magpiebrain

Skinning GMail

Over at “persistent.info”:http://persistent.info/, Hammers has used the “URLid”:http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/uriid extension for Firefox to create a “personal skin for GMail”:http://persistent.info/archives/2004/10/05/gmail-skinning using CSS. The result is less than stunning, however does show the potential. Personally, GMail’s interface has put me off – not just the look (which is so 2002), but the actual UI – I frequently find myself hunting for links, and find the interface far too busy. Now whilst I can’t change everything I’d like to, I can change some of it, so I should probably stop moaning about the excellent free service.

GMail as a disk drive

Following on from Richard Jones’ “GMailFS”:http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-filesystem/gmail-filesystem.html, the “GMail Drive Extension”:http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm makes GMail appear as a drive under windows explorer. All files uploaded appear with a @GMAILFS@ prefix so it’s easy to setup filters to stop your inbox being cluttered. It’s not without its problems however – via Windows Explorer the file looks fine, but when you access it as a mail attachment from within GMail, the attachment name doesn’t match the original filename. Still, handy enough if I don’t have my USB keydrive to hand I suppose.

New GMail features

As “Chu pointed out(Redemption In a Blog – Gmail’s new features – Atom feed and “inline” Contact list)”:http://blog.codefront.net/archives/2004/10/04/gmails-new-features-atom-feed/, some new features have been rolling out. Firstly, the contact list is now inline – much nicer. Something which excited me much more however was the fact that Atom feeds are being made available of your inbox. Not everyone can see the link right now, however if you go to “https://gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom”:https://gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom after logging in you can get the feed for your inbox. You do however have to be authenticated first, which kind of prohibits me using the feed in “bloglines”:http://www.bloglines.com/ though. Still, we’ll have to see how these features develop – I want my contacts as OPML!