Let us keep this straight and simple. iGoogle is the preferred homepage for all of us Googlers. Yes, that is indeed a word. We love our Google Search right above all our Google fodder, from Mail, News, Docs, even Twitter Gadgets and Flash Games Time Wasters; the list of Gadgets is endless. And all of this has been served in a stylised Theme package.
The new addition to this list of stylised themes is the Comics package – for the Superman or Iron Man fan in you. For the Batman Lovers or the Wonder Woman worshippers, don’t worry. There’s room for you too. Google even changed their homepage logo to a DC Character ensemble on the 23rd July, dedicated to the ongoing Comic Con in San Diego, California. A list of my favorite ones are given below. Just click on the links to explore the themes and hope you enjoy them. Cheers! [Click on the Link to go to the Theme Page]
1.Peanuts
More themes after the Jump.
The announcement of a new operating System from Google called the Google ChromeOS came as no surprise to me as an OS from Google had been long expected. The rumors had been doing the rounds – remember the gOS which was mistaken for the Google OS. Well, it never really took off. Wonder if any single PC right now is running the gOS. And then, Google launched the mobile OS – Android. And for a long time, people believed that it was the Google OS which people expected. And now, in the recent announcement [ Read: Introducing the Google Chrome OS ], GOOG has made it official, that come next year[ a vague dateline of second half, next year] Google’s new OS – Chrome will be released for users. And yes, it will be opensource, free, lightweight and is initially going to be targeted at netbooks.
So what does this mean to me and you? What does it mean to Microsoft/Windows XP-Vista-7 users, Apple/MacOSX users and Linux users? Is all the buzz and hoopla worth it? Let’s deal with them one by one.
a) Google Chrome OS is Chrome extended :
It has worked for the browser- which is clean, clutter free, simple, fast, instant start-up, reliable and lightweight. Going by the name, ChromeOS is aimed at replicating all of these features. From what we get from Google’s release post, it is indicated that the user interface will be kept extremely simple, and most of the user experience will take place on the web.Now that raises certain eyebrows and questions about the user experience in an offline environment. We have yet to see any demos and exact feel of how the OS is going to look like, so its a bit early to comment further on this.
Yes, 5 years after all the magic and spells and labs and offering us 7 gigs of inbox space, GMail has finally shed its beta skin and entered the non-beta zone. GMail’s blog post [Read: Gmail leaves beta, launches "Back to Beta" Labs feature] announces the arrival of the new GMail, although its been hightime since the last 3 years for GMail to come out of the beta-image. The little GMail icon on the left of your Inbox page showed the beta text, but its no longer there.
So, does that really mean anything for you? Not exactly! Since, GMail has been quite frankly, the most stable email service provider for me, and the most functional as well. In terms of sheer inbox size, they are at the top. In terms of different innovations, Labs has taken care of it. The blog post [ linked above] enlists the different changes that GMail has brought into itself since its introduction to us 5 years ago. From being an invite-only service to opening up for sign-ups, to chat, group-chat, and video-chat, the list is endless.
So, have a look at the list.
And well, if you are still fussy about the damn beta-image and can’t still get enough of it, a new labs called “Back to Beta” will restore the Beta-image back to your inbox. Although you know, its no more Beta at heart. Its only the shell !! This Labs feature is available in the Labs list, and follows similar procedure for activation.
Happy GMailin’ folks!
Sometimes things can become worse from being good, just in the name of innovation. A current example of such a thing is the newly introduced change of features in the Labels of GMail inbox.[Read: Labels, drag and drop, hiding and more] Innovation is supposed to bring with it, ease of use and user-friendliness. But with this new feature, what we have is completely the opposite.
GMail has pioneered user-freindliness, and I was overjoyed when I was given the facility to use the GMail Lab – Right side Chat. It allowed to manage my inbox space in a much more organised fashion. I did not bother if my hundreds of labels would mean my Chat Window would get buried down in deep underground. Everything was jolly good.
With the new features though, Label is back to a space above its original position – which is just below the default Inbox Tabs, and above chat. Sure, there is a summarizer which wraps up the Labels, which again questions its utility now. For one, I am not used to the Left-sidedness of it. Secondly, if the Labels tab is wrapped up, it only means, that when I drag and drop my messages to the left, it is going to unwrap then. The wrapping up of the Labs to show only the most used Labels is also quite questionable. This is because I have lots of Labels which I use frequently, but GMail Inbox now shows only 4 of them. For sure, I can use the “Move to:” feature still, which completely negates the drag and drop feature introduction.
I know GMail introduced the ‘drag and drop’ feature to replicate the Folder scenario as seen in Yahoo and Hotmail. But to do so here, users have to strategically place the mouse between a space so small that it can only fit a hair. This space is at the extreme beginning of the email, and before the checkbox. Yes, can you SEE it even? Talk about user-friendliness.Pffft!
And yes, Right-Side Label Labs is dead. WHYYYY????? I cannot send my Chat to the Right, because the popped up Chat Windows block the Contact list. So it did mean more sense for Right-Side Label to be enabled. I can only request, along with all the other users to bring Sexyback – Imean Right-Side Labels. Puhhhleeeeeeeezz!!!
