Tag: Gmail

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Google buzzes Facebook and Twitter

Some of you might have woken up today morning and checked out something called Google Buzz. Some of you lucky ones might even have it available in your Gmail account. Google launched it’s own social network Buzz which will  be embedded within Gmail. There will be a link to Buzz as you sign-in to Gmail page. It is still being rolled out and I guess everyone with a Gmail id will soon have access to it. Google Buzz has an advantage which no social networking website has had untill now and that is a ready user base of millions.

google_buzz

Google Buzz at a glance

  • Like all social networking websites it will allow sharing of links, photos and your comments on what you are upto. This is all integrated in your Inbox and also allows you to use your Inbox to comment on shared links, pictures and status messages.
  • All your Gmail contacts will automatically appear as your friends on Buzz. It will also integrate with Picassa, Google Reader, Flickr and Twitter.
  • One point that Google Buzz is making is that it will have a simplistic style of sharing things personally and publicy without too much of a fuss. I guess that was pointed to Facebook and Twitter. Twitter users obviously will not share pictures of their wedding as it is all public and Facebook users might find it difficult with the privacy settings to share a link with the world. Buzz probably will simplify it but I have not got the change to play around with Buzz and so I will reserve my verdict on it.
  • The potential for Google Buzz to be really big is there. It can shamelessly borrow from Facebook and Twitter and improve on it rather than try to reinvent the wheel. It has a featured called recommended messages. This might be something similar to a ReTweet; but considering Google’s search engine genius; it might be a way for a way of ranking users and their content.

Here is a video of Google Buzz from its blog.

I do not know how successful Google Buzz will end up being. But it seems to have a better chance than Yahoo meme had when it was launched a few months ago. Let me know if you have Buzz enabled on your Gmail account what do you think about it?

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Tips

Get messenger like notifications from multiple Gmail accounts

Gmail has now a days become the first choice email for many and very often we have more than 2 or 3 Gmail accounts. For instance you might have separate Gmail accounts for your blog, personal mail and work related email. As you might know that we at rtCamp use Google apps and I have a personal Gmail account. So monitoring multiple account makes sense for me.
I wrote a few days ago about using Greasemonkey scripts to use multiple Gmail accounts from the same page.

Now I wanted to share with you Gmail Manager 0.6 which is a Firefox add-on. In the case you have some concerns having Greasemonkey scripts running on your browser from a security angle; Gmail manager makes a lot of sense.

gmail_manager

About Gmail Manager

  • Gmail Manager add-on can be downloaded by clicking here. Once the add-on is downloaded restart Firefox browser.
  • The add-on options allows your enter your Gmail ID and Password. This will give you notification for any acocunt when you get an email.
  • Just clicking on the relevant account will take you directly to your Inbox.
  • If you hover your mouse pointer over the Account tag; you will get a pop-up which shows your emails that are in your inbox. Unfortunately you cannot go directly to the email from the pop-up. I guess that is what can be considered room for improvement.

If you are using Firefox browser and have a lot of active Gmail accounts Gmail Manager add-on is something which should interest you.

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News

Search for the weather in Gmail

Using Gmail is like an addiction now a days. There are emails to be read, answered and sometimes chat with friends and fellow bloggers, thanks to gtalk being available directly from Gmail. You might have heard of Web Search in Gmail, which is a feature still in Gmail Labs. But now there are some changes which allows the Gmail user to not just look up search results but also use it for a variety of reasons.

I used it to define words I was using while composing a message and I can even look up the weather. I guess lesser the number of tabs open, better it is for not being distracted from the task you are doing.

Google Search with Gmail

  • When on Gmail, go to Settings and Labs. In the Labs section enable Google Search with Mail.
  • Now below the Gtalk box to the left had side you will now get a Google Search box.
  • This is nothing new but now you can use different operators within the search tab. Operators like define and weather.
  • I looked up the weather for Pune where Devil’s Workshop has it’s office. (rtBlogs Office) The results showed up withing my Gmail page and if I used two or three search queries they were saved in the Google Search box for me to look up at a later time. See image below for example.

search_gmail

As you can see in the image above that I could use search and get the weather for the next week for Pune city within my Gmail page. I tried using Google Maps but the results were not as useful as with weather or define.

A note of caution if you have enabled Offline Gmail it can take upto 10 mins for the Google web search to be integrated with your Gmail.

