15 Awesome Gmail Tips and Tricks

Gmail is the best thing that happened since sliced bread. That may sound like an over statement. If you really think about it, Gmail definitely has changed the way how we manage emails. Without Gmail, I cannot imagine processing 100′s of emails effectively every day without breaking a sweat.
In this article let us review 15 awesome Gmail tips and tricks that will help you to manage your emails effectively.

1. Attachment Alerter: Never Forget an Attachment

“Oops, I forgot the attachment in my previous email. Here it is” — I’m sure you would’ve either sent an email with this message to somebody  (or) received an email with this message from somebody.  When you are sending emails in a hurry you may forget to send attachments. It will look unprofessional when you are sending a very important business related email and forgot the attachment.
The cure is Gmail’s Attach Alerter. If you have the word ‘attach’ in the mail content, and did not attach anything, you will be alerted by Gmail before sending that email.  To enable this feature, do the following.

Fig: Gmail Attachment Reminder

• Click on “Settings” link,
• Click on “Labs” tab,
• Select “Enable” option button in “Forgotten Attachment Detector”
• Click on “Save Changes” at the bottom

This will help your message recipient not to receive inevitable follow-up emails with attachments.

Attachment Tip: Attach before composing

It is good idea to attach the file before start typing the message. This way Gmail will be uploading the file when you are typing the email.  When you are done with your email typing, the attachment is already uploaded and you can send the email immediately.
You can delete an attachment by deselecting the check box in front of the file name.

Attachment Tip: Attaching multiple file names

You can attach multiple files in Gmail by selecting the multiple files in your file browser by holding shift or control key for contiguous or different files.

2. Forwarding All Emails Automatically

If you wanted to forward all emails to another account you can do the following.

• Click on Settings link
• Click on Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab
• Click on the radio button “Forward a copy of incoming mail to”, and then give an email id in the text box.

Fig: Setup email automatic forwarding
You also have the option of deciding what to do with the emails in the original account after forwarding it. Following are the three options available.

• Keep Gmail’s copy in the inbox
• Archive Gmail’s copy
• Delete Gmail’s copy

Now all the mails will be forwarded to the specified email id.

3. Forwarding Selective Emails Automatically Using Filter

If you don’t want to forward all the mails, then you can forward particular mails by creating filter.

• Click on “Settings” link
• Click on “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab
• Click on “Create a new filter”
• Set the filter criteria (for example, emails only from John Smith), and in the next step specify the email id to where the mail should be forwarded.

4. Emails Folders? — What is it? Use Labels Instead

The days or organizing the emails using folders are over. I still remember the good old days when I was having at least 50 folders in my yahoo and hotmail account. I’ll organize the folders based on projects, people etc.
Not having to organize emails in a folder is a total freedom.  Labels are like tags. You can create multiple labels and attach it to emails. Later it becomes easier for you to retrieve emails. If you are used to delicious bookmarking, you’ll have no problem using the Gmail labels effectively.

Creating Labels

• Click on “Settings”
• Enter label name in “Label” part and Click on “Create”
• Created Labels will be listed in your labels list. i.e Right below the ‘Spam’ folder on the top right side.

Fig: Use Gmail Labels to organize emails

Assigning Labels to an Email

• Select the email message or conversation
• Drag and drop it to the particular label to which you want to move. When moving you will see a tip message like “Moving 1 Conversation”.
• (or) You can also select the message using the check-box in front of it and click on Labels drop-down list on the top and select multiple labels using the check-box.

5. Searching in Gmail

Since search and indexing is the core business of Google, there is no surprise that Gmail’s search feature works like a charm. The search will bring you the relevant email very fast every single time.

Search All Emails

Entering search word in Gmail search box will search for all the messages including chat messages, emails in sent, drafts, inbox and all the messages that are archived and labeled.

Searching Emails in Particular Folders

“Searchtext in:foldername” will search for the given text in the specific folder which you specified.  For example, following will search for keyword geek in the Sent Folder.

geek in:sent

Search Specific Type of Messages

Types of messages in Gmail

• Starred - messages which are Considered as an important
• Unread - messages which are unread
• read - messages which are read
• chat - Conversation messages

“is:starred”, “is:unread”, “is:read” and “is:chat” will search for the messages that are starred, unread, read and chat messages respectively.
For Example, the following will give you the list of starred messages in Inbox folder.

in:inbox is:starred

Use OR Operator

You can search messages based on either-or condition. For example, following search gives the message which has ramesh as recipient or sender, after 2009/01/01

from:ramesh OR to:ramesh after:2009/01/01 
from:ramesh | to:ramesh after:2009/01/01

Note: OR is case sensitive and must be in upper case.

