Advocate's Studio

Hardcore Gmail users will love this – Gmelius is a cross-browser extension that offers lots of options for customizing and  improving your Gmail experience. First and foremost: Gmelius will allow you to excise the ads that show at the top of your inbox! Right now, it appears Gmelius has extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Opera – hopefully they will come to the aid of some  of those other browsers  soon.

Some of the other great features that are selectable within the extension include the ability to make the header auto-expandable, remove the People Widget, customize the navigation icons, add a row highlight, clear formatting from incoming emails to make them look-alike, add attachment icons for different types of docs such as Word or Powerpoint, disable the “consider including” box if you don’t want Gmail to suggest recipients to you, make the Google logo clickable (but watch out when you have multiple sign in’s activated), auto scroll to the top of your inbox when you click the black bar, and move email labels to the right in the inbox. In total, Gmelius is all about creating more space in the interface so that it becomes easier to work with your Gmail, definitely a good thing.

Gmelius insists that it will never access, read, store, alter or transmit your personal data. Gmelius code meets the latest Content Security Policy (CSP) recommendations, making sure its users can keep browsing the Web safely.

Gmelius is constantly updating the extension, with new features in settings shown with a “new” tag. Plus they appear committed to cleaning up bugs as quickly as possible.

The extension is free, but the developers ask for a donation. With the advent of Google Drive and an increase in storage size in your Gmail from 7 to 10 GB to celebrate, Gmelius offers yet another good reason to move your emailing activity to the Gmail cloud. Hope you enjoy this great new extension as much as I do.

Sure I love Gmail. But every so often, we hear stories of Gmail hacking and cracking and the online privacy dialog starts up again in force. What can a user do?

The obvious option is to use an application or service that encrypts your email. Whether via the web, or desktop or as a layer of security on your existing email program, encrypted email makes it that much more difficult (but not impossible) to crack your security code.

There are several options available to those seeking security. The one I see and hear about the most is Hushmail. Hushmail is a secure web-based email service that has been around since 1999, which is like 1,000 years in internet years. Email is stored in Hushmail in encrypted form, and decrypted when you log in with your password. When you send to another Hushmail user, the encryption / decryption process is automatic. Non-Hushmail users are  provided with a secret question to answer before the email is decrypted. Hushmail also works on the iPhone and Blackberry devices (wait, no Android?) and can be incorporated as a layer on your Outlook program. Hushmail via the web is free, while domain-based, fully customizable Hushmail costs $1.99 per user per month.

The more expensive option is Zixmail, frequently used by companies seeking HIPAA compliance. This service works much like Hushmail and  also allows you to send encrypted email to others, whether or not they are Zixmail users. Zixmail provides desktop email encryption that includes automated key management and delivery through a secure web portal. It can be used with any corporate or web-based email system, and optional plug-ins are available for full integration with Microsoft Outlook. ZixMail can be set up to automatically scan out-going emails sent from the secured network  for sensitive information and encrypt them. Recipients receive a notification in their inbox informing that a secure message from the Zixmail sender is waiting to be read. Click the link and the recipient is taken to a message center where the user is prompted to log in with a password to view the email; new users are prompted to create an account and establish their password. Depending on the number of users, that cost can start at $75 per user per year.

There also is VaultletMail, a desktop app that allows you to send encrypted mail to others, whether or not they are VaultletMail users. Those who don’t use VaultletMail can access a SpecialDelivery Service, which prompts you to create an account and special catchphrase (“The Eagle Flies At Dawn”) or some such to access encrypted messages.  VaultletMail has lots of controls over what can be done with emails (no copying, forwarding, printing, etc.), can employ a “self destruct” for emails that sit unread for a period, and can even send from an anonymous email address.

Google has now enabled encryption for Gmail by default when you use the Chrome browser. The tech behind the encryption is called HSTS, which directs the browser to only use a particular website over a secure connection. If you use Firefox, you can add an extension that encrypts your Gmail – Gmail S/MIME which allows you to send and receive signed and encrypted messages in Gmail. The extension operates with every S/MIME-capable mail client including Microsoft Outlook (2000-2010), Microsoft Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Apple Mail.app, and now works up through Firefox 4.0, Seamonkey, and the latest versions of Gmail.

Speaking of Mozilla, if you use their Thunderbird email system, you can use the Enigmail extension. Enigmail requires you to install the Enigmail extension for Thunderbird and the GNU Privacy Guard software for your operating system. The application adds an OpenPGP dropdown menu in Thunderbird which contains the set up wizard. Encryption is selectable in the S/MIME dropdown menu in the composition window. While the encryption process is a bit cumbersome, you can use it with any email provider serving as the backend of your Thunderbird program.

It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that secure email encryption is all well and good, but it is no panacea or defense against a valid government subpoena. These programs will protect your legally permissible communications, but will not protect you from disclosure of your illegal activities. So email wisely. And securely.

Interesting. ToutApp lets you pull a report on your 2011 email habits and insights from a scan of your inbox. Tout’s main biz is email management software that assists businesses in making the most of their email efforts, by offering Email shortcuts, View/Click tracking, Scheduling and Analytics for those emails. The app requires permissions to scan your emails, calculate a set of metrics and generate the report. It purports to only look at your email headers and not content or file attachments. Once the report is generated, the data is discarded. While the report is only accessible to you, you can choose to share it with others via a secured link. Tout does advise that, while your report is secure, it may use data to create its own reports on generalized geographic trends, albeit in a completely anonymous manner. Right now, the app only works with Gmail – and you need to make sure that IMAP is enabled and that the Language setting is set to “English.” Apparently, the app will extend to other providers soon, so stay tuned.

If this interests you, then check out the explanatory video below.

There is about 7.5 gb of storage space in your Gmail account. Presumably for emails. Even voracious emailers, however, are unlike to put a major dent into that kind of space. It bothers me when an untapped resource remains essentially untapped, so I was pretty excited to happen upon MakeUseOf’s piece on Gmail Drive.

GMail Drive is a Windows only application that allows you to create a virtual file system in your Gmail account and permit direct access to that system through Windows Explorer. After installation and set up, you will see Gmail Drive in your list of storage spaces in Explorer.

The way it works is via the email process – dragging and dropping files into Gmail Drive creates an email with the file as an attachment. Depending on how you manage your mail, this may or may not work for you. At the least, you can create a filter that sends these emails into an archived location, so you don’t need to deal with them regularly in your inbox. Or, set up an additional Gmail account to simply hold your Gmail Drive documents.

When you select Gmail drive in Explorer, you will be prompted to log into the Gmail account with your credentials and then you can execute whatever action you need:

Access Gmail Drive docs from the browser on any computer – you can work via the Web and your Gmail account or you can install Gmail Drive on another computer and work with documents from there. There are some limitations – file size for Gmail hovers around 25gb and it isn’t practical to share docs with others via Gmail – you would need to give invitees your Gmail log in. But, still, what do you want for nothing? Put that empty space to work for you!

The new Gmail is here. Well, not officially for everyone. But you can preview the new form factor by selection. Why would you do that? Well, to get a fancy new look and feel, for one thing. But beauty is as beauty does and the new Gmail is more than just a pretty face. New features include a morph to fit page that optimizes for any size screen resolution, dramatically improved search, the ability to change the dimensions in the left sidebar, and the option to create filters within the search box – MUCH easier than the old way. Plus, a bunch of new HD backgrounds that are very sweet indeed. Find out more about the new Gmail here and test drive it for yourself – simply click on the button offering the option at the bottom right of your Gmail page. Tell them Martha sent you.