Tag Archives | Gmail

Good Grief, Another Significant Gmail Enhancement: Previews

gmail1I’ve officially given up trying to keep pace with each and every feature Google adds to Gmail, but this one looks neat: There’s a new Gmail Labs option that enables in e-mail viewing of Flickr and Picasa photos, YouTube videos, and Yelp reviews. Gmail notices links to this content, and simply embeds it in your message so you don’t need to click away to see what a friend has sent you.

Google says it’s interested in talking to other companies with services that could be embedded into Gmail–and it would be pretty neat if the idea was extended to just about any sort of content that anyone ever links to in an e-mail…

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5Words for February 25th, 2009

5wordsWhat’s up, ladies and gents?

Safari 4 is blazingly fast.

Google explains yesterday’s Gmail outage.

…and Gmail users get phished.

Google joins European Microsoft tussle.

Is your congressperson on Twitter?

Intel says thin is in.

AMD demos six-core CPU.

A big Photoshop bug fix.

Microsoft’s stock isn’t so hot.

Google updates Internet 6 Toolbar.

Roy Blount wants Kindle cash.

Samsung writes a Memoir (phone)

Nokia music phone hits stores.

Will the Kindle go international?

Another roaming-charges horror story.

Adobe patches up Flash vulnerabilities.

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What (if Anything) is the Matter With Gmail?

gmail1When I hit the sack early this a.m., Gmail was working fine for me. I was one of the lucky ones, apparently: During the wee hours in the U.S., many users of Google’s free e-mail service encountered an outage that lasted for two and a half hours, according to the Official Google Blog. (Why Google acknowledged the glitch on that blog and not at the Official Gmail Blog, I can’t say.)

Gmail outages are nothing extraordinary: I wrote about one major one last August, and a hiccup a couple of weeks ago. And it’s pretty darn common in my experience for Gmail to fail to load–I’m used to it, and just try again until it works. But is the service any flakier than your average Web site? I dunno. As one of the most-used, most-essential services on the Internet, Gmail is under the biggest of microscopes: When it misbehaves, millions of people take notice, and a major crimp is put in their work. Even if it’s actually more reliable than the average service–which it might be.

Google has apologized and says it isn’t yet sure what happened: I’d love to see the company follow up with a post discussing the outage, its cause, and the company’s response. I’m curious, for instance, whether there’s a single explanation for the multiple problems that the service has had in the past few months.

Meanwhile, I’m feeling Pollyannish about this and other major Internet outages: Somebody up there is reminding us that when you give up software for Web-based services, you run the risk of losing access to your data. Even when that data is in the hands of the single company that knows more than any other about delivering reliable services to millions of folks all at one time….

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5Words for February 24th, 2009

5wordsDid you notice Gmail’s outage?

Gmail: Down. Then back up.

David Pogue likes Kindle 2.

Want Office 14? Try 2010.

Happy birthday to Steve Jobs.

A $99 plug-PC.

Intuit: We weren’t bullying Mint.

Vudu sells high-definition movies.

A $200 Android app.

No Atlantis in Google Earth.

Microsoft retracts layoff-payback demand.

Most iPhone apps quickly bore.

Finally, a Hannah Montana PSP.

Hitachi buys storage startup Fabrik.

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5Words for February 19th, 2009

5words

Wanna hear this morning’s news?

The Pre will have games.

Dell attacks Psion’s “Netbook” trademark.

iPhone turn-by-turn GPS.

Yelp accused: Suppressing negative reviews?

Dismantling 17-inch MacBook Pro.

$50 for unlimited phone calls.

Google demos iPhone offline Gmail.

Dell debuts Mini 10 Netbook.

Google Street View case dismissed.

Lenovo making jumbo-sized netbooks?

Sprint loses a million customers.

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A Little Gmail Tweak That Makes a Big Difference

GmailI may be more excited about this than I am about offline Gmail access: Google has made a minor change to Gmail’s user interface that makes it–for some of us, anyhow–a far more appealing service.

Here’s the new Gmail menu bar:

Gmail Menus

What’s new are the “Move to” and “Labels” items. The latter simply moves the ability to apply a Label to an e-mail into its own menu, which makes it easier to get at the command. (Until now, you’ve had to burrow to the bottom of “More actions” to get at Labels.)

But “Move to” is the addition I’m so enthusiastic about: It lets you apply a Label and move an e-mail out of your inbox into Google’s archive with one click. Essentially, it duplicates the functionality that every other e-mail client on earth provides by allowing you to plunk an e-mail into a folder, thereby filing it away by subject matter and getting it out of your way. Kinda amazing that Google didn’t let you do it until now. (You’ve had to apply the Label and move the e-mail to the archive in two distinct steps–in theory not a biggie, but extra work is extra work. I’ve tended to ignore the problem, which means my inbox is bursting at the seams.)

Google has also introduced keyboard shortcuts and auto-complete functionality that let you label and move messages without touching your mouse; I’m not that much of a shortcut guy, so I’m less jazzed up about these. But some people will be very happy, I bet.

Unlike Slate’s Farhad Manjoo, I don’t think Gmail has reached perfection. And it won’t until it either improves the threaded-conversation interface or makes it optional. But between features that Google launches as Gmail Labs options (such as offline access) and ones it just rolls out for everybody (like the new Label interface), the company is improving Gmail at a dizzying rate…

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