Setting Up Remote Gmail Access

To setup access to Gmail from within Kmail, follow these steps:

1. Login to your Gmail account

2. In the top right corner, click the settings gear icon and then click “Mail Settings”.

3. Click “Forwarding and POP/IMAP”.

4. To enable POP, select either “enable POP for all mail” or “enable POP for mail that arrives from now on”.

5. Choose an option for “when messages are accessed with POP”.

6. To enable IMAP, select “Enable IMAP”. Other settings are optional.

Now, you will need to configure your Kmail client:

1. Start Kmail and go to “Settings -> Configure Kmail”

2. Click the “Accounts” button

3. In the Receiving tab, click “Add…”

4. At this point, you will need to decide whether you want to use IMAP or POP (This example will assume you chose POP).

5. In the “General” tab, enter a name you will use to recognize this account.

6. For “Incoming mail server” type: pop.gmail.com (for IMAP, choose imap.gmail.com)

7. For “Username” enter your complete email address: soandso@maketecheasier.com

8. Enter your password.

9. Click the “Advanced” tab and select “Leave fetched messages on the server”.

10. In the “Connection Settings” section, select “SSL/TLS” encryption.

11. Click “OK”

Now click the “Sending” tab and follow these steps:

1. Click “Add…”

2. Select “SMTP” and click “Create and Configure”

3. For “Outgoing mail server” type smtp.gmail.com

4. Check the box next to “Server requires authentication”.

5. For “Login” type your full email address

6. Enter your password

7. If you want, select “store SMTP password” so that you do not have to enter it each time before you send.

Disclaimer: If you use IMAP or have selected to download all of your previous Gmail messages with POP (perhaps as a backup measure), please be advised that it will download everything. That means if you have been in the habit of not deleting any Gmail message, you could spend the next few hours downloading your thousands of emails.

Simplicity and Security

Kmail offers many email features, such as complex templates, that Gmail cannot. Moreover, you can access your messages offline and have full integration with other KDE apps. By keeping your message on your Gmail account as well, you can have the best of both worlds, accessing your Gmail through Kmail on your computer and still using web-based Gmail when you go mobile.

Enabling Gadgets

On a default Gmail account, Gadgets will be disabled. To enable it first select “Settings” from the Gmail home page after you have logged in.

This opens up Gmail’s settings page, here select “Labs“.

Finally, check the enable box alongside the “Add any gadget by URL” box and then select “Save Changes“.

To add a gadget, head over to the “Gadgets” tab and paste the URL of the gadget into the box.

Now let us add some fun and useful third-party gadgets.

1. TwitterGadget

Twitter users can be fanatical about keeping up with their tweets. In this respect the TwitterGadget is ideal because it takes up little space and simply displays the latest tweets from those you follow.

Gadget URL: http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget_gmail.xml

2. Facebook

If you prefer Facebook, then be sure to add the gBook Facebook gadget which helps you keep track of all the status updates and notifications.

Gadget URL: http://www.francesco-castaldo.com/fb-gadget/gBook.xml

3. Remember the Milk

Remember the Milk is a useful web service to help keep your life in order. There are mobile and desktop apps and now you can even add a RTM gadget to Gmail itself to ensure you don’t miss an important appointment.

The gadget allows you to add tasks, view your upcoming tasks, and delete completed tasks.

Gadget URL: http://www.rememberthemilk.com/services/modules/gmail/rtm.xml

4. Wikipedia Search

Wikipedia holds the collective knowledge of virtually every person on the internet and now you can tap this database of information straight from Gmail by adding the Official Wikipedia Gadget.

Gadget URL: http://www.google.com/ig/modules/wikipedia.xml

5. Google Map Search

I have lost count of the number of times I have received an email from someone with an address that I need to look-up on Google Maps. With the Google Map Search gadget you do not have to navigate away from Gmail when doing your location search.

The gadget is a very basic version of Maps, lacking some of its newer features.

