Tab Notifier is one of the solution to this problem. Tab Notifier is an add-on for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome browsers and it displays notifications on the desktop if the title of the tab being monitored changes. For example, If I have Facebook opened, Facebook displays the no. of notifications in the title of the page. So if you have Tab Notifier installer, you will get a desktop notification with each new update of Facebook. The same goes for the case with all other websites. Tab Notifier is a good solution but it has a few limitations. It can’t detect any changes in the website in question if the title doesn’t change and remains the same upon each update to the website. It also can not detect any changes while the browser is not open or even the website tab is not opened.

Download Tab Notifier add-on for Firefox

Download Tab Notifier extension for Google Chrome (Please note that this link is of the author’s website where you can download Tab Notifier for Google Chrome. I couldn’t find Tab Notifier in Google’s app store.)

If you don’t like Tab Notifier, there is another add-on – Update Scanner which can check for updates on selected sites after a specified interval of time. All the notifications will be given within Firefox so you will need to have Firefox opened although you don’t need to keep the website tab opened all the time. The changes to the pages will be highlighted automatically. Although Update Scanner is available on the latest version of Firefox i.e, Firefox 10, I wasn’t able to install it on Firefox 11 beta.

Download Update Scanner Firefox Add-on

After installing Update Scanner, press Alt-U and the update scanner sidebar will open. You can add sites to be monitored from there.

If you still choose the email to be the best method of getting yourself notified, there is another solution that you can choose. You can use the services which let you send the feed updates to your email. I am listing a few RSS feed to email services:

FeedMyInbox ( I personally use this)

Feed2Mail

reblinks.therssweblog.com

RSS Fwd

Blog Alert

All these services require RSS feeds to be enabled on the sites to be monitored. If you want to follow a site which does not have RSS feeds enabled, you can use these services:

Change Detection

Change Detect (Registration required)

I hope this information will be helpful for everyone and will make us better and more productive. What is your favorite method of staying up-to-date?

Image credit: Secure Website : WWW by BigStockPhoto

We covered a few temporary email services a while back. This is an add-on to that post to give you a couple more choices.

1. 10 Minute Mail

10 Minute Mail gives you a random email address and inbox that is functional for 10 minutes. While this doesn’t seem like much time, most email newsletter auto responders are quick to reply with your free eBook link.

Here is how 10 Minute Mail works.

When you go to 10minutemail.com, all you need to do is copy the already highlighted temporary email address.

Use the email address to sign up for the service or get the free prize. If it is takin0g a bit for the reply email to come in, you may want to click on the link to reset the 10 minute timer.

When you receive an email, you will see it in the messages folder at the bottom of the page.

When you are all done, you can just let the email address expire. When you the 10 minutes is up, you will see a message telling you your email address has self destructed. If you need another email address, you can click the link to get a totally different one.

2. MailNull

MailNull is another service offering temporary email addresses. The difference is you have a bit more time to send and receive emails. MailNull works the same way. Here is a walk through. You will see the differences and probably see how differently the uses could be.

For starters, you need to set up an account to use the service. Requiring an account helps weed out more lazy people and spammers. MailNull also logs your IP address when you sign up.

To forewarn you, your account name will be a prefix for your email name. I chose MTE as my account name, so my emails are mte.whateveriwant@mailnull.com

Now that you have signed up and confirmed the link in the email confirmation they send, you are ready to create an email address. Log in using your account name and the password you chose. You can choose how long you stay logged in for on this screen as well.

In the left sidebar, click Add New Address. You will have another form to fill out.

One cool thing about having the option to fill out all of this information is, the bottom part of the form is an optional reminder to you where you used the email address and what it was for.

In this form you are also asked how many emails you’d like to receive or for how long you’d like the email address to be active.

After all the information is filled in, you will get a confirmation screen like this.

At this point, the email address is usable. When you receive and email reply to this address, it will be automatically forwarded to your real email address. If MailNull spots a spammy email, it will hold it in their system and not send it to your real email address.

Conclusion

Both of these services have their merit. They can both be used to sign up for services, make temporary logins to test services or one of the many other reasons you may need a throw away email address. I think MailNull is a bit more involved, but the added features make it better for anyone who needs more than a onetime use service.

What are some reasons you may need a disposable email address?

Here is a run-through of what you can expect.

Download

Xobni will email you a link to the download page. You will need to sign in with the email address you used to register for the invite. I have 2 accounts and tried to use my first email and it would not let me through.You will need to have your Android set to install applications from unknown sources. If you do not, your device will prompt you to do so.

Setup wizard

There are a few steps to the setup, none of them are hard. You will be signing into your email and other apps. There are also a few settings you will be able to toggle on and off.

Xobni account

The first step is to log into your Xobni account. Again, you will need to use the email address you used to sign up for the invite. If you do not have an Xobni account using this email address, you can create one.

Choose an app

This is where you need to choose whether you want to use Gmail or Outlook. Since I use Thunderbird instead of Outlook to manage all of my Gmail accounts, I chose the Gmail option here.

Sign in and authorize

You will need to log into your Gmail account. This can be any Gmail or Google Apps account. If you are using a Google Apps account, click the link at the bottom of the Gmail sign in screen. You will be asked to put in your email Google Apps email address.

Once you are logged in, you will need to grant access to Xobni. You will see the list of things it can access here.

Social sites

If you are a Xobni user from Outlook, web-based Gmail or another device, you will know you can keep up-to-date with your contact’s social profiles right from your inbox/address book. The Android version is no different. Choose the accounts you would like to sign into and do so here.

