Next time when you can’t access Gmail, be happy that Gmail is down only for a few minutes. Other people have to live days without their Gmail accounts (and you know it’s hard to do that).Last week, the Gmail team realized that a bunch of spammers found a temporary home at gmail.com. Says the Gmail team: “We have been actively investigating a batch of accounts that were accidentally disabled and are currently in the process of re-enabling these ac
The Consumerist reports that Google has “accidentally” disabled a large amount of users’ accounts while attempting to “target a large network of spammers to keep them out of the Gmail system and keep your inbox free from spam”. Now they are “re-enabling these accounts as quickly as possible”.
Not the first time, Google, a wise man don’t repeat the same mistake.
UPDATE: You can report your access er
Mountain View, CA – Google announced today that soon customers of their Gmail service will have their storage size increased to “infinity plus one.” The announcement comes shortly after Yahoo’s announcement that their Yahoo mail customers would be given unlimited storage.
Greg Tomkins, an engineer at Google, is credited with coming up with the “infinity plus one” idea. “I was out in the yard when my kids ran up to me yelling at each other. My son said to my daughter, ‘I hate you to infinity.’ She replied, ‘I hate you to infinity plus one.’ And right then I knew I had the solution to competing with unlimited storage,” said Tomkins.
Gmail turns three-year old today. No biggie celebration except for the Google Paper, not even a birthday logo.
Happy Birthday Gmail, you are the best.
Google realized that paper is the best medium to read email, so they’ll roll out a new feature called Gmail Paper that lets you archive an email to paper with one click. You’ll get the paper messages in 2-4 business days and, best of all, the service is free.”The cost of postage is offset with the help of relevant, targeted, unobtrusive advertisements, which will appear on the back of your Gmail Paper prints in red, bold, 36 pt Helvetica. No pop-
It's been in the making for several months, but now after finalizing their output and distribution techniques, they are finally going live with a new service on Gmail's birthday. It's called "Gmail Paper". It lets you receive physical copies of important (or even spam) messages without the need for your own printer. The cost? Completely [...]
Two years ago this Sunday, Google introduced two gigabytes of email storage for Gmail, with the amount of storage ticking up slowly, what they called their “Infinity + 1″ system. The idea was that since the counter went up continuously, you really had near-infinite storage. It was a great idea, except for one thing: Infinity + 1 implies better than inifinity, but it’s not.
See, Yahoo has announced that, as of this May, Yahoo
If you receive an email in your Gmail account and it has an iCal file attached, Gmail will ask you if you want to automatically add it to your Google calendar. Snazzy.
Now that Gmail is open for everyone, Gmail team posted a funny 4-act puppet play that shows why it’s a good idea to try Google’s mail service. Their reasons are: better spam protection, threads, fast search and built-in instant messaging.
Happy Valentines Day everyone! Google has been celebrating Valentines Day this year by giving a couple of its services (Gmail and Webmaster Central) a little something extra.
As for Gmail, users can now sign up for the service without being invited — even though this was falsely reported about a week ago, this time it's [...]
I know Google could change their mind again, but it seems that Gmail is finally open to everyone.If you don’t live in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and Japan (Gmail is already open there), go to gmail.com and see if you can create a new account.”In keeping with our tradition of Gmail holiday announcements — Gmail was launched on April Fool’s Day — we’re inviting everyone worldwide to share the love this Valentine’s Day
Google updated Gmail’s homepage every time a major feature was launched. Fortunately, all the Gmail’s homepages are live and you just need to change a single parameter from the login URL to dive into Gmail’s history.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=mail<mpl=wsadApril 1st 2004 - Gmail launches
Google UK’s homepage links to Gmail: “Free email with 2.8GB storage and less spam. Try Google Mail (BETA).” If you click on the link, you’ll be sent to a different template of Gmail’s homepage:The top reason for choosing Gmail is you’ll get less spam. “Users say that less spam is one of the top reasons that they love Gmail.” It’s interesting that Gmail’s storage is not that catchy anymore, now that other webmail services have similar or even bigger storage quotas.Now that Gmail has become
There have almost certainly been times when either you, or someone you know has asked the question: "How do I use my HTML signature in Gmail?". You aren't alone — there are over 2,000 posts asking that same question on Gmail's discussion board, with no good answer.
So I got sick of waiting and took the [...]
Google approach to mail, Gmail, was launched in April 1st 2004 as an invitation-only system. People initially thought Gmail was Google’s Aprill Fools Day joke, but it turned out that Gmail was real.What set Gmail apart?Don’t throw anything awayGmail had a storage size of 1 GB, 250 times bigger than Yahoo Mail’s storage
It appears that Google might be ready to concede that not all of its products can be supported by the careful placement of AdWords ads. According to Business Week, Google plans to introduce a subscription fee for their Google Apps for Your Domain office suite.
In coming weeks, Google Apps will turn into a real business as Google begins charging corporations a subscription fee amounting to a few dollars per person per month.
