Gmail Put To The Test

I've been using Google's free Gmail email service since it first became available as an experimental "beta" service in 2004. Since then, I've discovered quite a few useful – and not so obvious – things to do with the service but I've been reluctant to write about them because, until recently, potential users needed an invitation to sign up for Gmail. Anyone with a Gmail account can invite their friends to join, so millions of people have managed to sign-up.

Now you don't need a friend with an account to join. While getting a Gmail account is still a bit more difficult than signing up for Yahoo or Hotmail, it's now possible for anyone with a mobile phone to get a free account. If you don't have an account, go to Gmail.com and click on "Sign up for Gmail Using Your Mobile Phone." Google will send the invitation as a text message to a U.S. mobile phone.

If you don't have a mobile phone, Google suggests you "ask a friend with a mobile phone to receive an invitation code for you or to ask someone you know who already has a Gmail account to email you an invitation."

Gmail allows you to send and receive mail and stores more than two gigabytes of messages and attachments, which means that most people won't run out of space for years if ever. The company gives it away for free but displays discreet (but relevant to the message) text ads to the right of the message. That's bothered some privacy experts, but as long as Google keeps its promise to never allow humans to look at my mail, I'm not concerned about it.

I use Gmail to help me keep track of phone numbers and lots of other bits and pieces of information that I can't keep in my head. I've even emailed myself my eyeglass prescription. If I'm ever in some remote location and need glasses pronto, I can log on to Gmail and get them, assuming of course I can read the screen.

Gmail can also serve as an ad-hoc backup system. When I create or edit a file that's too important to risk, I just email it to myself as an attached file. That way, whatever happens to my PC (or for that matter my house), the file is safe on Gmail's servers.

I sometimes use this as an easy way to move a file or two between computers. If I create a file on my laptop on the road or at a coffee shop, I can quickly "copy" it to my desktop PC by emailing it to myself and retrieving it later.

Another thing I like about Gmail is that it has a very good spam filter. Unlike most other filters, it manages to catch about 95% of the spam I receive while almost never misidentifying legitimate mail as spam.

As a result, I use it for all my mail, yet I never give out my Gmail address. Instead, I configured my Internet service to automatically forward all my regular email to my Gmail account. I can then read and respond to that mail on Gmail but it's also possible to access your Gmail account with Outlook, Outlook Express, Macintosh Mail or any other "pop3" compliant email program.

With this system, I get all my mail through my regular email program but hardly get any spam since all the mail must first pass through Gmail's spam filters. Gmail also allows you to send email with your choice of return address so you can use it without having to give out a new email address.

You can also configure Gmail to automatically forward all of your incoming mail to another email address. I know this sounds weird, but I forward all my Gmail to my Yahoo account so I have a backup of my spam-free mail on yet another service. Yahoo mail also has spam filters, but they aren't as good.

Finally, there are "hacks" or third party programs that have been written to further extend Gmail's powers. One of the more interesting, Gmail Drive (www.viksoe.dk/gmail/), ingeniously uses the space from your Gmail account at a virtual hard drive on a Windows PC. Once installed, it actually creates a virtual drive that you access as if it were a regular hard drive from your "My Computer" Icon.

The program's author points out that "GMail Drive is still an experimental tool" and "since the tool hooks up with the free Gmail Service provided by Google, changes in the Gmail system may break the tool's ability to function." Once the program is installed it runs automatically when you start Windows but, if you're not happy with it, you can uninstall it from the Windows Control Panel.