If you use Gmail on a Mac, you should definitely know about Mailplane. It's basically a really fancy site-specific browser for Gmail, getting Gmail out of your browser tab and adding a lot of features you'd demand in a desktop email client. You can drag and drop attachments and sign in multiple accounts at once, just to name a couple. Plus, a release candidate for Mailplane 2.0 just came out, and it adds 37 new features.

You can do anything in Mailplane that you can do in Gmail, including the new video chat feature. The new gmail themes are also supported, and you can add your own custom stylesheet. It feels strange to use Gmail in a browser again after playing with Mailplane. Customizable keyboard shortcuts, dragging and dropping, and iPhoto integration are just a few of the handy features that make Mailplane a joy to use. It also supports one of my personal favorite things, Growl notifications

It appears that Google is starting to roll out a new feature that allows some users to choose themes for Gmail. Google has provided a set of themes that change the look of the iGoogle personalized homepage for a while now, but this is the first time we've seen official themes for Gmail.

The new option shows up in the Gmail settings menu, to the right of the Labs option. If you don't see a Themes tab in your settings, you're not crazy. Google has a tendency to roll out new features in phases, with some users getting the update before others.

Ashish Mohta at TechnoSpot is already seeing the new themes, and uploaded the images you see above. If you can't access the new themes yet, you might want to check out Gmail Redesigned, an unofficial theme that changes the appearance of Gmail when viewed in Firefox.

Update: It looks like these changes are rolling out quickly. Less than an hour after writing this post, the new themes tab showed up in my Gmail. Check out the gallery below for screenshots of some of the more unusual themes. OK, the Cold Shower theme isn't particularly unusual, but it's the one I plan to use as my default... for now.

If you're not a power-user of RSS feeds, or if you are, but RSS just isn't fast enough for you, notify.me might be just what you're looking for. Notify.me sends updates from any site with an RSS feed directly to your IM, SMS, or email. Facebook, Twitter and Craigslist are just a few of the popular use cases.

To make notify.me even easier to use, there's a browser bookmarklet you can add, to avoid any copy, pasting or typing when you want to add notifications. You also get a username@notify.me email address, which you can sign up to various email lists with, and then use notify.me to direct those messages whereever you want to receive them. A desktop app that will catch all your notifications is coming soon, and you can already see it in action in the notify.me demo video.

Need to send a file to a friend or colleague, but it's too large for your email system to handle? No problem, just upload it to a web server and send the recipient a download link. If you don't have your own server, there are plenty of services that offer the ability to send large files for free, or even larger files for a fee. Here are a few of my favorites:

• YouSendIt
• MailBigFile
• Driveway
• Filemail

And then there's DilbertFiles. Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip has decided to dabble in the file sending business. Essentially DilbertFiles is just a rebranded version of SendYourFiles. And I'm sure it works well enough. But it's pretty expensive compared to most similar services. You have to shell out $9.95 a month to send just 250MB in a month. $13.95 will allow you to send up to 2GB in a month. But FileMail lets you send as many files up to 2GB at a time for free.

I'm not saying it's not worth paying for a reliable file sending service. I'm just saying that when there are plenty of companies offering freemium access, you'd think the creator of a cartoon that highlights bad business decisions on a regular basis would have chosen a better business model.

[via Digital Inspiration]

Google offers a ton of web-based services that replace desktop applications. There's Google Docs for anyone who doesn't need a full fledged version of Microsoft Office. And there's Gmail and Google Calendar for folks who don't want to be tied to Microsoft Outlook. But there's one thing that Google has yet to offer: a task management application.

Now there's a way to add a task manager to Gmail. It just doesn't come from Google. It comes from online task list company Remember The Milk.

Here's how it works. First thing you have to do is check the box next to "add any gadget by URL" in Gmail labs. Then go to your Gmail settings tab and click on gadgets. Next, you enter the URL for the Remember The Milk gadget.

Once you're done, you just need to login to your Remember The Milk account and you should see a list of upcoming tasks in your Gmail sidebar. If you're new to Remember The Milk, you can create new tasks from Gmail or you can visit the Remember The Milk homepage.

Remember The Milk also has a Firefox addon that lets you schedule and check off tasks from your browser. But the Gmail gadget offers a few major advantages. First, it will work with any web browser that supports Gmail. And second, you don't need to install a utility on every browser you use. Just login to your GMail account and your task list will be available.

[via VentureBeat]

VoxOx is one of those applications that does so many things that the easiest way to describe it is by listing some of the tools it can replace: AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Jabber, Google Talk, MSN Messenger, whatever email and social networking notifiers you use. In other words, it's like Digsby. But with support for video chat and VoIP calls to telephones. Oh yeah, and VoxOx automatically assigns all new users a phone number which people can dial to reach you on your computer.

