A few weeks ago I took control over my email.  Not only did I clean out my inboxes, but I also converted everything over to Gmail.  Why would I do this?

1. Always online and availabe to me.
2. Doesn’t take up space on my webserver.
3. The labeling system is fantastic.  I didn’t really know this until I really started using it.
4. Integrated nicely with Mail.app or other email applications like Thunderbird and Outlook.
5. I can send and receive email from multiple accounts via one Gmail account.
6. iPhone ready.
7. Email is up even if website is down.

I keep hearing people say that they got their inbox down to zero or their email is so organized and I never knew how they did it.  Then, last weekend, I sat down and started organizing a few messages.  Before I knew it, I was cleaning out my inbox and got it down to only a few messages.

So how’d I do it?  Here are my keys to success.

1. Create folders for topics that best match your email style.  Like Friends, Family, Shopping, Wife.  Think of who you get the most email from or what topics you get a lot of email on.  Then create folders to file all those emails into.

A new version of Gmail is available. The only thing different I can see is a robust address book.

It also warns users if they have Firebug enabled. Yikes!

Have you seen any other improvements or changes?

Check your Gmail account now and you’ll know if your in the new version if in the upper right corner, after settings, there is a link that say “Old Version.” Clicking it will take you back to the old version and a “New Version” link will appear.

I’m still hunting for new more features.

It seems that StumbleUpon can connect to your Gmail account and auto-magically connect you with those that have StumbleUpon accounts. I thought that was cool so I did it. I didn’t realize that it was also sending invites to all those in my address book that weren’t on StumbleUpon.

Since I have 419 random emails in Gmail, I feel I just spammed hundreds of people. SORRY!! I didn’t mean to.

It seems that a number of those emails were to support sites so I just opened up quite a few support tickets too. Crap.

If you use Gmail and a Mac, Mailplane is a must have application. It’s really the first program I’ve seen that really takes a web based application to the desktop.

At it’s core, it’s really just a webkit browser (or so I assume) that shows Gmail. But then there is so much more. It has all Gmail features built into the application itself. Not only does it have a toolbar with all the standard buttons like new message, reply, forward and delete, but it also ties into iPhoto, has drag and drop attachment abilities, keychain support and Growl notifications. The latest version even works with GTalk to take it out of Gmail and into it’s own little window.

When I arrived home from vacation last week I saw the news that Google Desktop was released for the Mac. All excited, I downloaded it and installed it. However, it’s not really necessary on a Mac.

When Google Desktop came out for Windows, it was great. The main reason was becasue it gave Windows a good search application. The built in windows search is slower than hell and I don’t think that dog could find his tail in less than five minutes.

Now this is handy! I was trying to figure out how to get Gmail to forget a previous email username and password the other day and I came across Mission Data Blog. There they had a simple tip for clearing out saved form information in Firefox:

Go to the form where the mistake is.  Put your cursor in the text entry widget and hit down until the incorrect entry is highlighted. Now press shift + del … voila.

WOW! It’s so simple and so handy. I’ve been deleting saved stuff all day long from input boxes. Great tip and very useful.

It’s true, I’m addicted to the Web 2.0. From social bookmarking sites to online word processors and web software that just works, there is no end in site to what I can accomplish online!

What is the Web 2.0? Well, it’s the idea of sharing information and having web sites act more like applications and less like static content. For example, Yahoo Mail is Web 1.0. Every time you click on a link or button, the whole window refreshes. Gmail is Web 2.0 were it acts more like a desktop application. Everything happens much like your Outlook or Thunderbird. Now Yahoo does have a Web 2.0 version coming, but it’s not available yet for us regular folk.