I was graciously given an invitation to use Google’s Gmail and I happily signed up. I know I’ve been critical in past posts on Gmail, mostly due to the shaky policy that Google has implemented for Gmail. However, I’ve grown to realize that Google hasn’t given us any reason to not trust them yet. They’ve been champions of the internet, and have given us great services over the years, so why should we blast them now when we have no reason to?
With that said, I plan on using my new Gmail address as my main personal email address now. I’ve discovered the benefits far outweigh having POP3 access and using an email client. For one thing, portability, being able to check email on any computer with an internet connection. 1GB of space means I won’t have to delete the emails, and I can search emails in the archives, which has been a useful feature for me for years when working at 3DGPU.
Not to mention there are already a bunch of hacks/programs that will make your Gmail’ing experience better. Such as GmailCompose, a wonderful extension for Firefox. G-Mailto makes it so when you click on an email link, it brings up Gmail’s compose mail interface. There’s also GTray, an app that sits in your tray and checks your Gmail for any mail, and lets you quickly go to compose an email. There’s Getmail For Hotmail, which lets you forward your emails from Hotmail to Gmail. You can even import your .mbox format emails into Gmail. With this much support so early into the service, that can only be a good thing.
Click on Contact above if you wish to email me, updated to the new Gmail address.
You wanna know the one reason why I haven’t moved any of my accounts to my Gmail account? Because I don’t (yet) know how to get incoming Gmail notifications to pop-up in Trillian Pro. That’s such a useful feature that I can’t (and won’t) live without it. I currently have that ability for my Yahoo and MSN e-mail. Until I have that for Gmail, I don’t have anything yet that I feel free to use it for.
I think the 1GB of space far outweighs the fact that I need to know the exact moment that I get an email. Plus if it’s that big of a deal, you can always just use Firefox and keep Gmail open in a seperate tag. It will auto-refresh every minute or so, and the page title will tell you how many new messages you have! Gmail + FireFox = Good Stuff
Hey Jeff, I was visiting your site earlier and I love that post you made saying how you got a Gmail invite. Ingenious! :D
Btw, I agree with your post. Although at the moment having GTray check every 30 minutes is good enough for me, but when I start working on 3DGPU.com, every minute is better.
How does one get an invite to gmail. I would like to give it a try
Make lots of friends and hope one of them is kind. :)