Michael Harper’s Tech & Art Blog

In case you don’t know it, Gmail is my personal favorite web-based email client. Gmail has been around for some time and I have loved it since its inception. Today, I discovered the ability to change the “theme” of your Gmail interface. Most themes have different views (e.g. Nature scenes go from day to night while something like my “planets” theme switches views of the galaxy each day). Google has been adding features left and right as of late. Google Docs, Calendar, Google Talk and more. Recently I transitioned from using my Toshiba Satellite laptop for work, to using an HP Workstation xw9300. Not only that, but creating dual-boot and virtual machine systems forced me to settle on either a cumbersome syncing solution, or a simple web-based email client. Gmail surpassed victoriously and I was left bidding farewell to Outlook and Evolution. Gmail does a great job of managing my multiple email accounts from multiple domains. I never see myself going back to app-based email clients again. Can anyone suggest anything that even comes close to Gmail? A few more brief reasons why I pick Gmail over others:

• Discreet ads, no embedded email ads (like AOL that throws text-based ads at the bottom of every email that is sent out)
• The ability to use with app-based email like Outlook (unlike Yahoo! which charges for simple features like forwarding and integrating with an email client)
• Unique, contextual search results (e.g. If you email contains a tracking number for a package, Gmail will have the link to the right-side for quick access to your carrier or if your email contains an address, a link will appear to the address in Google Maps adjacent to it)
• Incredible amounts of storage (today I have 7265 MBs at my disposal)
• Embedded chat with instant messaging and now voice and video capabilities! Did I mention file transfers? Quickly transfer a file by dropping it in the chat session.

But don’t take my word for it, give it a try today! Gmail.com