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>>Apparently it crashes Opera faster than ever.

Until Google develops to make it more compatible with Opera, you may want to either try the "Older version" link at the top of the page, or the "Basic HTML" link at the bottom. At least they're providing viable options.

-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/

Apparently, one of Google's goal in releasing this new version is to provide a new code framework that will help them to speed up Gmail's response time in a number of areas. One feature of note is that Gmail now pre-fetches and caches messages in the current view, so when you click on a message, it loads almost instantly. On my broadband connection, I see much improved response--clicking a message now displays it almost instantly--no lags or delays.

-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/

This is nothing more than FUD, plain ans simple. This has been debated over and over since Gmail's launch, and seems to keep rearing its ugly head again and again. I've even covered this on my Gmail Tips site. The fact is, yes, Google scans every email message it sends and receives. And so does Microsoft, Yahoo, and EVERY email provider that provides anti-spam and anti-virus services. The only difference is that Google is also indexing keywords. They don't care what you have to say, they just scan the words you use to try to provide relevant, targeted ads. I'd MUCH rather have Google ads included in my free Gmail account than the annoying, flashing, seizure-inducing ads I see elsewhere.

And Gmail ads are often actually relevant. And they have policies in place to NOT include ads for sensitive topics. (For example, if you send an email telling people that your mother died, they wont include funeral service ads.

The fact is that Gmail knows how to do it and Microsoft doesn't.

supernova77a,

I just set up POP on Gmail, and use Thunderbird to do the backup. Yes, the first time, it will have to download EVERYTHING, but once that is done, it's very simple on an ongoing basis.

Some tips:

1. Initial Transfer
For some reason, Thunderbird wouldn't download ALL my emails at once (I had over 3000 messages at the time.) It seemed to pull them in in blocks of a few hundred at a time. It took a number of repeated download sessions to complete the entire download. Yes, it was a bit tedious, but it really wasn't that bad.

2. Downloading New Messages
Once you do the initial download, Thunderbird only downloads NEW messages, so succeeding download session times are very, very short.

3. Set It Up To Work Automatically
If you have an always-on connection at home (cable, DSL) then set up Thunderbird on a spare PC or on a PC you leave on all the time to auto-download messages. Just set it to download once or twice per day. Honestly, you don't need it to download any more frequently than that.

4. Take It With You
Portable Thunderbird would make it a snap to move the files to another location should the need arise.

5. Just Let It Run
Once you set it up and get things going, it a set-it-and-forget-it deal. Just occasionally go into Thunderbird and move the messages from the Inbox to a GMail folder and mark 'em all as read.

6. Labels are NOT transferred
You lose ALL Labels, so you lose all the associated organization. Is this a potential hassle? Absolutely! But to me, the simple peace of mind of having an offline backup far outweighs that. Besides, with a client like THunderbird, searching is easy.

I detailed this on my Gmail Tips site...

-Jim

Seems the only thing they have is portable firefox.
Um what about Portable AbiWord, Portable FileZilla, Portable Gaim, Portable GIMP, Portable NVU, Portable OpenOffice.org, Portable Sunbird, and Portable Thunderbird also available on the site?

Also, I think you and others miss the point of this. PortableFirefox exists in a single directory structure, and doesn't require an "install" other than just unzipping a .zip file. And the profile directory is completely portable, so if you have muptiple PC's on which you do browsing (say, work and home), it's a simple matter of just copying the directory to your thumb drive, and then copying it to wherever you want.

It's a nice, clean way to maintain the browsing experience YOU LIKE without having to install anything. And removing it is as simple as deleting the directory. Away goes the app and all of your browsing history.

And if you leverage the Bookmark Synchronizer, keeping bookmarks synced among different locations a snap.

For those who want portability, this is an excellent choice!

-Jim
http://jimstips.com/
http://gmailtips.com/

Gmail is following the proper standards. They're doing it the way it should be done. An email's origination and routing information should always include accurate and valid data--essential for maintaining proper audits and such. Outlook (and Lotus Notes) are simply notifying the user of the actual routing.

If you want to spoof your email addresses, Gmail is not the service to use.

-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/

That's the one thing that really intrigues me about Google's Page Creator: The concept that it is capable of quickly creating simple, ad-hoc, "temporary pages. While you are absolutely correct about the non-availability of many GeoCities and AngelFire pages, if we know that about GooglePages from the start, then GooglePages won't seem like it's fallen into the same realm. GooglePages is a great place to post temporary or short-term pages for things like events, notes, and other stuff that don't require long-term storage. Once you're "done" with the page, just delete it and that's that. Yes, "grandma" can use it too for her "permanent" pages, but I think the real power of Page Creator is its quick-and-dirty approach.

