Gmail Does It All
by Gary Woods

A lot of people have Hotmail or Yahoo accounts for Email so they can monitor it wherever they find themselves, but the coolest service out there right now is Gmail from Google.

Besides being a service to get your email you can use Gmail as an online storage vault. They give you 2.7 GB of space which is a whole lot cooler than shelling out $100 for a big thumb drive. To put stuff in your Vault just attach it to your Email which allows you up 10MB an attachment and send it off to your account.

Another cool wrinkle Google has added is the ability to notify you that you've got mail (where have I heard that before?) without being logged into the site. The Gmail notifier is a free download at http://mail.google.com/mail/help/notifier/.

If you want to make Gmail your default email program you can import your Address Book from Outlook or any other program. Just click Import in the upper-right corner of the Contacts screen and select a CSV file exported from your old mail application.

Gmail even has a built-in MP3 Player allowing you to play attachments from any machine. It can also be used to sort those MP3s by setting up a filter that searches for the media.

The coolest feature is it allows you to keep your old email address. Just set up a forwarder so that all of your mail reaches your Gmail account.

If you have any suggestions or questions for me please drop me a note at garyandlaury@santabarbaraproperties.com or see my column on the Internet at http://www.santabarbaraproperties.com or call me at (805) 729-0910