The main job of this excellent little program is to monitor any number of Gmail inboxes and labels.  You can customize each account with individual colors and sounds too.  You can also instantly rely to emails, without even having to open your web browser.  It is also fully compatible with Google Apps and the standard free Gmail e-mail accounts too.

The features do not stop there.  You can also use it to monitor multiple Google Talk accounts, receive desktop alerts for calendar events, get the latest Google news feeds or stay up to date with the current weather conditions.  Any RSS feed can also be directly plugged into Scott’s Gmail Alert, for easy access to your favorite website stories.

Your registration (which is only $3) will unlock support for monitoring an unlimited number of Gmail accounts, the Calendar functions and RSS feed monitoring.

Go give it a shot – I can promise you that you will not find another Gmail monitoring program that does so much.

Google Buzz, thus far, has been another example of them not exactly having Midas’s golden touch when it comes to new ideas (the other modern one being Google Wave). However, to make sure you have your bases covered – it might not be a bad idea to start syndicating your content through this wacky service to make sure those who want to follow you using Google Buzz can.

Have I gone too far forward? First let me touch base on what Google Buzz actually is.  Google Buzz is Google’s way for you to share updates, photos, videos and more.  Think of it as their version of Twitter, with a little more functionality – and built right into your Gmail account.

Is Google Buzz Worth the Trouble?

To get started with it – you simply visit the Google Buzz website, and click the, “Try Google Buzz in Gmail” button. That should bring up the new Google Buzz feature in your Gmail sidebar menu. I simply have it setup to syndicate whatever it can find from my Twitter account, by “connecting” it to Twitter.  You can also post to it directly, or link other websites or services to it.

The idea is cool, it is just not really reinventing the wheel so much that everybody wants to use it.  There is one redeeming fact about Google Buzz thus far though.  Once setup – it will bring a little more usefulness to your Google Profile.

What About the Google Buzz Sharing Widget?

Oh yes, nearly forgot about this one.  Google Buzz also brings us all one more button to use on our websites so that Google Buzz users can share your content with others on their own Google Buzz accounts.  You can find out how to set up these buttons from Google’s website.

So – should you go through the trouble of setting up a Google Buzz account? If you are already using Gmail, you might give it a shot – but for me, the only really good thing about it I have seen is it gives you one more place to get your links out about yourself and add some social fluff to your Google Profile, which I do recommend setting up.

I do much of my e-mail management from within Gmail.  One of the few annoyances I have found is having somebody tell me they just sent me something, and I have to click through several links to check manually that specific POP account.  By default Gmail uses a common timing algorithm to fetch your POP account mail, but now you can ask them to do it at the click of a button.

Thanks to a new Gmail Labs feature, you can now use the Refresh link to check all your POP mail accounts too.  Just click on the Google Labs green beaker at the top of Gmail, and enable Refresh POP accounts.

Now, if you use Gmail to manage both your Gmail account and your POP mail accounts, you can check all your mail accounts quicker. (via Lifehacker)

As you can see, this changes the way Gmail looks from top to bottom.  I like the lighter colors and the more “clean” interface myself.  You can pick up the user script for it here:

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/7646

Also, be sure to stay tuned on the Super Clean Gmail blog, so you get the latest updates on how the project is going, and when it has been updated:

http://gmailsuperclean.wordpress.com/

Is it about time Google did a refresh of Gmail themselves?  I think so…

Import POP3 Accounts into Gmail

First things first, we have my Gmail account.  This acts as my main mail account.  From there, I have added all my other mail accounts from other various locations (such as lunarpages.com or mitchkeeler.com) to Gmail.  Google’s e-mail client can act as an e-mail fetcher for all your other POP3 e-mail accounts.  Here is a post from them describing how to set that up:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=21288

The short version would be go to Settings > Accounts and then “Add Another Mail Account”.

Get Gmail to Work with IMAP

This is where problem two comes into play.  I want to be able to use Thunderbird on my desktop PC to manage my e-mail and then Gmail via the browser on my laptop (or anywhere else) to get to all my same mail via the Web.  To enable IMAP in Gmail:

1. Sign in to Gmail.
2. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page.
3. Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
4. Select Enable IMAP.
5. Configure your IMAP client and click Save Changes.

To configure Thunderbird for Gmail/IMAP, be sure to check out this post here:

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77662

Now for the Little Annoying Things

Alright, my mail system is in place and I can mirror Thunderbird with Gmail (or vice versa).  There are a few small kinks yet to be worked out though.  The worst of them is that your address book will not stay in sync between platforms.  You can do this manually of course, but that is a pain in the rear.  There are also a few configuration tweaks you have to change to get your tags and folders to match up with the right spot inside of Thunderbird.

Lifehacker has done a good write up on most of these other little tweaks you may wish to do, so check that out for more information.  There you have it.  It might not be the prettiest system but it does get the job done. 

Here is the list of Greasemonkey scripts that are now working with the new Gmail 2 interface.

• Gmail Beautifier 2.0 – show/hide ads sidebar and few other tweaks.
• Gmail Label Colors NG – Colored labels in Gmail.
• Mailto 2 Webmail – Forces mailto links to use Gmail.
• Folders4Gmail – Adds folders to Gmail.
• Older Version Gmail Title – Ditches e-mail address in page title.
• Gmail Spam-count Hide – Hides your spam count number.
• Gmail Show Details – Get more header info on e-mails.

Some of these have been wrapped into the new Better Gmail 2 (from the Lifehacker crew) and I am sure others will follow suit. Know of any others that I might have missed?

I do have to say it looks pretty slick.

+ Check Out Gmail.app (Mac Os Style) on Userstyles.org!

• Google Groups – Gmail Help Discussion
• Google Gmail Help Center
• Lifehacker – Posts tagged with “gmail”
• Google Gmail Resources on ZDNet
• Ultimate Guide to Google’s Gmail – Kyle’s Cove

Have any more to suggest? I’d love to check ‘em out.

Maybe the best (pardon the pun) tool I have found while switching has been the Better Gmail extension for Firefox. It ads a lot of the little customizations that I have been looking to do. My big ones were to hide the invite box, hide the ads, and make Gmail use https:// by default.

Step One – Getting Ready for the Move

First thing I did was move all my Yahoo! Mail message from my folder into my inbox. I deleted a lot of old crap I really didn’t need anymore. I’m not that much of a pack rat when it comes to e-mail so this might be easier for some than others.

Step Two – Setting Up Additional Accounts

Second thing I did was setup all my e-mail addresses up in Gmail so that I could start the switch. This could not be easier. I also set my old Yahoo address up to go there as well – so I wouldn’t miss out on a thing.

Step Three – Configure Gmail’s Settings

Third, I went through and configured the Gmail settings and imported my e-mail from Yahoo! to Gmail. This was easy enough, because it picked up on everything that was in my inbox at Yahoo! and brought it right in.

Step Four – Get Things Labeled, Forget the Folders

From there I setup my labels and got e-mails archived. That’s it! Now things are going smoothly and the one thing I have been most impressed by is the spam filtering that Gmail does. It might take a little training but in a whole it is leaps and bounds over what Yahoo! Mail provides.