Other mobile data

Xobni can also get more information from your phone. If you’d like, it will look through your SMS (text) messages, calendar and phone logs to help you keep up-to-date information about your contacts.

While this may seem a bit scary, you might like to have a record of the last interactions you’ve had with your contacts while you are mobile.

Using Xobni

When the setup is all done, you are ready to use Xobni for Android. Here is the start screen you will see when you open the app. in the search box, you will be able to type their name and see their profile with recent activity.

Depending on what social sites you’ve granted access to and what apps on your phone you allowed information to be drawn, you may have a lot or a little information about the contacts.

Final thoughts

With many people becoming more mobile, having more information on your mobile device is almost mandatory. Applications like Xobni will be the life’s blood of the business person and freelancer in the very near future. There will be a huge push for mobile productivity. Why not start now?

What are your reasons for wanting social account and information about recent interactions with your contacts while you are mobile?

MailShot for iPad has enough options to make it very versatile. It has a short tutorial to help you setup your first group. After naming your group, you can either add contacts from your address book, or import from your Mail app, your contacts list, or manually. If you import manually, there are fields to put in a name and an email, but experimenting with it, I found you can also copy and paste in a long list of names and emails from a previous list or email. However, to get this to work, you have to go to the Settings App, and under MailShot, turn off the option for “Check Addresses on Add.”

Groups for iPhone automatically syncs up with your mail contacts. It does not allow you to copy and paste in large groups, with each email having to be added in your contacts list. However, it does have one interesting feature that only a few of the apps have. It includes Smart Groups, which groups your contacts in its own categories such as “By Company,” “Has Email,” “Has Phone Number,” etc.

Tacts for iPhone is very visually appealing, being set on a black background with neon colors. It allows you to assign simple icons for your groups, but the contacts can only be added in from your contact list. Not only does it have Smart Groups, it allows you to set your own rules for making the Smart Group, such as all people with the same last name, or all people with the same word in their email address.

Group for iPhone is a basic group contacts list in both form and function, as well as in its look. It does not have Smart Groups and contacts can only be added in from your contacts list, but it also allows you to do group SMS as well as group email.

What is your way of sending group emails in iPad or iPhone?

An even more common question is, how do you handle your inbox and get things done while you are not in the office?

Below are a few tips and applications to better help you manage your email from an Android phone while out of the office.

In your inbox

Folders

The first thing you will want to do is setup folders. If you are using Gmail, they are called labels. Setting up folders will help you keep things separated and make messages a little easier to find. In addition to using labels, filters for your emails will also help keep things sorted.

When working from your Android phone, it is easy to see the label attached to the email message if there is one.

IMAP

Using IMAP instead of POP will give you much greater control over how you can handle your email. With most POP setups, when you handle an email on your phone, your desktop application doesn’t know about it. And with syncing messages, the best you can do is download and delete the messages from the email server.

If you are using something like Thunderbird or Outlook to manage your email, you may be okay with not having your filters and folders synced with the server. What if your company decides to switch desktop email programs? You will likely have to redo all of that hard work to re-organize everything.

If you use IMAP, your email server, desktop application and phone will all be in sync. You will be able to access the messages in all of your folders, move those messages from one folder to another and generally save yourself time when you get back to your computer.

Forward emails to one account

If you have several email accounts you manage, here is a link to an article on how to send and receive non-Gmail emails from Gmail. Having one spot to check all of your emails can be vital in keeping your inbox at bay.

Applications

Many times an application to can easily add all of the functionality you are looking for. Below is an alternative email application that offers more than the pre-installed Android email application. With the help of a couple add-ons, it walks all over the pre-installed app.

K-9 email

K-9 is a replacement email application for Android phones. Depending on the version of the Android OS and the make and model of device, the layout may look similar. In testing it though, it runs much faster and has more options to configure how it handled your incoming mail.

K-9 Data Killer

K-9 Data Killer lets you turn off the syncing if you use K-9. This add-on application would do the same thing as going into your Android settings and turning on and off the automatic sync for Gmail.

Email pop-up

Email pop-up is another email add-on for K-9 email. What it does is show a pop-up for incoming emails. While this seems like it is more like a frivolous application that just takes up space, it is actually really useful.

Picture yourself having a really busy day and you are waiting for an important email. Instead of opening K-9 each time an email arrives, you can see who it’s from and a little bit of the text. Having these little pop-ups can actually save you a lot of time and battery by not needing to access your email application just to see who it is and what they want.

These are only a few of the vast number of applications and tips for handling email efficiently. Everyone has their own methods that work well for them, but many people struggle daily with their inbox. It never hurts to try a small change to see if it will improve your email productivity.

Leave a comment with your best email usage tip or favorite application.

image credit: RambergMediaImages

One way I have been handling multiple email addresses is to use Gmail as an email hub. The way I will show you will allow you to send and receive emails from your Gmail account.

Note: An important part of this process is being able to forward your email to your Gmail account. Email services like Yahoo do not let you forward your Yahoo mail emails without being a premium or business customer. Please check if you are able to forward your emails to Gmail before you proceed.

I am using Hotmail for my example. The screens you see may vary, but the general steps should be the same regardless of the email program. Even if you have multiple Gmail accounts, this will work.

Part 1: Setting up email forwarding

Once you are logged into your email account, you will need to go to the settings menu. In Hotmail you will need to click on your name in the top right corner of the screen and select “Options“.

On the left side, click on Mail. Once in the Mail settings, you will need to click on Email Forwarding.

