trying out a gmail notifier in Ubuntu 10.10. It’s called GmailWatcher and I got my information from here. To install, fire up the Terminal and use these two lines:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:loneowais/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gmailwatcher

After it installs, left-click on themail notification icon and then click on the GmailWatcher option which is in the drop-down list. That should open a window which has a “settings” button you can press to add a new account. Enter your info and – viola! – you should be good to go!  Under that dialogue there’s a tab for “Preferences” which gives you an option to have GmailWatcher start up when you login on your computer – excellent choice, I’d say…

I’ll update if I have any problems, but it seems to be running pretty smoothly so far!

So I finally got my hands on an Android based phone: a Droid X. Sweetness… Yeah, I love the phone so far. Supposedly I’m going to get the 2.2 update tomorrow and that’ll be a whole ‘nuther bag of awesomeness.

So somebody please explain to me why I’m paying $15 a month for a texting plan – on top of my unlimited data plan?! This irritates me no end because texting is nothing more than a limited email system. Don’t believe me? Grab your phone and send a text to your email address, not a phone number. Bam! Not only does it pop up in your inbox as just another email – but you have captured the email address of your cell phone.

Needless to say, I think I’ve figured out a way to trash the texting plan but not lose texting. And it’s all centered around Google Voice. I had to go and sign up and get a local number in Google Voice, but since I already had a Gmail account that was pretty simple. After I got the number I proceeded to play around some. And now, since I’ve gotten my Droid X, my plans of ridding myself of the burden of a texting plan are coming to fruition.

How? Well, Google Voice integrates extremely well with the Android operating system. And that Google Voice number I acquired (the first one is free – costs $10 to change it…) can receive texts. Unfortunately it cannot receive pictures or audio files.

I called up the big V yesterday and set this present billing cycle to be my last one with a texting plan. My wife and I have long since abandoned texting each other. She uses a crackberry Blackberry and we communicate via Google Talk all day long. I’m planning on utilizing this to communicate more often with my friends who have smartphones, and for those who don’t, or can’t, then they can text to my Google Voice number – with the caveat that they will have to send any pictures/audio to my email address instead of the GV number.

So that’s my grand scheme…I’ll post an update in another month or so about how this is working out for me. Has anyone tried this? Any suggestions?

If you use Chrome or Chromium (and I highly suggest you try them out if you don’t!) here are a couple extensions for Gmail that I discovered that I actually use a lot. Not ground-breaking or breathtaking, but very useful:

Gmail checker – shows if you have any new emails and how many, and also serves as a shortcut to Gmail (opens it in a new tab)

Send from Gmail – does exactly what it says, it just copies the address bar of whatever page you are on and opens up a small gmail window to compose mail with that address in the email. It’s great for tossing pages at friends!

What is Prism? Well, it’s created by Mozilla, the guys that make Firefox. Basically it is a dedicated window for a site. What is neat is that it runs off your desktop just like a program. So if you use Gmail for your email, then you could create a gmail prism thingy (not sure if I should call it a “program” or “shortcut”, because it is both and neither…I think), and when you launch it Gmail is opened up, in it’s own window. Now, if you combine that with gmail’s offline mode, you pretty much have the official gmail on your computer (not controlled by another program like Thunderbird or Evolution).

There is a Firefox Prism add-on which enables you to make any website you desire into an “application”. I’m nto too sure how effective this is. But, never fear, in Ubuntu there are several repo packages already created for specific prism setups. Just open up a terminal window and start with the classic install line:

sudo apt-get install

then follow it with whichever of the packages you want:

• prism-facebook
• prism-google-analytics
• prism-google -calendar
• prism-google-docs
• prism-google-groups
• prism-google-mail [basically gmail]
• prism-google-reader
• prism-google-talk [or google chat]
• prism-twitter

