Check your Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar Offline!

Have you ever had important information saved in your email, but you couldn’t establish an internet connection to access it? I have and its really frustrating. How about had a shared Google Doc that you and some study partners were sharing and then you lost internet access on your laptop (or iPad etc) and couldn’t get back to it? I have. Do you use the amazing Google Calendar App to organize your life and depend on it for your schedules and plans? I do that as well…

Sometimes we just don’t have available access to the internet, but we need to access online references immediately and this can be really stressful trying to track down a Starbucks or a local Wi-Fi location to check this information. Lucky for us humans, Google realized that this happens in real life and in September 2011 created a very convenient way to remedy these issues. And the best part? They are all FREE! Google offers offline access to Gmail through Gmail Offline Gmail Offline . Just follow the link and click on the “Launch App” button and it will start the download. With this feature you will have access to your most recently cached email (all of the emails that you have previously viewed on the computer you are using). So far this feature is only available in the Google Chrome web browser and a link for download of Chrome is available in the link above.

The same offline access is available for Google Calendar users as well starting September 2011. This software can be found here. Just click the “Launch App” button and it will start the free download. If you don’t know about Google Calendars, you should really check it out. You can organize all of your plans and schedule and input alarms as reminders, you can sync your calendar with others to try to make scheduling easier and much more. It’s awesome and now it is available with offline access too. For a great preview of some of the stuff you can do with Google Calendar check out this informative blog here.

Google Docs is also available offline as of September 2011 as well and you can get it right here. The same process applies for Google Docs as with Google Calendar and Gmail Offline. Just click the “Launch App” button and the download will begin.

It is important to note that when these features are set up for offline access, it means that the information will be stored on the hard drive of the computer that you are using. If you are on a Public computer or Network private information should not be saved to the hard drive. Additionally, edits to these programs will not be available for others to view online until your computer regains internet access and then the updates will take place automatically.
I hope you found this helpful!
Check out Gmails official blog at Gmail Official Blog

Gmail Notifier (AKA down with Outlook Express)

If you are like me, you probably never use Outlook Express for windows. Tell me if this scenario sounds familiar: When you click an email address link while browsing on the net (i.e. Craigslist or any email on a Contact list for instance) Outlook automatically pops up because it is the default email provider for windows users. This becomes rather obnoxious because you never set up an Outlook account because it is just a waste of memory and is a vestigial product in the Microsoft Office Package. So what ends up happening when you want to send an email to the said email address is this:  you must highlight and copy the desired email address, open a new tab or window, go to your email, click compose new email and paste the copied email into the “To:” box. Doing this once is not so bad, but when applying for jobs or contacting multiple emails this process gets old very quickly. Is this sounding familiar?

Gmail Notifier

Luckily for us, there is an easier way! Google offers a product called Gmail Notifier and it can be downloaded right here for PC or here for MAC users. Gmail Notifier is in no way a new product, but most people don’t know it even exists. This product is very small (292Kb for windows and 1.08Mb for MAC) and downloads almost instantly. The installation takes only seconds as well and best of all IT IS FREE! This product completely replaces all of the functions of Outlook and any Gmail account can be used. The entire process should take less than 2 minutes! So now when you click on an email link while browsing, Gmail Notifier will automatically assume that you are using your Gmail account to reply. This means that there will be no more cutting and pasting and opening of new windows in order to reply to posts. All you have to do is click it!

Gmail Notifier automatically opens when you start windows so you are always logged in and have this ease of access available. It can also show up at the bottom right of your task bar (it will look like an envelope) and can be set so that a tiny popup appears when new email arrives. To open your Gmail account all you have to do is double click the icon and your default browser will open directly to your email. Unless you are using Outlook for some odd reason or haven’t converted your outdated hotmail or Yahoo! email to Gmail, then there is really no reason to not have this awesome software!

A more in depth description of installing the product: more about Gmail Notifier

Or check out Gmail Notifer help from Google: Google Notifier Help

And always check out Google’s Blog for a huge assortment of awesome stuff you can do with Google products: Google Blog