Let me know what you find interesting or useful but trying feature within labs. I think I will be writing many email with fewer spelling or contextual mistakes. 😛

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Tips

Get backup of Gmail contacts and attachments on your computer

Personally I use Gmail’s Offline feature for being able to compose or access certain emails in case I my internet connection is acting up or if its not stable. But I like this new add-on software called Mailbrowser and I liked the easy way I could access contacts and attachment files at one side.

mailbrowser

The good thing you will love about Mailbrowser is that it is not a web application and hence your personal Gmail details are not really stored online or on a 3rd party server. They are saved on your hard-disk itself. 😉

About MailBrowser

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  • MailBrowser works with Internet Explorer or Firefox. It saves all attachments and your contact list on to your computer.
  • I did not have to log into Gmail to access my contact list or attachment files.
  • A simple couple of clicks enabled me to send an email to someone in my contact list or even access the mail in which the attachment was received.
  • It works with the browser and I tested it with Firefox. The tab neatly sits to the right hand side of the browser.

I was initially apprehensive about why you might need this extra bit of software to save your Gmail contacts and attachments on your computer when I already had Gmail offline on my computer. MailBrowser would actually be quite useful as you can sort of use it like a mail client. You can free up space on Gmail and delete old attachments. It is not a standalone software so it cannot be compared to mail clients like Outlook but its compatibility with browser does make it worthwhile to try out.

Link: Mail Browser

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Tips

Log into multiple Gmail accounts on Firefox [Video]

I am sure a many of you have Gmail accounts and if you frequent internet a lot you might have two or even Gmail accounts. Sometimes for a backup, sometimes to keep work and personal related emails separate majority of us might have two Gmail accounts. For instance I have two accounts, one was a personal one, the other I use for testing purposes, like I used it during this post. 🙂

If you have two Gmail accounts and need to use them often it can be a bit of a bother considering when you sign-in with one account you cannot sign into the another account on the same browser. Rahul Bansal did write about it previously on how to go about using different profiles on firefox at the same time.

Recently I used another method by using a Firefox add on for using two Gmail accounts at the same time. For using this add-on you need to have Greasemonkey installed on your Firefox browser. If you are using Windows with Firefox you can install Greasemonkey from here.

If you need a complete guide to installing Greasemonkey on Firefox click here.

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Google Account Multiple Login

  • Gmail Multi User Login works only after you have installed Greasemonkey.
  • Download the add-on by clicking here.
  • The add-on is installed and you can use Gmail multi user login. 😉
  • Once this add-on is installed on Firefox it replaces the Sign-Out link to the right hand top corner of your Gmail account with a drop which allows you to log into another Gmail account.

Here is a video of how the Add-on works.

Go ahead and try it out and let me know what you think about this add-on through your comments.

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News

Gmail goes secure with https; It is a reaction to China?

By now everyone knows that Google has threanted to dump their opearations in China after their certain Gmail accounts were hacked by Chinese. The issue was that most of these accounts were of Chinese dissidents inside China while some of them were even in Europe and the US.
Google has yesterday announced that all the Gmail accounts will be sent over secure servers. This means it will work by default on HTTPS rather than HTTP.

Gmail_https

Gmail HTTPS

  • Gmail allowed you to before use HTTPS by making those changes in your settings.
  • This was used as usually unencrypted data travels faster than encrypted one.
  • Now all of  Gmail accounts will have default HTTPS. You can notice the difference the minute you log into your Gmail account.
  • This is true for Gmail but not for all Google accounts.
  • Using encryption is ideally known to be a good idea when using Gmail with Wifi, especially in a public space.
  • If you want to disable the default HTTPS, you can make the changes at Settings.
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Gmail HTTPS is actually not such a big deal. It did not really need to announce this on their blog as it is not really a new feature but just something that was optional is now by default. So was this a reaction or way to Google watchers that they will be a lot more secure. Remember inspite of support for Google over its complaints regarding their servers being attacked in China it might start a problem considering sometimes the media can be very paranoid as far as security concerns.

I think Google has known that it has stirred a hornet’s nest and to ease of anyone trying to indirectly imply that Chinese hackers could hack into Gmail because Google takes the security lightly; Google has thwarted such concerns by announcing all Gmail accounts will have default HTTPS.