VoxOx is currently in beta, with clients available for Windows and OS X. Linux and mobile clients are coming soon. And right now some of the services listed in VoxOx are unavailable. For examle, you can link the client to your Yahoo! Mail account to receive a pop up message every time you get a new email. But when you click the button to do the same thing with Gmail, nothing happens.

One of the most interesting things about VoxOx is the company's business model. You can do text chats with anyone for free. You can make free voice or video calls to anyone using VoxOx. And when you sign up you get 120 minutes of free calls to telephones. You can purchase credit for additional calls, or pay a monthly fee fro unlimited access. But every time you refer a friend to the service you get another 2 hours. And VoxOx will also soon add the ability for users to gain points by watching video ads.

If you're one of the first 500 Download Squad to register using our signup page, you'll get 1200 VoxOx Points which are good for 1200 domestic phone calls minutes of domestic US phone calls. Keep reading to find out how to get your bonus minutes.

Not content with Android, the Google Mobile team has pulled another trick out of their sleeve: Gmail for mobile 2.0. Really, this is Gmail for mobile 2.0.6, but why quibble with details.

BlackBerry users got the bulk of the updates last month, with the Google Mobile App for BlackBerry, but now Gmail 2.0 has been pushed out to all J2ME phones.

Here are the highlights:

Offline support: This is big. You can read recent e-mail and compose messages, even if you don't have a signal. Messages you compose offline will be put in the outbox and sent as soon as you have a signal.

Multiple account support: The BlackBerry has had this feature since last month, and it is easily one of my favorite features. If you have multiple Gmail or Google Apps accounts (I have a Gmail account I rarely use for personal correspndance and three or four different Google Apps accounts), you know that having to log-in to a different account to access your mail is a huge, huge pain. You can set-up multple accounts and switch between them at ease.

Mobile drafts: You can compose multiple mobile drafts and then choose what you want to edit or send later. BlackBerry users have also had access to this feature for several weeks.

Shortcuts: Phones with a QWERTY keyboard can now use shortcut keys like, "z" fo undo, "k" to go to a new conversation, and "j" to go to an older conversatio -- just like in the desktop browser version of Gmail.

If you use Gmail and you have a BlackBerry or J2ME mobile phone, you definitely want to download the latest version of Gmail for mobile. You can get it at http://m.google.com/mail.


[via Mashable]

If you don't enjoy your current job or need to feel like a social outcast here are some great tips on how to make your coworkers hate you from ABC News. All you need is access to an email account. It's a powerful tool.

1. Use urgent flags and big red letters for attention.
   
2. Always cc a person's superior when you email them about work that needs to be done.
   
3. Feel free to use the "reply all" button.
   
4. Use ALL CAPS to get your point across.
   

Some additional tips just for you DLS readers:

• Your boss works really hard. When you email him or her you should always include some smileys or other emoticons to let them know how you're feeling. It will brighten their day a little too. :-)
• Evry1 nos how 2 txt so it is ok 2 use txt in email. It's faster and easier and everyone does it so, go right ahead.
• People love chain letters so forward that one with the dancing puppies and mariachi music to the entire company. Everyone will love it.
• Create a cute email signature with dancing gifs, pictures of your kids or a quote about how much you love to shop. It will really personalize your work communications.
  

Remember, even though it's only email, it reflects you. Make sure you use email properly just like any other business tool.

Gmail has been supporting IMAP for almost exactly a year now, and they're celebrating by fixing the only thing I don't like about it! One of the latest brilliant ideas to come out of Google Labs is an advanced IMAP controls option that lets you mark messages for deletion without actually deleting them, and send your deleted messages to the trash instead of archiving them, Most importantly, you can hide individual Gmail mailboxes from your IMAP mail client. That sounds like a picky thing, and not really a big deal, but it's actually huge for me.

You may have noticed that Gmail has a mailbox called All Mail, that does exactly what it says -- it keeps copies of all your mail. This is fine if you're using webmail; you don't have to look at it, but it's there when you need it. If you're using an IMAP client, though, those extra copies of every last message in your account get synced to your computer all the time. Why bother downloading an email message twice, especially if you've got an overflowing inbox?

The thing is, now you don't have to. Turn on the advanced settings by going to "settings" and then "Labs" in Gmail. Once you enable the option, go back to settings and go to labels. All it takes is one checkbox, and All Mail will leave your email client alone. Brilliant. Of course, there might be a good reason for wanting to sync All Mail ... I just haven't found it yet. So thanks, Google, for fixing one of my pet peeves!