In the email forwarding tab, you will see a place to enter your Gmail address. With Hotmail, you will need to check the box telling Hotmail you want to forward your emails to another address. As you can see, there is a note telling you to sign in once every 270 days or your Hotmail account will be cancelled.

If you want to keep a copy of the forwarded email, there is a usually a box you can check to keep a copy on the Hotmail server. Click Done.

Keep your Hotmail account open, you will need to go back to it shortly.

Part 2: Sending from Gmail

After you log into your Gmail account, you will see your name and a gear. Click on the gear to see the mail options. In the drop down, select Mail Settings.

When in the Mail Settings, click on the Accounts and Import tab.

In this tab, about half way down, you will see a section called Send mail as: Click on the tab that says Send mail from another address.

A window will pop up with two text boxes.The first is what you want your name to show up as when you send an email. The second is the email address you want to send from. Fill in the email address and click Next step.

If you are changing email accounts and weening people off the old one, you can choose a different reply-to address here.

The next step is to select the SMTP or outgoing server. I am recommending to use Gmail’s outgoing server for ease of setup. This will save all of your outgoing messages to your Gmail Sent folder.

After you select the outgoing server, you will need to send a verification email to your other email account.

This is why I wanted you to keep your Hotmail or other email account open. When the email from Google arrives in your Hotmail inbox, you can click on the link in the email to verify that you really want to let Google send emails from this account.

Alternatively, you can copy and paste the verification code from the email to the Gmail verification window you last saw.

You should be all set to try a test email. To do this, go to your Gmail inbox and compose a message. In the message composition window, you will now see a drop down option where it displays your email address.

When you send or receive an email from your Hotmail address, the recipient will notice no difference. It will be as though you are logging into your Hotmail account and sending it from there.

What are your tips for managing multiple email accounts?

Where can I get Mail Tab for Gmail?

It is a free download in the Mac App Store. Simply type the name of the app into your search field and click Enter. You should see the app in your search results.

Setting Up The App

Let’s begin by setting up your new app. Once it is downloaded, double click on the icon in your dock to open it.

The first time you open the app, you will see a confirmation message, ensuring that the program is allowed to access your Gmail, you have to click on yes if you want to use this app.

Now, you will see a sign in screen. Enter your Gmail username and password. Then click on “Sign in”. Signing in may take a little bit longer with this app then it would with your browser this first time. Just be a little patient, and you will be rewarded. When you here the “ping” noise, you know that you are signed into your Gmail, and can access your messages. You will also hear this ping in the future when you get a new message.

Tip: If you do not want to sign in everytime you launch the app, make sure that the box next to “Remember me” is checked. It should be checked by default the first time that you sign in. If this is a shared computer and you do not want to save your information, then make sure that this box is not checked.

Using The App

Once you are signed in, you will notice an app icon in the upper right hand corner of your screen. To see the messages in your in-box simply click on this icon. Load times may vary.

If you need to view more messages in the list, simply scroll all of the way down to and click the button labeled “Show more messages” and more of your inbox should appear.

If you want to view the contents of a specific message, simply click on it. From here, you can read the message, and then either delete or archive that message by clicking on the buttons. If you do not want to take any action, simply click the “Inbox” button and you will be taken back to a list of your messages.

When you are ready to quit the application, either to go to lunch, or for the day, you can simply click on the small downward pointing arrow next to the message icon. When the menu appears, you can simply click on the words “Quit Mail Tab for Gmail” and you will be signed out of the application and your Gmail account.

Enjoy your productivity!

MailTab For Gmail (iTunes link)

Taskforce is a Gmail extension that convert your emails into tasks and allows you to manage your tasks right within your inbox. It’s a handy tool to help you stay organized and save you time from toggling between different tabs and sites/applications.

To enable Taskforce, you have to do the following:

1. Go to the Taskforce website and login with your Gmail address.
2. Grant it permission to access your inbox.
3. Install the extension for your browser (Firefox, Chrome and Safari).
4. Login (if you have already logged in, reload the page) to your Gmail.

You should now see the Taskforce bar right below your “sign out” links.

At any point of time, you can click the “+” button to add a new task. There are two fields available, one for the task name and the other for task description.

When reading a mail, you will see two buttons below the Title – Convert to New Task and Add to Existing Task.

Clicking on the Convert to New Task button will bring up the “Add new task” panel with the email title as the task name. There is also an option to add the email sender as the collaborator.

When you have added a task, you can click on the “Tasks” button to check out your list of to-do. From here, you can then edit the nature of the tasks. You can either add collaborators, due date, delay date, comments, or to delete the task. The delay date is one interesting feature that allows you to push back a task to a later date. When the date arrives, it will then be pushed back to the current tasks folder.

After trying out Taskforce, I admit that I have taken a liking for it. I have tried several other task management apps like Google Tasks, Remember the Milk and Toodledo. They are either too simple and without any feature or too complicated for a casual user. Taskforce has just the right mix.

One thing though, there is no mobile version yet, which means if you always check your email on the move (like me), you won’t be able to make use of this service. Other than that, if you are always checking your Gmail, or better still, keep your Gmail opens all the time, Taskforce could just be the right app for you.

When dealing with someone who is tech savvy, it is easy enough to send them a torrent file or use a public file sharing site. However, if you need to keep your email more private or are dealing with someone who isn’t as savvy as you, emailing large files can be a problem. Securely Send is an easy to use solution for sending large files via email.

If you have ever used a file sharing service, you know they can be a little spammy looking. That is one of the areas Securely Send excels over others. I would feel comfortable sending even the least tech savvy people I know a file through Securely Send.

