This 2010 State of the Internet video is along the same lines as “Did You Know” videos, plenty of stats on the internet, email and social media sites as a video infographic with an electronic beat.

2010 State of the Internet Video is a post from: Trumblog

Gmail is hands down the most useful 3rd party BlackBerry application that I use.  Others may have a better user experience, there may be ones that look better, some are certainly more fun or cool.  But Gmail is by far the application that I use the most and has the set of features that I appreciate the most across all of the third party apps on my BlackBerry.

I’m assuming that you already know what Gmail is, but just in case, Gmail is Google’s free email product.  You’ll need to sign up for it, but you don’t have to worry about invitations like you once did and now have to for some newer Google applications like Google Wave and Google Voice.

Gmail gives you the same screens on the BlackBerry that you have in a standard email program; Inbox, Outbox, Mobile Drafts, Trash, Spam and Contacts.  They all function as you’d expect so I won’t bother going into detail except for with the Contacts screen.  Here you can browse or search for  contacts and then email them, search for recent emails from a specific contact and event call them.  There are also some additional views and ways to sort your email.  For example there is a Chats screen, these are email and GTalk conversations and though GTalk isn’t part of the Gmail application, those conversations are accessible from the BlackBerry app.

Messages are sortable so you can find starred messages (stars are a way to flag important emails) or by label (a tag that can be applied to a message making them easy to group).  Finally you can also review messages that have been automatically marked as spam and placed in the Spam folder.

Of course you can compose new emails, reply to and forward emails, you can star emails, mark them as spam, delete them, archive them, etc. The application has spell check too.  Search is excellent, just as you’d expect from a Google product.

And Gmail even takes it up a notch. Unlike most BlackBerry applications that have limited functionality when offline, Gmail caches received emails for reading offline and then synchronizes when it has a signal again, just like the BlackBerry native Messages app.  With that Gmail sets the bar for other Google mobile apps and I would love to see a Google Reader and Google News application that works similarly for use on my subway ride to work.

Of course Gmail does have some weak spots, which I point out solely in the hope that the application can be made even better.  Received messages cannot be labeled, which means that while you can clear your Inbox, you can’t really organize it.  You also can’t edit contact information a benefit that would be a handy addition.

There really is not much to say about the functionality of the application because it has all of the features that you expect from an email app.  And what higher praise can you give a mobile application.  The Gmail app does everything that the online version does, but in a smaller, mobile package.

Review: Gmail For BlackBerry is a post from: Trumblog

The Google Mobile application for the BlackBerry sums up the company perfectly.  It delivers useful search features that are an upgrade over those available from the BlackBerry browser and simultaneously pushes their suite of applications while maintaining a simplicity of design and purpose.

The home screen for the application features the Google search window and a set of icons for mobile applications.  From those application icons you either launch the application (or download it if you haven’t already) or access the application’s mobile website if it is an online app.  Like the Google Mobile Updater app that Google Mobile replaces, it also provides alerts about upgrades to these applications when they are available.

The Google Mobile application gives you access to a variety of Google applications on your BlackBerry:

• Gmail (application),
• Google Maps (application),
• Google News (website),
• Google Reader (website),
• Calendar (website),
• Docs (website),
• Photos (website),
• Sync (application) and
• Notebook (website).

Note that the Google Voice application for BlackBerry, Tasks, Blogger and iGoogle are not included in the suite of applications.

The search functionality of the application allows you to quickly search without accessing the BlackBerry browser and extends  search functionality that is available on the standard Google website to your BlackBerry.  This means that features like search suggestions, history and results based on location are all available on your Blackberry.

The application also gives you access to the search by voice feature.  This is accessed by holding the green call button and speaking your search query.  The results are the same but you get the convenience of speaking your search rather than typing it.

Despite all of these features I find the greatest benefit that I get from the Google Mobile application are the alerts about application upgrades.  And that’s enough for me to keep it installed on my BlackBerry. Perhaps I’m just not the mobile power searcher that these features have been developed for.

