Connected Well

Google’s contact management interface in Gmail has been pain. ful. ly. s.l.o.w. in the past , but it worked, and it was smart enough to know who you communicate with the most and update your chat list accordingly.  In fact, as long as you didn’t ever access contacts directly, all was well in Google-Happy-Cloud-Computing-Land.

Now, thanks to other apps that need contacts like Voice* and Wave, access to these across the GoogleVerse** has spawned the need to just pull the contact manager out into its own app, namely, Google Contacts.  And, like Mashable points out, Google Contacts is adding a much-needed “de-dupify” feature that tries to merge your contacts down to size when import/export, syncing and auto-contact management madness ends up bloating your contact file.

If only New Year’s Resolutions were so easy.

In trying the feature, I admit merging my 1600+ contact list didn’t work after repeated tries and script timeouts in firefox. I am sure it will improve.

* I don’t know why, but accessing contacts in the Google Voice interface always seems to work quicker than from gMail.
**Um, this is an off-the-cuff contraction of “Google” and “Universe”, not Google’s latest poetry or scripture-reading app.

Rahhb Apps, Tools, mobile cloud, cloud computing, contact management, contacts, gmail, google, googlevoice, googlewave

I posted the other day about Google Tasks.  Here is my running wishlist of things I would like to see added to the tool.  Please add your own suggestions in the comments!

1. Collapse groups of tasks
   Indenting tasks to group them together is AWESOME.  Clicking the master task (most-left) and having all the sub-tasks check themselves off is awesome too.  Even moving the master tasks and having the others follow along is superb.  Now, please let me collapse or hide tasks underneath the master task!
2. Share Tasks individually and as lists
   Help me liberate my tasks, please!
   I would like to share a list of tasks, and/or have the option to assign tasks to a certain person, with all parties able to view and edit and complete.

Rahhb Apps, Tools efficiency, google, googletasks, GTD, tasks

Google tasks is doing some great stuff.  It’s simple, intuitive and awesome.

Click to enlarge

When you’ve got your mind flowing and you’re cranking out tasks left and right, it’s nice to have your list right there so you can blow away completed items with the box-checking-pleasure you know you secretly love almost as much as that song you keep humming to yourself.  This is an excellent way to keep a log of what you’re doing, which can be extra valuable if you are a consultant or contractor and need to invoice your clients for work performed.

Google Tasks is easy to work right along side you without getting in your way.  It’s low-maintenance, doesn’t complain about the bad coffee in your office, and instantaneously synchronizes across all the methods you use to access it (see below). This is one of my favorite things Gmail Labs has done.

First, enable it in Gmail by clicking the “Tasks” link under “Contacts” on the left side of your Gmail window.

Enable Google Tasks in Gmail

It creates a chat-style pop-up box that fits in your lower-right corner or can be popped out to its own window for your task-defeating pleasure while you reply like the inbox-zero mad-dog you are. FTW!!!

Second, enable it in Google Calendar by looking for the “Tasks” link (Google web designers are so smart to label it that!) and two things happen:

1) Your task lists will show up on the right side of your calendar for easy maintenance and
2) Your scheduled tasks will show up on your calendar itself, allowing for easy viewing and completion right on the calendar.

Gmail blog explains more about Tasks in Calendar.

Third, find alternate ways to access your tasks:

Bookmark it on your smartphone ( go to gmail.com/tasks from your blackberry, palm, HTC, android or other web-aware phone.  Oh, and of course, snobby iPhone-ers get special treatment)

You can also add it to iGoogle as a gadget or the standalone “Tasks Canvas” page to view, edit and manage tasks in other places. I have a “chores” list that I pull up on our Opera browser for the Wii so the kids can see and check off their chores on Saturday morning.   Geeky? Yes, but it gets the carpets vacuumed.

BONUS RESOURCES

Here are some bonus links for your clickety browsing pleasure:

• Task Jedi? Check out Google’s help page for keyboard shortcuts and tips to become a real taskmaster (the good kind… not the kind prefaced with “evil”… or the Marvel Comic character). Sort. Categorize. Complete. Repeat.
• Do you like to GTD? See how to approach Nirvana with gTasks here.
• Got Chrome? Follow these tips to make a Google Tasks shortcut on your desktop. It pops up in its own window and has a shortcut icon on your computer desktop or quick-launch menu (depending on your OS). This works and it’s slick!

Rahhb Apps, Tools, mashups efficiency, getting_things_done, gmail, google, googletasks, GTD, inbox-zero, performance, tasks, workflow

Google’s really laying on the additions to GoogleVoice. It seems they’re really moving forward with things at a rapid pace. The latest addition is a gMail Labs add-on that will have GoogleVoice voicemails show up in your mailbox, and you can play them on the spot:

Previously, clicking “Play message” opened a new page in your browser, but starting today, you can play voicemails right in Gmail. Just turn on the Google Voice player from the Gmail Labs tab under Settings and whenever you get a voicemail notification, the player will appear right below the message itself.

