Gmail Updates
March 2nd 2010 08:41
The gmail crew spend a good deal of their time working on ways to improve the system, and several of their recent lab features have just made the grade. (They've just taken their top rated diet pills, and now they're feeling up to the task of facing the millions of daily gmail users.)
On the other hand, several features have been retired (they weren't taking their pills and had got flabby) because people just weren't using them to any extent. And certainly none of them meant anything to me, and I've been on gmail for several years.
One of the features had already been working on the system without me thinking about it. I'd noticed it, but not noticed it, as it were. When you press the / key to search on gmail, usually you have to put in precisely what it is you're looking for, but now the search box is already thinking ahead for you, suggesting words as you type. It has its points.
The other main improvement is that you can now use the shortcut g l and you'll be taken straight to the labels. (g i takes you back to the inbox if you're somewhere else...a very handy tool.) I've pretty much given up using labels, since the search box is very good (even without the new improvement). What I'd prefer is being able to put the emails on the screen in alphabetical order occasionally, especially when I know an email is amongst the most recent items but I just can't see it quickly.
Maybe that'll come.
I quite liked one of the other lesser additions to the range: when you write the word 'attached' or 'attachment' in the email, then gmail will ask, as you go to send it, if you meant to send an attachment as well, if you haven't added the attachment in. This seems more use than the label thing to me. Along with thousands of other email users, I regularly forget to add the attachment I've just said I'm sending.
You can also now watch You Tube previews directly from gmail. Sort of useful. And the other two items are only for real gmail addicts, I suspect. So I won't even bother to mention them....!
On the other hand, several features have been retired (they weren't taking their pills and had got flabby) because people just weren't using them to any extent. And certainly none of them meant anything to me, and I've been on gmail for several years.
One of the features had already been working on the system without me thinking about it. I'd noticed it, but not noticed it, as it were. When you press the / key to search on gmail, usually you have to put in precisely what it is you're looking for, but now the search box is already thinking ahead for you, suggesting words as you type. It has its points.
The other main improvement is that you can now use the shortcut g l and you'll be taken straight to the labels. (g i takes you back to the inbox if you're somewhere else...a very handy tool.) I've pretty much given up using labels, since the search box is very good (even without the new improvement). What I'd prefer is being able to put the emails on the screen in alphabetical order occasionally, especially when I know an email is amongst the most recent items but I just can't see it quickly.
Maybe that'll come.
I quite liked one of the other lesser additions to the range: when you write the word 'attached' or 'attachment' in the email, then gmail will ask, as you go to send it, if you meant to send an attachment as well, if you haven't added the attachment in. This seems more use than the label thing to me. Along with thousands of other email users, I regularly forget to add the attachment I've just said I'm sending.
You can also now watch You Tube previews directly from gmail. Sort of useful. And the other two items are only for real gmail addicts, I suspect. So I won't even bother to mention them....!
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