Sending a file

To start, you need to fill in your email address, then the receiving email address. You can send the file to multiple people if you separate the addresses with a comma.

The next window will ask you to create a password for your free account. The free account lets you send 3 files up to 200MB per month.

Add a subject and a message and press Next. If you do not fill in anything here, a default message and subject will be inserted.

Press the Select File button. A window will pop up where you will need to find the file you want to send. Double click the file to add. To add more than one file, hold Ctrl and click on each file then click Open.

Once you select the file or files you would like to send, click Upload. Depending on the size of the file(s), the uploading process may take a bit to complete.

The final screen will show you a message telling you the file will be stored for 10 days and a link to the page to download the file.

Possible uses

Even though 200MB doesn’t seem like a lot of space, keep in mind an average MP3 is around 2-5MB. This is large enough to send a short video.

I did some looking to see what the size of some files I had on my computer were that I may need to send someone. Here is what I found:

• HTC Desire Froyo Update for US Cellular – 171MB

• A folder with 58 high resolution pictures – 65MB
• A few podcasts – 20MB average
• A folder with 15 different WordPress themes to look at. – 186MB

Each and every one of these files or folders may need to be emailed at some time, yet will not send using standard email. If you are using a service like Gmail, you have around a 20MB limit.

Conclusion

When I have used other services, they seemed to be littered with ads and buttons everywhere. It is hard to find the actual download button a lot of the time. For Securely Send, both the sending side and the receiving email and download page are very clean and easy to navigate.

The upload and download speeds were great. Like I mentioned earlier, I would definitely  recommend Securely Send if you need to send a large file to someone who isn’t very techy.

If your method of sending large files is easier, tell us in the comments.

Flexamail is an email sevice, yet it is not the email service that you use to check for mail everyday. Sound confusing? To make it more explicit, Flexamail is a web service that can send your Web content, Twitter or Facebook update to your personal inbox. All you need to do is to send an email to the respective Flexamail email account and it will automate the process for you.

Signing up

Flexamail is a personalize service, so you will need to sign up an account with them. You will need to sign up with your primary email address (or the email that you will be regularly accessing. My advise, don’t use your office email). This email address will be the primary tool you use to communicate with Flexamail.

Using Flexamail

There are several ways that you can make good use of Flexamail. You can:

• Access popular sites like Twitter and Facebook all from your email without needing a proxy
• Avoid pesky firewalls getting in your way, access websites and services regardless to your office or country’s firewall settings
• Post, share and track any type of files and images online
• Password protect those files you don’t want made public
• Securely backup your files online
• Save money on your cellphone plan with an email only data plan
• Publish a photo from your iPhone or Blackberry without needing to open an app
• Stay organized with sortable, sharable, drag and drop lists

To be able to access your Twitter and Facebook account, you will first need to give permission to Flexamail to access your account.

To receive update for your Twitter or Facebook account, all you have to do is to send a blank email (from the email address that you signed up Flexamail with) to twitter@flexamail.com or facebook@flexamail.com respectively.

It will then reply you with a mail consisting all the updates in your Twitter/Facebook account.

Similarly, you can send email to facebookwall@flexamail.com to post to your Facebook wall, tweet@flexamail.com to send a tweet, and many other Twitter related services.

Surfing the Web

To surf the web with Flexamail, you can send an email to www@flexamail.com and insert the Website URL as the subject of the email. You will then receive an email of the website you wish to view.

Need to perform a search on Google? No worry, just send a mail to google@flexamail.com with the search terms as the subject.

You can also add your favorite sites (up to 4) to Flexamail and get it to retrieve content from those sites with the email favs@flexamail.com

Other services

Other services provide by Flexamail include uploading and storing your files (including encrypted files) and images and also creating a to-do list. More features will also be added in the near future.

Conclusion

Flexamail will be slow and redundant if you have full access to the web. But if you are in an office environment where (almost) everything online is blocked, except for your email address, then Flexamail will be a good way to continue to keep in touch with the Web.

Flexamail

One of the most common applications people look for is a desktop email application. Thunderbird from Mozilla is a fantastic replacement for Outlook. Much like Firefox, Thunderbird can be customized with any number of addons.

These are 12 of Thunderbird addons that I strongly recommend to make your Thunderbird a bit more powerful.

1. Lightning

A calendar is one of the most important tools for anyone in business. You need to be able to quickly look and access your day. Needing to have multiple windows open and toggle back and forth is very inconvenient. Lightning is Mozilla’s calendar application.

This extension lets you add a full calendar to Thunderbird, making it more efficient to schedule appointments from an email.

2. Reminderfox

When you get busy working or playing on Facebook, you might not notice it is time for the meeting. Reminderfox is a popular Firefox browser extension that is also available in Thunderbird. If you are trying to have an all-in-one mail application, reminders and to-do lists will help a lot.

3. Adblocker plus

Much like a browser, there are many things that can show up in your email inbox to slow down your what you or doing or even cause harm. Adblocker plus will help filter out the unsavory banner ads and other things that can be an annoyance.

4. WebMail Notifier

For those who use Yahoo or other web-based email accounts, in some cases, the email provider does not allow POP access. For this reason, you may not be able to access your email directly from your desktop mail program.

WebMail Notifier will check your web-based email account at regular intervals and let you know how many unread emails you have waiting for you.

5. Add-on compatibility reporter

Mozilla put out this extension to help you check the compatibility of your add-ons. It is nothing more than a time saver. When you install an add-on or upgrade to a newer version of Thunderbird, something may not be compatible. This handy little add-on will let you know.