Best of all, your message status will stay synced: messages played from Gmail will appear as read in your Google Voice inbox and won’t be played again when you check new messages via your phone. If you already use Google Voice, try it out and let us know what you think. If you don’t have a Google Voice account yet, sign up for an invitation and we’ll get you one ASAP.

Read the article at the gMail Blog

api Apps, Tools communication, google, googlevoice, telephone, voice, voip

Web savvy Internet users know to Not Share Your Email Address unless you want to be spammed to death.  I completely agree. But gMail from Google can help you share your address with a reasonable certainty that, if the spamming begins, you can easilly shut it off.

• First (and most powerful) is the feature, commonly called “plus addressing“, and which is appropriate per the Email RFC #822 (see pages 8&9), allows you to add additional information to your gMail address between your username and the “@gmail.com” portion of the address to give you a little more information about where you divulged this address, and to whom.

• Next, gMail addresses are “dot blind“, meaning you can add as many dots (periods) in the username portion of your email address as you want (as long as the username does not start or end with a period)

For example:

If your email address is mykittenrocks@gmail.com, any of the following combinations will send email to your account, and you can tell gMail to filter them if you want, or label them a certain way, etc:

• mykittenrocks+thecasbah@gmail.com (link to the song by the Clash, on YouTube)
• my.kitten.rocks@gmail.com
• m.y.k.i.t.t…e.n.ROCKS@gmail.com
• my.kitten.rocks+dont.spam.me@gmail.com
• mykittenrocks+subscriptions+sitename@gmail.com

Anders Jacobsen recommends subscribing to a website with the name of the website and the month, date and year you subscribed:

I usually register at websites with an email address of the form username+sitename+yyyy-mm-dd@domain.com and if I ever receive unsolicited email to this address (see my previous rants on dialpad.com) it’s easy not only to track where the spammer got my address from, but also to block this address for future emails.

The final way gMail helps you share your email address without undue future pain is to give you great Spam Filtering and Unsubscription tools:

Clicking “Report Spam” on junk emails helps gMail keep that same message from hitting other unsuspecting (and surely less savvy) users than you.

See a YouTube video about how gMail fights spam.

Mashable notes a new feature that makes it easy to unsubscribe from spammy email lists.

People like Jeremy Zowodny use this feature for gMail to scrub his email before he downloads it to his personal email server

api Apps, Tools cloud, control, email, gmail, google, googlemail, spam, subscriptions, webmail

Google’s customizable homepage just got social-er.  I already use this as a personal dashboard of what’s going on in my world.  This will add even more cool stuff:

See the Google IG Social video on YouTube

api Apps, Social Networking, Tools, life google, interconnected, new, social, Social Networking

For a while, SMS heaven seemed to rest lightly on all users of gmail and it’s in-browser gtalk client. keeping up with people who were not “online” but mobile was as easy as pie.  Changing between SMS and gTalk chat was clear and simple. All was well in the universe, until the SMS gods at google removed their goodwill in March of this year.

But, what is this?  Could it be possible that we have been found worthy of their blessings once again?  It appears so.  Check the screen clips.  Do you see this in your gmail, too?

Below, see that your contacts in Gmail’s chat sidebar, who have a mobile number, show up with a mobile phone icon when they are not online.



Clicking “Send SMS” in the window above, pops open the chat box where you can send and receive SMS messages from the user:

If the user comes “online” (signs into gTalk) then you have the option of switching to Instant Messaging, and no-longer sending your messages via SMS.

*It would be nice if I could redirect SMS that goes to my phone’s number to gTalk… and if I am not online, then it just goes straight through. Interesting possible app there…

api Apps, Tools, mobile Apps, communication, google, gtalk, IM, sms

Anagram may have launched one of the most valuable killer apps for blackberry in a long time.

More than a year ago, I mentioned Anagram as one of the little apps I can not live without and, as a hyper cheapskate recessionist, the desktop app is well worth the registration fee.

But, from the looks of things, Anagram has launched a FREE blackberry version to go along with their other versions that integrate with Salesforce, Outlook, Gmail, Google Calendar, NetSuite, Jigsaw, Palm Desktop and Tablet PC.

Hit the link and you have to punch in your bb email address and you’ll get an OTA link for download. It integrates right into the blackberry menu and allows you to select and then save contact information in email signatures or off web-pages, text messages or any other text field, and then have it import right into your address book or calendar, etc.

One quick tip: It looks like you need to COPY the text first, then “Capture with Anagram” for it to pull correctly.

Way to go Anagram.

This little tool is so valuable, I only wish I was actually paid to talk about them .

api Apps, Tools, mobile anagram, Apps, contact, contact_management, cool, CRM, must_have, textual, Tools