Fixing Gmail: How the Best Can Be Better

Gmail is the best Webmail client in the World. I get that. However, winning that contest is a bit like being named the “Most Talented Baldwin”. The competition is thin, to put it generously.

Sure, some people swear by Yahoo!’s mail offering. It is pretty and it does deal with some of the issues I address below, but it also doesn’t load on slower connections, has a terrible search function and can’t import email (seriously, are you THAT stupid Yahoo?). Compound that with no IMAP access and a paid account that doesn’t equal Gmail’s free offering, you have a rather distant second at best.

Outside of a few startups that are doing promising things with Web-based email, such as Zenbe, Gmail stands alone. There is no one out there that really competes with Gmail in this area. They were the first to introduce the super-sized mailbox for free, they were the first to use tags not folders on Webmail (Opera did it first in their mail client), they were the first to give free IMAP access and they were the first to actually put one iota of thought into usability.

But can it be better? Damn right. Nothing in the world is immune from improvement, except perhaps Joan Jett, so what can one do to make Gmail just a little more awesome? Here’s my pick of five things that can push it to eleven. Read more

Opera Pulls Out the Stops

Well, it appears that Opera has been listening, much to my surprise. It was just a week ago that published my article about five steps to fix Opera, the culmination of many years of my frustration with the browser, and yesterday they release a new alpha of their 10.0 browser, which addressed many of my issues.

Apparently, they had been listening and working on many of the problems for quite some time, just very quietly (perhaps they were also hunting rabbits).

But is it everything that I had hoped for? Well, not quite. However, it shows a great deal of promise and has a lot to offer for us Opera outcasts that have been pushed to using Firefox, Safari or Chrome because of how incomplete the Opera offering has been.

So what’s new and how well does it work? Here’s my breakdown of the latest features and how well they perform. Read more

How Google Screws Paying Customers

If you use Gmail, this was a banner week for you. For the first time in years, you can now skin your Gmail without the need to use plugins, extensions or CSS hacks. This is a feature that I have been craving for months, nay, years.

While I’ve appreciated the efforts of amateur coders and some were able to create some cool themes for Gmail, they were always unreliable, especially as Gmail updated its interface, and the selection was always weak. So, news that Google had launched not one, but 30 plus new themes for its mail service had me, and others like me, dancing in the street.

But alas, my dancing was short-lived. When I logged into my Gmail account, it was not there. Even now, after nearly two days, the option is still not there. My wife is tempting me with her shiny new theme and most of my friends have theirs, but I am alone.

The reason is that I am a Google Apps user. Though I don’t pay for my Google Apps account, many of my friends do and they too are without themes, as well as Labs and other popular Gmail features.

We Google Apps users are getting a raw deal. Whether we are paid or unpaid, we are more intimately tied to Google than most Gmail users and we are getting an inferior product to those that just signed up for a @gmail.com account.

This is no way to treat your customer and is an excellent example of why Google should never, ever, get in the business of customer service. They simply have no clue what they are doing. Read more

How Google Screwed Up My Gmail Mobile

I don’t have a very nice phone. In fact, my phone is nothing short of dated. When my contract is up in a few months I’ll probably take the opportunity to upgrade networks and get a Blackberry or an iPhone. In the meantime, I’m stuck with my Fusic, a hybrid MP3 player/phone that does neither all that well

But despite my dissatisfaction with the Fusic, it does what I need it to for the most part. Call quality is good, battery life is within reason and it is capable of mobile broadband speeds. If it had a bigger screen and a full keyboard, I’d doubt I’d care too much about its flaws.

The truth is that, realistically, there are only a few apps that I use. However, the most important, by far, is the Gmail Mobile app. It is the one app I use multiple times a day and something I’ve come to rely upon.

The first version of the app was great, a flawed gem perhaps, but solid. I would use it whenever I had a few minutes to flip open, check my mail and close it back up. It was so simple to use, it almost became an obsession, causing me to check my mail any time I found myself idle for longer than five minutes.

When I heard that Google had released a second version of the app, I was excited. Already a Gmail junkie, I thought this was my chance to get an even more robust mobile experience.

Boy was I wrong.

Though most people seem to be singing the praises of the Gmail Mobile, I am singing the blues. For me and my phone, this app has been a total disaster. Maybe when I upgrade my handset my song will change, but right now there is simply no excuse for how bad Gmail Mobile has become.

What went wrong? Well, I’ll tell you? Read more

MailPlane: Not Worth the Price

I have a bit of a saying. If you write good software and charge a fair price for it, people will pay. I routinely buy software for my Mac, including programs that I may or may not use over the long haul.

However, one program I recently started to use, or rather, am starting to use again, has put me in a bit of a bind.

You see, even though Mailplane is a great program that does exactly what it advertises and is very polite with my system resources, I simply cannot justify the expense.

However, I’m not some cheapskate that refuses to buy software. I am a happy customer that just dropped $100 for Screenflow, and $20 for Gyazmail (though I have since stopped using it full-time). I’m the type of customer Mac software vendors love, a small business admin with a decent-sized PayPal account and lots of discretion to buy software I need.

Still, I can’t see myself spending $25 for Mailplane. The reason is that the price point is horribly wrong and $25, though reasonable for other applications, is far too high for this app. Read more