Gmail has a nice little feature that allows you to tack on a phrase to the end of your username without destroying the delivery of e-mail to your inbox. Here’s how it works:

• Lets say my e-mail address is super.awesome.coder.ninja@gmail.com and I want to sign up at Amazon
• All I need to do is add a phrase to my e-mail separated by a + when I sign up!
• Lets say I add the word shop…my e-mail would now look like: super.awesome.coder.ninja+shop@gmail.com
• Now any time mail is sent to super.awesome.coder.ninja+shop@gmail.com, I receive it at super.awesome.coder.ninja@gmail.com with the ability to create Gmail filters to mark as read; add a label; move to trash; etc…all based on what e-mail address the e-mail was sent to.

Very awesome.

If you’re curious, here’s what I use this feature for:

• Sending pictures, documents, etc to myself so I don’t have to carry a physical storage device. I just send it to myemail+storage@gmail.com and with filters: mark it as read and archive the e-mail.
• Sign up for online stores and gaming accounts. I sign up as myemail+shop@gmail.com.
• Sign up for multiple test accounts on systems I develop to allow me test as multiple users with the same e-mail. I sign up as myemail+[somerandomstring]@gmail.com

All told, this feature has proven great for e-mail organization and the reduction of spam (at least spam that reaches my inbox). Lets just hope spammers are slow to pick up on this…although I’m sure this blog isn’t helping in the prevention of their knowledge of this Gmail feature…ah well. Hope this helps you out :)

Even if only half of what is written is true, it would be too horrible to imagine, yet i believe all of it is.

Heck, if only a quarter of what is written is true…it is a sad account of our nation’s search/rescue during a massive disaster.

UPDATE: My Friend Jon over at LifeAfterCoffee is linking to an NOAA article with some arial photos of the Katrina aftermath. Its amazing how vulnerable and exposed we are during disasters such as this.

Google Maps
Google Maps vs. MapQuest…Google wins hands down. Not only is this product able to generate efficient directions, but you can view maps using the standard road maps, using satellite imagery, or a hybrid of the two! This is a very sweet product that has been blogged about by many so won’t elaborate too much more on this product…but I would suggest heading over to MaisonBisson.com and NoSheep!.

Google Earth
If you think Google Maps is something sweet, Google Earth will really turn you on! Ok, fine. It isn’t a web app…its a desktop app. Google Earth is a product formerly known as Keyhole until Google bought them up (along with Keyhole’s satellite) then reworked and rebranded it as their own. This is Google Maps on steroids. When you open the app, you start in space looking at Earth. When you enter a city, state, etc in the search box and hit enter, you see the earth rotate and you zoom in on the location you entered. If the location happens to be a place that is densely populated, there is a chance that there are 3-dimensional buildings available for you to view…simply check the ‘Buildings’ box and tilt your view and viola! If you haven’t checked it out yet, I would highly recommend you get off your butt and go download it. Its bound to be a great procrastination tool!

Gmail
Google Mail has breathed life back into the e-mail web client industry. They are setting the standard and are crushing competitors with their innovative design and search-based/tagging e-mail archiving. Gmail is a whole new way of handling the taxonomy of e-mail!

In Gmail:

• There are no folders, there is labeling. WTF is that? Well, its a way of marking an e-mail as part of a specific topic…say I receive an e-mail from MasterWish about my new account and I want to save it. Rather than dropping that e-mail in a folder marked ‘MasterWish’, I apply a label to that e-mail called ‘MasterWish.’ Ok, so whats the difference between that and folders? Here’s the kicker, I can apply a second label to that e-mail called ‘Account Information’…Then I can apply a third called ‘Sweet Websites’. Basically it allows you to put an e-mail into as many categories that you want which makes searching for the e-mail a whole lot easier. Now I no longer have to sit and think “Alright…this e-mail is about MasterWish so I want to put it in the MasterWish folder…but wait. It is also an Account Information e-mail….hrm.” Now I simply label it as many times as I want and I’m done!
• Goolge Search Power! Yeah, rather than folders and moving e-mail all over gods creation, Google has a handy dandy ‘Archive’ button. If you don’t want a crap ton of e-mail that you have already read sitting in your inbox and you don’t want to delete it, Archive it! No worries, if you want to find it again simply use the google-style search box to find it again. Hugely efficient, hugely accurate, extremely easy, and faster than Outlook search :D
• View entire e-mail threads. When you get a conversation going back and forth with a friend or business…i.e. you send an e-mail, they reply, you reply, they reply, you reply, etc. Rather than cluttering up your inbox with umpteen-million e-mails, Gmail places them in one! You can see every e-mail in a given discussion and expand/hide parts that you care/don’t care to see.
• AJAX. (Asynchronous Javascript And XML). With Gmail there are few page loads. As you navigate around your Gmail account you may notice that the page usually doesn’t reload… Thats AJAX. Gmail and Google Maps have made it hugely popular. I’ll post a followup describing it later because it is its own topic in and of itself.

Google Talk
I just downloaded Google Talk today :) Google now has an IM application! If you have a Gmail account, you can get it and login without creating yet another account to remember. As my friends move towards Gmail accounts, this will become a slicker tool to use. If you have a Gmail account, I urge you to download Google Talk and give it a whirl. If there is enough end-user response to the application, I’m sure Google will be able to do great things in the IM market. Its simple. No ads. It offers one-click access to your Gmail account.

Google Desktop
Microsoft did it wrong (as usual)…Google has done it right (as usual) with Google Desktop. This tool will index all of your e-mail (Outlook, Outlook Express, Gmail, etc), your IM programs, visited webpages, text documents, and a crap ton of other stuff allowing you to search (using a browser) all of the above returning search results as quick as Google Search! If you have used the Microsoft search tool in Windows, you know from experience that its like watching grass grow.

Oh, and with the newest version of Google Desktop, there is a sidebar that allows you to monitor all sorts of things in addition to executing desktop searches. There is a photo rotater, a blog monitor (places newest posts on your most frequented site visits), an iTunes controller, etc.

The above is what I use and find extremely cool. Obviously there are a whole lot of additional web apps that Google is developing. I’ll be posting more as I use them ;) In the mean time, check out what Google has to offer at the Google Labs. Where are they headed? Are they slowly cornering/buying out various web markets for a ‘secret scheme’ or just trying to make right what has been horribly wrong for so long? Time will tell…we do know, however, that Google is making other companies *cough cough*Microsoft*cough cough* extremely angry as the Google competition is hard to top! If Microsoft is threatening to “Kill Google”, the company must be doing something right!

Hi, Matt.
I’m D____ F_______, from ________ Canada, … and I love using the internet, and often look for interesting domains.

Wow, I couldn’t believe it as I had a brainwave to suddenly check out your domain name, just to see if someone bought such a unique domain name such as yours of …

www.DontUseTheInternet.com

And guess what, I see that just yesturday, you bought it, too … wow, what coincidence.

I doubt if I would have ever bought the name, myself, but who knows, and if I would have, I would have been so dissappointed that I missed buying it by one day.

Anyway, I suppose I am curious just as to why you would actually buy a domain such as this?

Is it just for unique novel purposes (such as to what I would have used it for), or is it that you actually do not believe in using the net, if I may ask?

Ok, well pleased to have made your aqquaintance, and if you don’t reply, well I will just have to return to your site, sometime and check it out to see what you will put up on it (as at present you only have the “parent dir” on it).

bye for now, D_____

To which I replied:

Hi, D_____

I don’t believe in using the internet. Everytime someone uses it, God kills a puppy.

-Matt