I installed both the gmail and chat ones, and they work great, and I think I’ll probably be adding calendar and docs (at least) as well. If you want to install it all, just string ‘em all together after the install command like this:

sudo apt-get install prism-facebook prism-google-analytics prism-google-calendar prism-google-docs prism-google-groups prism-google-mail prism-google-reader prism-google-talk prism-twitter

Enjoy!

so I thought I’d give Evolution (Ubuntu’s open source MS Outlook alternative) a chance.  I use Gmail to manage approximately four different email addresses, and I actually love Gmail’s way of organizing things (by tags). I also tend to access my email from different computers rather regularly, so POP mail (which downloads the mail from the server) was not feasible. That’s why I decided to go with IMAP, which basically synchs the data on your computer with that on the gmail servers (in this case). The setup is pretty straightforward:

Open up your gmail account first, and click on ‘Settings’ and then on ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’. Gake sure IMAP is enabled and then click on the “Configuration Instructions” link underneath that option (oh, and save your changes!). In the window which opens up (in a new tab in Firefox…) you’ll have to click on the link for “other” under the ‘mail clients’ list. The page it opens will list all the information you need.

Now, open Evolution. If it’s the first time you’ve used that, then it will prompt you to set up an account. If you’re already using Evolution, but want to add Gmail, then click on “Edit” and then on “preferences”. It should open up in the “Mail Accounts” portion of the Preferences menu, so choose “Add”.

Here’s the pertinent information (basically what that gmail page has for you):

First window (Identity):

• Full name: [your name]
• Email Address: [your full gmail address here]
• (choose to make this your default email address if you so desire)
• Reply to: [should normally be your full gmail address, unless you prefer a different address for people to respond to]
• Organization: [only fill out if you need to list your organization...]

Second window (Receiving Email):

• Server Type: IMAP
• Server: imap.gmail.com
• Use Secure Connection: SSL encryption
• Authentication Type: Password
• (unless you want to enter your password every time it connects, choose for it to remember the password)

Third window (Receiving Options):

here are the options I checked in this window:

• Check for new messages every 10 minutes
• Check for new messages in all folders
• Check for new messages in subscribed folders
• Automatically synchronize remote mail locally

Fourth Window (Sending Email):

• Server Type: SMTP
• Server: smtp.gmail.com
• (the box under it [for server requiring authentication] should be checked – make sure it is!)
• Use Secure Connection: SSL encryption
• Type: Login
• Username: [your full gmail address -> example@gmail.com]
• (tell it to remember the password…)

Last Screen:

This is just what you want to call the account in your account list – I just called mine “gmail” I believe (creative, I know – so sue me…). After clicking “Next on this screen you should be good to go. Close out “Preferences” (if that’s how you got to the new account screen).

You should be good to go. If it doesn’t prompt you for a password right away, or try to connect right away, just hit “Send/Receive” and it should try to connect and prompt you for a password.

You should notice a in your email folder section the topmost section is entitled “On This Computer”. When Evolution synchs with Gmail for the first time it will create a new section called “Gmail” with all the folders/tags you have in gmail. This is where your Gmail inbox is accessed and you control Gmail.

Since Evolution doesn’t do things exactly like gmail, some things are more “equivalent” than “equal”. You have folders instead of tags. I have filters set up in google to put tags on emails from certain addresses/services. To put a tag on something from Evolution you just drag it into the folder, which also takes it out of your inbox (note that you can’t apply an email to multiple folders, so if you want multiple tags on an email just leave it in your inbox until you can open up gmail and do it there).

Also, if you just hit “Delete” in Evolution, it doesn’t actually delete your email. Rather, it Archives it. In Gmail, that translates to removing the “inbox” tag on an email. So, if you had a filter in effect to tag an email, say for “family”, then that email will automatically be dropped in the “family” folder. But if you’re not sure if an email was tagged or not in Gmail, best thing to do is to drag it to the appropriate folder.

To actually delete an email, you need to drag the email to the ‘Trash’ folder found under the ‘[Gmail]‘ folder.