From within the settings page of Gmail you can now create rich text signatures including changing font site, text align, style, colour, add images and links etc

Though this has been one (simple) feature missing from the product for a long time its not something I have missed. I know too many companies that abuse this feature and include un-needed images and just streams of multi-coloured text and links. Don't get me wrong, I am happy to see it, I am going to use it, but I am scared to see how some people will implement it.

Please update your bookmarks and feeds for my site.

I now have a Mango Blog at:

http://www.andyjarrett.com/blog

Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/andyjarrett

One of the nice features of GMail is the advanced search. These are basically a set of commands or operators that perform special actions. The problem is I tend to forget about them so this post is more for my purpose than anyone else's.

So after going through the docs I got this to find all my unread messages in my inbox via the following in the search box

Find all of them at http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=7190

I've been looking at accessing the Gmail contact data via their API. This is the first draft of my findings and is no way the finished solution but it does what it says on the tin and returns the email address's from a users Gmail account contacts. Its actually quite simple to and we're going to do this in 2 CFM pages. We are going to be using the AuthSub method of registration

There are three levels of registration:

1. Unregistered: Application is not recognized by Google. The Access Request page, which prompts your users to either grant or deny access for your application, displays this caution highlighted in yellow: "Non-registered, not secure. This website has not registered with Google. We recommend that you continue the process only if you trust this destination."
2. Registered: Application is recognized by Google. The Access Request page displays this caution: "Registered, not secure. This website is registered with Google to make authorization requests, but has not been configured to send requests securely. We recommend you continue if you trust this destination."
3. Registered with enhanced security: Registered applications with a security certificate on file can use secure tokens. The Access Request page displays this message: "Registered, secure. This website is registered with Google to make authorization requests."

As we are going to be using the first method of Unregistered the user will getting some simple/basic prompts:

1. The first will be asking them to log in and letting them know that "A third party service is requesting permission to access your Google Account"
2. Second an Access Request page which lets the user know WHAT we are doing

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This post is really aimed at anyone who uses GMail or Google Apps outside of the states or does not have English(US) set up as their default language!

Yes that right, if you are waiting for the IMAP settings on your Google mail account check your language settings now. This is something I remember reading about ages ago ... in short the Gmail team roll out new features for the US first and they use your language settings as a guide! Subsequently I've just enabled this on my apps account and it appeared instantly

Google are beta testing the ability to have Gmail access to your Domain emails. It offers the 2Gb (nearly 3 according to my stats) Gmail account, Google Talk, Google Calendar, and a Control Panel to manage user accounts, aliases, mailing lists, and chat settings.

You have to own your domain for this, its not something Gmail will offer. While in the beta it is free, but it does mention a cost factor in the learn more which might suggest this could change? maybe for corporate/large users. Another nice feature is that you can also upload your company's logo for brand awareness as well.

https://www.google.com/hosted/

Found while looking over at Ray Camdens site, in the comments

I have created a public Google Calendar for ColdFusion meetings. The idea I had behind this is that if you run any kind of CF meeting, whether it be online (Online CF Group), at a meeting place, UKCFUG, or just a demo'ing something on a IRC chanel you can update it here so everyone knows about it and also be able to merge it with you current calendar.

The only problem is that I'm sure that I still have to invite you to join if you want to add/edit your meetings details, but anyone can view/subscribe to it.

At the moment I've only added the next UKCFUG one for tonight so you can see it in action. If you are an event organiser (and you have a gmail/calendar accout) and you want to be able to edit drop me a line in the comments and i'll enable you to add comments.

To subscribe use one of the following links

[XML]
[iCal]

I know this might seem a little presumptuous of me - but if you have any ideas on how to have a central location for meeting details drop me a line.

The Googls Adwords in Gmail are a thousand times better than what you get with most free email accounts but do come up with some good "targeted" links:

Cold Fusion Chalet
Discounted Easter Ski Holidays Now
http://www.coldfusionchalets.co.uk/

Whats the best targeted ad you've had?

Well to jump on the band wagon I thought I'd let everyone know for the n'th time that the Google Calendar is now online. The only thing I will say is that if you are interested get on there quick. Google have done this a few times then restricted access later, Analytics was a good example of this.