With tens of thousands of businesses already using Google Apps, Google has made an impressive challenge to Microsoft’s dominance in the office suite arena, but it’s clear that businesses are not going to tolerate offers for free ring tones or mortgage refinancing alongside an email from the CFO.
Another big question is, how many businesses will find Google Apps robust enough to make the switch? Even Google’s own employees didn’t find the transition a smooth one…
Google got a taste last October when it switched over most of its own employees…to Gmail and Google Calendar
Ionut was so far ahead of this news that it hasn't even happened yet. He tells us that everyone in the world is now available to sign up for Gmail, but that's clearly not the case (yet). Even if I use the direct link to the signup page, it still asks me to log in [...]
Gmail is now a public beta. Go to Gmail.com, and look for “Sign up for Gmail” or go to this page. After almost three years of invitation-only access, Gmail gradually opened in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Egypt and now everywhere.
You may have seen a lot of pictures in Gmail that show messages received from people like Caitlin Roran, Nathan Wood and others. Someone tried to solve the mystery and created a Wikipedia page for Caitlin Roran, but it was deleted. Here’s the full content:Caitlin Roran is a fictional character (or advertising character) devised as part of a Google advertising campaign
David Utter of WebProNews pointed me to a bright yellow box on the Gmail login page. The box reads "New! Google services will now be more personalized with Google Accounts. Learn More" — naturally leading me to wonder what they are talking about.
The information found in the page it links to isn't particularly helpful [...]
Instead of downloading that attached Word document, especially if it's "a keeper", you should try opening it with the brand new Gmail feature available today. It lets you import any attached Microsoft Word document directly into Google Docs with a single click. The "View as HTML" option still exists, but should probably only be used [...]
If you receive Microsoft Word files, Rich Text files or documents from OpenOffice and StarOffice, you can open them directly in Google Docs. Gmail has already had this option for Excel attachments.It’s a good idea to use it if you want to see more than just the text of the document (you can do this by choosing “View as HTML”) or if you want to edit it, but you don’t have an Office suite
Marshall Kirkpatrick’s post about the amount of spam getting thru his Gmail filter - 19 of 26 emails were spam - has a comment from blogging buddy, Jeremiah, that reminded me of an issue I’ve noticed with Akismet.
While Jeremiah’s finding Akismet to be reliable, I’m finding it to be less so
Philipp Lenssen writes about a new vulnerability that gives a malicious attacker the ability to basically hijack a users Google account by stealing cookies. That means any "bad guy" who knows how this works could theoretically do all of the following by impersonating you:
Read and modify any document in your Google Docs & Spreadsheets account
Read [...]
Happy stuff for me: The Bruce Clay Inc. blog has added comments, after much prodding from me (and maybe other people, but who cares?). The Bruce Clay blog has been one of my favorites the last few months, with really good articles (mostly written by Lisa Barone) plus a fun “Friday recap” every week
Only three days after it stopped counting at 2800MB, Gmail decided to started moving again — unfortunately it will stop again on April 1st, 2007. April Fools? No, Gmail's birthday. There are several possible reasons for this:
They are going to take Gmail out of beta for its birthday
GDrive will be launched, maybe with unlimited [...]
I just noticed that Gmail’s storage meter is increasing again, just like it used to:
Just go to Gmail.com (log out of your Gmail account) to see it moving. Anyone want to figure out if it is increasing at the same rate as before (.33 megabytes a day)? The source code notes this:
var CP = [
[ 1167638400000, 2800 ],
[ 1175414400000, 2835 ]
];
Two Google services have broken in the new year, most likely due to code that failed when the clock struck 2007.
Ionut Alex notes that the Gmail storage counter, which usually adds a third of a megabyte of storage to your inbox every day, stopped incrementing at midnight this morning. Gmail remains frozen at 2800 gigabytes of storage, which is plenty, and a reasonable enough number that it may even be by design
It seems the bug I referred to in my last post is only partially fixed — but I am confident it will be closed up soon. In the mean time, I recommend you log out of Gmail when you are not using it until the problems are solved.
Even though this XSS vulnerability takes the cake [...]
After posting my last article about the contacts "JSON API", Haochi Chen discovered that by simply appending a "callback" variable in the URL, the creators of a malicious site could gain access to a visitors entire Gmail contact list without warning.
<script language="javascript"> function getContacts(response){ var output = ""; for(x=0;x<response.Body.Contacts.length;x++){
Google has had a rash of missteps in the last few day, leaving a negative feeling going into the new year.
First off: Google accidently deleted the inboxes of some 60 Gmail users, leaving them with none of their stored email (and, surprisingly, Google’s vaunted server architecture didn’t have any backups either)
Some hidden code in Google Video points to a new contact picker — something I have always thought would make sense in Gmail when you are deciding where to send an email (when you want to choose from a list). That is currently a little tough to do when the only thing in your arsenal [...]
TechCrunch has details of a developing story involving the Gmail accounts of 60 users who found all emails deleted due to a suspected breach in FireFox.
