jnthweb Consulting

gMail – Useful Features

Joan Vinall-Cox — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 17:17:01 +0000

gMail is my favorite mail application, as I have blogged about here previously:

There are other reasons in other posts, but here is an excellent succinct list of why and how gmail is useful:

http://www.thethinkingstick.com/5-gmail-tips-for-teachers

My Samsung Galaxy Tab

Joan Vinall-Cox — Fri, 27 May 2011 13:19:37 +0000

My Samsung Galaxy Tab Home Screen

Does it make me disloyal to my love for Apple? I love my MacBook Air, but I bought myself a Samsung Galaxy Tab. My friends say I’m betraying Mac, but here’s what I said to them:

Well I do feel a little disloyal, but I’ve always been deeply fond of Google, and the Tab has an Android OS which is Open Source and I try to be open-minded …

I love the size, about the same as a paperback so it fits easily into my purse. I’ve downloaded a Kindle app and I can read on it and an Audible app and I can listen to books. I’ve got Firefox on it, synced to my laptop’s Firefox, which is handy. I can email, txt, take photos, deal with my calendar, Facebook and Twitter, email photos or add them directly to Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Picasa and more, read the Bible, record sound, check the sound-level with a sound meter, and more. There’s lots I haven’t tried yet, like video, giving commands by speaking, etc. My friend got the same tablet so she could have lots to read when she travelled without carrying a lot of books. She has wifi only; I pay $20.00 a month (no contract) for 3G. In August my iPhone contract ends, and I plan to get a very cheap dumb phone, or bluetooth so I can use the Tab as a phone.

I do have a couple of quibbles – the ear-buds don’t work with Audible and I haven’t been able to figure out why, and it doesn’t have iTunes (duh!) and getting music on it is tricky but the ear buds work for the music apps!

And the price dropped substantially!

So I really like my new toy ;->

I wrote about it in another of my blogs – http://joanvinallcox.ca/galaxy-tab-starting/ and http://joanvinallcox.ca/galaxy-tab-quibble/ and I’m cross posting this there too.

Sending Audio Feedback: Audacity and gMail

Joan Vinall-Cox — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 04:14:42 +0000

Sometimes it quicker and/or more personal to send recorded audio messages. As a teacher, I’ve sent emails using audio apps on my iphone, but it takes a long time to send and it’s a bit tricky to add email addresses. Today I tried using the free, downloadable audio software, Audacity, and the free richly-featured web mail app, gmail. I’ve alread had a student email back that it was a “neat” way to get feedback. Here’s how it’s done.

Download Audacity (and LAME) – http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Learn how to use it – http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Category:Tutorial (There are lots of Audacity tutorials online – Google for them.)
Once you’ve set up Audacity and LAME, you can get away with knowing very little -
First, Save Project As before anything else

Second, Hit the red button and start talking. (You might want to have some notes or a script in front of you.)

Third, stop talking and hit either the Pause button, if you want to add more later, or the Stop button, if you’re finished.

Audacity Pause Edit

Fourth, Save the file somewhere easy to find again

Audacity Save Project

Fifth, Export As MP3
Sixth - go to your gmail account - set the address you want to send from (and gmail offers possible addresses that you can simply click on) and add the Subject (every time you start another email with the same subject, you will be prompted a few letters in) so it’s time-saving and easy

Sixth, attach the MP3 file (and write a message in the body or the email, if you wish)
And hit Send!

Once you have sent out a few dozen, you’ll have the hang of it, and you’ll discover that it (probably) takes less time than writing out the feedback and sending it.

Have fun!

Gmail Labs

Joan Vinall-Cox — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 20:28:30 +0000

I use most of the extensions in the video below. You might find them helpful too.

via @LuigiBenetton

Dropbox – A Wonderful Tool!

Joan Vinall-Cox — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:40:58 +0000

I use Dropbox everyday, many times everyday. When I presented on Social Media to the Toronto Branch of PWAC (Professional Writers Association of Canada) I had my PowerPoint on my laptop, on a usb stick, and in Dropbox, which I can access from any online computer, as it stores my files in the “cloud”. It’s not that I was worried, but when I present, I make sure I have what I need. Having my PowerPoint file in Dropbox was the ultimate assurance!

To learn more about Dropbox possibilities and why you might want to download the free version, check out these links:

It’s also handy for backing up important files.

Email Oracle – Gone!

Joan Vinall-Cox — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 01:00:31 +0000

A good idea, that didn’t work too well, and is now closing!

gMail Can Track When Messages Opened

Joan Vinall-Cox — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:12:17 +0000

I send out email to a variety of people, some of whom open and answer messages daily or even hourly and some of who go on the internet a few times a week – or less. Sometimes, I need to know if they got my message, and take further action (like phone them) if they haven’t. But what if they’re doing what I sometimes do – deciding to answer later (maybe). I don’t want to seem like a nag by phoning them when they aren’t ready to respond. Or if it’s to a group where we share responsibilities, knowing who has got the message and who hasn’t can be helpful.

EmailOracle for gmail changes the game. Now I can know who has read my emails and who hasn’t. I think this new gmail app is kind of creepy, but I’m going to try the free version of emailOracle out. However, even if I weren’t trying it out, knowing about it has already changed my email habits. (I won’t just leave messages I don’t want to deal with waiting; I’ll acknowledge and give at least a temporary answer.)