Advanced Gmail Search

You can also use advanced options in search by clicking ‘Show search option’ that is located next to the Gmail search box. Advanced search provides search based on the following:

• from – specify sender
• to – specify recipient
• subject – search words in subject
• Folder – Folder to search
• Include and Exclude the search words
• Message has/hasn’t attachment
• Age of the message

6. Turn-Off or Turn-On Search Highlighting

By Default, Gmail highlights the searched words in search results. i.e When you do a search, Gmail returns a list of messages matching the search criteria. You can select any of these messages to view, and Gmail automatically highlights the word/words you searched for.

Fig: Gmail turn on or off highlighting
Sometimes, you might feel it’s distracting.  You have the ability to turn OFF/ON the highlighting by clicking on the “Turn off Highlighting” link on the top right column. Clicking it again turns highlighting back immediately without reloading the page.

7. How to Attach an Executable (exe file) in Gmail

You cannot attach an executable file like a normal file.  Gmail will display the error message –  “FILE is an executable file. For security reasons, Gmail does not allow you to send this type of file”.
To overcome this issue, do the following as a sender of the email.

• Rename the file without an exe extension,
• Compress it with any compression utility and then attach it.

Now it will get attached, and uploaded successfully. The receiver of the email should uncompress the attachment and rename it again with exe extension.

8. Import Your Contacts

Gmail provides feature to import the contacts from Yahoo, Orkut and Outlook. You can also import contacts from CSV file.

How to Import Contact from Custom CSV

Your CSV file should be formatted as a table and must include a header that defines the fields in your table. Gmail accepts many common header fields (Firstname, Lastname, email address, Phone etc.)

Fig: Import contacts to Gmail

• Click on “Contacts” link
• Click on “Import” tab,
• Browse the CSV file which you want to import
• Click on “Import”

You can also select the contact-group to which you want to add the imported contacts.

9. Sending emails to Group / Alias

You can group the list of email addresses into a single entity.

• Click on “Contacts” link,
• Click on “+icon” (New Group) and give a name to the New group.
• Now you can add new contact to this group or you can move the existing contact to this group.

When you want to send mails to a group, in the To field of the compose box, type the few letters of group name, auto-complete feature will suggest list of group names that matched your word. You can choose from the list and sending mail to the groups.

10. Managing Multiple Gmail Accounts

Checking all emails

You could be having multiple Gmail accounts for various reasons. But it becomes tedious while checking mail that, you would want to logout and login to each account and check mails in different accounts. This can be done easily, by forwarding all mails from all accounts to a single account.

Sending emails as another Gmail account

Follow the steps below to send emails from other accounts. i.e From x@gmail.com, you can send emails as y@gmail.com

1. Login to x@gmail.com, go to  Settings -> Accounts Tab -> “Send Email As” Section.
2. Add y@gmail.com account here and confirm that this is your email by following the instruction.
3. Now you can start sending emails as y@gmail.com from x@gmail.com.

11. Last Login Details for Security Purpose

If you are suspecting somebody else is accessing and hacking into your Gmail account, Gmail provides ‘Last Account Activity’ feature that shows five recent activities in your Gmail account.

• Click on ‘Details’ link in Last account activity line at the bottom of your Gmail page.

Recent activity information includes, Access Type (Browser or from some mobile device etc), IP address from which the access was made and Date/Time of access.

Fig: Gmail multiple login information
If your Gmail account is currently being accessed from other location, ‘Last Account Activity Detail’ will show the details of other access in ‘Concurrent Session Information’ Table.
You can even sign-out all the other sessions except current session by clicking ‘Sign out all other sessions’

12. Change Gmail Look and Feel Using Themes

You can select any one of the available Gmail themes as explained below.

• Click on “Settings” link.
• Click on “Themes” tab.
• Click on the various available themes. (or) you can create custom theme.
• Select the Country and City name to customize your theme. Some themes change during day, and based on local sunrise, sunset or based on weather.

