I’m not sure if all Gmail users are getting this (or only users like me who constantly bother Google technicians with “suggestions” — see below), but I was just given two invites!! Sorry, they are all handed out already, but if I happen to get another few I’ll post it here and give them to the first people who leave comments. This works well because it will actually force people to leave comments, which no one has been doing for some odd reason.

So, I have no Gmail invites currently, but when I do, you guys will be the first to know.

Scott

BTW, I tried entering one of the contests to get a Gmail invite from a link below, but I didn’t win. I spent quite awhile using gimp to edit my soup can, fork, and spoon masterpiece. The piece of art is entitled Klettke Warhol. I think it should have won. What about you?

Say your email address is scott(at)gmail.com. This email address is fake…I wish I could have it but the username must be six letters or longer.

Anyway, say you want to create an account at Amazon.com. All you have to do is suppy amazon with the email address scott+amazon(at)gmail.com. Or for Ebay, scott+ebay(at)gmail.com. Then, create a filter within Gmail to automatically assign email sent to scott+amazon an Amazon label and scott+ebay an Ebay label. Then, if you start to get spam sent to scott+amazon, and you’ve only used scott+amazon for amazon-related things, then you know that Amazon sold your email address (or was hacked or something). This sweet feature allows you have separate aliases for different Internet services, while still retaining the ability to check all the email in one location.

Before I got Gmail I had a similar system. I had bought the domain for this site www.klettke.org and am currently paying Yahoo $10 a year (a very cheap price I think) for my own email @klettke.org email address. I could set up my own email server but lack a dedicated Internet connection for that use. The $10 per year includes one email address but an unlimited number of forwards. So, in effect, I have the same feature that is discussed above. For example, my blogging email is blog ( at ) klettke. org. This is a forward that used to forward it to my main @klettke.org account, then to my school’s IMAP account, and now to my gmail account.

Scott

Here’s my collection of Gmail related posts on various places:

1.
“Imagine if you sent an email to a friend saying
‘Thanks for letting me copy that CD of yours’ “

Response:
I don’t think the RIAA or any organization could arrest you on that information. What if the CD was a collection of freeware games or something? What would they do if I said “Thanks for letting me copy your pirated Windows XP CDs and Office XP CDs. Once I get those installed on my stolen lapton I’ll be able to watch “The Lady Killers” divx file that I downloaded off kazaa and be able to type up a list of the best places to buy weed.” What could they do? Arrest me? They have no evidence, besides my words, to back it up. I could have just as easily been joking about it.

Think about how hard of a time the RIAA and MPAA are having subpoenaing ISPs to give over the IP addresses of people they have hard evidence of downloading copyrighted material.

If one is discussing something that should remain very private, use an encryption like pgp.

2.
froke wrote:
I just hope gmail doesn’t insert text ads as a signature to my emails like hotmail does. that is so annoying. made me stop using hotmail, not to mention having to clear out hundreds of spam mails every day.

go google

Aurora wrote:

Well, I’m not sure I could live with ads in the BODY of an eMail that I send and receive, but I’ll sure give it a try.

Response:
When I logged in to update my blog today (at blogger.com), I got a message saying that google (who owns blogger) is giving access to gmail to “active users of blogger.” I guess I’ve been active enough…

Since I’ve just signed up, the only email that I’ve gotten are the ones that I’ve sent to myself to see how it works. Just for fun I sent myself an email with only these words in the body: apple, mac, jobs, g4, powerpc, powerbook, osx. The text advertisements in the corner were links directing me to Apple-related websites. If google can’t find any appropriate ads, it might give “related links,” which are links from their web index that is related to your email. And, sometimes, there will be no ads at all. I’ve not found the ads distracting at all.

And, best of all, google does not add any advertisements into the body of the text of any email that you send or receive.

Some people were wondering about the format of email that is sent. So far, Google cannot send HTML emails. It can only send plain text. However, I think it can *receive* html emails. It will not display pictures, however, unless directed to.

There are a number of outstanding features that I am just beginning to figure out.

My only concern is that Konqueror (as of 3.2.2) does not yet work with gmail. I have to resort to Firefox. But in Firefox, everything works perfectly. Google does not give any advantage to users of IE.

EDIT: I just received my first HTML email and the default setting is not to show any images. They is very good for security reasons, but they can be turned on with the click of one button.

This is awesome!!!! 😉

There were some extra gmail invites here as of Thursday 4/22. Kingsley had mentioned how he got an invite from that site.

I had logged into Blogger to post the message below about the Back to the Future car and was greeted with this:

“As an active Blogger user, we would like to invite you to be one of the first to try out Google’s new email service, Gmail.”

I am now the proud owner of my very own Gmail account!!! Woohoo!

Here’s the screen immediately after I created my account:

Thankfully, I’ve been posting to blogger fairly regularly, entitling me to take part in the gmail beta test!

I’ll post updates on Gmail use as I go (and when I actually start to receive email at that account).

There are many misconceptions about Google’s gmail service. Rather than repeat what has already been eloquently written, I’ll direct you to Bladam’s “in-depth look” at Google’s Gmail