FourEyesSquad

It is true that GMail is one of the best web-hosted email systems around and have a huge disk space to boot! However, this great deal is nothing if it will not be used to its full potential. Being able to archive your mails for future reference and so as to keep your inbox clean is good enough, and so are the labels which makes sifting through hundreds of emails a little easier is good enough, so what else is missing? Forwarding your mails from one account to your Gmail account.

Having one email account to catch all of the non-spam messages from your various email addresses by forwarding them to your main account is not a revolutionary idea. However, being able for Gmail to fetch your messages from your from another server is another is not a very known feature of Gmail. Here, we’ll see how easy it is to set up your GMail account and therefore further using Gmail to its full extent.

Fetching your mails from your other service provider to your Gmail account is easy, just follow these steps: (click on the images to view the full-sized image)

1. Go to Settings > Accounts, there you will see various options for your account such as adding another email address, upgrading your storage (the current is at 5G, who needs more, really?) and what we’re after: Get mail from other accounts. Just click on the “Add another mail account link.”

   

2. A popup window will appear that will be asking you for your email address, (e.g. aaa@foureyessquad.com). Just type it in and click on the Next Step button.

   

3. The next window will ask for details for your new email account such as your password, POP server, and port. It will also ask you what you want to do with the messages that will be downloaded from that account, as always, you have 4 choices:

   

   1. Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server. Usually, when a message is downloaded from an account to a mail fetcher, the message will be archived (or deleted).
   2. Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail.
   3. Label incoming messages: [email address]. That is the default, but you may change it to whatever you like. As for me, I did not checked it off, rather I created several filters so the messages will be filed accordingly.
   4. Archive incoming messages (Skip the inbox)

And that’s all there is to it! Easy, isn’t it? You have to wait for a couple of minutes for the messages to be retrieved, after that, Gmail will automagically download your messages whenever a new message arrives for you.

Google’s latest open project is released just after it launched Open Social to rival one of the fastest growing social network today: Facebook.

What is Open Handset Alliance (OHA)?

OHA comprises a group of handset makers, carriers and silicon manufacturers. It centers around a new, Linux-based mobile operating system for smartphones, called Android. It’s Google’s long-awaited play for the mobile space.

For its own part, the Mountain View, California, company remains tight-lipped (or at least purposefully vague) about the underlying business strategies behind both efforts. But one thing is clear: Google is using its clout to pave new roads into two of the hottest technology destinations today: social networking and the mobile internet.

Many are suspicious of Google’s motivations — and even of its use of the open source approach. Mozilla’s chief operating officer John Lilly warns that just because Google happens to be using the term “open” in both of its initiatives, that doesn’t necessarily make them so.

Lilly mentioned that for Mozilla, “open” doesn’t necessarily means having an open source code. It means that the allies have the say on the path the project will take. It really is puzzling whether Google will allow the other companies to dictate what will happen with both OpenSocial and OHA. However, with just a few days after the two Google efforts are launched, it’s still a little early to prove that it is indeed a collaborative effort.

For the OHA, the fragmented and dysfunctional mobile market is an opportunity ripe for the picking.

(more…)

Five months after Facebook announced that it’s opening its platform to third-party developers, Google comes forward and gives the phrase “opening social networks” a whole new meaning.

Google’s OpenSocial aims to “open” social networks in the sense that developers can write applications that will work on any web site that chooses to implement OpenSocial. These applications can access user profiles in the social networks that implement it in a standard manner. One of the reasons why Google went with OpenSocial is because it is said that they believe that for a social network to be successful it needs to have a lot of user base and by being able to access one social network’s user base with one another, a certain social network will be able to gain momentum. That way, revenue, if it’s in the form of ads or if it even exists at all, will be significantly higher.

Standardization, somehow the word gives chill to my spine. I have always maintained that one of the greatest things with the web is the kind of freedom that it gives to any individual who has enough imagination and guts to follow an idea. Sure, Google have always wanted to categorize the web, however, this gives the feeling that it’s closing down on the web. But, of course, I may just be a little paranoid.