worker, and mentor, Scott Reynolds for passing on this wonderful tip for Gmail. Those of you with iPhones, Macs and Gmail will find this very helpful. This is based on a recent article at googlemac.blogspot.com showing how you can sync your Mac address book with your Google contacts. Before you start, we strongly recommend that you back up your Mac Address Book. You can do that in the File menu by choosing Export, Addressbook Archive. That way if anything goes wrong, you’ll still have your original data. The key to syncing your Google contacts is in the Mac Address Book. Go to the Address Book menu, choose Preferences. Under the General heading, at the bottom of the screen check the box that says “Synchronize with Google”. It will ask you for your Google login and password - use the credentials you normally use to get access to your Gmail. Now start up iSync under the Mac Applications menu. Click “Sync Devices”. Depending on how many contacts you have, it may take a few minutes to synchronize all the changes. When it’s done, click on the Card menu and select “Look for duplicates”. You can resolve conflicts one at a time by choosing which card you want to take precedence, or you can merge the changes by highlighting one or more cards and click “Merge cards” or using the keyboard shortcut Cmd-Shift-| (that’s a verticle pipe character). Click “Sync Devices” one more time and your contacts in your Mac Address Book and Google contacts are now in sync. To keep things in sync in the future, just use iSync periodically. It’s a bit manual, but once setup, it’s only a couple mouse clicks away. Here’s today’s quick tip: Fiona King over at collegedegrees.com has posted an article titled “57 tips of highly effective Gmail users“. If you’re a long time listener to the Gmail Podcast you’ll recognize many of these and I encourage you to go over and take a look - there are some great nuggets of information like backing up your messages, cleaning out your contacts, or tricking out your labels. If you’ve got a great idea or heard about a new feature in Gmail, or something that works with or enhances Gmail, I’d love to hear from you. Visit the website at chuckchat.com or drop me an email at gpodcast@gmail.com. Before I dig in to this I would like to thank my long time friend, co-worker, and mentor, Scott Reynolds for passing on this wonderful tip for Gmail. Those of you with iPhones, Macs and Gmail will find this very helpful. This is based on a recent article at googlemac.blogspot.com showing how you can sync your Mac address book with your Google contacts. Before you start, we strongly recommend that you back up your Mac Address Book. You can do that in the File menu by choosing Export, Addressbook Archive. That way if anything goes wrong, you’ll still have your original data. The key to syncing your Google contacts is in the Mac Address Book. Go to the Address Book menu, choose Preferences. Under the General heading, at the bottom of the screen check the box that says “Synchronize with Google”. It will ask you for your Google login and password - use the credentials you normally use to get access to your Gmail. Now start up iSync under the Mac Applications menu. Click “Sync Devices”. Depending on how many contacts you have, it may take a few minutes to synchronize all the changes. When it’s done, click on the Card menu and select “Look for duplicates”. You can resolve conflicts one at a time by choosing which card you want to take precedence, or you can merge the changes by highlighting one or more cards and click “Merge cards” or using the keyboard shortcut Cmd-Shift-| (that’s a verticle pipe character). Click “Sync Devices” one more time and your contacts in your Mac Address Book and Google contacts are now in sync. To keep things in sync in the future, just use iSync periodically. It’s a bit manual, but once setup, it’s only a couple mouse clicks away. Here’s today’s quick tip: Fiona King over at collegedegrees.com has posted an article titled “57 tips of highly effective Gmail users“. If you’re a long time listener to the Gmail Podcast you’ll recognize many of these and I encourage you to go over and take a look - there are some great nuggets of information like backing up your messages, cleaning out your contacts, or tricking out your labels. If you’ve got a great idea or heard about a new feature in Gmail, or something that works with or enhances Gmail, I’d love to hear from you. Visit the website at chuckchat.com or drop me an email at gpodcast@gmail.com. tag:odeo.com,2008-05-31,24061640 Sat, 31 May 2008 19:24:56 -0700 no Gmail Podcast Gmail Podcast http://www.odeo.com/episodes/18445463-Speed-Dialing tag:odeo.com,2008-04-12,18445463 Sat, 12 Apr 2008 21:11:04 -0700 no Gmail Podcast