GMail addresses...

[Balok]

Yeah, I know they're not too hard to get, now. But just in case there's someone here who hasn't got one, and would like one, PM me your email address, and I'll be happy to send you one. I have many, many invitations. I promise to use your address only to send you a Gmail invitation.

[Ergi]

At the risk of sounding stupid: What is GMail?

[Poolshark]

Ergi>

I think that gmail is Google's answer to hotmail.

:-)

Cheers

Tas

[Balok]

GMail is google's free email service, accessed at http://www.gmail.com. They subsidize it by automatically scanning emails and putting contextual ads in the right gutter. They claim this is an entirely automated process, that no one reads your email.

It's been pretty useful to me; you can access it from a web browser, which means you don't need a pop3 client. The mail stays on their server until you delete it, which means you can view it at work, home, whatever.

When I go to the site, as a registered member, it uses a cookie to log me in. I don't know what it would do for someone who is not a member, but you might be able to read more about it.

I have noticed very little spam on GMail itself, and I have not seen an increase in spam on the address I used when someone invited me.

If you have additional questions, post them and I'll try to answer them.

[Doug Burke]

You know, I have tons of invites, too. Feel free to hit me up (via PM) if Balok runs out...

[Ergi]

Thanks for the information. I think I prefer the old way. Maybe I am getting too old for this , or I just don't want to switch my e-mail address.

[Doug Burke]

Who said anything about switching? I have like 6 or 7 addresses...

[Balok]

Exactly. I have addresses that I only use for e-commerce transactions, and addresses I use until I'm fairly sure the other guy isn't going to sell my address (if I decide he's trustworthy, I sometimes edit my email address in his system).

GMail has fairly aggressive spam filtering -- I think I've gotten *one* spam the whole time I've been a member, which is going on a year now. But I haven't yet received any indications that legitimate emails are getting crushed.

Your account includes a "spam review" section where emails go if they thing they're spam; I've had a few end up there, but they have always turned out to be legitimate emails from people I do business with.

They also (like all good email clients should) block remote images unless you click a link that says you want 'em.

(I use a POP3 client called Thunderbird -- part of the Firefox family of apps -- that also does this -- and I can recommend this client.)

[Dan Stack]

Gmail is nice - I've been using it since January and have been very pleased with it. I use it for most of my personal email. Their spam filtering is very impressive. There's two features I'm really hoping they'll implement - an address guard like Yahoo! plus offers and some sort of integrated calendar service.

Address guard is great - say my address is jarjarbinx@yahoo.com. With address guard I create a base name - say it is meesa. Then every time I want to create an email address I add a key to my meesa address. So I could have meesa-amazon@yahoo.com, meesa-trekrpg@yahoo.com, etc. These addresses can also have filters to deliver them to their own folder. If you start getting spam in one you can just destroy that address. And the base name is unrelated to your "real" e-mail address. I use this for most of my e-commerce now.

I too can hook people up with gmail invites if anyone wants one.

[Squick]

GMail has fairly aggressive spam filtering -- I think I've gotten *one* spam the whole time I've been a member, which is going on a year now.

One spam ever? I've had gmail since January, and I get aout one or two spams a day. Besides this minor inconvenience, gmail is great. The space alone makes it worthwhile.

[Pantoufle]

Same here 2 or 3 spams and member for a year now

[Balok]

I should point out that most of my more recent addresses are longer. Back when I used short addresses (<8 characters) I used to get a lot more spam. But the automatic tools a**h**les, err, spammers use are rarely set to generate long address strings. Yeah, the longer address is a little more of a pain for people to type, but it's worth it to keep the spammers off me. Of course, I think spamming should be treated as theft of services, since they're sending their unwanted junk on someone else's dime (except for the trivial by comparison cost of their servers), and the spammers locked up for grand larceny, but, hey, the politicians don't agree with me...

[Dan Gurden]

If Doug and Balok run out, I have a nearly my full quota of 50 invites for Gmail too. And I stand by all the positive feedback of the system too.

Very useful.

[Hirogen Alpha]

You'll have to send me an a-mail at michael.kmet@gmail.com but I have all my invites (or almost all of them, anyway open) in case anyone else would like in.