Feeling a little insecure without the friendly Gmail beta logo to keep you warm (if you haven’t heard or noticed, it’s gone, baby, gone)? No worries. Google Labs has already got you covered. Featured under their lab tools is a new widget called “Back to Beta,” which adds the “beta” signifier back to the logo, making you feel all snugly warm and clean again.
Change is confusing. Luckily, it’s avoidable.
News agencies from around the world are reporting that Google’s ultra-popular Gmail service has been down since this morning. You can still send and receive mail using a third-party program, like Mail.app or Outlook, but apparently, for most international users, the web service isn’t working. I tried logging on at 9:30am here in New York and had no problems. But it seems that the major outages have occurred in the UK and Australia mostly.
Keep updated with Google’s official Gmail blog and support team. We’ll see how Google handles this fiasco. Maybe some extra storage for free?
Feeling frisky this Friday morning? Fire up Gmail and go to the “Labs” section. You’ll find that there’s now an option that allows you to view multiple inboxes at the same time. In a nutshell, you can essentially create multiple window panes inside of Gmail for viewing things like your inbox, drafts and labels all at one time. Pretty nifty, though I must admit, I’m not too big of a label fiend. I should be, but creating hundreds of a labels sounds like a big pain in the ass.
Anyways, the feature is being rolled out today. Give it a try and let us know what you think.
Google continues to inspire and amaze. The Mountain View, California-based company unveiled yesterday the ability to read and compose Gmail while offline. It’s available through the Google Labs feature within Gmail and when activated, starts downloading 10,000 emails to the user’s hard drive using Google Gears technology. Once finished, you’ll be able to search for emails and read them, as well as compose emails to people in your address book. And yes, your contacts will auto-complete even when offline.
Of course, some things will not be available when offline, such as the ability to manage your contacts. All you need is a ‘net connection and you’ll be able to sync your email, keeping you in touch with that woman you’re having an affair with. Ah, Google. Paving the way to Heaven through technology.
Say goodbye to Google’s attempt at making a virtual social network. Announced back in July, Google is now closing the door on its Google Labs project “Lively” at the end of this year and says it wants, quote:
“to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business.”
I guess it’s back to Second Life for me. Maybe I’ll start an online band and perform for other users of Second Life. I’ve always had an intense fear of crowds, yet find comfort and support with virtual crowds.
What if I told you, the overworked mother, I could teach your child about science and let them enjoy some quality playtime simultaneously? I’m sure you’d burst into tears and start thanking me but I can’t take credit for this. The Food Chain Friends are a cute series of stuffed animals that eat each other and do it quite well. Explain to your child the concept of Darwinism, all while using adorable plush creatures as the characters in your Shakespearean performance. The ALPHA and BETA series of creatures are available for $50 each at FAO Schwarz, so make sure you get them soon before the holiday rush picks up.
An incredibly useful feature is coming to Gmail. Starting today (if all goes well), you’ll be able to send your friends and contacts text messages via the integrated Gmail chat. You’ll be able to save phone numbers to contacts and Google will give you the option of sending them a text should they go offline. It sounds very beta right now though, with Google using 406 area code numbers to push the texts out.
The first time you send a text message, it will appear on the person’s phone as coming from a number in the 406 area code. Google has made several thousands of these numbers available for Gmail users, and once a number is associated with your account, all of the text messages you send through Gmail will come from that number.
The 406 number works both ways, so your friend can reply to you via text message. Also, your friend can save that number in their phone as belonging to you, and they can even use it to initiate new chats with you.
Google never ceases to amaze.
I had to check and make sure the calendar wasn’t nearing April 1st when I first read about Google’s Mail Goggles. It seems like such a silly idea that I figured someone was just messing with me. I seem to be wrong, though. Mail Goggles is a new feature designed to keep you from sending emails in a drunken state of anger. When you enable Mail Goggles, which is only available during late weekend nights, you’ll have to answer a series of simple math problems before you can send your email. It sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel but it’s for real.
This nifty little feature was designed by Google’s Jon Perlow, so if any thanks is due, he deserves it. I like the idea of Mail Goggles due to the fact that I tend to drunk email once in awhile. If only my phone had the same features…
Is there anything Mozilla doesn’t create that facilitates your web surfing experience? Firefox 3 came out back in June, yet Mozilla is still working hard to provide its users with top end interactivity for its interweb softwares. Now, Mozilla wants to take its browser to the next level with instant messaging integrated into your web browsing. It’s called Snowl, that’s Snow and Owl combined for the less observant. Mozilla Labs lists a few key ideas behind their design phase:
- It doesn’t matter where messages originate. Whether they come from traditional email servers, RSS/Atom feeds, web discussion forums, social networks, or other sources, they are all the same.
- Some messages are more important than others, and the best interface for actively reading important messages is different from the best one for casually browsing unimportant ones.
- A search-based interface for message retrieval is more powerful and easier to use than one that makes you organize your messages first to find them later.
- Browser functionality for navigating web content, like tabs, bookmarks, and history, also works well for navigating messages.
As of now, Snowl is still in its prototype phase but is free to download at the link provided below. It supports two sources of messages: RSS/Atom feeds and Twitter. No word on whether or not Ogio will make a Snowl backpack. If they did, I’d rock it. Hit the jump for more information:
