email — James Poling

Gmail Starts Offering ‘Email Interventions’ for Your Friends Hooked on Another Email Client

July 31, 2011 By James Poling Leave a Comment

I have to admit that it still surprises me that there are actually people out there that are still using another email client besides Gmail. It may not be the sexiest UI out there but it really does just do email right. Not to mention free video chat and calls to anywhere in the US.

It looks like the team at Gmail have come up with a fun, creative way for you to help your friends still tweaking on Yahoo! Mail or, god forbid, AOL or Hotmail.

Check out there new Email Intervention page for instructions on how to invite your friends to Gmail.

You can also check out the video after the jump.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Tech, Videos Tagged With: email, gmail, google, hotmail. aol, Videos, yahoo

Why MG Siegler “Quitting” Email Means Nothing and Why It Won’t Work for the Rest of Us

July 7, 2011 By James Poling Leave a Comment

MG Siegler’s announcement that he was “quitting email” elicited quite a few responses from both sides of the spectrum. Many people seemed to think it was a good idea while others thought it was a “dick thing to say”.

The problem with someone like MG making this kind of sweeping statement is that it means next to nothing for 95%, if not more, of everyone else out there grinding it out with email and whatever other form of communication or platform you can use to connect with people.

MG’s auto-response for anyone who does email is, “No longer responding to email, if you need me, you’ll figure out a way.”

Hmm, is there some way to qualify a “first-world problem” even more? “Elite first-world problem” maybe?

He goes on to say:

Yes, this sounds sort of like a pampered problem and perhaps somewhat of a dick move — I should be so lucky to get so many emails, right? But the reality remains: email is an absolute nightmare in my life. I dread it in the morning, I dread it more right before I go to bed. It’s always in the back of my mind, lingering.

You know who doesn’t have this problem? Construction workers, janitors, Wal-Mart employees. Maybe he should try that out one of those jobs for a month or so and see how that works out as part of his little “experiment”.

Maybe it’s the current economic client and knowing how many people are trying desperately to eek out a living by any means necessary but it really rubs me the wrong way to see someone who’s job it is to write about tech and to be in touch with people on a certain level to just up and declare something like this. It reeks of pretentiousness.

You know, I plan on cutting back on yachting for a month. It’s such a bore to constantly have to put the sails up and down.

Come on MG, you have dream job man, suck it up and deal with the email until the tech company you work for decides that they’re phasing out emails for the entire company you just come off as sounding pompous and out of touch.

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: email, mg siegler, techcrunch

Gmail Adds Drag and Drop Attachments

August 4, 2010 By James Poling Leave a Comment

Gmail is starting to love the drag and drop. It was a little more than a year ago when they added drag and drop functionality to their labels. Earlier this year they added the ability to add attachments to an email by dragging them from your hard drive into your email. Now they’ve added the ability to drag attachments you receive in an email and drop them onto your desktop (or anywhere else you’d like).

I’m a huge fan of Gmail and I’ve used it to manage all of my email for the past 6 years, I don’t think I’m alone when I say that I’d like to see Google put some serious time and effort into a major refresh of Gmail, not only with features but with its UI as well. Sure, Gmail raised the bar when it launched back in 2004 but since then it has remained largely stagnant, while Hotmail and Yahoo have been doing major overhauls to their platforms. I’m not holding my breath though.

Filed Under: How To Tagged With: attachments, email, gmail, Web Apps

Microsoft Launches New and Improved Hotmail

May 18, 2010 By James Poling Leave a Comment

Since I signed up for my first Hotmail account in 1997 (which I still have) I’ve been a total sucker for webmail. I’m still a sucker for web apps in general so whenever Microsoft does a complete overhaul of one of the world’s first, and most successful, webmail services it’s probably worth taking a look.

The first thing I noticed when going to login to Hotmail was that, once you’re logged in, it takes you straight to your inbox. They’ve gotten rid of that default news type landing page (which I think Yahoo Mail still uses) and gotten back to the basics. Email. If you’re a Hotmail user, that alone is reason to celebrate, but that’s just the gravy.

Conversation View:

If you like Gmail’s threaded conversations then you’ll be a fan of Hotmail’s conversation view. The new Hotmail gives you the option to turn this on and off which is something Gmail doesn’t do. Personally, I don’t understand why all mail apps don’t offer conversation view, it’s a far better way to keep track of your email history.

Office Web Apps Integration:

Microsoft has integrated Office Web Apps and Skydrive into Hotmail. You can now edit documents and presentations right in Hotmail without even having to download them. Hotmail is also using Skydrive to store photos so you can attach and view large photos right in your email app.

Single Contact List:

This may be the coolest new feature in any webmail app out there. “The new Hotmail brings all your online contacts into one convenient place — even those from services like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. Send an email to anyone, and if you want to you can manage your contacts by creating categories such as Friends or Co-workers to easily organize your address book.”

Exchange ActiveSync:

Gmail started offering this late last year and it works great for iPhones and Blackberries. I suspect heavy Hotmail users will be just as happy as I was to start using this with their mobile devices.

There’s a lot more new features including the ability to flag, move and manage your emails intuitively based on who they’re from. In the end I have too much invested in gmail to move away now, but I can honestly say that I’m impressed at where Hotmail is headed. This update has been a long time coming and you can really see that Microsoft wanted to make significant, deep changes in hotmail and they have definitely done that. These aren’t minor, cosmetic changes.

But what do I know, all of these changes are live so go login to your old Hotmail account or go sign up for a new one and let me know what you think in the comments section.

Filed Under: Reviews, Uncategorized Tagged With: email, hotmail, microsoft, Web Apps, webmail

Mozilla Labs working on “Smart” Inbox: Raindrop

October 23, 2009 By James Poling Leave a Comment

Mozilla Labs Thunderbird team is working on new, open source software aimed at making your email life easier by unifying many platforms in one place. Raindrop will use a smart filtering technology to separate the important, personal messages from the background noise of alerts, friend requests, direct message alerts etc. Possibly the most exciting part of this project is that, unlike Thunderbird, Raindrop is a web app.

Mozilla Raindrop

Email used to house the bulk of the conversations that took place on the internet, but that’s no longer the case today. In today’s world people use a combination of Twitter, IM, Skype, Facebook, Google Docs, Email, etc. to communicate. For many of us this means that we have to keep an eye on an ever-growing number of places we might get new messages. As a result, we never know that we’ve actually processed all the important messages, because our email has overwhelmed by noise which obscures the real messages from real people.

This boosts my argument last week that the email era is far from over. On the contrary, email is still in its infancy and as email grows up we will see more and more apps that will attempt to help you sort out the distractions until you’re ready to access them.

Click after the jump to watch a quick video highlighting some early features of the current Raindrop prototype.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: email, mozilla, open source, raindrop

The Email Era is Far From Over

October 12, 2009 By James Poling 1 Comment

Today the Wall Street Journal published an article titled “The End of the Email Era”. This wreaks of the, “Hey, look at me I said something”, approach that apparently passes for journalism these days.

Jessica E. Vascellaro’s premise is that just as email came into our lives a over a decade ago thanks to sites like Twitter and Facebook, among others, it is now waning fast.

In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine.

That would have been like saying, back when email was coming into its own, that it was time to dismantle the United States Post Office and proclaiming it the “end of the snail mail era”.

Twitter and Facebook, among others, may indeed be excellent tools to announce partnerships, and deals that have been struck. They may be outstanding platforms to broadcast to your friends, family or followers that you’re really enjoying the bologna sandwich you’re eating or that you’ll be speaking at Blogworld Expo but they are by no means a replacement for email.

Feelers can’t be put out via Twitter. You can’t work out the final arrangements of a deal on your Facebook feed. The simplicity and privacy of email is exactly what makes its place so secure. While the water cooler may be a great place to brag about your “accomplishments” from your wild night the night before, it’s certainly not the place you’re going to “seal the deal” if you know what I mean.

Hilariously enough, at the end of Vascellaro’s article is the classic: —Ms. Vascellaro is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau. She can be reached at jessica.vascellaro@wsj.com. What? No Twitter username or Facebook profile?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: communication, email, facebook, Social Media, twitter, wall street journal

Fixing Gmail’s IMAP on iPhones running 3.0

August 29, 2009 By James Poling Leave a Comment

Not long after upgrading to version 3.0 on my iPhone I began to notice that my Gmail IMAP began being unresponsive. In other words, actions I would take on the iPhone wouldn’t show up on the web. It’s pretty frustrating to go through and archive and organize all of your messages on your iPhone only to log into your web account later and see that none of it is actually reflected.

Apparently the key for people using firmware version 3.0 is to delete your current Gmail setup and start fresh choosing “other” on the setup screen rather than “Gmail”.

It’s still not perfect, but it’s better than what it was before. You can see the full setup directions via Gmail Help after the jump. This is definitely a step forward, but come on Gmail, you can do better than this.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: How To Tagged With: email, gmail, How To, IMAP, iPhone, mobile

Email Full-Resolution Photos from Your iPhone

July 11, 2009 By James Poling Leave a Comment

If you “Copy” photos out of your gallery and then paste them into the body of the email instead of the “Email Photo” button in the Camera app, you can email the full-resolution version of the photo.

In the gallery the first two images are screenshots of ways to copy images from your gallery and the second two images are examples of the resolution you get when you mail a photo and the full-resolution you get when you copy/paste a photo into an email.

Note: There is one caveat to this which can be a little convoluted. It seems that copy/pasting a photo does some sort of mucking around with the exif data. If you save a full-res photo onto your computer the thumbnail orientation is off, 90° CCW. But if you open that same image on your computer it looks fine. However, uploading that to your WordPress site will show the photo as off 90° CCW as well. Thanks to Jon at Geek Stuff I figured out the workaround for this is to open the full-res photo with your image editor and just re-save it. Not the most effecient process in the world (and this may be a non-issue uploading to Flickr or PicasaWeb but it’s definitely an issue with WordPress) but at least it is an option to share your full-res photos with everyone via email.

Filed Under: How To Tagged With: email, How To, iPhone, photography, photos, resolution

Gmail and Google Apps Officially Leave Beta

July 7, 2009 By James Poling Leave a Comment

Gmail out of beta(2) It only took almost five years but Gmail is finally taking the leap and removing the beta tag from its product.

Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk — both enterprise and consumer versions — are now out of beta. “Beta” will be removed from the product logos today, but we’ll continue to innovate and improve upon the applications whether or not there’s a small “beta” beneath the logo. Indeed, today we’re also announcing some other Google Apps features that we think will appeal to large enterprises: mail delegation, mail retention and ongoing enhancements to Apps reliability.

What does this mean for the average user? Probably not much. Google will continue to innovate and keep pushing out new lab features so for the casual user not much will be changing. Google is even giving people, who apparently hate change, the option under the settings tab to keep the logo with the beta tag on it.

This move is geared more toward potential Enterprise level users. While Google Apps keeps pushing its way into what used to be exclusive Microsoft Outlook or *cough*Lotus Notes*cough* territory it was practically mandatory that they remove the beta tag from Gmail and Google Apps. You’re not going to convince many IT Managers, or more importantly the big guys above the IT Directors, to trust their entire Enterprise infrastructure to something that’s still in beta.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: beta, email, enterprise, gmail, google, google apps

Gmail just made it super easy to switch from Yahoo, Hotmail or AOL

May 13, 2009 By James Poling Leave a Comment

gmail_250x250 It may be the newest kid on the block when it comes to webmail but Gmail has certainly quickly outpaced all of the other clients any almost every way. From their incredibly fast and intuitive interface, to vast amounts of storage not to mention they are constantly adding new features via Gmail Labs.