Gadget URL: www.google.com/uds/modules/elements/localsearch/localsearch.xml

6. Bit.ly URL Shortener

At times some of the links friends share with us become too unwieldy to forward. In these cases simply shorten the link using the Bit.ly URL shortener gadget.

Gadget URL: http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/107368512201818821991/bitly-shortener.xml

7. Calculator

No-one really has a physical calculator on their person, but it is often necessary to resort to one when large figures are involved. The Calculator gadget is a simple one that gets the job done.

Gadget URL: http://www.poturi.net/gadgets/calc/calc.xml

Conclusion

There are hundreds of different gadgets around the web. Some web services (such as Remember the Milk) have created their own and supply you with a URL. If you want other gadgets have a look at the iGoogle gadgets directory. To add a gadget from the iGoogle gadgets directory navigate to a gadget of your choice and copy everything after the “url=” tag in the address bar. For example, the Official Wikipedia Gadget for iGoogle has the following URL:

http://www.google.com/ig/directory?type=gadgets&url=www.google.com/ig/modules/wikipedia.xml

To add this gadget to Gmail simply copy the portion after “url=”, i.e.:

www.google.com/ig/modules/wikipedia.xml

And paste it into the gadget URL box in Gmail.

Image credit: Claude

Even though there are is a lot written about different ways to use Google’s web-based email, it is ever evolving and always something to talk about. Plus, everyone has different ways of using the features. This makes for endless possibilities for you to turn it into your ultimate email program.

Priority inbox

I have to admit, I was not a fan of the priority inbox at first. The problem came from me always feeling like I was missing emails. The truth was, Google was doing its best to figure out what was important to me. After a good bit of training, it sorts things beautifully.

How it works is, it looks to see who you converse with via email. It also watches to see what you open and what you trash without opening. From this point, it’s kind of guesses. You can help Google out by marking emails as important or not important. After a while your Priority inbox will be scary accurate.

I use this as my inbox on my Android. It helps me get what is important while mobile and lets the other stuff wait till I am in front of the computer.

Multiple Inboxes

If you need to keep track of multiple email accounts, there are a couple ways to make it easier. One of those ways is to use the Gmail Lab feature Multiple Inboxes. In the article, you are shown how to add different addresses as separate inboxes. You can also do the same thing using Operators for labels or a specific incoming email address or anything else you can think of.

This is done by adding is:pending as the search query box. This will pull of the emails you have labeled as Pending into an inbox off to the side of your main inbox.

Canned responses

Canned responses are like out of the office replies. The beauty of them is you can have a bunch of canned responses, not just one. You can type up a whole FAQ email for a product you are selling. Use this canned response in conjunction with a Gmail filter and you may save a lot of repetitive emails.

You can use them as an email template, a FAQ reply, or something you can modify easily like a cover letter for sending your resume. Use your imagination and I am sure you can come up with a 101 uses for canned responses.

Message Sneak Peek

*If you are using Multiple inboxes, this feature does not operate as intended.
By right clicking on a message in your inbox, you will be able to preview the message without opening it. This is great for when you are scanning your email or an important message.

Nested Labels

If you are one that needs to use sub-folders, Nested labels is what you are looking for. Once the Lab feature is enabled, you can create sub-folders and sub-sub-folders and even sub-sub-sub-folders if you’d like.

Click on the box to the right of a label and look for Add sublabel to create a new nested label.

Send & Archive

If you are replying to a message that you have already labeled and archived, you can type up your reply and press the Send and archive button if you have this Lab enabled. By sending an email this way instead of simply pressing send, you will save yourself a step or two by not needing to go back and file away the email thread again.

Background Send

Background Send is a newer Lab that I just found. It didn’t occur to me how much time I was spending waiting for an email to send. This Lab feature lets you move on to the next task at hand while the email sends in the background. Simple yet very cool.

Custom keyboard shortcuts

If you use Gmail a lot, it may be a good idea to set up some custom keyboard shortcuts to help you make repetitive tasks a little easier. There are a lot of them in the list that can offer a lot of time saving. One of my favorite is “Shift-t” which add the conversation to Tasks. I can easily reference the email that spawned the task.