Now here’s the catch-22 for Google. Supposedly, once an email is deleted in Gmail, it is gone forever. That keeps the privacy conspiracy theorists happy
Several users (around 60 according to Google) experienced something that could damage the trust some users have in Gmail. The affected users report that all email and contacts in their Gmail accounts were permanently deleted by no action of their own. Michael Arrington wrote about the problem earlier today and received this response from a [...]
A few weeks ago, Google announced a new feature that would start appearing in our Gmail accounts — but for almost everyone, that feature still hasn't made an appearance. The feature promises to give users the option to check email from other POP accounts through their Gmail interface.
Screenshots of the new feature have finally [...]
I’m gonna need more cowbell!
Gmail’s got an easter egg of an emoticon, one that is definitely a reference to a great SNL sketch starring Christopher Walkin. Just enter +/’\ into a Gmail chat window and hit enter. Enjoy!
Courtesy of Daniel and KP in the comments.
I got a fever. And the only prescription… is more cowbell!
Gmail added a new feature that lets Google’s mail site retrieve email from up to five additional email accounts in a single Gmail account. So long as your other email has POP access (like your work email, but not always your Hotmail), you can dump it all into Gmail, letting you manage all your email accounts from one place
A feature about to be launched soon — and maybe already has for some of you — takes care of a highly requested feature and will make it even easier for users to switch to Gmail. It's called Mail Fetcher, and it lets you check up to five different POP mail accounts right through your [...]
Have you ever received a Microsoft Word attachment in your Gmail with image content? If so, you probably know the "Show as HTML" feature wasn't particularly useful. You might be happy to know that this feature, although still needing a lot of work, finally supports embedded images.
The obvious next step will be for Gmail to [...]
Gmail.ru, a Russian email provider with a strikingly similar name to Google's equivalent service, has posted a notice to their users saying "Gmail.ru" is now a registered trademark, and they now have enough capacity to handle up to 10 million users.
"Administration of "Gmail.ru" congratulates all the users with registering the trade mark of our project. [...]
It seems that Microsoft has started flagging Gmail as a virus in their virus scanning software Windows Live OneCare. Many people are reporting that every time they open Gmail, a warning is displayed telling the user they are infected with "BAT/BWG.A".
Now, either Gmail is a virus, or Microsoft is generating false positives. Some affected [...]
Very recently we’ve had some updates to Gmail, including:
- Reply button & more at the top of converstaions
- Forwarding of an entire converstion (thread)
- Notification of new messages that have arrived while you were writing your reply (useful for mailing lists)
- Send chats to people even if they’re offline
Now we have the mute button (Adam calls it the murder button). Actually I take that back. It’s not a button, it’s an option and a shortcut key. [Continue Reading >>]
Google has just updated Gmail to include some new features that I find quite useful. Their "What's New" page explains the changes in more detail.
In an effort to make it easier to manage messages, you will now find a dropdown menu at the top right corner of any message that gives you options to reply, [...]
Ed Oswald of Betanews writes that Yahoo is planning to integrate a AJAX-powered version of Yahoo! chat into the web-based Yahoo mail application. The new client is expected to debut in early 2007, and will be a direct competitor to Google’s Gmail / Talk integration.
Gmail has updated the user interface over the last 15 minutes. There is now a reply button and a drop down box with various options in the right-hand top corner of each message in a “thread”. There is also a updated “reply to” link at the bottom of each message. If you don’t see what I’m seeing, try logging out and back in to see the changes.
UPDATE: Another new feature almost slipped past me. You can now forward an entire conversation or “thread” by using the “forward all” option.
I’ll exemplify with some spam that’s sitting in my inbox.
The Gmail power users out there probably know about Mihai Parparita’s greasemonkey scripts to enhance Gmails functionality such as multiple signatures and integrating Google reader with Gmail.
If you liked those, you’ll probably like the updates with added funcionality.
They should probably make this part of the official Gmail interface, but for now we’ll have to use this greasemonkey script to add the ability to have multiple signatures in Gmail.
Doug Dyson creates a catchy little tune praising Gmail. Nice amateur video editing, I like it.
My one complaint? The credits at the end are so hard to decypher that I don’t know where to go to see more of this stuff!
Lyrics:
Oh yeah, E is for email and F is for female but G is Gmail and uh
Oh well, So they’re reading my email Find something … all » dirty I hope that they tell me, yeah…
Oh no, Where does the time go? I’m always archiving Just barely surviving and uh
So what If that’s not her real name And she’ll never write me Or ever see me again?
I know That you’re always filing When you should be smiling Out showing your styling and uh
Know what? Well I got a Gmail And I know you want one But you ain’t got one Uh huh…
Don’t be a looser Be bop a lula I got my Gmail The revolution Be bop a lula I got my Gmail….
Google employee and blogger Mihai Parprita has created a greasemonkey script that runs in Firefox and will integrate Google Reader with Gmail. You can download it and give it a try.
If you want it spelled out:
Did I go way overboard on the links in this post or what?