6. Quick translator

Quick translator does just what the name implies. If you get an email in a language you are not familiar with, you can quickly translate the words into your native tongue. This is a very important extension for those of you who work via the web or have international clients.

7. Quick locale switcher

Do you need to work in multiple languages? Well, you know how much of an inconvenience it can be to change the input method each time you need to switch languages. Quick locale switcher allows you to quickly change your language, dictionaries and all the other stuff so you can concentrate on work.

8. Thunderbrowse

Everyday you get a link emailed to you. Instead of clicking on the link and wait for the browser to open, you can open the link inside Thunderbird. When you click on a link in an email, a new tab will open and you will be taken to the URL destination.

9. Quote collapse

This solved one of the irritations I have with long email threads. There is too much going on and the email can be distracting. This fancy little extension lets you minimize parts of the quoted email thread so you only see what you need to.

10. Send later 3

As the name implies, you will gain the ability to schedule emails. I know I use the schedule feature for a ton for things like birthdays, follow up etc. When you type up an email and it is ready to send, you can go to File -> Send Later or use the keyboard shortcut to bring up the Send later window. From this window you can choose a preset time or choose sometime more specific.

11. Nostalgy

If you process a large number of emails everyday, Nostalgy will save you a lot of time. This add-on will let you create keyboard shortcuts for actions like move a message to a folder or change folders.

12. Themes

Last but not least are themes. If you spend a lot of time using your email program, it may as well be visually appealing, right? You can choose from over 70 different themes to spruce up your inbox.

While many people will not use any add-ons for Thunderbird. It is a fantastic program right out of the box so to speak. However, using one or more of the add-ons will only extend its usefulness.

What add-on do you use to tame the email beast called your inbox?

image credit: wikimedia

Here’s a screenshot of the original vs the phishing mail:

Real notification email from Facebook

Phishing email from fake facebook address

Both the emails look almost exactly the same. Here is how you can differentiate the phishing email from the real.

1. Subject of the email – I have several facebook accounts signed up with different email address and never did I receive any email from Facebook about “notification pending“. Facebook will not email you regarding your pending notification and ask you to login to your account.

2. Reply-to email address is wrong – Did you notice that the From and Reply-to email address are the same? In most cases, the Reply-to field is “noreply@facebookmail.com“, which means you shouldn’t reply to the mail.

3. No name personalization – If you have noticed, the original email from Facebook starts off with “Hi Damien” while the malware email starts off with “Hi“.

4. Content of the email – I login to Facebook at least once everyday, so it is not correct that “You haven’t been back to Facebook recently“. In addition, I have more than 3 pending friends requests, which means the content is absolutely wrong.

5. Link not pionting to Facebook.com – The last and most obvious clue is that when hover your mouse over the link, it does not point to Facebook.com. Instead it is pointing to “buildyourvision.com”. I never knew that Facebook is related to buildyourvision…

Conclusion

It is a good thing that Gmail comes with a powerful spam filter that can weed out the bad from the good. However, in the case where the phishing mail get through your spam filter, you will have to exercise your vigilant and protect yourself from being spammed/hurt by these malware. In the event that you are not sure, do not click on any link. Open a new tab and load facebook.com manually.

Here are some useful resources:

• Easy Way to Control your Facebook Privacy Settings
• Managing Facebook’s New Privacy Options
• 4 Tools to Unscramble Your Facebook Privacy settings

Fortunately, iOS 4.0 and later releases opened the possibility to sync my notes to my email without the need to connect my iPhone to my computer with a USB cable.

This guide will walk you through in configuring IMAP and syncing your notes to your email account, in this case I will use Gmail.

First Things First

1. You”ve got to have your Gmail account before you can start doing this tutorial.

2. Your iPhone (iPod or iPad) should be running iOS 4.0 or later releases to be able to perform this guide perfectly.

How To Configure IMAP

Before you can actually sync your iPhone notes to your email, you will need to configure IMAP as it is needed.

Here are a few steps on how to configure IMAP on your iPhone.

Step 1: Enable IMAP in your Gmail account. Log into your Google email, then click on the “Settings” link located on top-right corner.

Step 2: Click on “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab. From there, you will be able to find the option to “Enable IMAP“. Don”t forget to click on “Save Changes” button for the new settings to take effect.

Step 3: Launch the “Settings” app in your iPhone, tap “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” then “Add Account“. Now, instead of tapping on “Gmail” choose “Other” below the screen.

Step 4: Tap on “Add Mail Account” to continue.

Step 5: Now you have to enter your name, email address, the password to your email, and if want you can add a description. Tap on the “Save” button on top-right corner when finish.

Step 6: You will now be asked to enter the Incoming Mail Server settings. For the Host Name, enter imap.gmail.com, the User Name is your Gmail account with @gmail.com, and the Password will be the one you are using to log into your Gmail account.

Step 7: You also have to enter the Outgoing Mail Server settings. The Host Name will smtp.gmail.com, and the rest are the same as with the Incoming Mail Server settings.

Step 8: If everything is done, tap on “Save” button. That’s just it.

How to Sync Notes With Your Email Account

The procedure above is very simple and straightforward. Once you”ve done it successfully, you are ready to syncing your notes from your iPhone to your email account.

Step 1: Launch “Settings” and tap “Mail, Contacts, Calendars“. You have to select the IMAP account you just created.

Step 2: After which, simply turn “Notes” on.

When “Notes” is turned on, it will automatically sync the notes you”ve made with your IMAP account. Furthermore, it will create a label “Notes” in your Gmail inbox labeling all of the notes synced into this category.

Alright, let’s try it out.