If you would prefer to have it be Shift-a, you can change it to be easier for you to remember. Don’t try to remember too many new shortcuts at one time or you may get overwhelmed and abandon them all together.

Conclusion

There is no right or wrong combination of Lab features,all that matters is how it works for you. NO matter how many productivity techniques you add to your day, it all comes down to focus. Try a few of these and let us know what you think.

Tell us how you handle the huge pile of emails you get everyday in the comments below.

image Kinologik

While you are working on your computer, it is a big inconvenience to keep checking your phone for text messages and missed calls. Even if you have it on silent, you can feel like you are missing out on something important.

To remedy this, here are a couple of ways to view notifications you may normally only see on your phone.

Android phone notifier

The main reason to use Android phone notifier is so you can stay focused on your task at hand and not worry about missing an important call or text message. You can silence your phone or leave it in the other room while you work so you will not be tempted to check your messages every 5 minutes.

This is a 2 part application. You will need to install this on both your Android device and your computer. Here are those links:

Remote Notifier desktop download link

Remote Notifier phone application download link

Remote Notifier Android Market link

The easiest way to connect is Wi-Fi, which is what I  used for this demonstration. The WI-Fi setting setting on your Android phone can be accessed in the Wireless & networks tab in your settings menu.

If you keep your WI-Fi turned off to conserve battery life and do not want to turn it on when you get home, there is an option to have Remote Notifier turn on your Wi-Fi to send the notification when there is one to send.

Once you have both parts of the application installed, you will need to pair the 2 devices. You will need to make sure both your computer and your Android phone are connected to the same WI-Fi network.

There is an option in the settings on the phone to send a test notification or a PING to the computer.

In the settings, you can choose which notifications you want. You can choose notifications from text messages, phone calls, MMS (picture messages), battery warnings, voice mails and any other 3rd party app that supports this application.

The pop-up appears as a Windows-like system notification.

Google Talk messenger plug-in

Another way to get some of the notifications that would normally show up on your phone is to use a Google Voice plug-in for your browsers. This will display and potentially let you answer the call or reply to the SMS right from your computer.

I personally use the Google Talk messenger a lot these days. It offers video and audio chat options right from Gmail. When someone sends me a SMS or calls my Google Voice number, there is a pop-up on the computer screen. This means I can keep working while I am talking to someone.

Depending on what you do for work or how easily distracted you may be, having pop-ups like these may help you greatly focus on what the task at hand versus wondering is you missed something important.

What other options are there for receiving phone notifications on your computer?

1. Boomerang

Boomerang allows you to schedule your emails to be sent at a particular time. It is a great tool for busy people who like to plan ahead of their schedule. For example, if you have an email that need to be sent on Monday morning 6am, you can write the email on Friday night (just before you leave for the weekend) and schedule it with Boomerang to deliver on Monday morning.

2. CloudMagic

CloudMagic is a search extension that can search your mails faster than Gmail itself. On top of that, it allows you to preview and interact with the search results without requiring you to leave your current mail. While composing a mail, you can search for a file (with CloudMagic) in your Google docs and drag the documents from the preview window to the mail to attach it as an attachment. Of all the Gmail apps I have seen, this has to be the coolest.

3. OtherInbox

OtherInbox is an organizer for your Gmail account. Once installed, it will scan your Gmail inbox and sort your emails to various categories (via label). It also has an “unsubscribe” category where all mails placed in it will be automatically unsubscribed. Even if the unsubscribe link does not work, you can be sure that emails from this sender will not appear in your inbox again.

4. Find Big Mail

Find Big Mail helps you to identify the big mails that are taking up tons of storage space. It scans your inbox and sort the emails with file attachments into various folders. Attachment with file size less than 500KB are labelled as “My Big Mail” while bigger than 2MB are labelled as “My Ultra Big Mail”. You can then switch to those folders and delete those big emails to free up storage space.