Gmail now migrates email and contacts from other email providers, including Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL, and many more. It’s much easier to make the transition now that you can bring along all your old email and contacts. You can even have your messages forwarded from your old account for 30 days, giving you time to take Gmail for a test drive while you make up your mind.

import1jpg

If you’ve been thinking about making the switch to Gmail but just couldn’t give up your years of stored up email, now’s your chance to get on board with all the cool kids. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

I used to freelance full time and sometimes I would need to bring on extra people to help out if I was particularly slammed. I have to admit that if two qualified candidates emailed me and had pretty much the exact same portfolio and one was using a Gmail address and one was using Yahoo, 9 out of 10 times I’m going with the Gmail address. To me at least, that person seems more aware of the technological surroundings.

Come to think of it, I can’t honestly think of one person I regularly communicate with via email that doesn’t have a Gmail address and is under the age of 50. Anyway, the moral of the story is if you haven’t, sign up for a new Gmail account (which are the only accounts this tool will work on for now) and give it a shot, what do you have to lose.

[Gmail Blog]

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: email, export, gmail, gmail labs, google, import

Google Launches Sync for your iPhone or iPod Touch

February 10, 2009 By James Poling Leave a Comment

The good news: Google finally released full sync capabilities for iPhone and yes this includes contacts and calendars. This is great news if you’re an avid Gmail user and are not currently using Exchange.

The bad news: If you’re already using an Exchange ActiveSync account you’re still out of luck. I use Microsoft exchange for my work email and my contacts. Right now I pretty much have all my business and personal contacts mixed together. Ideally there is a way to somehow sync your Google contacts without using Exchange or MobileMe.

Is it just not feasible to have two Exchange accounts on one phone?

Filed Under: Tech Tagged With: calendars, contacts, email, exchange, gmail, google, iPhone, sync

whspr! Allows You to Post a Contact Email without Giving Away Your Own Address

January 29, 2009 By James Poling Leave a Comment

I’m pretty sure there have been other services similar to this but I can’t recall any of them and something like this can always come in handy. I’ve been in this quandary before and wound up having to go through the trouble of registering a new email. whispr seems like a good alternative to that.

whspr!:

Fill out the form and we’ll give you a URL you can post wherever you like. Viewers who click it will go to a form where they can send you a message. We forward the message to you. That’s it.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: anonymous, email, whspr

Obama May Spend his First 100 Days in Crackberry Withdrawal

November 15, 2008 By James Poling Leave a Comment

barack-obama-holds-his-bl-001 Anyone out there that owns (or has owned) a BlackBerry can likely attest to a complete and total addiction to the device. BlackBerry power users are addicted to information, addicted to staying in touch with the outside world. That’s the freedom BlackBerry gives you especially if you have a hectic schedule, and it doesn’t get more hectic than a Presidential campaign.

If you’ve been following the Obama campaign at all you may have grown accustomed the almost iconic images of Obama checking his BlackBerry whenever he had some downtime.

All that is likely about to change:

…before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

Mr. Obama used e-mail to stay in constant touch with friends from the lonely confines of the road, often sending messages like “Sox!” when the Chicago White Sox won a game. He also relied on e-mail to keep abreast of the rapid whirl of events on a given campaign day.

“How about that?” Mr. Obama replied to a friend’s congratulatory e-mail message on the night of his victory.

Well, there goes my brilliant idea of getting Obama a new BlackBerry Bold for Christmas/Inauguration gift. Thanks a lot National Security!

Filed Under: Politics, Tech Tagged With: barack obama, blackberry, email, rim

Gmail Starts Offering ‘Email Interventions’ for Your Friends Hooked on Another Email Client

Why MG Siegler “Quitting” Email Means Nothing and Why It Won’t Work for the Rest of Us

Gmail Adds Drag and Drop Attachments