If Google indexes GooglePages just like other sites, (accessible through Google's Web Search) they should then ensure that GooglePages that get deleted are removed from its index (maybe as an optional checkbox during the delete step?) You see, while we all certainly like archived information through the likes of the Way Back Machine and Google's page cache, is that really necessary for much of life's temporary information to permanently hold onto it? If you want long-term storage, then put it into a blog, a Wiki, or a site geared for long-term hosting.

I think the "killer app" aspect of GooglePages is its potential for temporary Web pages.

What do you think?

-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/
http://pagecreatortips.com/
http://googlepagestips.com/

The really nice thing about Page Creator is that it provides simple Web pages without the annoyance of ads and "ad gadgets" that so many others include. Page Creator Web pages, so far, are clean, and easy to make. If Google eventually does include ads, you can bet that it'll be unobtrusive like most of its other services.

Google doesn't always come out with "new" products, but it often implements them in new and fresh ways.

-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/
http://googlepagestips.com/
http://pagecreatortips.com/

But then again, Gmail's spam handling is excellent, so I personally wouldn't worry about it.

I receive about 300-400 spam emails per month, and typically Gmail flags them correctly. I almost never get false positives, and only occasionally, it misses a few, but overall, spam really hasn't been an issue for me with Gmail.

So Will PAgeCreator increase spam? Probably, but it really shouldn't impact Gmail users that much.

-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/
http://googlepagestips.com/
http://pagecreatortips.com/

According to this article from MIT, aluminum foil hats may actually amplify some signals...notably, amplification at 2.6 Ghz and a 20 db amplification at 1.2 Ghz.

-Jim
Gmail Tips
Jim's Tips

No matter what the house of the future would be like, it will need to have at least one room that is devoid of tehnology and gadgets (things like lighting and HVAC aside.) Specifically, no computers, Internet, TV, radio, etc.) It would be a room where you can sit and think, read, ponder, whatever, without the distractions and temptations of technology. A place where one could "focus"--reminding us we shouldn't completely rely on technology for everything. While I certainly love Techmology, there are times when I just have to get away from it for sanity sake.

-Jim
http://jimstips.com/
http://gmailtips.com/

I found the http://www.opensourcecms.com/ site to be invaluable when choosing a replacement CMS for my site. Its demos and resource links were very, very helpful. In a relatively short time, I was able to browse and try a number of CMS options. once I came up with a "short list", it was just a matter of following the links to the various CMS sites, downloading the installation packages, and testing them out. (That is what took the time!.

http://www.opensourcecms.com/ works as a nice Sandbox environment that auto-refreshes every hour or so (ie: each CMS is automatically reset to a clean install, so though you lose anything you try out, you can't mess things up.)

It's a great way to get an initial feel for various CMS's in one tight place.

-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/

You are correct. If you signed up as "joe.smith", then no other iteration of that will be assigned to another user.

In fact, this is a benefit to the user. If you sign up as joe.smith@gmail.com, and your friend doesn't remember the period and sends it to joesmith@gmail.com, you will still receive it--not so with most other email providers.

-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/

This is absolutely not mis-delivery or a mistake on Google's part!

See Gmail's Help page on this at:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answe r=10313&query=dot&topic=0&type=f

(You may need to be logged into Gmail account to see this.)

Simply put, the period only matters when logging in. Gmail considers some.user@gmail.com and somuser@gmail.com as the same when delivering email, but if the account was oopened as some.user, then you have to use some.user as the login--someuser will not work. Send an email to some.user@gmail.com, somuser@gmail.com, or so.me.us.er@gmail.com, and it'll get delivered to the same account, but you will only be able to login as some.user@gmail.com

Google's intent was to cut down on addressing mistakes as well as spam.

From the user's perspective, actually a good thing because it means that you "lock in" similar addresses so some.user and someuser aren't two different accounts. It also means that the actual number of accounts is less because of this.

-Jim

http://gmailtips.com/

Mod the parent way up!

CCleaner, while it won't solve all of your problems, will certainly improve things. I keep a copy on my ThumbDrive and I use it on any Windows XP PC I can.

Combine this with Spybot-Search & Destroy with it's TeaTimer app running in the background to warn you of Registry updates, and you have an excellent defense against crap accumulation.

-Jim
GmailTips.com

I know you are looking for solutions, but the reality is that you are now experienceing the real world of IT. Many companies are simply not nor never will be structured by-the-book, and things like "defined career paths", "structured promotion 'triggers'" and the like are often more pipe dreams and corporate-speak than reality.

First and foremost, thicken your skin and be prepared for either no change or having to move elsewhere to get a change. While your IT organization may improve (and I certainly hope it does) it also may not. By all means, do what you can to help to improve things (which you are obviously doing in this article.) Just don't get blindsided by something that may not change, and don't be blinded by theoretical corporate structures that often don't and won't exist in many organizations.

