Hacking Gmail

Companion Website
For links and updates, please visit this book’s companion website at 
www.wiley
.com/go/extremetech
.
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Introduction
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Hacking Gmail
™
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Starting to
Use Gmail
F
irst things first, then. Before you get into the deeper work-
ings of Gmail, you need to get yourself up to scratch with
the more public side of the application. Being able to hack
Gmail is one thing, but it’s very helpful to have a full understand-
ing of how the system is meant to work before taking it apart and
doing silly things with it.
In this part, therefore, you look at how to integrate Gmail
with your desktop (Chapter 1). Then in Chapter 2 you look at
merging your existing mail into the application, and finally in
Chapter 3 you look at some of the cunning ways people use
Gmail to its utmost.
Chapter 1
Desktop Integration
Chapter 2
Integrating Your
Existing Mail
Chapter 3
Gmail Power Tips
in this part
part
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Desktop Integration
T
he first part of this book really highlights its entire theme:
that the Gmail service, although ostensibly a website, can
be dragged over to touch the desktop in ways that make
new and exciting applications possible.
The first five chapters deal with this on a very basic level, allow-
ing you to use Gmail to its limits before delving into the nitty
gritty of code and some rather extreme uses of the system.
This chapter deals with the situations that arise when you con-
tinue to use Gmail within the browser but want to use it as your
day-to-day e-mail system. There are two areas to cover: new mail
notification and 
mailto:
link redirection.
New Mail Notification
Gmail’s great features have inspired many early adopters to move
their entire e-mail regime over to the service. But unlike other
e-mail clients, Gmail requires you to have your web browser open
to see if you have any new mail. Even with tabbed browsing, this
is annoying. The alternative is to use a new-mail notifier applica-
tion. This section details some of the best notifiers, grouped by
platform. This is not a definitive list even at the time of this writ-
ing. By the time you read this, there will be even more options.
But this is a good start.
Windows
Perhaps not the operating system of choice for the readers of this
book, but certainly one with a lot of users, Windows is gifted with
a wide range of Gmail integration products.
˛
New mail
notification
˛
Available
applications
˛
Redirecting mailto:
chapter
in this chapter
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