Twitters mobile site m.twitter.com was my first stop on the phone’s browser. While this is good for scrolling back through previous tweets there is no way to quickly @ reply someone.

So I gave Twibble a try. This gave me more functionality but I found the timeline didn’t go back as far as I wanted and the interface is a bit basic.

Finally I gave dabr.co.uk a go on the Opera Mini browser. This is definitely proving the best option with a feature-rich easy to use interface. Pretty much all of the functionality I need is here and its by far the nicest looking interface too.

Gmail labs

The Gmail labs features for multiple Inbox views sounds like a useful feature but after trying it out my mail Gmail view looked cluttered; maybe this type of view is more useful on a wide screen monitor than on my single laptop screen and for multiple email accounts perhaps. Instead I tried out Quick Links. This lets you bookmark a particular view of your mail and save it as a quick link for later use.

I typed in is:unread into the Gmail search box and then clicked on Add Quick Link in the Quick Links box on the left column in my Gmail. This added a quick link so I can click on this in future and quickly and easily search for unread mail.

A list of Gmail search terms can be found here. The most useful ones I have used myself include is:unread, from:person, has:attachment and in:anywhere.

Chat

Another new handy feature is that Google chat now recognises YouTube links in chat messages and give you the option to play the clip right inside the chat window.

Contacts

One of the most annoying things about Gmail contacts I find if the duplication of contacts and addition of contacts I didn’t add myself. Cnet have a good article on the new Merge these contacts feature. This will let you specify the default email address, whether one is a work address etc and generally tidy up your contact list.

This app can display stars, constellations, planets, nebulas rendering 3D photo-realistic skies in real time.

It downloaded and installed quickly and I found it quite easy to use and configure. I entered my location and city in the Location settings and then found myself with a 3D view of the night sky in my area. Panning around is easy in a manner similar to Google Earth and constellation lines can be displayed by toggling this on from the left hand side menu.

And even better, it’s open source and can be downloaded here.

Google Docs

There are a few ways of integrating your Gmail and Google Docs. For Word documents I usually click the Open with Google Docs link in the end of the email and that adds the document for me. Gmail will let you open and view PDF, DOC and PPT formats and save these into your Google Docs also.

Alternatively, if you go to Google Docs and click on the Upload button, in the bottom half of the screen you will see a section named “Email-In Your Documents and Files”. There you will find an email address listed that looks something like yourusername-secretid@prod.writely.com.

Save this address to your Gmail contacts or Google Contact Manager and by forwarding a email with some text or with an attached document to this address, you will be adding a new document or the attached document to Google Docs. You will receive an email confirming the addition and giving you a link to your new document. This feature is a little flaky and I would tend to stick with the first option above and Open as a Google document.

A third option is to install the Send to Google Docs addon for Firefox as featured on Lifehacker. This will let you right-click on a URL to a supported file type and choose a menu option to Send To Google Docs which works for PDFs, Excel, Word, PowerPoint and all Open Document formats.

In Google Labs in your Gmail (the little  icon on the top right in Gmail) you can turn on the Create a Document feature which will allow you to convert an email into a Google Document. The Create a Document link will appear on the right hand side of your email.

Finally, if  you have a document on your computer you want to add you can bypass Gmail by going to Google Docs and clicking Upload a File.

Picasa

Similarly to the email to google docs option above, in your Picasa Web site, go to Settings, then Upload Photos by Email. Here you can create a private email address of the following format, yourname.secretcode@picasaweb.com, where you can email or forward image attachments to add them to Picasa Web.

The photos will appear in your ‘Drop Box’ album unless you specify an existing album’s name as the subject of your email.

I found this to be an easy way of backing up and storing photos I had been emailed that were hidden away and taking up space in my mail.

Signatures

If, like me, you use Gmail for multiple email accounts, you may wish to tailor  your signature for each account. Or even have a selection of signatures for the same account.

MakeUseOf.com have 5 ways to create multiple custom signatures through various Firefox addons.

David Coallier recommended the Black Canvas Gmail Signature Firefox addon following my Part 1 post, which I have been happily using since.

Well, that’s it for Part 2, although with a few more bits and pieces to add there’s a good chance of a Part 3, so stay tuned. If you have any comments on the above or some suggestions you’d like to see added feel free to Post a Comment!

Task Lists

Remember the Milk is my to-do list manager of choice and I was delighted to learn they had a Firefox extension that integrated this nicely into Gmail. Gmail labs themselves have a RTM gadget which I found didn’t have as many features as RTM’s but still had its good points.

Gmail themselves have implemented a much requested feature of integrated task manager where you can manage your tasks, email tasks to yourself etc and hopefully in the future will tie your tasks in with Google Calendar, but as it still lacks a lot of features,  so I won’t be switching over just yet.

Twitter

I’ve installed TwitterGadget for Gmail which give me a small twitter window inside Gmail’s sidebar. From this you can send tweets, shorten URL’s, see your latest tweets; basically do many of the tasks you would expect. It’s handy to not have to leave Gmail to tweet but I can’t say I would use it ahead of Tweetdeck.

Shortcuts

Lifehacker had a post recently on a GCompose script you can install that will save you valuable seconds but to be honest, as one of the commenters pointed out, you can create a bookmark such as this and add it to your bookmarks toolbar.

Stay tuned for the next part of this post in the near future in which I’ll cover a few more Gmail features I have found useful. Please feel free to add your comments and suggestions.