5. ActiveInbox

ActiveInbox allows you to project manage right within your inbox. You can turn emails into prioritized tasks, set deadline for projects and set reminder for to-do list.

6. Taskforce

Taskforce is a simple app that allows you to convert your emails into tasks and manage them right within your Gmail.

7. AwayFind

AwayFind is an interesting app aimed to bring you away from your inbox without missing the important mails. Instead of checking your inbox all the time, when you receive an urgent message, AwayFind will notify you via your mobile device, a voice call, IM, or even delegate the message to someone you specify.

8. Greplin

Greplin allows you to search your emails without having to login to your Gmail. Other than Gmail, it also supports Google Docs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Evernote and many more applications. All you need to do is to link up all your accounts with Greplin and you will be able to search them all in one place.

9. SaneBox

SaneBox is functionally similar to OtherInbox, except that it is more aggressive in its approach to achieve zero inbox. It scans your inbox and leaves only the important emails in your inbox. The rest are then sent to the @SaneLater folder where you can read it when you are free. If you have a whole bunch of unread emails, it can instantly reduce that number by half.

10. Emailga.me

Do you need more motivation to clear your emails? The developers at Baydin (the same developers behind Boomerang) created a game for Gmail where you can play while clearing your email. The rule is simple. Clear your emails and you will receive points. The faster you clear, the higher point you will receive. The higher points you have, the higher is your ranking in the leaderboard.

11. Rapportive

Rapportive takes the sender’s email address and performs a search on various social networks. It then displays the sender’s info on the sidebar (the place where Google Ads are shown) so you know who you are dealing with.

What other apps do you use to enhance your Gmail experience?

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.

Here to tidy up that situation and provide a neater way of using those Google service is a tool called “Integrated Gmail”.

Introduction

Integrated Gmail (IG) is a browser add-on for Mozilla Firefox. The add-on supports Firefox versions 3.0 onwards. The function of IG is to provide all the Google applications under one interface and make them accessible through Gmail. Thus all you have to do is sign into your Gmail account in Firefox; other services will be opened within Gmail without opening new browser tabs.

Usage

After installing the add-on and restarting Firefox, if you visit your Gmail account you will see something similar to the image below.

Instead of the Gmail interface automatically loading up on the right, you will links to your Inbox, Reader, and Calendar. The Inbox option will display your Gmail inbox in the regular manner. Clicking on the Reader or Calendar links however will open the respective application right there, instead of opening them up in new tabs. For example here is how the Calendar application will look like when its link is clicked.

You can use applications opened under Gmail in the same manner as you would otherwise use them. Minimization links to the right of each application lets you easily expand and collapse an app to reduce the clutter.

Modification and Customization

By default IG integrates only Reader and Calendar with Gmail. Other Google applications can also be added to this list of integration by accessing the add-on’s options. To add other applications click on the ‘Integrated Gmail’ option under the ‘Tools’ menu.

This action will open the add-on’s options.

The ‘Add’ and ‘Remove’ buttons on the right is where you can add /remove more applications. The add button presents the list of all Google apps that can be added to the Gmail integration list.

The bottom arrow buttons can be used to reposition the application shortcuts.

Other settings of the add-on such as collapsible headers and showing favicons can be controlled through the options present in the right pane.

To change application-specific settings, just click on an application to the left and change its respective settings on the right.

Conclusion

Integrated Gmail will prove to be valuable to all Gmail accountholders who use Mozilla Firefox. By proving easy shortcuts to other Google applicaitons within Gmail, this brilliant add-on saves you a ton of time. Give the tool a try and let us know what you think in the comments.

Get Integrated Gmail from here and check out its official website here.

Setup 2-Step Verification

1. Navigate to your Google settings page.

2. Click on “Using 2-step verification”. This is under the Security section of the Personal Settings column.

3. Enter your Google Account password.

4. Confirm that you would like to use the 2-step verification process. This is an important step and you must read it carefully before carrying on with the rest of the process.

Essentially, the 2-step verification process requires you to enter two pieces of information before you can access your account. Firstly, you must enter your standard Google password. Secondly, a verification code will be sent to your phone which you must also enter.

