More work, better GMail

I can't believe how long it's been since I've been able to write in this thing. My job keeps getting more and more demanding. It looks like I'll be working through the holidays this year. Not fun at all.

On the brighter side, GMail has opened POP3 to my account. I remember a while back when this service was free with Yahoo, which I thought was really appealing in a free service. The fact is that I don't want to always use a web page to read my email. What if I don't have a connection to the net.

I was skeptical that some adwords might show up at the bottom of each message, much like Yahoo and other free providers. To my surprise I didn't get any adds! On top of that, GMail uses full encryption to transfer mail between your client to their servers. Encryption reaches far beyond what many paid service providers offer today. It really makes me wonder if I will ever be required to pay for this service.

In the mean time, I just enjoying the great features.

GMail Invites

It's been a while, and still will be. However, I do have some invites to hand out. If you need GMail, just drop me an email.

GMail Invites

Well, unfortunately this break that I'm taking isn't long enough. I keep getting more and more project work piling up and it makes it really difficult to write in this blog.

However, I'm writing tonight to inform my readers that I do not have any GMail invites. As I was offereing them before, I no longer have that option. If Google allows me some more invites in the future I'll be sure to add a post about it in this blog. Most of my friends that even care about GMail already have an accout, so if I do get invites I won't really need them.

Taking a break

I haven't posted anything out here in a while and that's because I've been pretty busy. I still intend on maintaining this blog. However, I need to take a break from it. Hopefully, GMail will still be in beta mode by the time I can get some more posts out here. If not, hey, have fun!!!

POP3 for GMail

This POP3 program for GMail has recently surfaced. As I discovered it last week it really had me thinking of why anyone would want to use a traditional email client to read their GMail. Once you pull your GMail off the server your right back were you started. The idea behind GMail is the features and the public space of 1GB, non of which are available once you download all your mail.

Why a POP3 program for GMail? I could see this program being extremely handy if you ever needed to convert from GMail to another service provider. You could simply download your email from GMail, and you're done. No reason to login to GMail any more.

Invites Are Gone

I invited one user from my GMail account to join GMail and now I don't have any invites left. I don't understand why it took only one. Please don't ask for a GMail account until I know that I have more. I'll post another message when I get more invites.

My First Spam Message

Finally, after publicly advertising my new GMail address on the internet I recieved my first spam message.



Notice that it placed it in my spam box. Google says, "The Gmail system will automatically empty your trash and spam every 30 days." So we'll wait and see if it is removed.

Got GMail?

So I have more GMail invites than I know what to do with at the moment. If you're interested send me and email.

Search Options

Probably one of my favorite things about GMail, the search panel. I couldn't agree with Google more on the fact that you shouldn't delete any email, rather search for it when you need it. I think it saves a ton of time trying to organize incoming messages.

Something I would like to see changed is when searching for messages from a specific person. When composing a new email there is a nice auto-complete that tries to complete the address of the person you are sending the message to. I'm not sure why this isn't in place when searching. To me it would make sense since GMail is already aware of everyone you have sent/recived messages with.

A GMail Account You Can't Have

The other day when I o-so-kindly used up one of my invites on myself I learned a little something. That is, you cannot create a GMail user name with the phrase "gmail" in it. Here are some of the names that I tried to register:

• gmailexperience - my first try to match my blog


• experience - someone have this already???


• gmail.experience


• gmailexp


• gmailexp1


• gmailexp234234234 - this is where I gave up

Contact Me

I want to recieve feedback or questions from anyone who reads this blog, but I don't want to get any spam in my new GMail account (just in case I want to use it for real in the future). So, what do I do? I invited myself to join GMail. I know, those of you without GMail will probably want to kill me.

Comments, questions?
g.experience@gmail.com

GMail does not have experience

Something to note is that GMail will still be flaky for a while, even when the do go production with their service. While Google is really innovative with new products they lack experience that other industry leaders such as Yahoo already have. As my experience yesterday with sending automated email to my account, I never received it.

I suppose we'll wait and see.....

For now I'm still using Yahoo as my primary spam account, and of course I still have my personal email account with a ISP that I pay for.

Something I failed to show in the last two pictures is the helpful little drop-down when you start to type an email address into the window. GMail automatically starts to help you with the address you're sending the email to. 

Here's the reply to the same message. 

Here's a shot of the messages I was writing yesterday. Nothing real fancy to see on this screen but I will point out that the textarea's where you enter the messages in are resizable. I haven't looked to see if they are actually text area's or if they are iframe's, but this is something that you don't usually see in web site. Users are usally confined to the exact size that the web developer set. 

Another picture of a GMail Conversation

Another picture of a GMail converstion only the old message is compressed so you only see the heading of it. To view the full messages, just click on the header of the old message and you will see the entire message.

Picture of a GMail Conversation

This is a picture of a GMail conversation, or what most people are used to as getting a reply back from someone. Notice that it nicely displays the two messages together in an easy to read format. What you would see in a tradition email is two completely different messages.

What's Going ON???

So I'm about ready to post some new GMail pictures through the Hello program for Blogger, but it wants me to verify my email address. Sure, I'm using my GMail account to manage this account so I have it send an automated email to my account. I'm waiting....I'm waiting, clicking refresh, signing in-and-out of GMail, and still nothing. I get so tired of waiting that I change the address that Hello uses for me to my Yahoo account. No problem there, I receive the email in less than a minute.

AGAIN, WHAT's GOING ON WITH GMAIL?

I sure hope I get those messages soon.

This is Crazy!!!

I don't think I've ever seen anything like this post before. It's a list of people desperately seeking a GMail account, which this blogger has so kindly collected a few thousand names. I must admit, I still have not used all my GMail invitations, but I really only want to hand them out to people who I know will use them.

To all those people on the list....just wait. While GMail is cool and all, it's just another email account to manage.

Welcome Message from Google

This is the welcome message from google when you first sign into your gmail account. Notice the labels on the left, which I've had to black out some for privacy. They almost appear as folders. Notice the light advertising on the right. Far cleaner than yahoo advertising. Overall a very clean screen. As I have time I'll point out some other interesting features when viewing a message. 

Sign-in Screen

GMail Sign-in Screen 

I can hand out GMail Accounts

According to Google, they have reached a point in testing where they are ready to start bringing more people on. Not publicly of course! You have to know someone and have them invite you to use it. I've invited two people already and it looks like I can keep going.

Conversations

GMail has a really cool way to view messages that are related. Rather then getting several emails with a subject of "RE: something", it groups the messages together as one message. GMail has this idea of a conversation rather than an email message, so it would make sense to group messages together of the same subject in the same conversation. Further more, I believe that is how we should view email messages anyway, as conversations. If someone is replying back to you they really talking back to you like you're in a conversation.

I plan to get pictures up as soon as I figure that out....

I'm ON!!!

As an active blogger.com user I was invited to start using GMail. When I originally found out about GMail I wasn't going to try and sign-up, but since I was getting a direct invitation I decided to try it. So here I am, starting to record my experience with GMail.

At first I wasn't sure what to expect, I knew about the 1GB of disk space, but that was about it. I'm finding that there are a lot of no-brainer features, like automatically creating address book entries, threading messages and replies in an easy to read format, and labeling messages rather than storing them to folders.

As the weeks go on I'll continue to post updates of my experience with GMail. This is my first day in, so I'm just absorbing the whole thing.