Customize Gmail Themes

Now Gmail has an option to customize its default theme. You can change colors according to your likes and dislikes.

Just go to Settings->Themes and click "Choose your own colors" and select your favorite colors for Gmail's background, links, text messages, navigation links and more.
Once you are done coloring your Gmail click save and your choice is save and applied automatically.

In case you dont like your theme you can easily Reset the theme or choose from several pre-defined (not so good) themes.

Access Gmail Offline

This is a new feature rolled out by Google in Gmail Labs that allow Gmail users to access their mail even when internet connection is down. Once you turn on this feature Gmail uses Gears to download a local cache on your machine. As long as you're connected to the inernet, that cache is synchronized with Gmail's servers. When the connection is lost, Gmail automatically switches to offline mode, and uses the data stored on your computer's hard drive instead of the information sent across the network.

You can read messages, star and label them, and do all of the things you're used to doing while reading your webmail online. Any messages you send while offline will be placed in your outbox and automatically sent the next time Gmail detects a connection.

This is still in beta phase so dont be surprised if you dont find it in your Gmail Labs. To check this feature first you will have to install Gears. Then go to Settings->Labs->Offline and enable it. All set!!!!!

Gmail's New Look - Themes

Check out the new Gmail themes that google is rolling out slowly(typical Google). Just like some other mail services Google's mail has stepped into a ne w stylish makeover.

You'll find a tab named "Themes" in the settings page and you'll be able to choose from 30 themes. "We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we're launching today, there's a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company," mentions Gmail's blog.


There are some themes that changes itself with the day.
You know what, you still have the choice of selecting Gmail's classic theme.

Gmail for mobile 2.0

Google released the latest version of Gmail for mobile and renamed it as Gmail for mobile 2.0 for J2ME-supported and BlackBerry phones, the latest version definitely has quite a lot of improvements and is much more faster than then earlier one.

The focus in the second iteration was to produce a faster and more reliable experience for users. The online application now offers faster performance and smoother scrolling, with no freezing. Users with multiple Gmail accounts also can now switch between them without using different applications to access messages.

Gmail for Mobile 2.0 offers the option to save multiple e-mail drafts in the phone and adds shortcut keys that enable users of phones equipped with QWERTY keyboards to press 'z' to undo, 'k' to go to a newer conversation, and 'j' to go to an older conversation.

As an added bonus, for those who won't find themselves in signal range, the updated Gmail for Mobile boasts offline support, and lets users compose and read e-mail when there is no signal. All outgoing messages written when a user is offline are saved in the outbox and sent automatically when coverage is restored.

Check out this video from Google.

Mobile Gmail 2.0 for BlackBerry

Gmail's mobile client for BlackBerry has been updated and you can now download version 2.0.5 at http://m.google.com/mail. One of the most important changes is that you can add the credentials for multiple accounts and switch between them without entering the password. There's also support for Google Apps accounts, which previously required a separate application.

Users from the PinStack forums report that the application lets you copy-paste text when composing messages, it saves more than one draft message and there's a new option to preload the archived messages.

Gmail's help center mentions that "the Gmail application will run in the background, periodically checking for new email. This uses data. If you do not want Gmail to run in the background, you must explicitly quit the program by going to Menu > Exit Gmail".

Customize your Gmail Web Clips

Web Clips show you news headlines, blog posts, RSS and Atom feeds, and relevant sponsored links, right at the top of your Gmail inbox.
If the web clicps being displayed are not from your interest categories then you have an option to customize these web clips.
Log in to your Gmail account and go to Settings.
Click the Web Clips tab and there you have it all. Several categories of web clips are showed here. You can easily add or delete any of these categories.
You can also add your own URLs to get your favorite blogs and other news right above your inbox by using the search box provided on the left hand side of the page and thus adding a URL of your interest.

Track IP address and location of a mail

I was wondering how to find out the IP address of the machine that sends a mail. I thought it might take a lot of effort but its quiet simple.

Lets take Gmail first:

1. Open your Gmail inbox and click on the mail for which you wanna know the IP address.
2. Click on the downward facing rectangle near the Reply button.
3. Now click Show Orginal from the menu and this show a window full of text.
4. Search for the line that says Received: From and this will contain the ip address of the sender machine.
5. To find out the location of an IP address there are so many utilities available on the net. To access one such application click here.

To access this information in Yahoo, open a mail and in the Bottom Right hand side corner click on Full Header and you can retrieve the IP address.

Secure your Gmail with https

Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer or HTTPS is a URI scheme used to indicate a secure HTTP connection. Https keeps your mail encrypted as it travels between your web browser and mail servers, so if you are into a shared wifi network then nobody else can read your mail. Banks and credit cards applications always use this secure protocol.

Gmail is now the first free mail provider that has started using https, as google claims that Gmail was built with an idea that one could run a company on it. Previosly, anyone could hace accessed this secure link at https://mail.google.com but now google has provided an option in your gmail settings to run your mail on https by default.

Login to your gmail account and go to settings, check for a setting that says Browser Connection and choose your option according to your requirement.

How to tell Firefox3 to let Gmail handle MailTo: links?

The default handler of MailTo: links is Firefox3 is Yahoo, so is there anything for a Gmail lover like me? Yes there is. You can change the mailto: link handler to Gmail. Just go through foloowing steps:

1. Open Firefox and type about:config in the address bar. Ignore the warning.
   
2. Search for gecko.handlerServiceAllowRegisterFromDifferentHost and change its value to true either by double clicking or right click-> Modify.
3. In the address bar paste the following code and press enter javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto",
   "https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","GMail")
4. You will get a message that says Add Gmail(mail.google.com) as an application for mailto links? ; just click the Add Application button.
5. Next time when you click on the mailto link you will get a pop up that allows you to choose application for mailto links. Just select Gmail and check the box that says Remember my choice for mailto links and click OK.

From now on all mailto links will be handled by Gmail.
To change this go to Tools-> options->Applications -> mailto.
In the dropdown of mailto select Application Details which will show a pop up. Select Gmail and click Remove.