Since the day Google Plus opened up for everyone, the message from Google team has been pretty clear. Lets focus our attention towards people and re-invent every other Google product (keeping Google Plus in the centre). This includes Google search, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Maps, Authorship in search results, YouTube and what not.

Google is heavily focusing on the strength of peoplewith whom you connect and share in real life; familiar faces have already started appearing on search results, Google Maps, Google Reader and so forth.

How can Gmail stay behind? With the new Gmail and Google Plus integration, you get all your Google Plus friends and contacts within your Gmail inbox, so this update makes it easy to find messages that are related to specific Google Plus friends and contacts.The next time you login in to your Gmail account that is tied with a Google Plus account, you might see a new drop down menu on the left sidebar, as shown in the following screenshot:

The Circlesdropdown works exactly as labels work in Gmail and allows you to filter sent or received messages from people who are present in your Google Plus circles. For example: I have a circle named mediain my Google Plus account, which I have made to filter journalists and reporters I know. Now that the Circle filterin Google Plus is active, I can quickly find all the emails that were either sent to or received from anyone, who is present in the circle named as Media. I don’t have to remember their names, email addresses and the subject of a previous conversation.

Google has also integrated contact information of your Google Plus friends within Google contacts.

This has two advantages. First, you can export the contact details of all your Google Plus friends as a CSV file and import it on another Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail account. This is lifesaving, when you are permanently switching to a different email address and need a one click option to export all your email contacts and Google plus contacts from a central location.

I use a separate Gmail account for Google Plus and my work email address is on Google Apps, which is not tied to any Google Plus account. Hence, in my case, Gmail contacts and Google Plus contacts will be disjoint sets. But if you are not like me and use the same Gmail account for Google Plus and as your primary work email address; this update will simplify contact management to the next level.

Please note that only people who are sharing with you on Google Plus and have added you to their circles, will be added to your Google contacts. Adding someone to any of your Google Plus circles wont add his email address to your Google contacts list, so this will keep spam emails at bay. Another strong reason why you should be very careful in choosing whom you are sharing with on Google Plus.

The People widget, which Google started showing on Gmail’s right sidebar from May2011, will now include status updates, posts and recent links from people who are involved in a conversation.

Whenever any of your Google Plus friends send you an email, you will be able to interact with them, directly from the people widget on the right sidebar. Another nice feature I must mention is the ability to share photo attachments in Gmail directly on your Google Plus profile. Just hit the Sharebutton next to any attached photo, type in your message in the browser overlay window and choose the circles with whom you want to share.

Be careful with whom you share photo attachments in Gmail because once you hit Sharewith the default option (Your Circles) being checked, anyone can see that photo or download it on his computer.

As usual, Google Apps users are out of luck but Google said that it is a work in progress.

Since Google started out with Google Docs, they have been adding a lot of new interesting features to the service to compete with the likes of Microsoft Office. Of late, the competition is really steaming up and Microsoft is battling to win back the online documents supremacy. However, Google’s integration of Google Docs with Gmail and their other services offers users an option to open and view documents, images and PSD files in their email without having to download them locally.

I have been using the option to open documents and PDF files in Google Docs for quite sometime now. However, one feature I found missing was the ability to open password protected PDF files in Google Docs.

Also Read: Remove Password from PDF Files | Unlock Password Protected PDF Files

It looks like that the Google Docs viewer just got smarter (or that it was already but I noticed it now) and allows you to open password protected PDF files without having to download them to your local computer.

The new feature is currently available for PDF files only and I wasn’t able to test it with a regular Office 2010 word document which was password protected. Hopefully, Google should add a feature for other password documents soon.

I don’t know about you, but I think computing is getting a little too “cloudy”. Many companies are offering there software as a service and are pushing us toward “the cloud” for everything. Fortunately, Google has gotten their head out of the cloud long enough to realize we can’t always be in the cloud all the time. Google announced on the Official Gmail Blog today, a new application called “Offline Google Mail”.

“Offline Google Mail” is an app that can be downloaded for free from the Chrome Web Store and installed into Chrome. Here is the link if you would like to download it. Below you can see the web page on the Chrome Web Store. All you have to do is click the button that says “Add to Chrome” and it will begin the installation. It took me less than a minute to complete.