Setting up 2-step verification means that hackers will be unable to access your account if they only have your password or phone. However, it also means that you would always need to have your phone at hand whenever you want to login to your Google Account.

5. The first step in setting up 2-step verification requires you to enter the model of your phone. Since I have an Android-based smartphone I select “Android“.

6. Next, you must download and install the Google Authenticator app from the Android Market. When you have downloaded and installed the app click Next.

7. Now you are given two options to configure Google Authenticator.

Firstly, you can simply use your phone to scan the QR code displayed on screen.

To do this, click on “Scan account barcode” in the Google Authenticator app on your Android phone, and hold the phone up to the barcode displayed in your browser.

If for some reason you are unable to do this, select  “Manually add account” in the Google Authenticator app. Next, you will be prompted to enter you full email address and your secret “key“.

The secret key can be obtained from the page where you choose your phone model.

Finally, select “Time-based” key and hit “Save“.

Whichever way you choose to use to add your account a verification code will appear on your Android phone in the Google Authenticator app.

Take note of this number and hit Next in your browser.

8. On the next page enter the verification code from above. Once the code is verified and the device is configured, click Next.

9. Your phone is now configured. But, wait! What happens if your phone is lost or stolen? In order to prepare for this contingency Google allows you to add backup options for receiving verification codes. Click Next to set up these backup options.

The first backup option gives you a set of printable codes that can be substituted for the verification code. These ought to be printed and stored in a safe location. Click Next once you have printed out the codes.

Secondly, you can add a mobile or landline number of a trusted friend. Test this number to ensure that the verification code can be received on this device. Click Next once you have configured the phone number.

10. Finally, hit “Turn on 2-step verification” to activate this feature.

Now, whenever you sign into a Google service (such as Gmail) you will be prompted to enter a verification code. You must use the Google Authenticator app on your Android phone to obtain a verification code (NB: the code changes every few seconds). You can also ensure that the device you are currently using remembers the verification for the next 30 days.

Setup Application-Specific Passwords

2-Step verification will now work with your Google Account, however some applications will require a specific password as they do not support the verification code feature. Do the following to set up application-specific passwords:

1. After signing in for the first time you will be informed that you must create application specific passwords to ensure these work with the 2-step verification process. Click “Create passwords” to proceed.

2. On the next page you will see a list of apps you have given access to your account. Below, you can name the app you wish to create a new app specific password for.

3. Hit “Generate password” to see your newly created password.

4. You must now enter this password into that specific app before it works with your Google Account.

De-Activating 2-Step Verification

To de-active 2-step verification, simply navigate to the 2-step verification management page and select “Turn off 2-step verification…“.

Installation

To install in Ubuntu, add the following repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chuchiperriman/cloudsn

Update and install it:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cloudsn

Once it is installed, you can activate it via “Applications -> Internet -> Cloud Services Notification“.

Usage

When you first start CloudSN, you should see a plain window (as the image below) with no item in the list.

To add item to the notification list, click on the “New” button. From here, you can choose between Gmail, Google Reader, POP 3, IMAP, Twitter, Identi.ca and RSS feed.

If you are adding Gmail, you can even configure it to check only a particular label. This is a very useful feature. We’ll go into more detail on this later. If you leave the label field blank, it will notify you of all incoming mails.

Once you have added your services, you should start seeing the notification.

To add custom RSS feed to the notification list, you might see an error message like this:

The reason is because the module “python-feedparser” is not installed in your system. To fix it, just install the module via Ubuntu Software Center, or the command:

sudo apt-get install python-feedparser

Restart CloudSN. You should be able to add custom RSS feed now.

Configuration

The configuration option is available at “Edit-> Preferences“. From here, you can configure the interval to check for update and the maximum notifications it should show. You can also select between the Indicator Applet or Status icon. For your info, the Indicator Applet will combine with the messaging applet. This is useful if you wish to save space on your taskbar.

