ath3na's talking points

So I've decided that since Google has infiltrated my life as it has, that I should devote a little time to sharing, what I consider, the magical wonderful goodness that is Google Apps.

Now, when you say Google Apps, many utilities are implied. I intend to go over these mostly individually. We'll start with Gmail. So let us begin...

Gmail is the e-mail that ended all other e-mails. It began as being a geek elitist sort of e-mail, because it was invitation only, you had to know someone to be one of the privileged to get one of these babies. I, being the uber-geek I have become, received a Gmail account only a few short months after its conception. It took a little while to spread, at least in its first days. But ever since it has become one of the most treasured freebies on the net. (I should add that it is not invitation only anymore and it is now open to the public. You too can get a Gmail account by going here. I will be more than happy to invite you as well, should you want an invitation just e-mail me at rainbowCipher {at} gmail {dot} com.)

I, personally, had several e-mail accounts previously. I had a Hotmail account, a Yahoo! account, and my school e-mail. I primarily used my Hotmail but was displeased with its spam filtering. I despised having to sift through the hundreds upon thousands of spam messages because the spam filter was so laughably robust that unless you added your new friends e-mail address to your address book, their e-mail was imprisoned by the spam filter, to soon be deleted. I wasn't too excited about the interface of Yahoo!, so I guess you could say I was in the market for something new.

I received my glorious invitation from a friend, who had a friend, who had a - well you get the point - and created my account right-away. I decided to pick an e-mail address that I could use for a long time, something that could be both serious, easy, and uncomplicated. I chose my first name and last name separated by a period. I know, I should have used my avatar, but I created a separate account for my avatar and had all mail forwarded to it to my main account, where I could send mail masked as my avatar.

The things I liked the most about Gmail were the same that everyone liked most about Gmail. I loved the ever-growing extra storage (almost 3gb now), the ability to use filters to separate your mail into different labels before you ever see them, and then labels themselves. Labels are Google's approach to folders. You can apply multiple labels to an e-mail, and have certain mail automatically archived. This is the greatest invention since VoIP, if you ask me.

I've recently found a couple of Firefox extensions (if you don't use Firefox yet, you definitely should, it's exponentially better than IE even on a bad day) that makes the 'ole so wonderful Gmail, as well as using any of the Google Apps, even better. Is that even possible, you say? Well, as amazing as it may sound, yes.

I got the first extension from Lifehacker, so who better to explain it's purpose, than Lifehacker itself... check out the article here, or just read below:

Gmail's good, but it could be better. We've featured several Greasemonkey scripts that enhance Gmail in lots of different ways - like adding saved searches, attachment icons, label colors, keyboard macros, a filter assistant and right-click conversation previews. But not everyone wants to install Greasemonkey and hunt down all those scripts.

To save you the time, I've compiled the best Greasemonkey scripts for Gmail into one handy Firefox extension, called Better Gmail. After the jump, put your Gmail on steroids with Better Gmail.

Better Gmail Firefox extension

Version: 0.3
Released: April 16, 2007
Updated: April 19, 2007
Creator: Gina Trapani, using scripts by Mihai Parparita and others, compiled using Anthony Lieuallen's Greasemonkey Compiler.

License: Better Gmail is licensed under the Mozilla Public License; all included scripts copyright their original authors.

What it does: Adds a menu of optional extra features to Gmail.

A fantastic video of what this handy little extension can do for you can be found here. You can download the extension here. I highly recommend this extension because it adds some basic and advanced functionality to Gmail, and it has a handy little menu to let you see the shortcuts and such so it's easy to learn the new stuff. It's advanced enough for the expert, but easy enough for the novice.

The other extension I highly recommend is called CustomizeGoogle. And quite simply (taken from the Customize Google website):

CustomizeGoogle is a Firefox extension that enhances Google search results by adding extra information (like links to Yahoo, Ask.com, MSN etc) and removing unwanted information (like ads and spam).

Since getting CustomizeGoogle, I've learned to love Google even more, which is something I thought wasn't possible. You can download CustomizeGoogle here.

Well, I've probably written too much already, though I could go on-and-on about my love for Gmail, but for now I'll leave you to experiment with your new Firefox extensions that I know you'll love. And again I add, if you don't already use Firefox, please, go now to www.GetFirefox.com and download it. The web is not done justice without Firefox. These are my words of wisdom for today, take care. Next time I'll discuss my love for Google Calendar, so stay tuned, I know you're dying for my opinion. =D