5 posts tagged “email”
This is a brilliant idea from Google:
Sometimes I send messages I shouldn't send. Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together. Gmail can't always prevent you from sending messages you might later regret, but today we're launching a new Labs feature I wrote called Mail Goggles which may help.
When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you're really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you're in the right state of mind?
By default, Mail Goggles is only active late night on the weekend as that is the time you're most likely to need it. Once enabled, you can adjust when it's active in the General settings.
Hopefully Mail Goggles will prevent many of you out there from sending messages you wish you hadn't. Like that late night memo -- I mean mission statement -- to the entire firm.
Of course, I have never sent an email that I have regretted ;-)
An article on email addiction in the Guradian caught my eye yesterday:
Dr Tom Stafford, a lecturer at the University of Sheffield and co-author of the book Mind Hacks, believes that the same fundamental learning mechanisms that drive gambling addicts are also at work in email users. "Both slot machines and email follow something called a 'variable interval reinforcement schedule'," he says, "which has been established as the way to train in the strongest habits. This means that rather than reward an action every time it is performed, you reward it sometimes, but not in a predictable way. So with email, usually when I check it there is nothing interesting, but every so often there's something wonderful - an invite out, or maybe some juicy gossip - and I get a reward." This is enough to make it difficult for us to resist checking email, even when we've only just looked.
That's right - email addiction is just like gambling addiction. That explains a lot.
Now this is scary...
If you're like the majority of people in a new survey, e-mail is "essential" to your life. So essential, actually, that many people say they would give up deodorant, coffee, or their significant other for a day rather than go without sending and receiving messages. ...
The survey showed that 73.8% of those polled say e-mail is essential to their life. When asked what they would rather give up for a day instead of losing e-mail, 54.4% said they would rather forgo chocolate, while 50.2% said they would give up coffee, and 41.4% would pass on television. Another 38.4% would skip using their cell phone for a day.
These might be small things to give up, but the survey also showed that 14.9% of those polled would rather live without their spouse or significant other than go without e-mail, and 6% said they would rather lose their home.
If you are willing to do without chocolate in place of e-mail, I will happily take it off your hands. Thanks.
(No need to send the spouse or
significant other that those 14.9% would give up!)
IT Security have posted a wonderful list of 99 tips for using and managing your email.
There's a lot of common sense in the list but also some good new innovative tips too.
While you're at it, also take a look at Merlin Mann's great productivity site at 43Folders - Merlin is a vociferous advocate of Getting Things Done (GTD) which is the title of a book by David Allen whose apt subtitle is “The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.”
The Amzon review says:
"a complete system for downloading all those free-floating gotta-dos clogging your brain into a sophisticated framework of files and action lists--all purportedly to free your mind to focus on whatever you're working on. However, it still operates from the decidedly Western notion that if we could just get really, really organised, we could turn ourselves into 24/7 productivity machines. (To wit, Allen, whom the New Economy bible Fast Company has dubbed "the personal productivity guru", suggests that instead of meditating on crouching tigers and hidden dragons while you wait for a plane, you should unsheathe that high-tech sabre known as the mobile phone and attack that list of calls you need to return.)"
I full intend to read the book and take on more of Merlin's tips, but simply haven't got enough of my daily tasks done to get the time!
Oh, and lastly, Merlin appears on the wonderful Twit.tv podcast, MacBreak Weekly - a wonderfully entertaining podcast covering all things Mac related. Well recommended!
I am a big fan of Gmail as well as the Gmail mobile. I use it extensively to check my mails on my mobile phone(s). The mobile web portal Gmail has is clean and fast and I like it alot. I also use the POP feature of Gmail to retrieve the email onto my mobile phone Messaging. While not fantastic, it is okay for an offline system.
But nothing beats what was announced last week, a Gmail mobile application by Google. Just point your mobile web browser to http://gmail.com/app and it will auto-detect your phone and ask you to install the relevant application onto the phone as below.
And it is really really cool! It has all the shortkeys you expect. Press "8" twice to mark the email as spam, "9" to archive it, "4" to reply, "5" to reply all and "1" to search etc. But I have a wish list...
1. The application is not tolerant to unstable mobile connections, which is pretty common until the mobile data quality is improved.
2. All editing are done in the native edit pad provided by Symbian on a horrible black on blue interface. I am sure they can do better
3. Please please do it for Google Calendar soon!
