Archive for October, 2006

One of my friends sent me a link yesterday asking me to use it submit my ‘dream’ features that I would like Google to add to their GMail service. I like GMail like no other Google product I have ever used; I have abandoned all the previous email ids that I was using once I started to get used to GMail’s Conversational Stacks, Labels, Filters and Starred Items. Ability to track a large number of mailing-lists will be severely limited without these features. Its spam protection and searching ability are also better than that of the others’. My friends love the browser-based chat feature. What else could be added to what is such an excellent product already? The more I use this product, the more intensely I feel the lack of some functionalities. So I didn’t had to think for a single moment before preparing the following list of features that I want to see supported by GMail as soon as possible.

1. The ability to view all the unread messages at one place. There should be a link/button called “View Unread Messages” or something like that which will show only the unread messages.
2. The ability to view all the messages which have no labels.

   I have created a separate GMail Id to track the mailing-lists of different products/services and the emails from each mailing-list are collected(using filters) under their respective labels(‘wordpress-hackers’, ‘gentoo-java’, ‘sounder’, etc). Occasional emails do get to my email account which don’t belong to any of the created labels, and such emails are so few that they get lost among all the labeled emails. Even if such emails are 5-10, I have to wade through several pages in the “Inbox” section to read them all. A predefined label called “Unlabeled” containing all the emails not labeled with anything can be very time-saving in such a situation.

3. Disposable emails. I want GMail to allow disposable email ids to be associated with a main account so that the main account can be shielded from those whom we don’t trust(yet) and hence help fight the spam menace. One can create a real GMail id and then use its forwarding feature to get the similar result but a simpler way would be more desirable.
4. Quotes as random signatures. Many desktop email clients support this feature: From a list of quotes entered in the “Signature” box(or uploaded through a file), one quote per line, GMail should automatically select one of them as part of the signature(in place of a placeholder such as ${quote}). It’s boring to use the same quote in the signature for 2 months and having to remember to then manually change it to something else.
5. An option to add signature at the top of the quoted message while replying. I prefer bottom-posting in the user group and forum messages but top-posting for the individual emails. I want the option to select where the signature should be added in the replies, for each GMail account individually.
6. Be able to work with multiple GMail accounts simultaneously.

   Because I love GMail so much, I use it for all my purposes – even for getting group messages from the Yahoo Groups. One GMail id for one purpose though, so that I can control the frequency of checking each id according my preference. But on occasions when I want to check the messages from multiple accounts at the same time, I have to login into one account, check the messages, logout, login into the second account, check the messages, logout and keep going on like that. I have tried to let the browser remember my passwords(Firefox does it by domain name and not by pages, so it doesn’t work when I want to work with GMail, Google Analytics, Google Reader, Personalized Home, etc at the same time. Opera claims to remember by both domains and by individual pages, but it has never worked for me yet) but it didn’t turn out to be the solution I was looking for.

   Because a machine can be shared by multiple users(who might have their own GMail accounts), the owner of a group of GMail accounts can authorize the set of ids which can remain active simultaneously on the same machine/browser. Currently I login into each GMail account from a different browser to get around the problem, but it is still less than convenient. Even when using multiple notifiers(one for each account), I still need to login to check the actual messages and reply to them. They also work only for email and not for Google Analytics for example.

That’s it for now. Do correct me if some of the features I have mentioned here are already supported by GMail(some might be supported as a Greasemonkey script for example) – I am not a GMail power user. I am sure that other GMail users too have their own favourite features that they want to see added to the GMail service. Which ones are your favourites?

UPDATE: sewar has got some nice suggestions in the comment section to get around limitations (1) and (2).

I happened to come across several blogs and websites in the recent times that have started to refer Dreamhost’s web hosting service, some of them offering various promotional offers, but none of them offering the best possible deal. This prompted me to put this post up to offer the best deal that you can ever get at Dreamhost and which applies to all the hosting plans that Dreamhost offers.

(For those who know the drill, the promo code is TAB97, which will get you a discount of $97 on any Dreamhost plan. This promo code will make it $23 for one year of hosting service under the most basic plan, for example.)

Follow these simple steps to recieve maximum discount:

1. First gather some information(“research”) to decide whether Dreamhost is a good hosting service provider for your requirements or not. Continue to the next step only if you think that Dreamhost is for you. (I plan to review a couple of hosting providers in the near future.)
2. Once you decide that you want to go with Dreamhost, go to the the sign-up page and select the plan that suits you the best. When filling out the information, enter “TAB97″(without the quotes) in the “Promo Code or email of who referred you:” text field. Click “Continue to secure payment” button to continue to the next page.
   
3. You should see that $97 are deducted from the total price of the plan that you have selected. For example, if you have selected “L1: Crazy Domain Insane” package, then $97 should be deducted from the price of $120 for one year worth of hosting, making the final payable amount around $23. Doubly make sure that correct amount has been deducted before continuing further.



4. Enter the rest of the information needed to place the order.

Don’t be fooled by any other promotional code that you recieve promising a discount of $25, $50 or something like that. The maximum discount that you can get at Dreamhost from such promotional codes is $97 and that is what you get with my promotional code TAB97(as I didn’t chose to split the discount between me and the referred customer). You can also search for similar promotional codes that give you the maximum discount possible($97) by going to the Dreamhost forums.

Coming to the question of how good Dreamhost’s hosting service is, no one can give a verdict that holds true in everyone’s case, but I believe that it’s definitely worth $23 for hosting with them for an year. I Hope to follow this up with a more detailed review of Dreamhost soon; until then, have a look at their complete feature set.

NOTE:

1. I will try to post an update here as soon as the above promotional code ceases to work, but it should work for a long time to come in my estimation.
2. I am not sure but it is believed that the promotional codes only apply if you place the order with Dreamhost using a credit card. Check with the Dreamhost support staff if you wish to pay through paypal/check/money order.