Review: Google Mobile for BlackBerry is a post from: Trumblog

For convenience or to upgrade your storage capabilities from the measly 100MB that Go Daddy provides with their web mail service, at some point you may decide to migrate your email account hosted through Go Daddy from their web mail to a software or web-based email application.

Go Daddy has pretty good instructions on setting up mail on a variety of email clients such as Outlook and the iPhone.  However they missed Gmail.  In order to fill that gap here are instructions to set up Gmail to receive email from your Go Daddy hosted account and send email using that account as well.

Setting up your Go Daddy email on Gmail

1. In Gmail, click Settings in the upper right hand corner of the interface
   
2. Select the Accounts and Import tab.
   
3. In the Send mail as: section click the Send mail from another address button.



4. In the pop-up window that opens, fill in your name and email address, then click Next Step
   
5. In the next frame select the second option Send through [email address] SMTP servers (recommended for professional domains).  Then enter the following information.
   SMTP server: smtpout.secureserver.net
   Port: 465
   Username: your email address
   Password: your email password
   Select Always use a secure connection (SSL) when sending mail then click Add Account
   
6. Your credentials will be checked and then you will advance to another frame of the pop-up with information about confirming your email address.  You don’t need to fill in the confirmation code, you will confirm the email address using the email that is sent to your account. Just click Close window.
7. Back on the Gmail Settings page, Accounts and Import tab, in the Check mail using POP3: section click the Add POP3 email account button.
   
8. In the pop-up window that opens fill in your email address then click Next Step
   
9. In the next frame enter the following:
   Username: your email address
   Password: your email password
   POP Server: mail.[your domain]
   Port: 110
   Of the 4 check boxes that are available you can select the 3rd or 4th ones if you want, but do not select either the 1st or the 2nd.
   Click Add Account
   
10. Now you will be able to receive incoming emails to your Go Daddy hosted account using Gmail. The first email that you will get probably is your Gmail confirmation email to validate that you can send emails from the hosted account via Gmail.  When you get that email, click the link to confirm your request.  You should be directed to a confirmation page.  Once that is done you will be able to send emails using your hosted email account through Gmail.
11. Incoming emails to your hosted email address will show up in your in box just like other emails.  To send an email from that account click Compose Mail then select the appropriate email address from the pull down menu at the top of the email form next to From:.
    
    I suggest that you send an email to your hosted email address from your hosted email address just to make sure that everything is working right.  If you can send and then receive your own email then you know that everything is working correctly and you are good to go.  If not then go back through the steps and see if you entered something incorrectly.

I hope that these instructions are useful, complete and helpful.  If you have any problems with them, find an error, need some additional explanation, etc. Please let me know so that I can update this post to correct or clarify the instructions and make them better for the next person.

Setting up Your Go Daddy IMAP or POP Email Address on Gmail is a post from: Trumblog

Saving the world from drunken emails last year Google launched Mail Goggles that was an after hours hurdle to sending inappropriate emails by requiring a few math problems be solved in advance.  That humorous concept seems have led to a more serious and useful feature.  Google Mail’s new  Undo Send functionality holds your email for 5 seconds before sending so that you can pull it back and switch from reply to all to just reply to sender, attach a forgotten attachment, etc.  This feature must be for a more sober audience, since it will take an alcohol addled brain more than 5 seconds to realize that the email that they sent was a bad idea and by then it’s too late.

Google Mail Goggles Begats Undo Send is a post from: Trumblog

I have a 500,000kb limit for my email account and my work signature with a 44kb logo included. At an average of 50 emails a day that means that in less than a year I’m over my limit due to this logo alone. I tend to hoard email and use it as a record that I can refer to later and attachments can be a critical part of that record. Therefore I’m unlikely to delete emails or archive them regularly. Sent email is a different matter since I already have any attachment on my hard drive. However I do want to keep a record of what attachment I sent. What would be perfect would be the ability to strip attachments from a group of emails while leaving a record of what attachments were removed like this…

Outlook, which I use for work email, only allows you to remove emails from an open email, meaning you can only remove them one at a time. Luckily there is a macro that will remove attachments from multiple emails at once and inserts the name of the removed attachment into the body of that email. And you can add it to the toolbar as a button. Here’s how you do it.

