Category Archive: Site

Sep 22

Push Gmail for iPhone and Windows Mobile

Categories:

Gmail Tips, Official Gmail News, Site

by Jim

September 22, 2009

The following is is a posting from the Official Gmail News Blog:

Posted by Marcus Foster, Product Manager, Google Mobile

Those of you who live in your Gmail inboxes usually want to know what’s happening with your email more instantly than standard fetch mail on your phone allows. Sure, using Gmail in your mobile browser gives you all the benefits of conversation threading and starring, but you still have to refresh every time you want to check for new mail.

When we launched Google Sync for Contacts and Google Calendar earlier this year, an over-the-air, always-on connection to sync mail was noticeably absent. We heard your requests loud and clear, and starting today you can use Google Sync to get your Gmail messages pushed directly to your iPhone, iPod Touch, or Windows Mobile device.

You can set up push Gmail by itself or choose to sync your Contacts and/or Calendar as well. If you’re using an iPhone, make sure you’re running iPhone OS version 3.0 or above (on your device, click Settings > General > About and scroll down until you see Version). If your software is out of date, follow Apple’s upgrade instructions. Then, visit m.google.com/sync from your computer for set up instructions. If you’re already using Google Sync, you can just enable push mail.

Once you’re set up, new messages are normally pushed to your phone within seconds. While this type of speed is pretty awesome, push connections tend to use more power than fetching at intervals, so don’t be surprised if your battery life isn’t quite what it used to be. We’ve done a lot of work to optimize power usage, but if you prefer to save battery life, you can always turn off push in your phone’s settings and fetch mail every 30 or 60 minutes instead.

The rest is here:
Push Gmail for iPhone and Windows Mobile

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/push-gmail-for-iphone-and-windows-mobile

Sep 09

New in Labs: Play Google Voice messages in Gmail

Categories:

Gmail Tips, Official Gmail News, Site

by Jim

September 9, 2009

The following is is a posting from the Official Gmail News Blog:

Posted by Vincent Paquet, Google Voice Product Manager

Google Voice helps you manage your communications with a unique phone number that rings all your existing phones, a single voicemail inbox with online access and automated transcription, and lots of handy features like the ability to block spammy calls and easily record personalized greetings for your callers. Think of it as Gmail for your phone calls and text messages (watch this video to learn more). Google Voice is currently available via invitation, which you can request here.

For those of you who already use Google Voice, you’re probably used to receiving voicemail notifications via email. A couple of minutes after someone leaves a voicemail on your Google Voice number, you’ll receive an email showing who called, an automated transcript of the voicemail, and a link to play the message. You can click the link to listen to the message right from your computer.

Previously, clicking “Play message” opened a new page in your browser, but starting today, you can play voicemails right in Gmail. Just turn on the Google Voice player from the Gmail Labs tab under Settings and whenever you get a voicemail notification, the player will appear right below the message itself.


Best of all, your message status will stay synced: messages played from Gmail will appear as read in your Google Voice inbox and won’t be played again when you check new messages via your phone. If you already use Google Voice, try it out and let us know what you think. If you don’t have a Google Voice account yet, sign up for an invitation and we’ll get you one ASAP.

Go here to see the original:
New in Labs: Play Google Voice messages in Gmail

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/new-in-labs-play-google-voice-messages-in-gmail

Sep 03

Four new themes

Categories:

Gmail Tips, Official Gmail News, Site

by Jim

September 3, 2009

The following is is a posting from the Official Gmail News Blog:

Posted by Jake Knapp, UI Designer and Manu Cornet, Software Engineer

Manu: Hey Jake, you still using that same old theme?
Jake: Well, yeah. I mean, I like it — but I don’t know… I guess it just doesn’t feel as new as it used to.
Manu: I hear ya. Well, good news! Today four new themes are out there for everybody. Just go to the Themes tab under Settings…and ta da!
Jake: (click, click) There we go!
Manu: Should we tell people about why we created these four themes?
Jake: We should.
Manu: Assuming they’re still reading.
Jake: Right. Okay, well, Gmail themes have been out since November, and I know we were ready for some new ones.
Manu: And we heard some of you asking for new ones too. So we thought about what we wanted to stare at all day long, since we work on Gmail.
Jake: I’ve been living in Zurich for the last year, and I missed Washington State, where I grew up. The Orcas Island theme definitely takes away a little bit of that homesickness with a new image each day of the week.


Manu: Homesickness eh? What about timesickness?
Jake: There’s such a thing?
Manu: Totally. Sometimes I find myself timesick.
Jake: For when?
Manu: For a simpler time. For a time when processors weren’t too fast. When graphics weren’t too realistic.
Jake: Sounds like a real bummer. Too bad there’s no cure for timesickness.
Manu: That’s where you’re dead wrong, my friend. Take a look at High Score. It’s like being in a time machine isn’t it?


Jake: (click, click) Aren’t these colors a little bright?
Manu: Aren’t you supposed to be a designer?
Jake: We’ll have to agree to disagree, my friend. This one just isn’t for me. I need something soothing. Something like laying face down in the grass.
Manu: I suppose you’re talking about Turf now. What’s the story behind that one?


Jake: Well, who doesn’t like the color green?
Manu: And it doesn’t change every day, so it was easier for us to make.
Jake: Are you suggesting we’re lazy?
Manu: Prove that we’re not.
Jake: We just made four new themes. How about that?
Manu: It took us ten months. And the fourth theme (Random) merely cycles through all the others.
Jake: Well, enjoy these themes for now. And, of course, let us know what you think. Maybe we’ll have some more for you in the next ten months ;)

Original post: 
Four new themes

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/four-new-themes

Sep 03

More ninja tips in more languages

Categories:

Gmail Tips, Official Gmail News, Site

by Jim

September 3, 2009

The following is is a posting from the Official Gmail News Blog:

Posted by Zach Yeskel, Product Marketing Manager

When we published the Gmail tips guide in July, we promised it would help you become a Gmail ninja. Now, if you want to become a Gmail ниндзя or 忍者, you can do that too: these tips are now available in Spanish, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, and UK English.

We’ve also added a handful of new tips to the English site, culled from suggestions you submitted. Some of the new tricks to help manage your email efficiently include sending and receiving mail from multiple addresses, adding formatting to chat messages, and selecting multiple messages at once using shift-select. Thanks to everyone who submitted ideas, and please keep them coming.

See the rest here: 
More ninja tips in more languages

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/more-ninja-tips-in-more-languages

Sep 02

New in Calendar: Sports schedules and contacts’ birthdays

Categories:

Gmail Tips, Official Gmail News, Site

by Jim

September 2, 2009

The following is is a posting from the Official Gmail News Blog:

Posted by Ian Whitfield, Software Engineering Intern

People keep track of lots of things in their Google Calendars — meetings, business trips, due dates and conference calls. But when I started my summer internship at Google, I wondered why it wasn’t easier to add calendar events for the fun stuff in life, like birthdays and sports schedules.

Now, when you look under “Other Calendars,” click “Add,” then “Browse Interesting Calendars,” you’ll find calendars for hundreds of teams in dozens of sports leagues — everything from the National Football League to the Korean FA Cup.


When you subscribe to your favorite team’s calendar, you’ll see every game listed, updated in real time with the score as the game progresses.


You can also subscribe to a “Contacts’ Birthdays and Events” calendar, which will add all of your contacts’ birthdays to Google Calendar. Data is pulled from your Gmail contacts and your friends’ Google profiles.

Finally, we also have two new Calendar Labs features for you to check out: “Dim future repeating events” makes recurring meetings more transparent over time, helping more important meetings pop out, and “Add any gadget by URL” gives you the flexibility put any gadget you’d like in your calendar.

Read the original: 
New in Calendar: Sports schedules and contacts’ birthdays

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/new-in-calendar-sports-schedules-and-contacts-birthdays

Aug 28

Find great stuff to read in Google Reader

Categories:

Official Gmail News, Site

by Jim

August 28, 2009

The following is is a posting from the Official Gmail News Blog:

Posted by Zach Yeskel, Product Marketing Manager

Have you ever clicked the “Reader” link at the top of your Gmail inbox and ended up in Google Reader, kind of unsure about what to do next?

We realize this happens from time to time, so to help people get started with Reader, we asked a bunch of prominent journalists, techies, fashion critics, and foodies for their lists of favorite sites and blogs. We compiled their reading lists and made them accessible to everyone at google.com/powerreaders, where you can explore and subscribe to lists from Thomas Friedman, Arianna Huffington, Paul Krugman, the editors of Lifehacker, Boing Boing, Kottke.org, and many more.


Whether you’re new to Google Reader or already have an extensive reading list, we hope this will be a good place to find great stuff to read. And if you want to create your own reading list to share with others, you can do that too.

See the rest here: 
Find great stuff to read in Google Reader

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/official-gmail-news/find-great-stuff-to-read-in-google-reader

Aug 25

Composing a message? Try the contact chooser

Categories:

Gmail Tips, Official Gmail News, Site

by Jim

August 25, 2009

The following is is a posting from the Official Gmail News Blog:

Posted by Benjamin Grol, Product Manager

When composing messages, you probably rely pretty heavily on auto-complete to add recipients. Auto-complete is convenient and fast, and usually does the trick. But sometimes seeing your list of contacts can help you remember all the people you want to include on your email. So, we’ve added a contact chooser to Gmail. Click the “To:” link (or Cc:/Bcc:) when composing a message and you’ll see something like this:


You can click on the contacts you want to add or search for others.

If you use contact groups, your groups will appear in a drop-down menu in the contact chooser, so you can select contacts from the groups you’ve already created. And if you happen to use Gmail in Chinese, Japanese or Korean, being able to pick from your list of contacts should be particularly useful since auto-complete doesn’t offer the same search as you type experience that it does in other languages.

Here is the original:
Composing a message? Try the contact chooser

Permanent link to this article: http://jimstips.com/gmail-tips/composing-a-message-try-the-contact-chooser

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