Once you have the app installed, it will ask you if you want to use it to manage and compose email when you’re offline. Just click “allow”, and then “continue”, and you’re in business.

The main window, pictured below, is sort of a dumbed down version of what you would see in  Gmail online. You have a list of your messages in a column on the left side of the screen and a preview area on the right side of the screen. You can compose messages offline and they will be sent when you are connected at a later time. You can even add labels to your messages offline.

This is a great feature add on for Google products. I know there have been many times where internet access has been scarce for me. This made using Gmail very inconvenient as it didn’t have the offline capability. Now, I can add this new app to my laptop and can work in my “Offline Google Mail”. The good thing is it will seamlessly work in online and offline modes.

Google also plans to roll out similar products for Google Docs and Google Calendar. According to the blog post, it appears that Google Docs allows offline viewing now, but they haven’t implemented offline editing quite yet. If Google gets this perfected, I believe it will make them much more attractive to corporate IT.

I am encouraged by the fact that Google recognized the need for offline synchronization. While I think it is great that we live in a world where everything is accessible virtually anywhere, the reality is there are still a lot of dead zones when it comes to internet access. I hope this is a sign of many more good things to come from Google.

Google Everywhere

It is hard to go online today without touching one or more Google products or services. If it is not search, it may be email, YouTube, Blogger, Picasa, Docs, or Calendar. Google has truly blanketed us with their web-based app offerings. Heck, even the Google Doodle is a conversation topic!

In this editorial, I shall discuss how you can kick the Google habit, what I am using now as alternatives and why you probably won’t be able to replace certain Google products today. Ready to move away from Google? First, some background.

Why un-Google?

Some of the reasons I personally decided to look for alternatives:

• Google became a part of virtually everything I did online. I used GMail, Google Reader, Google Finance, Blogger, Picasa, Picasa Web, Google Docs, Google Search, Google Calendar and Google Maps. I felt uncomfortable putting such a large portion of my online life in Google’s hands.
• Google morphed from the cool little startup building fun stuff for consumers, to a dominant public company whose revenues essentially came from just one product. That’s the key most (96%) of its revenues (and profits) came from search advertising. In other words, it needed other ways to make money. The most obvious way to do so would be to extend the arm of advertising, their main revenue-generating product, into other products. I realized I was the merchandise.
• Google seemed to get Apple and Facebook envy. Apple was growing rapidly across all their product lines and at very high profit margins, and Facebook was taking eyeballs and key talent away from Google. This led to some bad attempts to mock Apple and Facebook publicly, which of course delighted the Google developer and enthusiast community but came off as being negative to me. If you make a great product, you don’t need a negative campaign.
• Aside from philosophy, some of the competing products started becoming better, and Google’s products started getting worse (more on that within my descriptions) prompting me to start Project Un-Google which was an effort to use fewer and fewer Google products, hopefully reaching a point where I did not depend on any Google product at all.

Whether it is for philosophy, or hedging your web app bets, it is good to know there is life outside Google when it comes to products and services online and offline. There is usually a strong resistance to change, especially if you have a long history with a product. There is a high cost for transferring the old stuff, and learning your way around a new product/service. However, these challenges are not insurmountable, and I hope you take a look at some or all of the products I list here as an alternative to Google. If you have ideas of other products I may not have mentioned, please let me know!

Popular Google products

Here are some of the Google products/services I will be comparing to competition:

• Search
• Picasa
• GMail
• Calendar
• Documents
• Groups
• Finance
• Blogger
• Chrome
• Maps/Directions
• Talk/Chat/Voice

I realize Google has many more products, appsand services, but I did not look at products like Book Search which are very niche. My attempt here is to look at the commonly used products and services only.

Gmail users in Iran might have been affected today, based on several reports suggesting that Gmail.com connections were being hit by Man In The Middle(MITM) attacks.

I first spotted this notice on Hacker News where the submission had a link to pastebin.com  containing details of the affected root server  certificate. Google has since then confirmed the attempted attack on their blog.

Today we received reports of attempted SSL man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks against Google users, whereby someone tried to get between them and encrypted Google services. The people affected were primarily located in Iran.