Another useful configuration option is the ability to use Gnome keyring to store your account password. Of course you can also choose to store your password in plain test, but that will make it less secure. If anyone has access to your computer, he/she will be able to view your email password.

How to receive Facebook update via CloudSN

Facebook is not in the list of services supported by CloudSN, but you can easily create a workaround with Gmail label.

Here’s what you need to do;

1. Log into your Facebook account and go to your Account settings. Configure it to send a notification email to your Gmail whenever there is an update (comments, tags, status update, whatever)

2. In your Gmail, go to “Settings -> Filter“. Create a new filter to apply all emails from Facebook.com to the label “facebook” (or whatever label you like).

3. In CloudSN, create a new notification item with Gmail, and set the label to “facebook”.

Now, whenever you receive a Facebook email, you will be notified via CloudSN. This may not be the best method, but at least it works. You can also use this workaround to set notification for various services not supported by CloudSN.

We’ve discussed labs a few times before, and if you’re not familiar with it, it’s well worth checking out.

When Labs is open, search or scroll until you find Unread message icon, and enable it.

Sometimes, it’s the small things that make all the difference. Enjoy!

Minimalist Gmail is a Google Chrome extension that gives you the power to strip your Gmail to the bare minimum (if you want to) and customize it to your liking. It is a powerful tool that allows you to change almost every single aspect (of the looks, not the functionality) of Gmail.

Let’s take a deeper look.

First, install Minimalist Gmail from the Chrome extension page.

Once installed, open its options page to view of series of customization options. There are mainly 8 areas where you can configure: General, Notification, Google Bar, Header, Main, Navigation, Chat and Footer.

General – disable the Gmail options icon and change the font and background color of all the buttons.

Notification – Enable favicon unread counter and desktop notification. it can support Google Apps domain as well.

Google Bar – Google bar is the top most bar of Gmail, the place that contains link to your various Google accounts. Here, you can configure whether to show the Google bar and set custom links to appear. For example, if you visit Youtube more often than Google Reader, you can replace the Reader link with your Youtube link. You are not restricted to Google-only sites. You can even change the link to point to an external site.

Header – Fancy your own logo in place of the Gmail logo? Here is where you can change the logo and enable/disable the search field.

Main – The Main section is related to the main message area. You can get it to highlight the starred email and change the background color when hovering over the messages. You can also disable the various icons (starred, attachment etc) and change the behavior of the toolbar. The best part is, you can turn off the ads at the sidebar and the bottom of the page.

Navigation – Control what appears on the sidebar.

Chat – show/hide the chat box

Footer – Toggle on/off the footer links. Most of the stuff are things you won’t take a second look, so you might want to turn them all off.

Here is the screenshot of the before and after Minimalist Gmail customization.

Before:

After

The best part about Minimalist Gmail is that it shows a preview window when you hover over the option. This allows you to see the portion of the site that you are changing before you make any changes. It also saves you the trouble to keep refreshing the browser to see the changes.

Wrapping up

While there are several extensions and userscripts for Gmail, minimalist Gmail seems to be the best out there with plenty of customization options. Even if you are not into minimalism, you still can use it to improve your user experience in Gmail. One caveat though, it is currently only available for Google Chrome. Firefox, IE, Safari and Opera users, sorry, you have no luck here.

Thanks to Jeff Studenski for the tips.

Minimalist Gmail

These days, most people use a variety of electronic devices every day – computers, smartphones, iPads – you name it. I think the only person left who only uses one computer is my mum.

We all know how difficult it is to keep your information up to date and readily available when we need it. If you’re anything like me, you don’t want to have to remember to update your USB key before you leave the office or email yourself from your work email address to your personal email address… most often you don’t even know what you will need.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could have all your files, bookmarks, emails, passwords, contacts and calendar up to date, no matter where you are or which computer or device you are using? Here is the complete guide to synchronizing your digital life. Set it up once and then forget about it, it’s all automatic! It will take a bit of time to get it organised up front, but it will save you so much time from then on.

First of all we need to answer the question: what are the building blocks that make up your digital life?

