Tech News Beats

Gmail offered free Holiday and new year cards for its users. They offered to send by snail mail to a limited number on a first request first serve basis. But one can download them from their site and print it. Nice cards, so thought of sharing it here.

Gmail is not just an email service but a whole package of communication. Google who owns Gmail, continuously keeps adding new features so that user experience of Gmail remains good. Lets check what new Gmail has to offer for us:

1. Gmail Notifier: Gmail Notifier is a small application which one need to download on their computer to receive notifications when a new mails lands in Gmail inbox (one must have internet connection). You can download it for free.

2. You can turn off the chat feature inside Gmail.

3. After the Chinese hackers breaking into Gmail accounts, Google has has made Gmail more secure by introducing HTTPS. It is a secure method of transferring information on the internet. It not a default settings earlier but now it is a default settings.

4. Gmail is the first free email provider (probably first in all sector) to offer themes.

5. Gmail launched paid service who need more storage space. One birdie told me that it offers around 20 GB for $5/year.

6. One button to merge all duplicate contacts in Gmail.

7. You can use Gmail offline.

8. Youtube, Picasa, Flickr, Google docs and Yelp previews in Gmail mails if it contains a link from any one of them.

9. Google voice player: Lets you listen to voicemails left on Google voice account.

10. Message translation: It will automatically translate any email you receive in other language to English.

11. Quick links: This is nothing but a bookmarking feature in Gmail.

12. Superstars: Add icons to names.

13. Pictures in chat: By enabling this option you can see profile pictures of your friend during chat.

14. Customized keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures: You van use customize keyboard shortcut keys to navigate Gmail. Also, you can use your mouse with gestures. Hold right-click and move the mouse left to go to a previous conversation, move it right to go to the next conversation, and move up to go back to the inbox view. Works best on Windows.

15. Random signature: This feature helps you to feature multiple signatures on a rotational basis.

16. Text Messaging (SMS) in Chat/SMS in Chat gadget: This feature is available only in US as of now.

I just listed 16 features which are interesting and will be useful for daily life. Apart from these there are many more features. What I liked most about these features is the plugin system similar to WordPress. All you have to do is select the enable or disable option to activate or de-activate an option.