Gmail Contact Manager Making Big Improvements

Gmail's contact manager has traditionally been terrible. Since the release of Android, Google's mobile phone system, they have made some significant improvements. Today, they officially rid themselves of the Double Stamp seal of suckiness. I'm proud to say I can now use gmail contacts without getting mad.

It's not perfect yet, but way better. Read here for the new features.

Collaborate with Google Docs

Do you ever have the need to collaborate with multiple people on a document, spreadsheet or presentation? Maybe you are a student who is writing a group paper, a captain of a team that needs to keep roster information up-to-date, or a business that needs to keep documents in sync with input from every employee. If you haven't heard of Google Docs, you need to read this.

Google docs is an online office suite with tools for creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. All the tools run right inside your browser, so you don't need to actually download and install anything to use it. With Google Docs, multiple people can edit a document with no need to email revisions or keep track of what has changed. It stores the files on the web so that all users can see the latest revision, and no one gets out of sync.

The benefits of this kind of service are huge. No matter where you are, you can get on the web and edit your documents. Forget to make a change at work? No prob, just log on from home and make the changes. Maybe your computer crashed and you didn't make any backups of your files. Under a traditional office setup, this would be a catastrophe. With Google Docs, no problem.

Here's some ways in which I use Docs:

• A friend of mine and I are researching a certain market for a possible business startup. We keep track of existing products that are similar to ours.
• A friend of mine and I play pinball all the time. Just for fun we started recording our scores. We now use an online Google spreadsheet to keep all kinds of stats on our games.
• When I do web design, I keep track of the hours spent and what I did. I can easily share this information with a client so that they can keep tabs on what is going on. It makes them feel comfortable, and prevents me from having to respond to status requests.
• I am creating an online presentation of some research that I am performing as a PhD student. I can easily embed my presentation on my academic website, and my advisor can join in on the editing.
  

The features of Google Docs are not as rich as Open Office or MS Office, but that doesn't mean it is not useful. In fact, the fact that your information is always available more than makes up for the deep features that you may never use anyway. If your internet connection is really slow, Google docs may not be your best option.

Give it a try and explore the features. As usual, you have nothing to lose!

Google Street View

Google Maps has an amazingly fun/useful feature that allows you to actually see pictures of the streets and address you are interested in. They hired people to drive specials cars all around the cities of the United States, each of which has a special camera that takes pictures at numerous angles. Here's an example: a tiny little canyon in Salt Lake City called "City Creek." Try clicking the arrow buttons to move around and zoom.


View Larger Map

Unfortunately, not all cities in the United States are included. Google is adding new data at a rapid pace, however, and it should only be a matter of time before your favorite places are scanned.

To use street view, just go to http://www.google.com/maps and type in an address or place. Then click the button on the top right corner of the map that says "Street View." If street view is available for your location of interest, you should see a little yellow man and the streets will be colored blue. Place the yellow man on any location to see pictures of the address.

Gmail 101: Labels and Archiving

No! Gmail does not need "folders!"

Recently, and on more than one occasion, people have complained to me that Gmail does not have a "folders" feature for organizing email. They said that their inbox was really cluttered in Gmail because they couldn't move their emails into folders. I am here to tell you that it DOES in fact have this capability. In fact, it can do more than regular folder organization can.

First of all, a "label" is the same thing as a "folder," only a single email can be given multiple labels for convenience. For example, let's say that you get an email with the subject "Job Fair at the University." You could apply the labels "Job" and "School" to this email.

Secondly, if you would like to move an email out of your inbox without deleting it, simply click the button that says "Archive." This will take it out of your inbox, but you will still be able to find it under the labels that you have applied. Archived email can also be found under the "All mail" link.

If you're interested in automatically applying labels and archiving, check out this help file on Gmail filters.

Managing Email Lists the Right Way

Do you belong to a group that sends mass emails to each other? Do you rely on the "Reply to All" function so that everyone in the group can converse? If so, I think you'll find this post useful.