Online productivity app makers Zoho have publicly rolled out Zoho Mail, a webmail application that's been in private beta up until today. While the world may not really need yet another webmail app, there are a few things that make Zoho Mail a notable challenger to offerings from Google, Yaho!, Microsoft, and AOL.

First and foremost, Zoho Mail offers an offline mode thanks to Google Gears. If you have Gears installed for Internet Explorer or Firefox, you can configure Zoho to download your most recent email messages and attachments so you can catch up on your email when you're stranded somewhere without an internet connection. Yahoo! offers a similar feature, but despite the fact that Zoho Mail's offline access is powered by Google Gears, Google's Gmail does not have an offline mode... yet.

Zoho Mail also has a user-friendly interface that, like many other Zoho Office apps, feels more like a desktop application than a web app. You can sort messages by labels, Gmail-style. And there are a bunch of options for customizing your display. For example, you can open emails in a split-pane mode or in a pop-up window.

There's also a "send mail as" option that lets you change yoru reply to address. In other words, if you decide that you like Zoho Mail but don't want to bother letting everyone know that you have another new email address, you can just forward your old email account to Zoho Mail and change your Email ID so that nobody will ever know the difference.

Yahoo! is rolling out the first major overhaul of its web-based calendar application in 10 years. But while there are 278-million Yahoo! Mail users, only about 8 million people use the calendar.

The new Yahoo! Calendar beta looks pretty nice. It has a slick interface that lets you zoom in on any particular date for a close-up even when you're using the month view. The calendar also features Flickr integration, so that random Creative Commons-licensed images can be pulled in to make the calendar look pretty. Eventually users will be able to add images from their own Flickr accounts.

The updates aren't just cosmetic. You can manage multiple calendars, share calendars with friends, and create to-do lists associated with your calendar. The new calendar also supports iCal and CalDAV protocols, which mean you can import calendars from AOL, Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google. At least in theory. I tried importing my Google Calendar with no success. But I was able to import my Yahoo! Calendar into Google, so that's something at least.

Keep in mind, the new Yahoo! Calendar is still in beta. And it shows in a couple of places. There are a bunch of features available in the old Yahoo! Calendar that are absent from the new beta, including the ability to search for events, show sports, ifnacnce, holiday, and weather information, or even add symbols for event types like birthdays and anniversaries. You should also note that if you switch to the beta version of the calendar and then decide to switch back, you will lose any changes made in the beta version.

Long story short, the new Yahoo! Calendar is worth checking out. But you might not want to make the switch just yet. The beta is only available to users in the US, UK, India, Taiwan, and Brazil and the moment, with a worldwide rollout expected within the next few months.

If you've ever sent an unfortunate email after having imbibed a few too many quality alcoholic beverages -- or even just when you were too tired or upset to think straight -- Google Mail Goggles might be the thing for you. It gives you a handful of simple math problems to answer before letting you send a message from your Gmail account. By default, it's set only for weekend late-nights, so it won't be a hassle for your important daytime business communications. but it might save you from accidentally sending that angry screed to an uncooperative client.

You can turn on the Mail Goggles feature in general settings, and pick the days and times you want it active. Although it sounds like another one of Google Labs' famous April Fools stunts, like the time they introduced a feature to let you send emails "back in time", this one is for real. I hope I don't end up needing it too often!

Recently our sister publication, TUAW, did a series of posts about each blogger's favorite iPhone and iPod Touch apps. We thought here at Download Squad that we'd take that same approach and apply it to our favourite Windows applications. This first post is my first of three in this vein that will cover Evernote, FeedDemon, and MindManager.

Evernote

It seems you can't go very far online these days without someone extolling the virtues of Evernote. While this note-taking application has been around for a long time, it has recently been reborn as a cross-platform powerhouse. The original concept behind Evernote was that you had one scrolling piece of note paper that you could continue to add notes to, then easily search within them both based on content and based on a timeline of when your notes were created. While this paradigm still exists, it's no longer Evernote's claim to fame.

Evernote now has a powerful web application that serves as a central nervous system for your note taking. All of your notes that are created in the local Evernote client on your Windows (or Mac) computer are synchronized to Evernote's servers, where they can apply OCR (optical character recognition) to any images that you have included in your notes. This means that you can search for a word that is visible in a photo, and Evernote will find it.

Evernote's interface has been refined over the past few years and is very easy to navigate and use. On the Windows platform most people seem to pit Evernote against OneNote from Microsoft, and in my opinion with the advent of Evernote's server-based system and reliable synchronization, it's no contest.

A free account at Evernote is enough for most users, offering up to 40 MB of file transfer per month, but if you find you are a heavy user you may need to upgrade to a Premium account, which offers 500 MB of transfer per month, plus other features.