MITM or Man-In-The-Middle attacks are one of the most sophisticated attacks, where a third party can effectively eavesdrop & monitor all  communication  between two parties, without either of the parties knowing that they are being eavesdropped upon. In case of sites using SSL, such as Gmail – the attacker was able to get hold of a fraudulent certificate which is used for encrypting.

The certificate was issued by DigiNotar. Chrome users (on version 13 and above) were alerted of the fraudulent certificate by virtue of an inbuilt security feature called certificate pinning. Certificate Pinning  maintains a whitelist of verified root Certificate Authorities which are trusted by Chrome in creating a connection to Gmail.com and Google accounts in general. Since DigiNotar was not in the whitelist of  verified CAs, Chrome displayed an error message about the certificate being invalid

Mozilla have responded by pushing an update to Firefox which revokes the certificate’s trust. As a result of this, if a user visits the site presenting the fraudulent certificate,  the user would be informed that the connection is not secure. Mozilla has also updated their knowledge base with an article showing steps involved in revoking the certificate.

I am more of a browser person and never felt the need of a desktop email client like Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird. These email clients have so many features but the one I have always liked and envied is the 3 way scrolling pane in Microsoft Outlook. All messages are lined up in one pane while you can preview a specific message in it’s dedicated preview pane. The third pane lets you navigate around your inbox, jump to a label and access other options.

This helps you save time as you don’t have to jump back and forth between messages and recursively refresh your inbox folder. You can quickly preview a message, reply to it and preview another one in fewer clicks.

Some good news for Gmail users, this feature is now available in Gmail labs and after you activate the preview pane Gmail labs feature from Gmail > Settings > Labs, your inbox should look something like this:

Few days back, Google introduced inbox styles which lets you choose a specific style for your Gmail inbox. It’s about time they have realized the frustration of folks like me who have to deal with dozens of email every single day.

With the 3 way pane setup, I am never really out of the inbox and can read and reply to messages directly from the inbox. The selected message open up in a new pane while existing messages from a label are accessible from the middle one. This also helps in better organization and I can refer to the headline and date of an earlier message while I am rushing out on a reply. Sweet!

You can either choose a vertical pane or a horizontal one cy clicking the small arrow icon at the right top corner of Gmail inbox. I will stick to the vertical pane as it produces an effect close to Windows Live mail  desktop client.

All other Gmail labs features e.g keyboard shortcuts will continue to work in the split view. And this labs feature is not limited to the new Gmail theme by any means.

I must mention that preview pane looks a bit ugly in Firefox 5, with scrollbars and all. At least for me, it is ugly.

Looks like Google’s non verbal communication is going strong with each day Switch to Google Chrome, will you? We have also ditched Google toolbar for Firefox.

Google has just updated its Gmail app for Android. To be honest, Gmail for Android is already pretty damn brilliant. It offers the perfect blend of power and simplicity. The latest release enhances it further by getting rid of a couple of minor annoyances, and adding some handy power-user features.

Gmail for Android now supports label specific ringtones. If you receive dozens of mails every minute, then this feature can be a godsend. By mashing up filters, labels, and ringtones, Google has now given power users the ability to configure Gmail such that they only get notified when an urgent mail arrives. Another handy new feature in Gmail 2.3.5 is the ability to sync only priority mail. This will appeal to users who want to conserve battery and bandwidth.

As mentioned earlier, this update also takes care of a couple of major annoyances present in the existing version of Gmail for Android. Gmail can now remember your Show Pictures’ preferences for various senders. Additionally, as reported by Android Police, it is finally possible to download attachments without using third-party tools.

You can download Gmail for Android directly from your device or through the web Market.

Gmail is definitely one of the best email providers out there and they have always been innovating and adding new features. We have written several Gmail Tips and Gmail Labs features in the past, however, a new feature is being rolled out to users where they are being warned about filters that forward emails to other email addresses.

Gmail has always been keen on increasing the security of their service after what happened in China. They have been adding features which displays the locations you logged into Gmail from and also alerts you about suspicious logins. Additionally, Google has also added features like forced SSL and two step validation process.

The new alerts about forwarding filters is really useful and will allow users to see if anyone is forwarding emails to other accounts. In fact, I was very keen on having this feature for Gmail and had even spoken to few developers on creating an extension for Gmail, however, Google beat me at it.

