Sunday, October 2, 2011

Gmail's New Features: A First Glance


The launch of social networking service Google + has proved to be a hallmark in giving interesting features to Gmail .

Features at a glance:

1. Multiple calls from Gmail – Google has recently added this feature of making and handling multiple calls in Gmail. We are aware about the communication abilities i.e., voice, video calls to other computers and call phones and till now we were limited to making one call at a time but now the new Gmail lets us make multiple calls at the same time . The working is that if you are in a call and you make another call then your first call will be put on hold while you talk on another call and you can switch between the calls by pressing the Resume button on the call we want to talk on and thus the previous call is automatically put on hold.

2. Choose an inbox style – There is the feature in Gmail with which we can select our favorite inbox style that suits our needs. We have already noticed the styles like starred first, unread first and Priority inbox and after addition we have these styles:
a) Classic- This is the default inbox style and in this the messages are ordered chronologically i.e. the most recent e-mail on the top.
b) Priority Inbox- In Gmail , significant and unread messages appear on the top, then starred and so on. Thus we can create our own inbox style
c) Important first – With this style the important mail is put at the top including both read and unread messages. Thus this style separates the important messages from other ones.
d) Unread first – With this style the unread messages are out at the top.
e) Starred first- In this the starred messages are at the top.

3. View Zip and RAR contents without downloading – Earlier in Gmail when someone used to send ZIP or RAR file format as an e-mail then we need to extract it to view the file but now this exciting feature has made it simpler. With this feature whenever we receive an e-mail that has ZIP or RAR as an attachment then we can directly view the contents of ZIP or RAR file using Google Docs viewer in the browser.A click on ZIP or RAR file in Gmail will open Google Docs view that will show all the files in archive

4. More Info about the sender – With the series of improvements to Gmail. Google has added this detailed sender information feature. If we get a message from someone who is not in our Gmail contacts then Google will now show the sender’s email address in the header. It also give the information if we get the message from a mail sending service. The idea behind this is to reduce the phishing attempts.

5. Keyboard shortcuts fro Spreadsheet - These keyboard shortcuts increase the efficiency of work by helping in saving the time by allowing you not to take your hands off the keyboard to use the mouse. The new keyboard shortcut key is available from within a Google Doc spreadsheet and it can be viewed by pressing Ctrl+/ or Cmd+/.

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