A "List Server" or "Group" is a smarter way to have conversations with groups via email. Instead of sending an email to every person on the list, you simply send it to the group's email address. The software that runs the group takes the email that you just sent it, and passes it on to everyone who is "subscribed" to the group. Then, when someone replies, it is sent back to the group software, and it again passes the reply on to everyone.

Here's why you should use a list server or group service:

• When a user decides they don't want to be on a list anymore, or if they need to change their email address, they can modify their subscription on their own. This saves the maintainer of the list a big hassle.
• Each recipient's email can be kept private. Don't you hate it when your email is on a big list?
  
• Sending email to ONE address delivers the information to everyone in the group.
• Email is archived automatically so that it can be viewed later, even if individual users delete their emails.
• You can set different permissions for the list. It can be set up for the general public, or kept completely private.
  

The good news is that you don't need to be a computer nerd to set up a list like this. Google and Yahoo both provide group services.

I set up a group for my family about a year ago and it has been a great success. People send out emails to the family with ease, and the service keeps an archive of all emails. Even if all the members of the group delete their emails, there is still an online archive of all posts to the list.

Try it out. Once you do, you'll never want to use a mass carbon-copy list again.

Are Your Gmail Contacts a Huge Mess?

Gmail is one of my favorite internet products of all time, but it's contact manager sucks. Many of you who have tried to manage your contacts in Gmail have probably given up and used some other site or software. This article is how to keep track of your contacts in Gmail, without pulling your hair out.

The biggest problem with Gmail contacts is that anyone who you send an email automatically gets added to your contact list. This can obviously drive you crazy when you go to look up a friends phone number, and have to sift through all the people that you emailed one time, and can't even remember who they are. It also creates a problem when you accidentally type someone's email incorrectly. Then, when you go back to send another email, you can't remember which one is correct. If your like most people, your Gmail contacts are probably a huge mess, so here's how you fix it.

Does your Gmail contact list look like this?

Go into the contact manager by clicking the "Contacts" link on the right side of the page. Next, click the button that has a plus sign and a picture of two cartoon people. A box will pop up that says "What would you like to name this group?" Enter something like "My Contacts" and click OK.

Now you have a new group for contacts that will only be added to if you intentionally tell Gmail to put a contact in this group. You'll need to spend some time adding your existing contacts into your system. To do this, select the contacts from the "All Contacts" group and then click the button that says "Groups->Add to...->My Contacts." If you are using another program for contacts, you'll need to import them into Gmail first.

Now that you have a new contact group, you can manage your contacts without Gmail screwing them up. Keep in mind that you can create any number of groups to solve the problem. For example, you could create a separate group for family, friends, and business contacts. When you need to find a number or address, just jump to your new group for a list without the clutter and incorrect contacts. It's a simple solution, but it's already saved me a headache.

There are still a lot of things that Google needs to do to improve it's contact management system, but this will at least get you by. If you'd like to join me in requesting Google to improve this system, use this page.

Track Your Websites with Analytics

Almost everyone has a blog or personal website. Wouldn't it be cool if you could tell how many people are visiting your site, where they came from, and how long they stayed? For those of you who aren't web designers, it probably sounds like a lot of work, but I'm going to show you how to do it on your blog in under 10 minutes. Like most things discussed on Double Stamp, it's entirely free.

A web visitor tracking system is often called an "analytics" system. It allows you to find out the following:

• How many visits your site/blog is getting.
• Where your visitors are geographically located.
• Where your traffic is coming from (other sites, search engines, etc).
• How long visitors are staying on your site.
• Much more.
  

"Google Analytics" is a free system that is simple to use/install, and has tons of features. I use it here on Double Stamp, and it's powerful enough to track corporate websites that rely on web statistics to drive their sales. While there are other analytics systems that you can use, Google's is very powerful, clean, and free of charge.

Here's how you would set up Google Analytics to track your Blogger blog.

