Gmail Love :)

I know it's just a little weird to love an email application, but, really. Gmail kicks ass! There's so many things you can customize with Firefox Extensions, Greasemonkey scripts and other 3rd party services. So, I thought I would list my favs and what they do. Maybe it would be helpful for those of you who use Gmail and haven't customized it or sway some of you to dump your Hotmail (YUK!), Yahoo, etc.. accounts and learn to love Gmail.

First and foremost: Threaded Conversations. Email conversations can have so many back and forths. Threads keep it all together. No more opening multiple emails to follow backwards a conversation. Love it!!!

Second in line: Gmail's Spam filtering. When I open one of my other email accounts, I can't believe how much crap is there.

Third: Search. Duh! It is Google after all. They better have a damn good search function.

Forth: Archiving. So easy to keep your inbox clean. Archive it and search later. No more moving emails to folders to stay organized. I use some labels, but, for the most part, I archive and search.

Fifth: Storage. 6 GBs and counting.

Sixth: Google Chat. In the middle of a chat and your contact goes offline? It gets converted to an email.

Honorable Mentions: POP download, IMAP, multiple email accounts, filters.

Now what extensions and third party apps can you add to your Firefox browser to do so much more with Gmail? Let's take a look at some of my favorites.

1. CustomizeGoogle. Not purley for Gmail, but, gives you an option to remove advertisements and related pages to your email view.

2. Xoopit. Scans your emails for files and links to online videos and photo albums and brings them all into an easy to access interface. Integrates into the Gmail search as well. Search for your friend Bobo and see the photos and videos and files Bobo has sent you.

3. Gspace: Use some of that 6 GBs as file storage. Upload a file you need to access from another location and download it where you need it. If the computer you're using off site doesn't have the Gspace extension, just search our Gmail and there it is. Very handy!

4. Remember The Milk. Handy to-do manager that integrates into your Gmail interface. I'm not very good @ using to-do managers (I suppose I should put that on my list), but, if you are, this one is great.

5. Google Contacts Autocomplete. This is a Greasemonkey script that allows you to enter an email address from your Gmail contacts into online forms. Want to invite a friend to that cool music search beta site you just found? No need to lookup their email address ('cause really who remembers bobo2466kittenpants@hotmail.com ), just start typing and a filtered list pops up to select from. Very, very cool!


Enough said. I love what you can do with Gmail. And you should too :)