Gmail: Even better than you thought

Whenever you give out your email address to a commercial entity, there is always the risk that they will pass it on to some evil spammer. Assigning customised email addresses to a company is a great way to keep tabs on which ones are spammers, and I discovered today that Google’s Gmail allows you to do this using a ‘+’ after your primary email address:
Gmail: Help Center – Can I receive messages at a different Gmail address?

With Gmail’s interface streets ahead of many desktop email clients I have used, and their other applications gaining cool features like weather reports integrated into your calendar, the desktop application may really be an endangered species.

2 Responses to “Gmail: Even better than you thought”

  1. Mark Birbeck Says:

    Hi,

    Good tip…but on “the desktop application may really be an endangered species” I have to respectfully disagree! 🙂 I think you’re sort of right, but the reality might be more that desktop applications are being *redefined*. For example, the following link shows how to wrap GCal up in an ‘application’ so that it can be docked to the side of the screen, slide off and reappear, be shown transparent or with opacity, and so on:

    http://skimstone.x-port.net/node/376

    The same can be done with GMail, KoolIM, and so on. You could say it’s a new kind of desktop application–built with web technologies.

    All the best,

    Mark Birbeck

  2. Nathan Says:

    Hi Mark. Thanks for the link: that looks very cool! I also agree that we’re likely to see some “evolution” in the desktop application space in the near future—some apps will be “redefined” as you say, others will not survive… 🙂

    Cheers,
    Nathan