Archive for the ‘Composing’ Category
Texting – Part 2
By Chuck Tomasi on January 9th, 2010
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Welcome to part 2 of our 3 part series on texting from Gmail and Google applications. If you haven’t listened to part 1, you can download it from iTunes or listen directly from the Gmail Podcast blog at chuckchat.com.
In part 1 I showed you how to send free text messages from Gmail chat. Another way is to use Google Voice. Google Voice has several features that make it attractive, including:
• Publish a single phone number and have it ring your home, work, and mobile phone or any combination based on the caller.
• Free voice mail with personalized greetings
• Voice mail automatically converted to text and emailed to you with both the audio file and translated text attached
• Listen to, or read, your voice mail on your computer or mobile phone
• Free text messaging
Begin by signing in to Google Voice using your Gmail account at voice.google.com. At the top, just under the logo, click the SMS button. Begin typing the name of the contact or their phone number. Make sure you have mobile phone numbers associated with the contacts you intend to send text messages. Unlike the Gmail Chat feature, it will not prompt you for the contact if you enter only the number. Similarly, if you enter a name that has no mobile phone number associated in your contacts list, you cannot send a message.
After you have entered a phone number or contact, type your message and press send. It’s that simple. Managing your Google Voice conversations from the web interface is very similar to Gmail. Responses will show up in your Inbox or you can look at just SMS messages and filter out voice mail by clicking the SMS link on the left. You can reply by typing in the text area just under the conversation and click Send.
Currently, Google Voice is free and open by invitation only. Contact me if you are interested in trying it out.
Texting – Part 1
By Chuck Tomasi on January 2nd, 2010
This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist Express. Try it free for 30 days.
Google offers a number of ways to send and receive text messages for free without using a mobile phone. This is part 1 of a 3 part series on using text messages, or SMS, with Gmail and other Google applications.
Let’s begin with Gmail. Texting from Gmail chat is fairly easy. To do this you will need to enable the Labs feature “Text (SMS) in Chat”. You can find this in the Labs tab in the Settings page.
Once the labs feature is setup, begin by opening the chat window and signing in to chat. Type the name or phone number of the person you want to send a text message to in the “Search, add, or invite” box. If this person is not already in your contacts list, don’t worry. As you type, a window appears under your text with options “Mail, Invite to Chat, and SMS”. If you entered a phone number, only the SMS option will be displayed. Finish entering the text then choose the SMS option and a window appears. In the window, finish filling out the contact information. If you entered a name, provide the phone number, if you entered a phone number then provide a name and click Save. This information will be added to your contacts list for easier reference later.
When Gmail gets done saving the contact information, a window appears at the bottom of the screen – much like a chat window. Type you text message and send it with the Enter key. If the other person responds, you will receive a response in the same window. Gmail makes it as easy to send text messages as it is to chat – and best of all it’s free.
Another way to send text messages from Gmail is to use the SMS in Chat gadget. This is also a labs feature that works very similar to the Text (SMS) in Chat feature. I don’t recommend using this labs feature. First, it requires the Text (SMS) in Chat feature to be turned on – so why not use that instead? Second, at the time this article was written, the labs feature seems to have a bug in that it prompts you for contact information each time instead of reusing previous entries from the contact database. This creates duplicate entries in the contact database each time you use it.
Keep in mind that although the text messaging using Google may be free to you, it may not be free to the person receiving or sending replies. Currently, text messages from chat only work with US phones.
Listener John writes in and asks “Is there a way to set a primary email for a contact that has multiple addresses?”
While I cannot find a definitive rule or setting to make any particular email address the primary one, my own experience has shown me that mutliple email addresses seem to be ordered by the frequency they are used. The more you use a specific address for a particular person, the more likely that address will appear at the top of the list. If you’ve got information to the contrary, let me know on the blog or drop me an email.
Contact Chooser
By Chuck Tomasi on August 29th, 2009
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Have you found yourself trying to send a message to someone and you cannot remember their last name? John? John? What was John’s last name? OK, John’s not your closest friend and you don’t send him email all the time. In fact, you don’t even know if you added him to your Gmail contacts, you may have only sent a message to his email address and never used his full name. You start typing j-o-h-n in the To: field and auto-complete comes up with the people who have John in their name and you don’t find the person you are looking for. Was he even in the hundreds of contacts you have listed?
Now I have to admit, there are times when I would love to just browse my contacts list, or type a few characters, or even just poke around the contact groups I setup to get a better idea where John might be hiding. The latest update to Gmail answers this question. Google has placed a link on the “To”, “Cc”, and “Bcc” labels that bring up a contact chooser (see the image.) This works similar to the buttons next to the fields in Microsoft Outlook, only better.
If you type in text in the area marked “Search my contacts”, Gmail will start filtering out your people. In my case, I typed “tomasi” and got several of my family members. Now I can just click and choose them. I can also narrow down the search to my groups by using the drop down list just below.
This is a nice addition to the auto-complete feature if you’re really not sure how to spell someone’s name or want to quickly select all the Tomasis at once.