When you have properly configured the IMAP account and turned on the “Notes” option, you will see a new “Accounts” button in the navigation bar when you launch the Notes app. The navigation bar will look like this;

Just tap on the “Accounts” button and you will be able to see an account synced or connected with the Notes app. In this example, you can find my own account. You can tap on the account and start creating note.

All the notes you have created under your IMAP account will automatically be synced to your email account, in this case its Gmail.

That’s it. It works perfectly for me. I hope this tutorial can help you too.

Dwight

Dear Dwight, there is no need to amend the registry to set AOL webmail as the default email handler in Windows. Previously, we have reviewed MailTo.exe that can easily set Gmail as the default, but it doesn’t support AOL or any other webmail services.

To set AOL as the default email handler, GmailDefaultMaker will get the job done. (Even though its name stated “Gmail”, it does support AOL, Yahoo and Hotmail as well)

1. Download GmailDefaultMaker

2. Run the Installer.

3. When you reach the screen to choose your preferred email service, choose AOL.

4. Finish the installation.

That’s it. You have now set AOL as the default email handler in Windows.

Merry Christmas and Prosperious New Year to you too.

Followupthen is a simple web service with a brilliant concept. The site lets you set up scheduled email reminders on any of your email account’s e.g Gmail, Google Apps, Yahoo, Hotmail and so on. You can define a future date or hour in any email message and your reminder will hit the inbox on the scheduled day or time. No registrations or sign ups are required in order to use the Followupthen service.

What’s impressive about Followupthen is that you can not only send the reminders to your email, but you can also auto forward them to any other recipient of your choice. Hence, you can automatically ping a particular email address at a future date, which is great!

Getting Started With Followupthen

Following are the steps involved to start setting up scheduled email reminders using the Followupthen service:

1. Open your email inbox and compose a new email message. Type “1minute@followupthen” in the “To:” field and add any text as the subject line or in the body of the message.

2. Hit “Send” and wait for a minute. You will soon receive an invitation email from Followupthen which looks like the following:

3. Click the confirmation link and fill up a captcha on the next page to confirm your account. Next, select your local time zone from the drop down selection box, as shown below:

It’s very important to select the correct timezone setting, otherwise your scheduled reminders won’t reach your email inbox on proper time.

All done, you have successfully set up your Followupthen account.

The Reminder Syntax Of Followupthen

When you want to set up an email reminder, compose a new email message and specify the time interval in the “To:” field. Then enter a subject line, a message body and send it to time-interval@followupthen.com.

For example: Let’s say you want to get the reminder email exactly at 8 pm tomorrow evening. In that case, you have to use the following format, as illustrated in the image below:

Here are the most common time interval syntax which can be used with Followupthen:

• 2pm@followupthen.com – This will send a reminder at 2pm (local time). If  you are setting the reminder after 2pm today, you will get the reminder tomorrow.
• 3amtomorrow@followupthen.com – This will send the email reminder at 3am tomorrow.
• 3minutes@followupthen.com – This format can be very useful when you want to set up quick “day specific” reminders. The reminder email will hit your inbox exactly after 3 minutes.
• 7days@followupthen.com – This format can be used to get the reminder email after a certain number of days.
• friday@followupthen.com – This is again a very handy format which can be used to set up email reminders for specific weekdays. The reminder email will hit your inbox in upcoming Friday. If by coincidence, the current day of the week also comes out to be Friday, you will get the reminder exactly on the next Friday.
• Jul15@followupthen.com – This format can be used to set up email reminders for a specific date. Very useful when you want to remember a specific event, a date or may be something else.

You can visit the Followupthen documentation page to learn more on other reminder formats.

Using the CC: Field With Followupthen: Say you just received an email from one of your clients and want to follow up with him 3 days later. When you have composed a reply to the client’s email, add a “CC:” field and forward it to 3days@followupthen.com

Then send the reply as usual. After 3 days, both you and your client will get the email reminder which will contain the earlier message threads. This is really a very easy way to automatically follow up important messages, or to set up email reminders for multiple people who work in a team.

Have you used any email reminder service ? What technique do you use to automatically follow up on important conversations ? Please share your ideas in the comments section.

Instead of getting deeper and deeper into newsletter hell, you can use Unsubscribe.com to help reclaim your inbox. I am really surprised there aren’t more services like this readily available or even built into email programs.

What Unsubscribe works with

Unsubscribe works with many of the major web mail providers and a few desktop clients. I would have guessed there may be an Outlook plugin, but it also works with Apple’s Mail and Thunderbird too.

Once you have your account all set up, you will need to download a plugin for your mail application or your browser. The extension adds a tab in your inbox window.

I used the Firefox add-on and a Yahoo account for this example. You will need to grant Unsubscribe access to your web based email account. You will be asked the first time you use the application.

How to Unsubscribe

In the Yahoo example, there are three ways to unsubscribe from newsletters.

• Open the newsletter then press the Unsubscribe button.

• Check the box to the left of the message and press the Unsubscribe button.
• Forward the message to mail@unsubscribe.com.

All of these will have the exact outcome.

Desktop email clients

If you use Outlook, there is a plug-in you can install. The way it works is very similar to the web mail button. There are three different plug-ins. Make sure you get the correct one for your Version of Outlook.

If you use another desktop mail client, there aren’t any add-ons for them. You will need to forward the emails to mail@unsubscribe.com.

Web mail

If you use an email service like Live or still have an AOL email account, you will need to use the forwarding option as well. I know it isn’t as convenient as a browser button, but there are advantages to the forwarding option.