I have narrowed it down to:

1. Documents
2. Email
3. Contacts and Calendar
4. Internet Bookmarks
5. Passwords

1. Synchronize Documents

You want to create a document on your office computer, save it before you go home, and then edit it on your home computer at 3am in the morning when you have had that brilliant brain wave.

You also want to be able to get that missing document while you are visiting a client – even if you didn’t bring your computer.

How you do it

There are a number of different file synchronization options available. Dropbox is my preferred choice. It has been discussed at length here, so I will keep it short.

You install a small program on your computer. A new folder is created and everything you place in this folder is automatically synchronized with every other device you own. And you can also access your files from an internet browser by logging on to the Dropbox site.

It is dead easy to use! You can even share folders with other people, so there’s no need to keep emailing each other different versions of a document.

Where to get it & price:

Go to www.dropbox.com and sign up.

You get the first 2GB for free. 50 GB is $9.99/month, 100 GB is $19.99/month.

2. Synchronize Email

Email is here to stay (just ask the Google Wave people). It is still the essential means of communication. And that will not change in the near future.

How you do it

IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is the key here. IMAP is a techonology which enables you to synchronize your email with a server instead of downloading it to your computer. And this means you can access all your email from other computers and smartphone too. By storing a local copy on your laptop you can also work with your email offline.

There are many ways of doing this. I recommend you make use of Gmail’s excellent service. You can create a free Gmail account and use this as a central synchronization hub. The benefit of using Gmail is that they support a wide range of mobile devices, so you can get your email on your smartphone too. Another benefit is Gmail’s ability to collect and send email from your other email accounts too, whether webmail or another email client.

All modern email clients support IMAP (some better than others).

In short, the steps for setting up synchronization via IMAP are:

1. Create a Gmail account and enable IMAP (in the settings).
2. Configure Gmail to collect and send email from your other email addresses.
3. Setup your email clients (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail etc) to connect to your Gmail account using IMAP.
4. Setup your email clients to send email from your other email addresses too.
5. Setup your mobile devices to talk to your Gmail account.

Where to get it & price:

IMAP is a technology and is supported by most (if not all) email clients. So you can use your favorite email client or even a combination of email clients.

You can get a free Gmail account at www.gmail.com.

If you would like detailed instructions on how to set this up, you’ll find easy to follow, illustrated guides at Easy-Email.net (free for 1 email address, $37 for multiple email addresses).

3. Synchronize Contacts & Calendar

We meet more people than ever before. And we have more ways of communicating with those people than ever before. So we need to keep on top of our contact information.

And as we become busier and busier we need our calendar available at all times too.

How you do it

There are many ways to synchronize your contacts and calendars. Most of these are sufficient for point to point synchronization, so if you only ever use one computer and one phone it is easy to keep both synchronized. However once the number of computers increase, it becomes more difficult to keep everything in sync.

As with email, the best way to avoid headaches is to use Gmail as a central synchronization hub. Gmail can synchronize with most devices.

Where to get it & price

Mobile devices:

• A good starting point for contact sync between Gmail and your phone is here: www.google.com/mobile/sync
• Goosync: www.goosync.com (Free Service, Lite Service £8.99/year, Premium Service £19.95/12 months)

For Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010:

• Companion Link: www.companionlink.com ($39.95)
• Plaxo: www.plaxo.com (45€)
• Soocial: www.soocial.com (Free limited service or $3.99/month or $39/year)
• gSyncit: www.daveswebsite.com/software/gsync ($19.99 per computer)

Thunderbird:

• gContactSync: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/8451/ (free)
• Zindus: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/6095/ (free)
• Google Contacts: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/7307/ (free)
• Google Calendar Tab: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/70768/ (free)
• Lightning: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/2313/ (free)
• Provider for Google Calendar: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/4631/ (free)

Apple Mail:

• Built in functionality in latest releases of Apple Mail (free)

If you would like detailed instructions on how to setup synchronization of contacts and calendar between your email client and Gmail, you can get easy to follow, illustrated guides from Easy-Email.net ($10 or $1 in combination with an Advanced Guide). Available for Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010, Apple Mail and Thunderbird.

