I didnt have to trade anything for mine. There was a forum posted on this thread or another(I dont remember)that had a board dedicated to gmail invites. You put need gmail in your profile and then request an invite on the invite sticky, people with invites just scan for people who need invites in their profile and who have posted on the sticky. Fairly simple.
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Err, there's a freeware program called "Terragen" that makes neat lil' photo-realistic landscapes. I posted a screenshot, then sent him the URL for the site when I received my invitation.
~Kujila | |
Quoth the privacy policy:
"Google's computers process the information in your email for various purposes, including formatting and displaying the information to you, delivering targeted related information (such as advertisements and related links)" | |
Thats exactly what hotmail probably do to, why is it such a big deal? Why does everyone care that it just looks at keywords and displays advertisting? Any free mail service is allowed to do this because your using their space for free which gives them rights to do what they want with it.
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Yeah, and you hardly notice them. They're the same ads that display when you do a Google-search. Their AdSense ads.
Personally, I don't have a problem with them. :) ~Kujila | |
Hazman wrote:
Quoth the privacy policy: That's ads to the customer as opposed to the customer's info to the vendors. Is your radio listening in on your conversations? ;) [Edit: Or rather, are the vendors being advertised on the radio listening?] | |
<font face="New Courrier">Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last few months, you've undoubtedly heard of Google's new E-Mail service, Gmail. So, what's the big deal? It's just another E-Mail service, right? Wrong. It still sends mail, and it still receives mail, that's true, but that's where the similarities end between other E-Mail providers and Gmail.
Storage Room
The most obvious and most talked about feature of Gmail is it's large storage capacity. Gmail offers users an entire gigabyte of storage, absolutely free. (A gigabyte is approximately 1000 megabytes.) Recently, other popular and well-known E-Mail services have been trying to play "catch-up" with Gmail's extraordinary storage. Yahoo, for example, upped their free service to 100 MB from 10 MB, and their paid service to 2 GB (2000 MB). To make use of all this room effectively, Gmail implemented the unique "archive" feature, which will stow away e-mails rather than deleting them, so you can easily find your older e-mails. So, is Gmail just a warehouse of space, or is there more to it than that?
Labeling
Most E-Mail providers today offer "folders" as a means for storing and classifying various E-Mails. "Work" E-Mails could go into the "Work" folder, right? Well, what if an E-Mail should be placed under the "Work" folder and the "Home" folder? While the concept was originally good, the increasingly complex E-Mails of today seem to be alienated with the old "folders" idea. Google foresaw this and created "Labels" in Gmail. Labels are superior to folders in every way. For instance, one e-mail could use several labels, where-as in older E-Mail services you would literally have to copy one E-Mail numerous times to place it in the varying folders. Gmail also offers "filters" to automatically lable an incoming e-mail. You simply specify what address(es) that you want automatically labels, and bam! Insto-presto automatic sorting machine!
Conversations
Gmail offers a unique and stunningly fresh alternative to e-mails of today. It's called conversations. Just as the name implies, conversations feel more like an actual discussion, rather than a swarm of replies. Each E-Mail sent or received goes on a "Tab." E-Mails between two people will not create a new entry in your Inbox, but rather they will stay inside the original message, and just add new tabs. So, you can forget the "RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Hey!" messages you've seen in the past!
Searching
Before Google was an E-Mail provider, it was a search engine, so they know a thing-or-two
The Conspiracy
It seems nowadays whenever you hear the "word" Gmail it's followed directly after by "evil." People from all around clamored about when they heard about Gmail's "probing of e-mails." It is true that Gmail's servers pick keywords from your E-Mails to display advertising that's similar. This is no different that Google's searches. Whenever you search for something on Google, a column on the right displays advertisements similar to your search. Google isn't sitting there, reading through all of your personal E-Mails, it just has a computer picking keywords. No privacy invasion at all.
So, How Can I Join?
Well, right now Gmail isn't accessible to everyone. It's in a Beta test, and only people who are invited may join. Google is slowly creeping out more and more invitations to pre-existing Gmail users, though, and sites like GmailSwap have become fun trading grounds where you can snag an invite. Earlier, invitations were being sold on eBay for exuberant amounts of money, but that age has past, and now invitations are superfluous around the web. It took me just a few minutes on GmailSwap to get my invitation, and it seems to best and most efficient way of obtaining one.
Other Gmail Gizmos and Gadgets
- http://www.jaybe.org/ - Pop-Goes-the-Gmail. Allows you to use Gmail with your mail client, like Outlook Express.
- http://torrez.us/archives/2004/05/23/000272.html - Gtray. Periodically checks for new E-Mail in your Gmail inbox.
- http://gmailgems.blogspot.com - Gmail Gems. A blog dedicated to explaining various tips-and-tricks of Gmail.
</font>Original article can be found here.
~Kujila