By: Gina Reis (University of Minnesota)
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Easily annoyed by my university email, (too many clicks to get to the inbox!) I decided to resurrect my once-created-and-then-forgotten Gmail account and use that instead. Getting an Iphone also prompted this, as it is all too easy to sync up a Gmail account on your iphone. Besides being chastised by my Spanish advisor for not using my university account to send him an email, I have had a very positive experience with Gmail. And once you become attached to one thing Google, the corporation finds ways so slowly suck you in and become fascinated with everything Google. This isn’t completely a bad thing, however.
Gmail comes with the Gchat feature—a sort of buddy list of your friends and family members who also have joined the Google world and have Gmail accounts. Now this I don’t completely adore mostly because not a lot of my friends have Gmail accounts. I have reconnected with my older sister (who lives in D.C.) and find myself talking with her at least once a day. Who knew Google would bring me closer to my family.
The overall layout and organization of Gmail is just amazing to me. It’s always nice to have an email account that is organized for me (because I am not) and that looks pretty. That’s always a plus. I’m one of those people who love the idea of being really organized and want to buy all those fancy planners and desk organizers at Target, but fails miserably at the actual application of cleaning and organizing.
So, as I mentioned earlier, once you become a Gmail person, you become completely immersed (or at least intrigued) by all the apps and features Google has to offer. I downloaded Google Chrome and absolutlely love it—I again like how I can choose a theme and make it look pretty—how it comes up with my most viewed pages (Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, Sidereel, Google, Wikipedia and University of Minnesota homepage in case you were wondering) and most especially how I can search anything just by typing it into the toolbar.
This is about how far I’ve dove into the Google Ocean. I am still discovering the plentitude of things out there—I’m telling myself I CAN be organized and use Google Calendar which I know my sister and friends adore. My boyfriend’s little sister, who is in high school, raved about Google Docs and asked me if I use it. This is yet another app I have yet to try—but I am definitely intrigued. It’s just so smart—use Google Docs and you can pull it up anywhere, home or away. No more emailing it to yourself. I still consider myself a Google newbie—but so far, so good.