The new message will be displayed on the top of the page as seen in the screenshot above and will allow users to review settings and change them if required. Currently, the "Review Settings" link takes you to the Filters page, however, I would have loved to have Gmail only display those filters which are forwarding emails to other accounts when I click on it.

A Google help page is also setup to tell users about this new feature, it states;

Why do I have a forwarding filter notice?

You’re seeing a notice to help you confirm that the forwarding filter setting that’s active on your account is accurate. If your account has this feature enabled, you should see this notice.

Forwarding filters are a pretty powerful feature that enables you to send a specific portion of your incoming email to another email account. This mechanism is helpful especially when you have more than one email account. Even so, it’s a good idea to make sure all the details are consistent with what you intend and expect. We encourage you to review your settings and verify that they are accurate.

How long will I see this notice?

For about a week, this notice will appear for a few minutes each time you sign in to your account. Displaying the notification in this way helps ensure that you have a chance to see the notice, rather than someone who might try to gain unauthorized access to your account and use this setting improperly. The notice will disappear immediately if you choose to disable the forwarding filter setting, but that decision is up to you.

How do I remove unwanted forwarding filters?

If the content of the notice looks unneeded or unfamiliar, please do the following:

1. If you see unfamiliar account access, please change your password immediately. This may indicate that someone has unauthorized access to your account. It’s a good idea to pick a strong password for your Gmail account and never use it again on other websites.
2. Sign back in to your Gmail account and click the gear icon in the top right corner of Gmail and choose Mail settings.
3. Click the Filters tab.
4. Search for the terms "Forward to" and delete any filters with unfamiliar email addresses. Note, there may be more than one filter.
5. Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
6. In the "Forwarding" section, click the first drop-down menu and remove any unfamiliar email addresses.
7. Select the Disable forwarding radio button if you want to disable non-filter based forwarding.

Kudos to Gmail on adding this feature, I have always wanted it and would have created it myself. It will definitely help people to keep a quick eye on Forwarding filters and remove them if necessary.

I love the idea of Google Apps. I mean, who won’t get into the idea of being able of being able to access their documents from anywhere? There are so many advantages to using Google Apps. You don’t have to invest in a costly data center to house your files. You can access your files from any web browser on any computer, as long as you’re connected to the internet. You don’t have to purchase new software upgrades every time they make an improvement. This list could go on for days. I suppose what I am trying to make clear up front is that I am not a hater. In fact, I am secretly rooting for Google; however, there are things that must change before I would move my organization in its direction.

First and foremost, Google has to get serious about customer service. It’s 2011 folks! Do we really want to regress in customer service? Lately, I have read numerous articles of nightmare encounters with Google support. People want to be able to access a human being when they have a problem. More than that, they want that human being to be equipped to assist with the problem.

Google seems to rely heavily on forums; however, for their premium options they do provide email support. When you peruse through these forums you see evidence of unanswered or inadequately answered questions. As an IT Manager, my end users will not put up with me not responding  to their requests for a few minutes, much less for hours. I feel that I am not in the minority on this one. If I moved my organization to Google Apps, and my end users experienced some of the lackluster customer service responses that I have seen on Google forums, my head would be on a platter.

Not long ago, Gmail announced that it would offer its users the ability to call phones directly from Gmail. Today Gmail announced they have expanded their communications abilities. Now Gmail users can make or receive multiple phone calls at the same time.

In Gmail, click the “Call Phone” button. When you click the “Call Phone” button, a call window will pop up. See the picture below.

Once you are in a call, you now have the ability to make or receive a second call. If you click the “Call Phone” button again, while in a call, that current call will be placed on hold. In the picture below, you will see an example of how two calls look side by side. At this time Gmail doesn’t appear to let you join those calls in a conference. For now, each call will be handled one at a time, placing the other call on hold.

Receiving calls works pretty much the same.  If you are in a call and you get another call, you will have the option to accept or reject the second call.  If you accept the call, then the first call you were in will be placed on hold.

Whether you make a second call or not, you now have the ability in Gmail to put calls on hold.  You also are currently limited to two outbound connections to physical phones.