Here’s today’s quick tip. Listener John wrote in about the Goto Label feature. He says:
“One of my computers is a netbook, so the space saving tips catch my ear.
The “G” “L” combination to go to a label sounded like a great feature, but there is no drop down reminder. So I have to remember the name of the label.
My solution – kind of clunky – was to rename my labels so they all start with “L-“
Now when I enter “G” “L” and then “L”, I see a list of my labels.”
Thanks for the tip John. I generally use a dozen or so labels frequently; then there are some obscure ones that may go unused for months and I don’t recall their names or functions. Your suggestion seems to address that nicely. If you’ve got an tip about Gmail, send it along. I’d love to hear from you.
That’s all for this time… Comments, suggestions, or questions can be sent to gpodcast@gmail.com or check the website for full information and archives of all previous Gmail tips at chuckchat.com/gmail. I have no affiliation with Google other than as a satisfied Gmail user. Thanks to you for listening, and don’t forget to write.
Invite Others
By Chuck Tomasi on July 25th, 2009This episode is sponsored by GotoAssist.com. Try it free for 30 days.
This past week I found myself trying to use a website that manages meeting invitations and keeps track of recipients. Unfortunately, I found out that the email sent from this site is blocked by many firewall and spam filters meaning my invitation did not reach all the people I had hoped.
It was about that time that I discovered that Gmail has a way to create an event invitation. You can find it just above the text box for your message body when you compose a new email.
Begin by composing a message as you normally would by entering names in the “To” field and enter a subject. Next, click on the link just below the subject labeled “Add event notification” – several additional boxes will appear allowing you to provide an event title, location, and starting and ending date and time.
You can place more details, such as a meeting agenda, in the body of the message. When you’re done, just click Send as you normally would.
If you did not intend to use the event invitation, use the “remove” link just to the right of the event name.
If your invitation is received by an Outlook user, for example, they see it like any other meeting invitation and click on the “Accept” or “Decline” button. If another Gmail user gets the invitation, they can click on one of the options “Yes”, “No”, or “Maybe” next to the question if they are going.
As the meeting coordinator you can easily click on “Calendar” at the top of your Gmail screen, locate the event, and see how many people have responded and what their response was. This is important when you need to know whether to bring one or two plates of cookies.
I found this much more straight forward to use than the website I had previously tried. There are some things to keep in mind when sending invites. First, if you send an email to 500 or more people, or you send a large number of undeliverable messages, you could find your Gmail account temporarily disabled. For those using a POP or IMAP mail client such as Outlook Express, Thunderbird, or Mac Mail, your sending limit is 100 recipients. If this happens, your account should be re-enabled within 24 hours.
Also, if you need to communicate with a large number of people, you might want to consider a Google Group. Creation and setup of Google Groups is a bit beyond the scope of this podcast. I found that while Google Groups are great for shared discussions it can be tricky to use them to send meeting invites since the responses either go back to the entire group, or appear in the event’s attendees list with the group name instead of the individual who replied.
Unfortunately, I am in a situation where I want to hand off the meeting invitations to someone else and there doesn’t seem to be a way to share Gmail contacts with a standard or hosted account at this time. The best I can do is export my contacts list and have the new facilitator import it.
Quick Tip:
Show pictures from people you know. Gmail will now show pictures in email from people you know. If you have sent that person email at least twice before, the images will automatically be inserted in to the message – this very handy for those family photos, holiday shots, or newborn grandchild. You can also click on the link “Display images below” or “Always display images from (current sender)” if the images are not automatically added. The reason they were not displayed before was done as a security precaution from spammers. Gmail would not display images unless you clicked one of those links and that was annoying. Thank you Google for making image viewing a little simpler.
Undo Send
By Chuck Tomasi on June 6th, 2009This episode is brought to you by GotoMyPC.com - Try it free for 30 days!
You’ve just worked a 40 hour day and your brain isn’t functioning at 100%. You’re tired and stressed that the project is behind schedule because of someone not ordering the right part. You write up a quick email and think you’ve got the attachment for the correct order, only to find you forgot the attachment right after you hit the send key.
How about this one; you’ve spent hours setting up a surprise party for your co-worker. You’ve got everyone in the recipient list and click the Send key only to discover in your haste that you included the birthday boy in the list. Yes, a similar situation has happened to me. Don’t you wish you could undo that send?
It is for situations like this that I highly recommend you try the Gmail Labs feature Undo Send. This feature can save you from embarassment, incomplete thoughts, or even a career ending email.
Just turn on Undo Send like you do any other Labs feature under the Settings link and click the “Gmail Labs” feature. Locate “Undo Send”, click enable to the right, scroll to the bottom, and click “Save Changes”.
Now when you send an email, you’ll have an Undo link appear allowing you to grab that message before it gets sent and take you back to the compose screen.
Sadly, the feature cannot pull back an email once it has already been sent, it just holds your message for five seconds so you have a chance to hit the proverbial panic button. For some reason, if you close Gmail or your browser crashes, the message will still get sent.
I have it turned on and used it several times. If I ever put together a top 10 list of Labs features to enable, this one is definitely on that list.
