5 things you can do with attachments in Gmail - Official Gmail Blog

Nice article explaining 5 attachment-related gmail features, including my favorite: "Never forget an attachment again":

However, I continue to be amazed that google, The King Of Search, have not enabled searching your gmail to find the matching content in your messages' attached PDF's (yahoo has).

Google's Gmail Tasks module graduates from Labs

A nice Google Tasks & Calendar tip in the YouTube demo, courtesy of Official Gmail Blog: Tasks graduates from Gmail Labs , namely:

When entering a new Google Task, simply prepend
MM/DD -
and the date will be auto-entered. And changing the date in Google Calendar will update the corresponding original task record as well :)



IMHO, regardless of whether Tasks has "graduated" from Gmail Labs, it's reassuring to see the well-deserved attention that Gmail tasks is getting within Google :)

(PS - Related technosurfer posts accessible via http://technosurfer.net/search/label/Tasks )

New in Gmail Labs: User-friendly Inbox preview

Just announced: Another example of the small but quite valuable enhancements the Gmail team keep adding to the Gmail experience.

As explained in Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Inbox preview:
"...we created a new feature in Gmail Labs called Inbox Preview. While Gmail is loading, a simple, static preview of your inbox with your ten most recent messages is displayed. Turn it on from the Labs tab under Settings, and if you're on a slow connection you'll know from the start if it's worth the wait. "

LifeHacker observes accurately:
"As Gmail's engineers point out, it stinks to wait for Gmail to load up all its AJAX-y, gadget-loaded interface, just to find out there's no new mail."

IMHO, this and similar features (including especially gmail's cool Tasks-related enhancements) really differentiate Gmail from the rest of the pack (Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL etc.)

Official Gmail Blog: Tasks Continue to Evolve ( + iPhone demo)

An interesting update to Google's Tasks, focusing helpful improvements to mobile access*: Official Gmail Blog: Tasks: Paper vs. iPhone

A major step was already announced on the Official Gmail Blog in December , which explained the simple and intuitive capability to copy a Gmail message to a Task .

Still apparently not mentioned, are the wishlist features I had suggested last year, namely:

Will Google Labs provide something analogous to Microsoft Office Tasks, including workflow, assignment, tracking, prioritizing, alerting etc.

?

In any case, it is nice to see Google working on the Tasks mobile interfaces, which are clearly critical for making it easy for users to ensure their Tasks are kept up to date. Easy maintenance of one's "todo list" of activities and tasks is a basic concept of the GTD philosophy (see e.g. David Allen, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity ).

**at least for iPhone and Android, though apparently not with the same full Task edit capability for other "xhtml-enabled" devices such as Windows Mobile... Here is Google's 46-second YouTube demo of the new iPhone Task interface, courtesy of the aforementioned Official Gmail Blog: