gmail - do you use it?

[Stephen Beesley]

The disussion HERE (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=32752&start=10) has got me wondering just how many PPCT members have managed to acquire a gmail account and how many of those use it as one of their primary email accounts or maybe their only email account.

There are always going to be options that I have not included, but knock yourselfs out anyway...

[surfer]

I don't use it for to many things yet because i just got it but am hoping to use it as my only mail.

[surur]

I acquired a g-mail account from a kind member here at PPCthoughts a month ago. I haven't really used it yet. Ive had hotmail for maybe 8 years now, through 6-7 ISP's and 2 countries, but was really hating the 2MB thing. When Gmail announced 1GB I was ready to jump. Now that Hotmail has upgraded to 250MB however I have a lot less incentive.

Its nice to have, but hotmail spam filtering has become very good recently (I used to run mailwasher pro, but stopped as it wasn't finding any spam anymore) so I dont currently have a compelling reason to switch.

Surur

[dean_shan]

I have a gmail account but it's more for bragging rights then anything. I Have my own domain that I use for my email. My gmail will serve it's purpose though. Not a bad thing to keep around.

[gibson042]

I love GMail. It is by far the most useful and intuitive mail interface I have ever seen (love those vi-style keyboard shortcuts), and how can you go wrong with 1 GB of storage? I have slowly but surely been switching over everything to GMail.

[adv]

i was skeptical about my gmail account. but now that i have many continuous discussions about numerous topics, gmail does a fantastic job with its organization by conversation. it will automatically add the new reply to the same conversation right along with the previous ones. no more searching through past emails to find an email dealing with the same conversation, they're all right there at my fingertips.

[mrkablooey]

GMAIL rules. :way to go:

[Vidge]

I've switched all of my Yahoo groups over to my gmail account. It is really convenient for reading and responding to those postings. I have my own domain as well but that is for business-related email only so it's very nice having most of my other email going to gmail.

[Thinkingmandavid]

I havea Gmail account because of a friend of mine sent me the link. I am using it slowly because I do not want to fully commit to it yet. I still use Yahoo of course. I am basically taking my time to learn the ins and outs of it.

[Kowalski]

well i dont need another email account, and i dont think that most of us will need that much storage space just for an e mail account

[ctmagnus]

I have an acct but don't use it much yet. When it becomes PPC friendly, I'll likely be all over it.

[TopDog]

Gmail is by far the best webmail I've ever used. I forward some of my mail to it.

When it becomes PPC friendly, I'll likely be all over it.
Right on, when/if this happens, I'll forward all my mail adresses there.

[Wiggster]

Gmail is by far the best webmail I've ever used. I forward some of my mail to it.

When it becomes PPC friendly, I'll likely be all over it.
Right on, when/if this happens, I'll forward all my mail adresses there.

Yea, I wish there was a better immediate solution instead of using libgmailer to make your own interface for gmail. I made one for myself (http://gmail.wiggster.com/), and it works fine. I miss the fanciness of the real GMail though :?

Every time I've tried using a Gmail->POP3, it stops working rather quickly, so I'll stick to web mail for now :cry:

[TopDog]

Yea, I wish there was a better immediate solution instead of using libgmailer to make your own interface for gmail. I made one for myself (http://gmail.wiggster.com/), and it works fine.
That is just awesome... would you mind sharing the code?

I would love to have that on my own site 8)

[tanalasta]

Gmail is nice. But compared to my ISP account that Outlook 2003 downloads everytime I turn on my computer, I see absolutely no reason to change. Add that to numerous other free email accounts, >1 ISP email address etc..... and it becomes one of many.

My ISP also offers telnet and web-based mail.

I certainly have more than 1Gb left on my hard-drive and don't have to delete emails if I don't want to so there're few advantages gmail has to offer me.

Still I appreciate the 10Bb attachment limit and large storage. I'm seriously thinking of using gmail as webstorage to store mp3's, work documents etc... that I can retrieve on the go (or allow friends access to) :P

[exsilio]

Gmail is great, but by no means the best...not yet. And it is only Beta.

I have been using my account for a lil over six months now. I use it as my main email account so as to give it a real test.

The Pros:

* Fast.
* Great for keeping track of convos.
* Lots of space.
* Bragging rights. :P

The Cons:

* Horribly weak contact manager.
* Interface is just a bit too scaled back. (too many colors unintelligently used, not enough icons to help guide a user)
* No IMAP or POP3 support
* No drafts (boggles my mind on this one)

The important thing to remember is that it is still in beta and features are supposed to be added. There hasn't been an update for about a month now, so I am hopeful a decent one is right around the corner.

[Wiggster]

Yea, I wish there was a better immediate solution instead of using libgmailer to make your own interface for gmail. I made one for myself (http://gmail.wiggster.com/), and it works fine.
That is just awesome... would you mind sharing the code?

I would love to have that on my own site 8)

Sure, like the front page says, it's just a utilization of libgmail. I added the ability to zip up the entire gmail site and collate it into a Zip file, so just click the link on the bottom of the front page to grab the entire directory (including the pointless thing where it shows in the 1900 series if you view it on the desktop).

If you make any changes to the code, lemme know. This was just a quick hack, not a hobby or a project, so I'm interested in any improvements :)

[Darius Wey]

Nice to see the Gmail interface and feature list has been updated...

If your account hasn't been updated with these new features, expect it within a couple of days as it takes the Gmail team a while to roll out all the set of new features on every single account.

* Contacts interface now streamlined into account interface
* New contacts interface now allows for easier adding/deleting/modifying of contact details
* Able to add more details to contacts
* Able to select multiple contacts at once and compose emails from there
* Atom XML enabled
* Now able to save draft emails
* New draft email section in sidebar
* Some new additions to the labelling system

Enjoy! :D

[ctmagnus]

There's a new contact sorting method as well, by number of contacts starting with each letter (I assume). I have abc | d | efghi | jk | l | mn | opqrs | tuvwxyz.

[Darius Wey]

In addition, there are a couple of other features I neglected to add to my previous list:

* A new forwarding system integrated into the labelling interface
* A slightly modified interface for viewing the text of your emails

[Darius Wey]

Seems like Google wants to keep the updates coming.

For those of you that use Gmail Notifier, it has recently been updated.

You can find it here (http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/index.html).

Of course, there are other alternatives out there if you're not a fan of this program.

New features in this version (last updated: October 4, 2004) include:

* New interface
* New options page for configuring mailto: links and configuring which browser you want your inbox to load in
* Some bug fixes

Enjoy! :)

[JustinGTP]

I just downloaded the new Gmail Notifier (first time too) and I must say I like it. Gmail is becoming advanced compared to Hotmail.

I like it.

-Justin.

[TheOrange]

I love my gmail account - I directed most of my other accounts to it. The message threading alone makes it worth while, then you factor in search features and the spam filter. what a wonderful thing! :D

[SteveHoward999]

well i dont need another email account, and i dont think that most of us will need that much storage space just for an e mail account

My laptop currently has about 3 Gb of email stored on it. I have it backed up. I can access my stored email any time I like, and I don;t have to rely on some Corporate to look after it properly for me. Anyway, who's to stop some slimey toad at Yahoo from poking around my mail? They can tell me all they like about how it cannot or will not happen ... Then there are hackers ...

Plus web mail is always horribly slow.

I do have a GMail account, but only so I can see what I am missing ... a web interface with adverts thrown in. Whoopee! When I need web mail my own account supplies it without SPAMing me.

[Darius Wey]

Have Gmail? Want to use it as a centre for storing files, but find it too tedious?

Rant no more, because GMail Drive shell extension solves the problem for you.

It provides a working "Gmail Drive" shortcut in your computer, where you can simply copy files to and from, and they will instantly be stored within your Gmail account.

Get more kicks out of Gmail, by clicking here. (http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm) :)

[Darius Wey]

Today was the first day in a span of four weeks that I had logged into my Hotmail account.

What did I notice? Microsoft have implemented their 250MB upgrade into my account. But I don't think my stance has shifted one bit and I still see Gmail as my favourite email account for all its worth.

IMO, I think Hotmail needs many more changes before it starts competing with the likes of Gmail.

[divajess]

Have Gmail? Want to use it as a centre for storing files, but find it too tedious?

Rant no more, because GMail Drive shell extension solves the problem for you.

It provides a working "Gmail Drive" shortcut in your computer, where you can simply copy files to and from, and they will instantly be stored within your Gmail account.

Get more kicks out of Gmail, by clicking here. (http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm) :)

I love this thing...and I optimized the great gmail-lite/libgmailer thing on my own server for use with my PPC...but wouldn't it be cool if we could use Gmail drive from the Pocket PC over Wifi? Is that even possible? I have no programming skills, so I hope someone else knows the answer.

[Wiggster]

but wouldn't it be cool if we could use Gmail drive from the Pocket PC over Wifi? Is that even possible? I have no programming skills, so I hope someone else knows the answer.

If you're in your own house, you could use Gmail Drive on the PC, share the folder, then use Resco File Explorer on your PDA to map a drive to the shared Gmail Drive folder on the PC... should work :mrgreen:

[ctmagnus]

Nah... can't share the drive :(

The right-click menu has Expand, Explore, Open and Properties. No Sharing...

[ctmagnus]

Can anyone access their GMail Drive? I haven't been able to for at least a week or so, but the account itself is working fine.

[lcatt236]

Seems like the hotmail server is too busy to read or reply to my mail so I am slowley switching to gmail as well (I have 5 invites left). I am certainly getting a lot of spam on the gmail account already.