Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Google is genuine proof that companies do listen to their patrons. Google has thrown some Labs features back into Gmail, features that are experimental and may or may not be added to the “final” version of Gmail. The entire Labs idea is to harness the creativity of the Google staff.

Thirteen Labs features have recently been added to Gmail, all available to enable or disable in the Settings menu. The thirteen features are: Quick Links, Superstars, Pictures in chat, Fixed with font, Custom keyboard shortcuts, Mouse gestures, Signature tweaks, Random signatures, Custom date format, Muzzle, Old Snakey, Email Addict, Hide unread counts.

All of those are, more or less, self explanatory, but if you’re confused head over to your Gmail inbox and click “Settings.” A neat little feedback is even provided, so Google knows what you like and don’t like.

Hopefully, Google continues this updating of their software; all their apps are in beta after all.

Read [Gmail Blog]

Dreamhost users who have problems with your email server, you might be told to switch to Gmail. With the largest amount of support tickets being email-related, hosting-giant Dreamhost has started to recommend users use Gmail (or more specifically, Google Apps for Domains) as an alternative so they won’t have as many problems. Already having a strong track record, Google’s Google Apps for Domains is a very versatile platform where you can have your Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Talk, and of course, Gmail, all under one virtual roof powered by some of the most reliable servers in the world at Google. Dreamhost has made it easier for users to switch to Gmail by adding a button to use Gmail and it will automatically set up the accounts for you, leaving you with only having to set up the administrator account. Of course, Google Apps for Domains is already available for any domain hosted and/or registered anywhere.

Via [Slashdot]

GooSync, a useful tool that lets you sync your Google appointments and tasks to your smarthphone, has just added support for synchronizing your Gmail contacts as well. What’s even better is the fact that GooSync works both ways. That is, whenever you add new contacts from your Gmail accounts, it automatically updates your mobile phone’s directory the next time you run the syncing process and vice versa.

But before you get too excited and go on a syncing frenzy, there’s one catch however. Gmail contacts to mobile phone synchronization only works if you have a GooSync Premium account. To upgrade to premium account, just log-in to your GooSync account and hit the “Upgrade” button. If you’re not yet using GooSync, head over GooSync’s website and find out what you’re missing for not using this cool application.

Via [IntoMobile]

Helio has just become the first cellular provider to offer Gmail as a push service. Sure other carriers can take advantage of either POP or IMAP access, but push is so much nicer, because what is better than instant gratification. Helio users with an Ocean, Mysto or Fin will now have access to the “ultimate inbox.”

Setting up push support for Gmail is about as simple as it can be, assuming you already have your Gmail account set-up, then all you have to do is go to the Menu and hit the “Send/Receive” button and it will ask you whether or not you want push support activated.

In addition to the push support for Gmail, Helio also supports push for Helio Mail, Yahoo, Windows Live, and AOL. If email is a high-priority and you are not into the BlackBerry then Helio may be worth checking out.

Via [HelioCity]

The web mail scene has been dominated by either Gmail, Yahoo! Mail or Windows Hotmail for quite some time now. Although there have been many other web-based email systems who have tried to enter the fray, none has been successful as of yet. So it would seem that GMX Global Mail Exchange may be up to a tough task of getting into the web mail niche.

GMX Global Mail Exchange aims to provide an alternative web mail solution for home users as well as small and medium sized enterprises. It’s your typical web based email that supports POP3, IMAP and SMTP protocols and mobile devices. GMX also allows you to create up to 10 additional emails that all forward and can be checked from your main account, which is a nice way to keep your main email address a little more private. If you notice too much junk or spam from one of your alternates simply delete it and start with a new one.

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With any product or service, there’s always going to be room for growth (and complaints).  Below are a few Gmail features I think would make my life, and possibly some others lives easier.

• Ability to Mark ONE Email in a Conversation as Unread
• Colored Stars
• Set Email Importance
• Ability to Add Items to a To-Do List

Read more…

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I am a big fan of GMail and this is just the thing to perk up the experience.  By adding in this extension (for Firefox users) and plugging in a style, you too can go from bland to wow.  Hey, if I can do it…

The extension, like most Firefox things are super easy.  Simply download the Stylish extension and then click on the Userstyle link and click download.  Whammo, you are in business, after you restart Firefox.

I’ve been using it all day and I like it.  The colors are a nice contrast to GMails usual colors.  The Chat window pops up in the old blue and white, but other than that it is a nice set up.  Load times are lengthened a bit for me when logging on, but after that everything seems to work just fine.

Read [uneasysilence]

Google, trusty search engine and email provider for many actually has a clause within its fine print which states that those under 18 are not permitted to use the site, or any of its features. The Google conglomerate covers Google’s search, Gmail, YouTube, news and images.

The Terms of Service state that:

“You may not use ... Google’s products, software, services and web sites ... and may not accept the Terms if ... you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google.”

Of course to those within the USA, the legal age to form a binding contract is 18, meaning anyone under the age of 18 is currently violating Google’s terms, which judging from a huge number of YouTube videos, that number is going to be high.

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A Google developer recently released Mail Trends, a Phyton based program that analyzes and visualizes email data. Developer Mihai Parparita is associated with Google Reader, so if you are familiar with the Trends page in Google Reader you may see some similarities with the version for Gmail.

Google Mail Trends can show distribution data of messages by year, month, day, day of week and time of day as well as distribution of messages by size and a user’s top 40 largest messages. If you want to know the top people you send mail to, you can do so as Google Mail Trends can also show your emails’ incoming and outgoing traffic.

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Google has announced that it will be rolling out new Gmail features to Google Apps users soon, following the Gmail’s recent codebase revamp. The new features include an even faster interface, group chat from the browser, streamlined contact manager, colored message labels, improved keyboard shortcuts, and bookmarkable messages and searches. I’m a Google Apps user myself but I don’t know if I should feel excited about this or not. I know none of the keyboard shortcuts except that to send an email quickly, you press the CTRL and ENTER button simultaneously (although I haven’t even tried that in a while so I’m not completely sure about that), I don’t use labels, I chat using YM, and I thought the interface was supposed to be fast anyway. And I’ve set up my Google Apps account to activate new features immediately once they become available to users. So I don’t know if I’ve already been using the new features or not. Either way, if you’re a Google Apps user too, this is great news for you. At least it’s supposed to be.

Via [Official Gmail Blog]