-Jim
GmailTips.com

You may not realize this, but if you currently have a GMail account, you already have a GoogleMail account. Next time you login to Gmail, append googlemail.com to your username, and it will let you in. Have someone send you an email addressed to your.address@GoogleMail.com instead of your.address@GMail.com, and you will receive it.

So, for those of you who are concerned about losing your coveted gmail address when "switching" to GoogleMail, don't fret. You already have it on GoogleMail!

-Jim
http://gmailtips.com/

Some 97 million households still have at least one VCR...

As the owner of GmailTips.com, I'm sure you will appreciate the irony of my post :)

I've known a couple family groups who ended up using Yahoo Groups for this very purpose. It was the cheapest and simplest solution. Do you really want to host a web/email service and provide technical support to your family? (Not that there's anything wrong with that) :)

I've run two dozen different lists through them for a variety of groups (Work alumni groups, self-help groups for job seekers, geographically dispersed groups, etc). Each time we debated what services to use, Yahoo Groups won out because it had the most complete feature set and was the easiest to use. Nobody really cared about having a full-fledged CMS--they just wanted to be able to post stories, comments via email or the web.

Yahoo Groups is good enough, with a few caveats.

Yahoo groups supports comments & stories as regular old posts, photos & calendars. The group members can receive the posts via email or on the web, which makes it simple if they just want to use their regular email.

It doesn't have a good secure interface, the default login screen is HTTP, but you can log in via HTTPS as well. The groups can be invisible to outsiders, closed to non-subscribers, etc. Not sure if that's what you meant by a 'secure interface'.

The solution is not open-source, it's not something you can custom host, they have ads, and you need a Yahoo account to use the advanced features (I think).

Your tips suck. Seriously.

Find out how much space you have left on your GMail account? What's next, a tip about using the decimal numbering system?

No, no, no. This comes up all the time. For me, a Web-based email account is essential because I can access it from anywhere I have Web access. And Gmail's UI is more like a "real client" than most, so the need for a dedicated client is really eliminated.

Gmail is an excellent example of a Web-enabled app that really make the Web experience pleasant and productive.

-Jim
GmailTips.com

...I don't have it on my account yet, but when I do, I'll post all the details on my GmailTips.com site.

This will be very nice addition. I just hope that Gmail doesn't become bogged down with extras. My wish is that all of these kinds of extras be togglable through Settings...

I realize that many /.ers have no problem with plain text, but the important thing to understand about the new Rich formatting feature is that it goes much farther than just making your messages look pretty. If you enable Rich formatting, when you reply to or forward a rich formatted message that you received, it now retains all the formatting. Before, everything was converted to plain text. Gmail finally allows you to manage messages unaltered. This is good news for both personal and business users.

This potentially positions Gmail to be a WebMail client for the masses, because what you receive is what you will reply to or forward. This was a hugely lacking feature that has now been added.

Kuddos to the Gmail developers!

-Jim
GmailTips.com

It's the functionality. To me, Gmail is more "stealthy" in its approach. It's just slick, fast, and doesn't force itself on me. "Labels" are truely innovative and implemented very well. "Search" is extremely flexible and useful. It is these features that help leverage the 1GB of storage into a really great tool.

Now, I admit that Yahoo does offer a very nice email service, and its features are very complete, but I simply cannot stand the ads. Gmail's unobtrusive ads are far better from a user's perspective.

Now, if Google would only fix their damned Forward function. If I receive a Rich Tect formatted or HTML formatted email, Gmail WILL NOT FORWARD IT without mangling the formatting (ie: it only forwards plain text.) This single problem prevents me from recommending Gmail to less-than-tech-savvy people, and unfortunatly, complaints and suggestions have fallen on deaf ears....

-Jim
GmailTips.com

If you use Gmail, you'll see that every e-mail isn't shown as an e-mail, they're shown as conversations. So, if you're trying to click the checkbox next to a conversation then try to forward it, does that mean you want to forward the entire conversation, just the last sent e-mail, or one of the e-mails in between? It's ambiguous.

It makes more sense to open a conversation displaying each e-mail separately, then allow you to forward individual e-mails.

Maybe later, they will add functionality to not view your list as conversations and give checkbox forwardability.

Dude, that's what the "Archive" button is for! Basically, every message is tagged with a hidden "Inbox" Label. When you click Archive, it simply removes that Label. If you have assigned another Label, then that message will appear in the corresponding Label's view. If not, that message, along with all Labeled messages, appears in the "All Mail" view.

Learn to use "Archive"--it really keeps your Inbox clean!

Go to my GmailTips.com site for some more Gmail Tips!