The forwarding option offers something the plugins do not have: access from anywhere. If you are at the airport or taking the train to work, you can go through your emails from your mobile phone.

This option will also work great from a shared computer.

Limitations

The limitation to the free account is you can only unsubscribe from five unwanted mailing lists a month. If you are in deep, it may take a while to eliminate all of your email overload. It will do the job though.

If you want eliminate them all in one sitting, there is a paid version with a yearly fee.

Conclusion

When it comes to mailing lists, some people uses temporary email address to sign up for the deal, but if you have innocently gave your personal email address out, this Unsubscribe plugin will definitely come in handy. I am only wondering why this has not been around till now. It would be a great thing to have built into a web based email. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see some one like Google or Microsoft buy a company like this and add it to their email offerings.

What are your tips for eliminating email clutter?

What if you could have help? There is an application out there that will go through your inbox and sort out known email marketing lists and social media emails. OtherInbox helps solve this dilemma.

What OtherInbox does

When you first grant OtherInbox access to your Gmail inbox, it analyzes all of the senders. Many of them are “known” by the system and can be categorized. Social sites, credit cards, entertainment sites like Hulu and Boxee are just a few it filters.

Getting started

To get started, go to OIB.com. You will see a spot to choose Gmail (and Google apps), Yahoo or Other. Other isn’t available, they will notify you when other services are available. I had great success with both Gmail and Google Apps. I couldn’t get Yahoo to work.

Once you sign into and grant access to your Gmail account, OtherInbox will start to scan your inbox. If you have a lot of emails saved, this process can take a while. The good thing is, you don’t need to be logged in to either your email or OtherInbox for it to do its thing.

Senders

As OtherInbox sifts through the mess you have left in your inbox, it will look at all of the senders. If one of the senders is not in the known database, you can add it. All you need to do to add a new sender to be filtered is add it to the OIB label. From that point forward, the new sender will be filtered into the appropriate category.

Social sharing

In the settings, you can input your Twitter and Facebook login credentials. Doing this will let you post your purchases to your social network.

Shipment tracking

This is a feature I have not seen too much of. OtherInbox will add your package shipping dates to your Google calendar. You simply import the calendar file to your Google calendar and it will be updated when new emails arrive with a delivery date.

OIB.me

This is a neat feature. OIB.me is a review site for mailing lists. If you are thinking of joining a mailing list, you can see what others think of it. Do they send too many emails, are there lots of coupons, etc.

Conclusion

As you can see, OtherInbox is a bit more than an inbox manager. It simplifies things. Not only can it save time, you will also feel less out of control when you look at your email.

During the time I was setting up OtherInbox, I tried the Help link and searched around other parts of the site. There was a bit of a struggle to get information in the help section. Everything seemed to point to the OIB.me page. While helpful, it didn’t answer basic how to use OtherInbox questions.

What would your ideal email organizer do for you and what would you want to still do yourself?

One of the problems with Emails is the ability to share it publicly or to share it with strangers who are not in your contact list. Say you are a web developer and received a project deal, which you want to forward to your team members. You can either add a Cc or forward it to the group of people. But the problem here is the email message is not public and only those people who have received a forwarded copy can read it.

There are some workarounds in these situations. You may copy the entire email message and publish it as a webpage. Then shorten the URL and share it on your website, blog or social profiles. Another alternative would be to use Cc:everybody – a web service which allows you to share email messages publicly.

How Cc:Everybody Works

When you create a new account with Cc:Everybody, you will get a public email address e.g “yourusername@Cc:Everybody.com“. When other people send messages to this public email address, a copy of the message will be forwarded to your real email address – the one which you used to sign up for Cc:Everybody.

When you want to share an email publicly with anyone, just send a reply to the email message at yourusername@Cc:Everybody.com. That’s it – your message will be published as a publicly accessible webpage which anyone can view. You can further share the webpage on your social profiles e.g Facebook, Twitter and so on.

When readers read your public email, they can respond to it and the message will be sent to your original email account. You post a reply and your reply is again made public at your Cc:Everybody.com profile page. All published emails will be available on http://cceverybody.com/username- this is your public inbox.

Setting Up Your Cc:Everybody Public Email Inbox

1. First, head over to the Cc:everybody and sign up for a new account. Be sure to associate your primary email address where you receive important emails.

2. You will receive a confirmation link to your email address. Click that to activate your account.

3. Once your account is activated, you will get a public email inbox. Here is how it looks:

4. Right after this, you will receive a demo email from the Cc:everybody team. Simply send a reply and your message will be published on your Cc:everybody  mailbox page.

5. Head over to your Cc:everybody profile and you will see the email conversation as a public webpage. Here is how it looks:

6. Now that you have familiarized yourself with the working of Cc:everybody, go to the settings page and  customize your settings. You can change your account password, toggle approving comments and replies, connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts to auto publish replies and more.

Working With Cc:Everybody and Sharing Email Conversations

Starting a new conversation:

If you want to start a new public conversation with anyone, click the “New Conversation” link at the sidebar. This will open a small WYSIWYG editor, where you can compose your message, add images, links and publish it. The message can also be forwarded to individual email address(s) and the discussion will be sent in your Cc:Everybody profile page. Here is an example:

Alternatively, you can send a new email to “postoffice@cceverybody.com” and the message will be published at your Cc:everybody profile.

Now this is very useful because your friends who have not joined Facebook or Twitter yet, can take part in the conversation. They don’t have to sign up or register for a new account. All they have to do is head over to the conversation page and submit a new comment using the Discus comment box.