TechCrunch has provided a good description – http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/11/emailoracle/ and below is a screenshot of my gmail Compose screen.

I can choose to track or not, and even to get a reminder if I don’t hear back in a certain number of days. The base of 20 tracked emails per month is free; for more than 20 a month, there’s a graduated cost scale. So I won’t be tracking all my messages, just the ones I’m really concerned about. (But I will be careful about what I open and how soon I answer.)

gMail and CloudMagic for Searching

Joan Vinall-Cox — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:47:33 +0000

Now that you’re using gmail, do you ever find yourself writing a message, but needing information from a previous message or from your Contacts? It can be annoying to save the current message as a draft, (1) or open a separate copy, (2) just so you can search (3) for what you need.

There’s a new free service that makes this kind of searching while composing a message in gmail much easier. It’s available for the Firefox and the Chrome browsers, (both of which are excellent browsers and far superior to IE, but that’s a future topic).

Here’s the video explaining how CloudMagic works - http://www.cloudmagic.com/welcome.php?s=n

As I add the word “webinar”, CloudMagic is already searching through my gmail -

Here’s the information I want, and I can copy and paste it into my message!

CloudMagic is SO-O-O convenient, and quite easy to install. Try it out!

Why gMail? Labels Not Folders

Joan Vinall-Cox — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:27:12 +0000

Labels in gMail

Most email applications let you set up folders for storing messages you want to save. You have to decide what category your message fits into, if you want to keep it (but not in the Inbox), make sure you have a folder with that name, and store the message there. Then, when you want the message, you have to remember what folder you saved it in.

gMail offers a different system where you label messages and, if you want to store them rather than leave them in the Inbox, you can archive them. The big difference is -

You can use as many labels as you want for one message!

Sometimes I only use one label, but often I use two or even three. “So what?” you ask. Well there are several ways I benefit from this attribute of gmail.

What I’ve just mentioned, – I can use multiple labels, so I don’t have to remember which folder I put a message in; I just have to remember one of the categories I’m likely to have labelled the message with.
I can create the labels I want for my own purposes by clicking on either “Manage labels” or “Create new label”.
These will take me to Settings/Labels (or I can just go directly there) and I can manage my labels.
It’s easy to add the labels that are useful for you, and if you have a lot of labels, you can choose which ones to hide or show.
Also, I can make the labels different colours, which helps me sort my messages visually.
I simply click on the space beside the label and choose the colour. Easy.
To find messages again, whether in your Inbox or your gmail Archive (and gmail gives you LOTS of storage space), you can put a keyword or name from the message you want into the gmail Search field -
or, and this is what I really, really love – you can click directly on the label on the left, and all the messages with that label, whether in the Inbox or the Archive, will appear.

So that’s the story with gmail’s labels instead of other mail application’s folders. I find it way more convenient to organize my messages when I can add my own multiple labels and archive messages, and then sort by colour and clicking on labels.

Give it a try; it will probably work for you too.

p.s. Thanks to Barry Sampson – http://barrysampson.com/ and Donna Papacosta – http://trafcom.com/ for their helpful comments on the previous post http://jnthweb.ca/2010/08/gmail-other-email-addresses/

Why gMail? Other eMail Addresses

Joan Vinall-Cox — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:48:57 +0000

Years ago I had a Hotmail address as well as an address based on my service provider and one for the institution I worked for. Three email addresses:

one I could open on any wired computer, as long as I remembered the exact address and my password for it (didn’t always happen),
another I could open on my work computer,
a third I could open on my home computer.

Of course I could use Webmail for my work and home addresses, but it was a pain. And so was opening three different addresses. The Hotmail address died from neglect and forgetfulness, but the other two were important, and it was irritating to have two different email accounts. (Hey, laziness and forgetfulness aren’t my dominant characteristics, but I do avoid any web stuff that isn’t EASY!)

I found a solution, and that’s what this, the first in a series of posts about gmail, is about: how gmail lets you read all your email in one place, yet answer from other sites.

(This post has been inspired by a friend leaving the institution where she has worked for years, and where her email address will be terminated when she leaves.)

Why gMail?

It’s free!
You can choose your address.
And this is the important one -> you can forward all your other addresses to gmail so you can see ALL your messages in ONE place. (You can also reply from the address the message came to! without leaving the gmail page.)

To do this, set up your own gmail account. You can do this by googling gmail, and following the links, for example – http://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/basics/create_free_gmail_account_how_to.php

(My friend’s son did this for her, so she had her gmail address, but she still had to check her other addresses. Here are the instructions for how I did the next step for her.)

Click on “Settings” on the upper right of the gmail page.

Then, go to “Accounts and Import” -

Click on the Import button – for more detailed instructions go here

Don’t forget to click on the button that lets you reply from the same address the message is sent to.

Just add your addresses one at a time and answer the confirmation email that arrives at your original address.

That’s it! Now all your addresses funnel into your gmail account so you only have one place to look, making your life easier! And my friend really likes that part of gmail, (which her son hadn’t set up for her.)

Soon, I’ll explain how to use Labels in gmail, and why they are better than folders in other email applications.