1. Sign up for the service at http://www.google.com/analytics
   
2. Click on "Add Website Profile"
3. Check the box that says "Add a Profile for a new domain" and then enter the URL of your blog.
4. Copy the code that is given on the next page. It looks like this:
   
   
   
5. Open your blogger page and go to your settings.
6. Click on the "template" tab. Click on "Add a page element" at the bottom of your blog. Don't add it to the sidebar.
7. Choose the "HTML/Javascript" element to add it to the page.
8. Don't enter a title. Paste the code that you copied from google analytics into content. Click "Save Changes. It should look like this:
   

That's it! You can now track who is visiting your site by logging into www.google.com/analytics and navigating through the data. Here's an example screenshot of the number of visits during the month.


Here's a location map for visitors coming from the state of Utah.
Don't be afraid to poke around the system and find out about numerous other features. As always, read through the help files to get up-to-speed. To install Google Analytics on a site other than blogger, just read the how-to on the Analytics page. Enjoy!

Gmail Features Everyone Should Know

Google's Gmail is by far the best web-based email system to date. In fact, I prefer it to any other email client that is on the market, including programs such as Microsoft's Outlook or Mozilla's Thunderbird. It's quiet design is refreshing, and the threaded conversations keep your inbox nice and tidy. On top of the great design, there are some powerful tools that allow Gmail users to organize and track their email very efficiently. Let's face it, most of you use your email multiple times every day. Isn't it worth a little time learning how to get your Gmail running like a well oiled machine? If you don't have Gmail, you can sign up for a free account if you'd like to try it.

Trick #1: Tracking Your Email with a "+"

When you add a "+sometexthere" to your email address in Gmail, it will still arrive in your inbox. For example, let's say that your email address is bob@gmail.com. Sending an email to bob+doublestamp@gmail.com, or bob+anything@gmail.com will still send the email to bob@gmail.com. Why is this useful? Because you can track where people are getting your email address from.

Next time you go to sign up for something on the internet, add a "+website" to your email address. For example, if you are signing up for ebay, you could sign up using the email bob+ebay@gmail.com. Now, if you start receiving tons of spam, all of which are addressed to "bob+ebay@gmail.com," you will know that ebay shared your information with other companies!

Note: Sometimes websites won't allow you to place a "+" character in your email. If this is the case, use trick #2.

Trick #2: Dots don't matter

Dots in Gmail addresses are ignored. That means that if you send an email to double.stamp@gmail.com, it's the same as sending it to doublestamp@gmail.com or d.oubl.e.st.am.p@gmail.com. This can be handy if the "+" is not allowed by a website to which you are signing up. Instead, you can add dots in certain places, then write down where you put them for a given website. For example, if you sign up for ebay, you could use b.o.b@gmail.com instead of bob@gmail.com. If you start getting spam addressed to b.o.b, then you know that ebay spilled the beans on you.

This trick can be useful to sign up for multiple accounts on the same website, since most will not allow you to use an email address that is already registered in their system.

Trick #3 (not really a trick): Using filters and labels

One of the best things about gmail is the ability to easily create custom filters to organize your incoming email. You can filter your email in almost any way that you can think of. For example, let's say that you would like to redirect any email that has the word "AOL" directly to your trash folder (I hate AOL). You would just go to Settings->Filters->Create New Filter and fill out the form appropriately. On the next page, you just check the box that says "delete it," and your done.

A "label" is exactly that, a label or tag on your emails. You can set up a "label" based on your filter criteria. For example, you could apply the label "family" to any email that arrives from someone in your family. Labels can help you quickly find past emails, and they keep your inbox tidy.

An example: Slammin' that Spam

Time for a real world example of how to use all these gmail features. These instructions will help you set up a spam bustin' system.

1. Set up a "junk email" gmail account. Something like yourname.junk@gmail.com.
2. Set the new junk account to forward all your email to your real account. To do this, go to Settings -> Forwarding and Pop and fill out the box.
3. Set up a FILTER in your real gmail account. In the filter criteria, place your junk email address in the "FROM:" box so that the filter will be applied to any emails forwarded from your junk mail account.
   