Fig: Choose Gmail themes

13. Forget the Delete Key — Archive Your Emails

Since you get huge storage space with Gmail, you don’t need to delete any emails. Instead get into the practice of archiving every single email.

14. Gmail Display Language

You can experience Gmail in your native language.

• Click on “Settings” link,
• Choose your favorite language in “Gmail Display Language”
• Select “Save Changes” button.
• This will display Gmail in your native language.

You can also send message in yours/recipients favorite language, by clicking down arrow and selecting language, in format bar of the compose box.
Note: You can still set your default Gmail Display Language as English and send emails in other languages from the email compose window.

15. View Your Favorite Blog Post Title in Random

There are several ways in following a blog such as subscribing to it by mail, or using an RSS reader, or following it by twitter and so on.  But this is another interesting way to find out what is happening in one of your favorite blog.
Gmail Web clipping will be displayed in the thin strip that is right above the email listings. i.e above the ‘Archive’ button.

Fig: Setup web clips inside Gmail

• Click on ‘Settings”
• Select the ‘Web Clips’ tab
• Enter your blog URL in the ‘Search by topic or URL’. For example, enter: http://www.thegeekstuff.com
• It will automatically identify the feedproxy URL for the blog and display the last few posts from the blog with an ‘Add’ button.
• Click on the Add button, which will start displaying the blog posts in the Web Clipping area of the email.

Source:- www.thegeekstuff.com


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Top 5 Free Media Players For Windows

There is a multitude of software on the web. Of those, some of the coolest are media players.

Today, we will be looking at some of the best media players on the web for Windows. Ready? Let’s go.

1. VLC Media Player

VLC is one, if not the, best media player ever created. It is lightweight, portable, and can play almost any media format out there (incl. videos downloaded from sites like Youtube). VLC can even be used as a streaming media server, can play DVD’s, can be used as an audio decoder, and doesn’t require external, extra codecs to run.

VLC can also accompany customizable skins, as well as nearly every operating system that exists (Mac, Windows and Linux). I highly recommend trying it out.

2. Media Jukebox

Media Jukebox is an all-in-one media player, music collection organizer, iPod connector and music store with extreme tagging techniques. This music player can pretty much do it all. While not as small as VLC, it definitely does have a bunch of features. It can even be used to sync your phone, while finding tags for your newest imported songs, and simultaneously downloading the newest plug-in to customize your user experience. Sweet, right?

You can further maximize Media Jukebox’s abilities by adding playlists to download automatically and creating or using a custom skin. Media Jukebox deserves to be on this list for sure. For complete feature overview see Organize your Music Collection Effectively With Media JukeBox.

3. Songbird

Songbird is one of the most customizable media players ever created. Besides being created by Mozilla, and being open source, it allows users to create add-ons/plug-ins for added user experience. Built-in options include: Last.fm playback history plug-in, support for the iPod, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, metadata management, etc.

To get a feel on what can be done with Songbird extensions check out our earlier article on Songbird extensions. Songbird truly shows what media players need to become with regard to customization.

4. Winamp

Many music fanatics are familiar with Winamp as being one of the most widely used media players in the world. It has developed into one of the most feature oriented media players ever created. Features include: lots of customizable skins, built-in internet radio, support for a wide variety of audio and video formats, flash support, customizable plug-ins, support for multiple languages, ability to sync with your iPod, etc.

There is a free version, of course, but you can upgrade to the PRO version for even more features.

5. KMPlayer

KMPlayer, while not as widely used, is one of the best, free, media players. While supporting numerous different formats, languages, skins, etc, it is relatively lightweight and can be used for numerous different media related material.

The application itself is extremely customizable by it’s own settings, but can be further customized to fit your own needs as well. Features include: Compressed album support, multiple file formats, numerous decoders, support for subtitles, plug-ins, etc.

Stay tuned next time for more cool Windows tips and tricks! In the meantime, why don’t you tell us in the comments which media player you have installed on your Windows system and why you prefer it over all others? What features are the deal-clincher for you?