What do you think? Is Gmail’s default HTTPS a reaction to the issue it has with China?

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Tips

Merge duplicate email contacts with Gmail

Gmail has introduced a new feature to make you email experience a little better (click here to read all Gmail related posts). Though many such new features often are not that interesting, this one helps you merge all duplicate contacts.

Ideally when someone sends you an email or you send an email, their email is added automatically into your contact list for Gmail. If you have friends who have two or even three email addresses they often are all stored.

Now with a click of a button such similar addresses can be merged.

First click on Contacts when you are on Gmail and you will get the option to Find duplicates as shown in image below.

Find Duplicate Contacts in Gmail

A few moments later Gmail gives you a list of duplicate contacts. A simple click on Merge of the selected duplicate contacts will merge you duplicate contacts into single ones and help you organize the contact list better.

Merge Duplicate Contacts in Gmail

This is a great way to trim up on those annoying duplicate contacts and merge them. Just a note of caution in case you have two people with similar names in your contact list. In that case do look through the email addresses that would be merged.

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Tips

A keyboard just for Gmail

gboard1Yesterday Deepak Jain who is also a Editor with us at  rtBlogs, brought to my notice a keyboard which can only be used by Gmail users. I first thought it was a bit of a joke but the Gmail only device does exist and its called Gboard.

About G Board

  • This keybopard or rather keypad like device connects from a USB.
  • All its needs is a recent Windows OS or a Mac OS.
  • It needs browser which is recent. The website does not specify how recent but I assume all the builds over the last couple of years.
  • It is priced at $19.99.

Niche Devices and their need?

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This is obviously a niche device and let me make it clear I am not really a fan of niche devices. I had once read about a device meant only for Twitter. A lot of experts panned it because it was priced almost as much as a smart phone.

The case with G Board is similar too. But I think it’s not really meant to be a functional entity but more like a collectors item for Gmail fans.

What do you think about such devices ? Do you think it’s a waste of time or do you think it has its own purposes? Do let me know through your comments.

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Tips

Check if your Gtalk Friend is Logged in from Mobile, Blackberry Device, Gmail or other Gtalk Client

gtalk spyRecently Gmail officially released a labs feature using which you can determine if your (Google) chat contact is using Instant messenger from an android device or elsewhere.  But using the simple trick below, you can figure out if your Google contact is using Gtalk either from Google’s official Gtalk client, within the browser (using Gmail), blackberry device or any any other third party Gtalk client. This trick may be useful for spying on your Gtlak contact or keeping an eye on your friends 😉

All you need to do is download and install Digsby, one of the best and recommended Gtalk client, and login with your Gtalk credentials. Whenever your friend becomes visible on Gtalk, just hover over his status on Digsby window and you will be able to see their status as mentioned in the screenshots below:

identify gtalk buddy's client identify gtalk buddy's client2 identify gtalk buddy's client3
 identify gtalk buddy's client4

Hope, if not earlier, at least now you must have understood this quite useful feature of using Digsby. On your friend’s status message’s ‘resource’ section, you can check how your friend is logged into Gtalk. If he/she might have logged in from multiple devices then all of them will be listed here.

For those who are still not using this great app (free of course), this may be another reason for you to try it out.

Links: Download Digsby | Read more about Digsby

Similar Post: Check whether someone is Offline, Invisible or Blocked you on Gtalk

(Image credits: Tech Gadget Forums)

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Tips

How to set a default font for Gmail?

Every time I write an email from my Gmail account, I prefer the Comic Sans font for my message instead of the default one which is Sans Serif. This means every time I start composing an email I have to change the default font.

set_font_gmail1

I came across on the internet, a neat feature which allowed me to change the default font I had with Gmail.

Change default font in Gmail

  • The new feature has to be enabled under the Labs section within settings for Gmail. In the Labs section you need to look up Default Text Styling and select Enable along with saving the changes (see image below).

Gmail >> Settings >> Labs

  • Now  after you have saved the changes, Gmail goes back to your Inbox. Again click on Settings and under the General tab you can see a new option enabled for changing the default font within Gmail (see image below).

set_font_gmail3

  • Select the font from the drop down menu and again save changes. This way you can change the default font you have on Gmail.

Hope you liked this and let me know your thoughts on default fonts with Gmail through your comments. 🙂