gmail accounts

[back alley]

i recently was offered and signed up for one of these accounts but i have some questions about them still.
so i was thinking that some of you guys have been using them longer than i have...

how are you using them?
for everyday correspondence?
with friends, family or business or internet related sharing only?
have you abandoned your former accounts?
have you sent out an email to all in your address book?

i'm not really sure what to do or just how to use it.

my one concern is that if i start using it for primary correspondence and they decide it's a no go for the future (it's a beta we're testing after all) or if they decide to charge (more likely) for it's use.

joe

 

[RML]

Joe, I signed up because of te RFF book, and I'm using it only for that purpose. But I've never given up any email address. I use my own private address, my Hotmail address, my Yahoo address, my Yahoo address that I share with my wife, and now my Gmail address as well. All have different purposes and uses.

 

[Honu-Hugger]

What is g-mail?

D2

 

[RML]

Gmail is Google's attempt to conquer a share in the online email business, like Yahoo and Hotmail. It's still only in Beta version. It offers 1GB of mailbox space.

 

[Honu-Hugger]

RML,
Thank you for the info. Does it offer any other advantages, like being less susceptible to SPAM? Even with the ISP filter deleting SPAM is a major annoyance.

D2

 

[rover]

I have also just used it for RFF and Photo.net stuff so far. I will always use my ISP address for my main correspondence. I have Excite and Yahoo addresses too. Why? I don't know. With a gig of memory I may convert my paypal and ebay accounts to Gmail, we shall see.

 

[back alley]

gmail info page

 

[peter_n]

Joe I have a gmail account too, and about 7 or 8 other accounts too. It's not a problem having multiple accounts if you have an email client like Eudora which handles many accounts easily.

The issue for me with gmail is that you can only view it in a browser (as far as I know) so it's a lot less convenient. Somehow I don't think that Google Mail will go away though...

 

[RML]

RML,
Thank you for the info. Does it offer any other advantages, like being less susceptible to SPAM? Even with the ISP filter deleting SPAM is a major annoyance.

Honestly I doubt whether Google will do a better job at keeping the Gmail accounts free of spam. Right now there are so few gmail accounts that it's probably not yet interesting for the spammers to target. But once it gets operational and more and more people are using it, the spammers will start to target Gmail as well. The only option IMO to get rid of spam is to increase the punitive damages people and ISP's can demand from spammers, and come up with a worldwide law-based solution. But that doesn't relieve both users and ISP's of actively opposing spam, something that most ISP's are not yet doing in the least.

 

[peter_n]

My spam is so bad that I have to change my main email address every 12 months or so... 🙁

What a pain! 😡

 

[Rich Silfver]

I use mine for the RF book and some other related stuff.

I love the 1 GIG limit - but I still hate part of the user interface, ex:

* I cant seem to be able to sort by sender,
* I cant see a list of individual emails in the main page - its all by 'thread'.
* When more than one people reply to the 'same thread' it all shows in ONE line in the main page and more than once I have 'missed' the other persons reply.

At this point I'm not ready to swap to gmail as my main email account.

I have by the way 3 free gmail invites to give out - so email me at aperture (at) gmail.com and I'll send an invite.

 

[back alley]

so far i have transferred a copy of all my email addresses to the gmail account. nice to have if i'm away from my own computer.

i also have changed my cvug/rf list address to gmail. this has already lessened the load on my photo email account.

no plans for further action as yet.

joe

 

[Rich Silfver]

I have 3-4 more free gmail account invites to give out if anyone wants them.

Email me at aperture (at) gmail.com if you want one.

ALSO - if you are an existing gmail account user you may be interested in this free tool: http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/
It adds an icon in your system tray and checks for new emails in your gmail account. I've used it for a week now and works very well with atleast Windows XP.

 

[back alley]

rich,

how are you getting all the invites?
i dl'd that 'notifier' , thanks for the heads up.

joe

 

[Rich Silfver]

Someone told me that you get 6 free invites if you send/receive 50 emails within a 30 day period. Not sure if that's true or not.
I just keep getting a bunch of them. I also have three gmail accounts set up - for different purposes so that also explains a bit I think 🙂

Yeah, the notifier works well I think.

What's your gmail email address Joe? 😉

Tonight I'm playing around with Orkut (www.orkut.com) to see how well that would work as a discussion board for RF enthusiasts working on projects. We'll see.

 

[GeneW]

Richard, check out Orkut for us. From the home page it looks like a dating service 🙄

Gene

 

[Rich Silfver]

You know it looked that way to me as well - but it seems to have the 'non-dating' option as well that 6-degrees had - meaning business-/hobby contacts.

And sorry Gene, I'm married 😉

 

[back alley]

What's your gmail email address Joe?

jjrizzuto@gmail.com

 

[Rich Silfver]

Some gmail tools: http://www.marklyon.org/gmail/gmailapps.htm