4. Next, choose to "Apply a label" and select "New label..."
   
5. Name the label something like "Junk account" or "Bulk mail"
6. Click "Create filter."

Da-duh! You're done. Now, when you sign up for that next website, put in your JUNK email address, and use the "+" or "." trick (as discussed above) to tag the site. If that website sends you an email, you will still receive it in your real email because it will automatically forward. You will see who is responsible for the email by looking at the "+tag" part of the email. If you start getting too much spam in your real email address, all you have to do is either stop the forwarding, or create a filter in the junk mail account! Spaminora!

Clean n' Easy Movie Schedules

If you're still using a newspaper to look up movie schedules, you're probably from somewhere like Naf, Idaho. Oh wait, they don't have movie theaters or newspapers there.

For a more time saving and modern approach, try using the Google "movie" keyword. It's as easy as this:

1. Go to google.com.
2. Type: "movie: zipcode" replacing the word "zipcode" with your actual code.
3. Hit enter.
4. You will see all the movies and times that are available near your location.

The results are clean and easy to read, without any annoying advertisements to distract your eye. Here's an example. You can order the results based on the movie title, theater, movie popularity, and rating. You can also get instant maps to the theaters, or view movie trailers by clicking "trailer" on selected movies.

This is by far the easiest, cleanest, quickest, and betterest way to find the movies you want to see. Wow, computers really are fun and useful.

1-800-GOOG-411

Double Stamp recently published an article about Google’s rising power and domination of the information retrieval industry. This domination is due to providing excellent and free services to the public. Check this one out…

Scenario: You just left your house to attend a friend’s wedding reception at “La Pueblina.” You’ve never been there, so when you discover half way there that you forgot to write down the address, you’re understandably frustrated. You could pull over to a gas station and try to look it up in the phone book, but that takes to much time. You could call someone near a computer and have him/her look it up for you, but that’s even worse. Suddenly, you remember the article that you just read on Double Stamp about Google’s new (free) 411 service. That’s it!

You pull over and dial 1-800-GOOG-411 from your cell phone.

Google: “What city and state?”
You: “Your city, your state.”
Google: “What Business name or category?”
You: “La Pueblina”
Google: “Top 2 results: 1) La Pueblina Reception Hall. 2) La Pueblina Bowling Alley”
You: “One”

Google continues to provide you with the address, telephone number, and other details. You quickly note down the address of La Pueblina, and arrive perfectly in time to your friend’s wedding reception. Excellent.

Next time you find yourself driving in circles, trying to find a particular business or restaurant, give GOOG-411 a try.

Google: Service or Timebomb?

Whether you realize it or not, a revolution is happening right now. 50 years from now, entire sections of history books will be dedicated to the information revolution which began with the birth of the web. Google has played a key role in triggering this revolution by striving to provide searches for not only web pages, but anything else containing information. Here is Google's official mission statement:

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

I am a big fan of Google. Gmail is by far my favorite email system, and I am signed up for just about every other google service they provide. As far as search and web applications go, it's hard to find anyone who does a better job than Google, which is why so many people use their services. They have earned their massive user base by providing innovative products for free, and have forced other companies like Yahoo! and Microsoft to reconsider how they do business. They have done so, for the most part, in a respectful and non-manipulative fashion.

With so much information being fed to Google's computer systems, (as well as Microsoft's and Yahoo's) how will these companies manage their increasing power? 15 years from now, every major book, movie, song, magazine, newspaper, and public record will be indexed by a few major search companies. Even the article you are reading right now is hosted on a Google computer. Placing this much informational power behind the trigger of one company is alarming to say the least, and could lead to an atomic political timebomb. With great power comes great responsiblitiy, but will the CEOs and future decision makers have the integrity to resist taking advantage of their overwhelming power? What if a CEO dies, and the company is usurped by the evil board member who has been waiting for his breakthrough into unrighteous dominion? Uh oh...

In the meantime, I'll continue to use my gmail account and check my schedule on my google calendar. I'll keep using blogger to write Double Stamp, and even manage some of my important financial information with their online spreadsheets. I just hope that we can figure out a way to prevent these companies from snagging us like a crocodile snags an unexpecting wildabeast drinking from a desert pool.