Tired of your tired looking GMail? Well you’re in luck, because along with the already growing customisations, there are now selectable themes. Previously only enjoyed by browser hacks, the option is now open to everyone. Some of the new ways to customise your inbox:

To select the skin theme for your GMail account (assuming you have one of course) go to your settings when looking at your email, and there is a new "Themes" tab. Don’t worry if you don’t have it, Google are rolling them out for everyone over the next couple of days, so check back every day or so until it appears..

£1 Billion has already been ploughed into a monitoring system in the UK that could make every user of technology in the country a target for Big Brother.

The system, based in a building in Benhall, and reported by TechSnake in July, is being funded to intercept all email, SMS and internet traffic to the tune of £12 Billion, once running. Reported in a post on the This Is Gloucestershire website, the move has caused councillors and MPs to question the Government’s morality.

I, personally, can’t believe what is happening. In a modern society too. It is the civil right of every person to have private communications with each other without the government spying over their shoulders. This typical attitude by government agencies is of course wrapped up in the “threat of terrorism” cliché, that is starting to wear just a little too thin. Preventing terrorism is important, but not to the detriment of every other law-abiding citizen. The fishing net mentality is ridiculous - the process is already in place whereby a government agency can get a court order to track individual’s messages for potential terrorism involvement - the government doesn’t need to employ this level of privacy invasion. So what can we do about this - in the UK and globally?

Read the rest of this article…

The Mozilla camp have announced the launch of their new add-on for Firefox, called Snowl. It can be thought of as a messaging aggregator, which takes all of the information you want to read from different sources and knits it all together.

Just step back for a moment and think about that. Everything in one place. All of your RSS feeds, your email, your twitter accounts, your facebook messages - all in one place. A great idea, as long as the interface doesn’t let the concept down - it would seem very easy to get snowed under by the huge amount of information. You can download the plug-in now if you want, although it’s in a really early stage of development, so expect bugs and frequent crashes.

Among the concepts talked about for Snowl, one of them is a “River of News” format, which is like a columned newspaper that runs horizontally. There is mention of prioritising certain types of information, which I think will be the key. After all, you’re more likely to want to read an email from a family member, than a news article. I am very interested in the project, and will be keeping an eye on it in the future - I’m always after ways of making my online information easier to get at, and therefore making me more efficient.

The UK’s government are currently “undecided” as to whether they should have a database that records and tracks every email, website or telephone conversations the UK public make.

What is given another “to stop terrorist activities” reasoning is again interfering with normal innocent daily lives. It’s the general public that are going to be spied on, not the terrorists. How many terrorist’s do they think they would catch, baring in mind that potentially 65 million people would be victimised? All your private communications that are your right as a citizen to be conducted in any way you see fit, stored on a system to be read or listened to without your permission? It seems a little backward and completely open to abuse.

And of all the terrorists using email, visiting websites, or talking to each other - the vast majority will already know about the law and put a very simple layer of encryption in place to protect themselves. And as most of you know, this is not difficult, even with a very basic knowledge and Google at your fingertips, you can be completely anonymous within minutes. It’s just shows the lack of understanding and information the government has when it comes to technology. I don’t know whether to blame their advisers or their own stupidity, but either way this sort of Big Brother attitude can’t be allowed to continue.

I was recently sent in the direction of this website. If you’re having problems remembering things, or you have so much to do it’s hard keeping track of your busy life, rememberthemilk.com is definitely for you. Remember the Milk is an online task-based system. You can make notes of the most important things to do, prioritise and even have your tasks tagged by work, personal or study. And one of the coolest features is that Remember the Milk can integrate straight into your Gmail account. To use this feature, just create an account with Remember the Milk and follow these simple instructions, which includes details of installing a firefox add-on, to get yourself up and running.

I’ve been using the service for about a week now and I haven’t looked back. It’s quicker and easier than Outlook tasks (2003 anyway) and of course, they follow me and my gmail account around too - so I can easily integrate my personal and work tasks together. Plus I’m also finding myself adding work tasks at home, when I think of them, making me a little bit more efficient during the day.

In another anti-Microsoft post (God I’m getting good at these recently) it appears Microsoft’s email servers are down.

Just remember, don’t fret if you see the “Service Unavailable” message when trying to access your hotmail account - maybe it’s fate just whispering gently in your ear - “time to move to gmail…”

The project has been given the official name of “Mozilla Messaging.” The plan is, with David Ascher’s help, to create a code-platform that has everything you need in one place. An application capable of email, IRC and Instant Messaging that will have the rather natty title of “Thunderbird 3.” Mozilla Messaging has been promised the same resources that Firefox has enjoyed so hopefully, with the same product ethos as Firefox also, will have a real fighting chance to do for communication what the browser has done for the interwebs. [SHOW ME]

A recent post shows that some people are starting to get access to IMAP features within Gmail. This surely points to a staggered roll-out for the facility for all users - although obviously we don’t know the time frames involved.

This means that, if you choose, you can access your Gmail through your email client on your desktop - without the need to use the archaic POP3 protocol. Using IMAP is slicker because the inbox on your desktop is syncronised with the inbox in your Gmail. If you read a message on your desktop, it’s flagged as read in Gmail. If you delete a message, it disappears online too. Compare this to POP3, where the messages are simply downloaded and stored locally, with any changes you make locally staying that way.

This is good news for users, but is it in Google’s best interest? Advertisement revenue will disappear for those people using POP3 or IMAP when they move away from the website. Do Google have different plans to to use some other way to deliver advertising? It’s purely conjecture, but I’m assuming ads within emails if they are still going to get users to click-through. How else could Google do it? Maybe Google think the number of users will be insignificant to their cause. Only time will determine the facts.

I found this utility today when I was looking for a different widget to display my tasks on the desktop. This small app (less than 500Kb download) displays any of your outlook panes (Calendar, Contacts, Inbox, Notes or Tasks) on your desktop in a slightly transparent version. Everything is fully adjustable from size, position & transparency, with the added advantage of automatically loading when windows starts. It only works from Outlook 2000 onwards, but then I don’t know anybody who still uses Outlook 97! The link takes you to the homepage, but when downloading I had problems until I found [this] alternative source. [SHOW ME]

After the recent ruling by an illinois court to ask the ICANN or Tucows to withdraw the spamhaus domain - after a recent court battle, ICANN has passed the buck to Tucows.

Hopefully Tucows, based in Canada, will have the backbone to standup against the American courts. If Tucows withdraws the domain spamhaus.org, it could spell chaos for companies across the world that depend on the spam blocking list provided by the non-profit organisation. Looks like another big man trying to kick the little man. Hopefully common sense can prevail. Updates provided when received!
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