Source:- www.makeuseof.com

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Make Image Magic in Microsoft Office 2010: 10 Cool Tricks

Your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations cry out for great images--a creative company logo, compelling charts, and luscious photos. Microsoft's Office applications have cool tools for using images in your documents, but these features aren't immediately obvious.
In this article, I’ll share some tips and tricks for dressing up images in your Office work, from replacing Excel chart columns with stacked images, to creating a simple one-click image animation in PowerPoint, to making circle and heart-shaped images in Microsoft Word.
These instructions are designed for Office 2010, but earlier editions of Office have similar tools.

1. Tame Word's Bad Image Behavior

Adjust these settings to ensure that text wraps around all of your images in Word.Word 2010 includes the new graphics engine that Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 had, but Word 2007 did not.
Annoyingly, however, Word continues to insert images as "in line with text"--the one setting you'll probably never want to use unless you're inserting an image into a table cell. This setting makes images behave like text characters so they don’t move around the page properly. You can rotate the images, but the text doesn’t wrap around them properly, so you'll have to change the image wrap setting before you can continue.
Rather than configuring the wrap setting for each individual image, I suggest that you change the Word setting that controls how images are inserted. To do this, before you insert an image, choose File, Options, Advanced. From the Cut, Copy, and Paste options, locate Insert/Paste Picture As and set it to anything except 'In line with text'. I recommend the Square option as a good choice. Next, click OK.
In the future, when you insert an image into a Word document, text will wrap around the image neatly. You can change this, if necessary, for a particular image, but most of the time this is the exact setting you'll want.
If you prefer, you can change the settings for each individual image after you have inserted it into your document. To do this, click the image to select it, choose Picture Tools, Format, and then click the Wrap Text dropdown list. From here you can select a wrapping option; again, Square is a good choice.

2. Insert Images into a Circle, a Heart, or Any Shape

Break images out of their square boxes.You can create an image embedded in nearly any kind of shape in Microsoft Word. To see this feature at work, choose Insert, Shapes and select a shape--say, the ellipse. Hold the Shift key as you do this, to draw a perfect circle. Once you've selected the shape, the Drawing Tools tab appears. From the Format tab, select Shape Fill, Picture; select a picture to use; and clickInsert. You can do this with any built-in shape. You can also create your own custom shapes by using the Curve or Freeform tools and then fill them with images, too.
If your image looks out of proportion inside the shape, select the shape, right-click it, and choose Format Shape. Click the Crop option and, if your image is stretched so that everything is taller than it should be, increase the Picture Position: Width setting. Likewise, if the image is stretched so that it is wider than it should be, increase the Picture Position: Height setting. If you increase both the Width setting and the Height setting, you can adjust the position of the image in the shape by using the Offset options. Deselect Rotate with Shape if you want the image to remain horizontal even if you rotate the shape.
Click one of the Fill options in the 'Picture or texture fill area' to alter the image transparency inside the shape.

3. Wrap Text Around or Through an Image

Add nodes to cause wrapping text to follow the contours of an image.When you have an image's wrap set to Square or to Tight, the text will wrap around the image. As most images are rectangular, the wrap will be a rectangle too, but you can change this if you wish. Select the image, choose Picture Tools, Format, and then select Wrap Text, Edit Wrap Points.
By adjusting the nodes that control how text wraps around the image, you can set text to flow across the image or keep it away from the image edge on one or more sides. To add more nodes, click and drag anywhere on the line. To remove a node, hold down the Control key and click the node.
When you’re done, click outside the marquee area to make the handles disappear. To apply the same feature to a shape filled with an image, select the shape, choose Drawing Tools, Format, and then select Edit Shape, Edit Points.

4. Use Signatures and Logos as Clip Art

It's a snap to create your own embeddable images and signatures.It's easy to add an image of your company logo or your scanned signature as a clip art image. To do this, choose Start, Programs, Microsoft Clip Organizer, and then choose File, Add Clips to Organizer, On My Own. Next, browse to find the file that contains your signature or logo, and click Add.
From the dropdown list to the right of the image, select Edit keywords and then add keywords to the image to help you locate it in future. Click Apply to apply the changes; to finish, click OK and close the Clip Organizer.
In the future, to add the logo or signature to a document, choose Insert, Clip Art; type one of the keywords that you added to the image; disable Include Office.com content; select Illustrations and Photographs; and click Go. When the image appears in the panel, click it to insert it into your document.