Note: this macro does not save the attachments it just deletes them. If you want to save the attachments you must do so separately.

1. Go to Tools > Macro > Security and select the Trusted Publishers tab to make sure that “Trust all installed add-ins and templates” is checked.

Back on the Security Level tab, select “Medium” and click “OK”. This will still protect you from unsafe macros, but let you allow this macro to be run when you want it to.

2. Go to Tools > Macro > Visual Basic Editor.

3. In the Project window in the upper left, doubleclick on “ThisOutlookSession” which will open a window on the right.

4. Paste the code for the macro, which can be found on Nicola Delfino’s blog, into the window and save.

5. Create a digital certificate.  Nicola covers it in her blog, but for simplicity’s sake here it is as well.  Go to start->office->Microsoft office tools->digital certificates for VBA, enter your new certificate’s name and click OK.

6. Back in Microsoft Visual Basic select Tools and Digital Signature.  Click Choose, select the certificate that you just created then click OK.  Back on the Digital Signature popup click OK and you are done.

At this point you can run the macro to remove attachments from the selected emails and add notation about the file that was removed. But wouldn’t it be handy if you could run this macro from the toolbar? That’s what I thought. Here’s what you do.

1. Go to Tools > Customize and click on Macros in the Categories.

2. Click on the Command Project1.ThisOutlookSession.StripAttachments and drag that to one of the toolbars in Outlook.

3. With the Customize window still open, right click on the new command which will activate the Modify Selection button.

4. Click Modify Selection and click into the window beside Name.

5. Edit the name of the Command’s button to “Strip Attachments” for example.

6. Close the window and you’re done!

To use the button, click on a message or a group of them and click the new button. The following alert will be triggered, which is ok.

Click “Yes” or if you are stripping attachments from a group of emails you may want to allow access for a few minutes so that you don’t see this alert for each email.

If that message is really killing you.  Click Yes from Context Magic to get rid of the Outlook message.  Personally, I just live with it.

That’s all there is to it. Enjoy!

How To Remove Attachments From Emails in Outlook is a post from: Trumblog

I’m taking my annual Thanksgiving-week vacation, but as always keeping in touch with goings on at the office while getting some stuff done around the house and being with the familia. The constant buzzing of my BlackBerry and nightly couch time with my laptop lead me to consider the fact that I probably am one of the 15% of Americans who consider themselves email addicts. I’m absolutely check email more than the average of 5 times a day, have a hard time not checking my BlackBerry every time an email arrives and my Blackberry charges by my bed, not that I’m waiting for email in my sleep, but I usually grab it when I wake up and check what’s arrived. This reminded me of some statistics that I saw earlier this year and figure that it’s worth trotting them out for a look.

The following data is from AOL‘s third annual “Email Addiction” survey.

Cities with the highest percentage of people with multiple email accounts:

1. Washington
2. Atlanta
3. New York
4. San Francisco
5. Houston
6. Los Angeles
7. Seattle
8. Orlando
9. Denver
10. Miami

Where we email

• in bed 59%
• in the bathroom 53%
• while driving 37%
• in church 12%

When we email

• first thing in the morning 43%
• middle of the night 40%

Gender – who describe themselves as email addicted

• Women (16%) who spend 15 minutes more per day on email than men
• Men (13%)

Email Addiction is a post from: Trumblog

Yahoo! announced today that their new version of Yahoo!Mail allows sending email to text messages. Kudos to them for making a little known feature available to the masses, but it’s actually easy to do. All cell phones actually have email addresses using the phone number and service provider all you need to know is the correct formatting.

Yahoo! Sending Email Text Messages is a post from: Trumblog

With vacation wrapping up I’m clearing out my inboxes and learned a couple new catch phrases “bacn” and “dryer lint” both of which I learned from some dryer lint here both of which I learned from the Washington Post.

Cleaning Out The Inbox is a post from: Trumblog