Request User’s to Send you a Direct Message

If you want other users to email you without knowing your email address, Cc:Everybody is just as capable of acting as an email alias. When user’s go to your Cc:Everybody profile page, they can send a direct message to your original email address. This is useful, because the email address is not shared with unknown people and you can still receive a reply from them.

Adding Contacts, Managing Labels, RSS Feeds and Deleting previous Threads

You can create a contact list in your Cc:everybody inbox. This contact list is accessible only to you and not made public, unlike the email conversations.

Individual messages can be labelled for quick search and you can delete previous messages to keep your public inbox in healthy shape. Other user’s can subscribe to the RSS feed of your public emails and get updates directly from their feed reader.

Overall, I am really impressed with the concept and implementation of a public inbox. Do let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Why would I want to try Sparrow?

The answer is simple. Literally. The best part about and main selling point of Sparrow is the interface, which definitely seems to be inspired by the uber-popular Tweetie for Mac. With 4 buttons along the top for Composition, Reply, Archiving, and Deleting, and 5 along the left side for Inbox, Starred, Sent Mail, Drafts, and Trash, its basically a graphical representation of the Gmail inbox. This is super nice for a couple of reasons.

First, generally speaking, a simple, clean interface is a beautiful interface. With no clutter to speak of, it keeps your email looking nice. The second reason is that while its lacking some things, its got some nice extras. For instance, Sparrow has native Growl integration, meaning you get great, customizable pop-up alerts to your desktop, which of course Gmail on the web can’t do. One more positive for the interface is that it uses very little in the way of system resources, so its no problem to keep it running in the background.

Want to try it? Here’s how.

Download and installation, as well as setup, are super easy.  Head over to sparrowmailapp.com and click download beta. (Yes, beta, and we’ll come back to that soon). Once it is downloaded, the install is standard. When you start Sparrow for the first time, it will prompt you to set up your Gmail account. This is fantastic. Because Sparrow works exclusively with Gmail, all you do is enter your Gmail User name and Password, as well as your Name as you want it displayed.  Sparrow does the rest. It will sync your Inbox, Starred, Sent, and Drafts automatically, and then you can add as many accounts as you want from the File menu in your Menu bar. You can now access Sparrow super easily by clicking the envelope in the menu bar, or of course clicking it in the dock.

The Downsides

Let’s face it, no application, program, app, or dev is perfect, and this includes Sparrow. Here are the major problems to be concerned with. First of all, the app is in beta. This means you’re basically testing the app for the developers. While this is certainly something to keep in mind, also keep in mind that this is a super stable release. Really. I’ve been testing it for a couple weeks and have had minimal problems. Also remember though, that you will almost definitely find a bug at some point, so consider yourself warned!

The second, and much bigger problem with the app, is that is has no label support! Come on guys, this is Gmail! We need labels! Now don’t get me wrong, as I just mentioned, this is beta, and support could be added at any time, but I fully expect labels in a Gmail exclusive app, so here’s hoping!

What do you guys think of Sparrow? Do you prefer Gmail in your browser? Or something else? Tell me in the comments, and maybe that will be the focus of my next post!

Download Sparrow.

While there is no denying I am a big user of Google’s offering, including Gmail, it never hurts to keep an eye open for what else is available. Windows Live mail (Hotmail) has added a staggering amount of upgrades since I had a Hotmail account. Below are some of the things you may not know Hotmail can do.

1. Folders

Folders are the key to keeping your email inbox clear. Whether you move the messages to folders manually or you use other options listed below, having things sorted and organized will only help you find things later on.

The key to using folders is to make a system that works for you.

2. Sweep

This feature is great for those of us who let our inbox go from time to time. Sweeping allows you to select a message and move all of the messages from this sender to a specific folder.

The first use that comes to mind is all of those damned social site updates. If you use Live for the contact email for Facebook, you probably have a lot of notification emails. You can simply check the box by one of them and click on Sweep.

You will be shown the sender’s email address and asked where to move all of the emails to. Select the folder and voila… you have made a dent into the 1000 emails in your inbox.

3. Rules

Once you get your inbox whittled down, you can start making rules for incoming emails to abide by. You can select the a set of variables for any incoming message to be identified. For example, you can use email address, subject, if it has attachments, etc.

After you define which emails need to be sorted, set the destination folder, where they will be forwarded or even to just delete them.

4. Use Hotmail as your main email hub

If you are like may people, you have more than one email address. You can have Hotmail check the inbox of your other email address as if you were using Mozilla Thunderbird, Apple Mail or Outlook.

Having all of your emails going to one spot helps relieve the dread you feel when it is time to check your email. You can tackle all of them in one spot. Because you are using folders and rules, you can tackle your personal emails then your work emails. Then you can read some of those email newsletters you signed up for.

5. Search

Most email sites and apps have a way to search for archived emails. Windows Live has given you a few preset searches: photos, docs or shipping updates. All of these searches are self explanatory, and commonly used. The one I found useful was the shipping updates; I hadn’t seen that before.

6. Creating a document

This is a feature which can come in handy from time to time. You are given access to Office online. You can create and edit Docs, Excel, PPT or OneNote items. If you use public or many different computers, this is a great feature.

You can now be sure that you are able to open and edit the files you were emailed no matter where the computer you are accessing your email on.

Conclusion

Out of the big three (Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail), I would have to say Hotmail has really made some of the greatest strides towards improving their email offerings in the recent past. It would be a great option for anyone looking for an easy to manage, all-in-one email solution. Sign up for a Windows Live email account and play around with some of the features to see if it works for you.

What features would make you change your email provider?