5. Use Picture Charts in Excel

Replacing basic bars in charts with images gets your point across at a glance.Instead of filling your 2D column or bar charts with solid colors or boring patterns, you can fill them with images. To do this, select the column or bar that you want to change, and right-click the mouse. Choose Format Data Series, Fill and select Picture or texture fill. Select an image to use from your disk, your Clip Art collection, or from the Clipboard. Simple line-art images are a good choice. Click Stacked to ensure that the images are stacked and not stretched, and clickClose.
You can add a single image to an entire data series, or you can click a single bar or column and use Format Data Point to add a different image to each column or bar.

6. Add Pictures Behind Charts and Workbooks

D
ress up charts with custom background images.In addition to replacing bars and columns, you can add a picture behind a chart or behind the plot area of a chart. To do this, click the chart somewhere, and then choose Chart Tools,Layout. From the dropdown list in the upper left corner of the ribbon toolbar, choose Chart Areaor Plot Area, as desired. Click the Format Selection link immediately below this selector; chooseFill, Picture or Texture Fill; and select an image to use. Here you can alter the transparency of the image if you wish so that the chart is visible through the image. Finally, click Close.
If you add an image to the Chart Area and if your Plot Area has a solid fill, you won't be able to see the image underneath. To correct this problem, repeat the process but this time after selecting Plot Area, Format Selection, choose Fill, No Fill. Alternatively, choose Solid Fill, pick a fill color, and then set the Transparency to a high value.

7. Add Your Logo to an Excel Printout

You can add a logo or header to an Excel chart printout in a few simple steps.You can easily add your company logo or other image to the header of an Excel worksheet so that it prints on every page of the sheet. To do this, choose Insert, Header & Footer and then click one of the boxes at the top of the sheet. Click the Picture button, and choose an image to insert.
If the image is larger than the header, it will appear around and below the worksheet, so checking its size is a crucial step. To do this, click I and enable the Lock Aspect Ratio checkbox so that the image will be scaled in proportion.
Now, set its Height value to around 0.75 inch or to a size that will fit in the header area. To check the result, choose View, Page Layout. To adjust the header margin to make it bigger, choosePage Layout, Margins, Custom Margins, and set the Header Margin value; or drag downward on the marker in the vertical ruler to enlarge it.

8. Save a Worksheet as a Picture

Turn your Excel sheet into a thumbnail.If you need a picture of a worksheet or a chart--to use as a thumbnail or in a cover page, for instance--you can do this from inside Excel. Start by selecting the data range in the cells you want to convert to a picture. In the case of a chart, select the chart itself. From the Copy dropdown list on the Home tab of the ribbon toolbar, select Copy as Picture.
You can then choose to capture the image either as it appears on the screen or as it will appear when printed. Select Picture or Bitmap if those options are available, and then click OK. Now you can paste the picture into the application of your choice.

9. Make Image Maps in PowerPoint

Break up PowerPoint images into clickable sections.If you place an image on a PowerPoint slide, you can add clickable hotspots to it, much as you might create a clickable image map for a website. Start by adding an image to a blank slide: Choose Insert, Shapes and select a shape that suits what you want to make clickable. Draw the shape over the image.
Once again select Drawing Tools, Format, followed by Shape Fill, No Fill, and then Shape Outline, No Outline, so that the shape is not visible. With the shape still selected, choose Insert,Action and select the action that you want to occur when the user clicks the shape--such as going to a different slide or to a URL. Select Highlight Click, and click OK.
You can add multiple clickable shapes to this slide and test them by running the presentation. When you hold your mouse over a clickable area and click, the action will take place.
If you like, you can arrange for shapes to be colored in or partially transparent, to have outlines, and even to include text prompts.

10. Create a Simple Image Animation

An animation in PowerPoint can keep your presentation lively.To create a simple animation in PowerPoint, first add a shape and a picture to a slide. SelectAnimations, click the picture, and then click an option such as Fly In.
Click the Animation Pane button. From the pane, click the dropdown list that appears beside the picture animation entry. Choose Effect Options. From the Timing tab, click Triggers, select Start Effect, select the shape name in the list, and click OK. When you play the slide, the picture won't appear until you click the shape.
There are lots of hidden secrets for working with graphics inside Microsoft Office applications. Using these tips and tricks, you can achieve a range of effects when illustrating your business presentations, worksheets, and documents with images.
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