4. Synchronize Internet Bookmarks

How many times have you been searching for that site you know you bookmarked only a couple of days ago? Only to find that you bookmarked it on your other computer!

Great news! Xmarks is still alive and kicking! (It was touch & go for a while)

How you do it:

You simply install xmarks in all your internet browsers, setup an account and forget about it. Easy!

Xmarks can even remember which tabs you had open! (Premium version)

Where to get it & price:

Go to www.xmarks.com.

Free for Internet Browsers, $12 per year for mobile devices/premium version.

5. Manage and Synchronize Passwords

Worried about identity theft? Can’t remember your passwords? Re-using passwords and user names across different web sites?

How you do it:

You create an account with Lastpass. Whenever you sign up for a new site, Lastpass will offer to generate a strong password for you and store it securely so only you can access it. Next time you visit the site, Lastpass will fill in the login information for you. This is much more secure than storing login details in your browser. Not only have you increased your security considerably, but you have also made your life easier!

You simply install Lastpass on all your computers and your user names and passwords will automatically be synchronized everywhere. You can even access them via the internet.

Now you only need to remember one password.

Where to get it & price:

Create an account at www.lastpass.com.

Free for Internet Browsers, $1 per month for mobile devices.

Extra Tip for Small Businesses

We run a small two man band business. We write the Easy-Email guides and run the web site. In the company we use Dropbox, Easy-Email and Lastpass to share everything company related. This means we can work on the same documents, respond to each others email when one is away and have easy access to all our company logins for our 40+ web sites. No problem!

Conclusion

I hope this helps save you hassle and increase your efficiency. As mentioned, we use all of these tools daily in our business and I’d hate to think how much time we would waste if we had to go back to how we used to work before.

So go ahead and get your missing pieces of the puzzle set up – then you can kick back and enjoy the freedom to compute from anywhere.

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?

While there are several ways to configure this, the easiest way that I have encountered is via the Mailto Updater application. All you need is a single click and it will configure your Windows to run Gmail (in browser) as the default email client. What’s more, it supports Google apps too.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Download MailTo.exe

2. Run the application (by double click on it)

3. A window will appear. Select whether you want it to set the normal Gmail site or your Google App domain as the default email account. For Google Apps, you will need to enter your domain name.

4. Lastly, click “Apply setting”.

That’s it. From now on, whenever you click on a mailto link in Windows, your default browser will launch and load the Gmail compose page (if you are logged in) with the email address and subject.

What other ways do you use to configure Gmail as the default application in Windows?

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.

The problem is, if your inbox contains 7Gb of emails (probably tens of thousands of them), it can be a tedious and difficult task to sort out which emails take up the most space and can be deleted. This is where Find Big Mail is useful.

Find Big Mail, as the name implies, is a web app that scan your Gmail inbox for large mail and mark them with a label. You can then sort your mail by the label and get instant result of the emails that are taking up all your storage space. The concept is simple, but it is tremendously useful.

Usage

1. Go to findbigmail.com.

2. Enter your Gmail address and click “CLICK HERE”.

3. It will then ask you for permission to access your account. Click “Grant”.

4. Find Big Mail will then proceed to scan your Gmail Inbox and check the emails with big attachment. This will take from several minutes to an hour, depending on your mailbox size. Meanwhile, you can go and take a cup of coffee.

When Find Big Mail finished scanning, it will send you a summary email.

5. To sort your big email, simply type “label:my-big-mail” to the search field to view your mails of size between 100,000 and 500,000 bytes.

Similarly you can type “label:my-really-big-mail” or “label:my-ultra-big-mail” to view emails of size more than 500,000 bytes (~5MB).

Now that they are sorted out, all that you need to do is to delete away those unwanted big size emails to free up the storage space. (You may want to backup your emails before you delete them away).

What’s your take on this? Do you find such a simple app useful?

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?