Playing around with Gmail this afternoon and discovered that it also supports Plus Addressing. This allows you to add a filter to your email address when handling ever you want to hand over you email address. Lets say your email address is yourusername@gmail.com and you wanted to sign-up to an Adobe news letter. The email address you might enter could be yourusername+adobenewsletter@gmail.com. Then in Gmail set up a filter/label and thats it.

When I say hidden I mean that this post is really for non USA users of Gmail Google Mail as you already see the features.

I was printing some directions for a trip from my girlfriends account when I noticed the Gmail UI looked a little different to mine. The main big difference was the news feed (Web Clips) headlines at the top of the inbox along with the Chat menu added to the right. I figured she new something about the settings i didn't so i went digging into my settings and found nothing. I went back to her account and looked at her settings, DAMN, I found even more new menues including automatic vacation response

So how has she enabled all this? Simple, and you only have to make one sacrific (and don't worry its nothing like your first born, or similar, your Xbox 360). You just need to go into your settings and change the language to English(US). Obviously this means that colour will be spelt color (which i do now from writing tooooo many stylesheets), and you'll start seeing Z's popping up where you expect S's when you do a spell check. But thats it as far as i can tell.

You can check out the new feature list (for the US) at http://mail.google.com/mail/help/about_whatsnew.html

Wanted to get your Gmail on the move on your WAP device??

Well Gmail now offer a WAP/simmed down version of their client at http://m.gmail.com/

After a legal dispute Gmail is changing to Google Mail in the UK only. This means any new user signing up from the UK will have @googlemail.com address. Also invites to a UK will result in the same domain address being applied.

This all starts today, though does not effect current users in anyway.

Find out more at http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en-GB/googlemail.html

Just a word of warning, i don't know if this is unique to me, or only just started happening recently? But login in to Gmail via the Google Gmail Notifier goes to a HTTP address and not the secure HTTPS.

The Gmail Notifier 0.4.3 extension for Firefox has been released to fix the issue of Gmail changing their URL.

This is just a very rough idea. So rough that i decided its best just to paste the code rather that even let you download it, unzip it just to see what it is. Basically if (for whatever reason) are stuck behind a proxy server that will not allow you to access your Gmail acocunt then have the following bit of code set up on your site. It uses the Gmail Atom Feeds, so only the subject line and date posted gets to be displayed - until Google change this.

To be honest i'm not behind a proxy so i can't test if this actually works so ANY feedback is welcome. To see the code click more

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Gmail went live last year today causeing a great stir on the validity of the hype. Well 1 year on and it seems to be doing well, with the hype finally down.

Well Google are about to do it all again though with the release of the new Infinity+1 storage plan. Obviously causeing some hype. If you've been selected just log into Gmail then Sign Out and more information is there - along with info about Rich Text Formating

By the way i still have a whopping 50 invites. So if you need one for any reason drop me a line

In there fear this post will not be read as its April Fools days. It seems as Gmail have now added "Rich Text Formating". The button can be found just above the texta area for the message - or has this been there for ages and i've only just noticed it?

UPDATED: Not going mad - Info about Rich Text Formating here

Sorry about the lack of posts overall in the new year. Been busy at the momment with a few projects running concurrently which are leaving me little time to get around posting.

UPDATE: Ryan Guill has kindly offering anyone invites if people are still looking for them. Just leave a joke here in the comments or over at his site: http://www.ryanguill.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=F5D21766-40CA-6D1C-8A503306CC7451C0

Its Xmas and Google have handed me 10. If there is any reader to my blog that has yet to create an account drop me a line in the comments, and if you know a good joke feel free to leave one in return :o)

If not then in a few days i'll dump them into iSnoop

Logged into my Gmail via Firefox and i saw that little orange logo in the bottom right of the screen. I don't use Firefox for feeds as i have FeedDeomon but i thought i would add it for good measure. Well, first off it didn't work, it needed authorising. But after a little tweaking the following worked:

https://gmailusername:password@gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom/

This is probably old, but for those out there like me, have fun.