Photo: beatak / Flickr

Whoa! Sometimes you read stories that make your heart skip beats. One such story that did the rounds at breakneck pace was that of Gmail users logging in to find their accounts completely wiped. As in completely empty inboxes with no ways for the users to retrieve their mails.

Initial reports – thousands affected

Google quickly responded to news of these Gmail accounts being wiped, initially pointing out that: ‘This is affecting less than 0.08% of our Gmail user base, and we’ve already fixed the problem for some individuals.’ Given that the service has an estimated user base of between 150 and 200 million, that would mean as few as 120,000 users were affected by the outage.

Data not permanently erased

On to the second part of the statement – ‘fixed the problem for some individuals’ – it’s clear that the delete was not a permanent one. Furthermore the company reported that its engineers were working on a fix for the outage.

Andrew Kovacs, a Google engineer, later tweeted: ‘re Gmail issue: affected 0.02% of users not 0.08%, restored access for 1/3, remaining 0.013% being restored on ongoing basis, all w/in 12 hrs’. So fewer Gmail accounts than initially suspected were actually affected.

Google really didn’t need this

What’s sad about this news for Google is that the company has been under fire for several months now. The tech community – equal parts Google’s biggest cheerleaders and Google’s biggest detractor – has been pounding the company for a degrading search experience, as well as its inability to ‘get’ social.

The damage is done

Now, with users discovering their Gmail accounts completely wiped, regardless of how small the sample size of the affected user base, confidence in Gmail has been dented. With Gmail being one of the web services I rely most on, I used to snicker at folks who ‘unnecessarily’ downloaded their mail for offline usage. That’s how much trust I had in my Gmail accounts always being safe. That has since changed, and, as crazy as it sounds, resulted in me using my Android smartphone with more hesitation than it otherwise would.

Photo: justinsomnia / Flickr

It’s been almost a year since Google announced to the world their cloud-based printing service back in April last year, but last week Google took a huge step into the future of printing by offering the Cloud Print wireless printing services to the public, to be used for mobile services.

HTML5 supported

Android 2.1+ and iOS users can now print Google Documents and Gmail pages straight from their mobile phone, while HTML5-compatible web browsers should also be ready to use Cloud Print.

In fact, the wireless printing option is not limited to only Android and iOS, as any mobile gadget can take advantage of the service, as long as it supports HTML5. At the moment, the wireless printing option from a mobile device is limited only to certain Google websites, the mobile version of Gmail, for example, but that will change in the near future with application updates.

While Cloud Print is currently only available to Windows and Mac users, Linux versions are on their way and should be available in the near future.

Extra convenience

It will take only a short period of time to realise exactly how convenient Cloud Print is. Emails are handy by their instantaneous nature, but having the option to print these documents in your car on your way to work has now made email so much more useful and powerful.

Setting up the Cloud Print service is no problem at all, and once your printer is linked to your Gmail account, printing can be done with the press of a button. Printing the document is available in the menu option on the Google Documents and Gmail mobile sites, but of course more advanced printing options will soon be available.

Setting up Cloud Print is advised to anyone with the capabilities to use it. You never know when it will come in handy.

Photo: thinknew / Flickr

Paul Buchheit, the man who developed Gmail and later went on to sell his own startup, FriendFeed, to Facebook has expressed what many have long feared: Google’s Chrome OS and Android mobile OS platforms cannot co-exist. More specifically, Buchheit predicts that the cloud OS will perish, or be swallowed by Android.

Tweeting freely

In a to-the-point tweet, Paul Buchheit wrote: ‘Prediction: ChromeOS will be killed next year (or “merged” with Android)’. Considering this comment was made shortly after the reveal of Chrome by a former Google engineering rock star, the tech world took note of what Buchheit was expressing.

In a FriendFeed thread, he later expanded his thoughts, saying: ‘Yeah, I was thinking, “is this too obvious to even state?”, but then I see people taking ChromeOS seriously, and Google is even shipping devices for some reason’ which he preceeded by saying ‘Because ChromeOS has no purpose that isn’t better served by Android (perhaps with a few mods to support a non-touch display)’.

What we make of it

Speaking honestly, we’re completely in agreement with Paul Buchheit. While Google’s initially articulated vision of Google Android being for smartphones and Chrome OS being for netbooks and tablets made sense in the early days, it makes little sense in a world where the Android platform has so much momentum. Furthermore, with Android tablets already on the market, the attitude that ‘the market will decide which is better suited’ is silly, to say the least, since the market has already decided.

Chrome OS, as exciting as a cloud OS is, as promising as the startup speed is, and as brilliant as the Chrome browser is, seems to have little place in the computing world. Is Mr. Buchheit off the mark here, or do you see this cloud OS carving up a respectable space for itself in computing?

Photo: marcopako  / Flickr

After a year-long wait, Apple have finally approved the Google Voice app for iPhone, and users have been able to download the application at no charge. The app is able to do everything that Google Voice was capable of before, with one exception: the iPhone version is not able to make internet phone calls.

Before, to use the program for anything other than text messaging and receiving voice mail, one would have to link the phone numbers with Google Voice. Since August, Google have changed all that by adding voice calling to their own email system, Gmail, as a separately installed chat browser for Mac, Windows and Linux.

Call hub

The Google Voice iPhone app remains a control panel rather than a calling program, albeit a highly powerful control panel, allowing you to recommend that your friends, family and contacts to phone your Google Voice number. Google Voice then acts as a hub, where you connect all the numbers in your database and then prioritise them to handle incoming calls more smoothly. These numbers are divided along lines.

The lines in your database can all ring at once, and the handy call screening option can alert you to any unwanted calls. Outgoing calls are treated differently; either by using the Google Voice portal and choosing which line you want the call routed to, or by logging into Gmail and using a headset.

Redesigned

The application has been redesigned, allowing for simple transitions between text messaging and phone options, and includes four main tabs in total: Inbox, Dialler, Contacts and Settings. The dialler contains both texting and calling options within one menu, while notifications will alert you of any incoming messages, found in the inbox.

Lastly, Google Voice handles text messages and voice mail with ease. Text messages are free to send from your end, although your contact on the other side needs to pay whatever their server charges. Voice mails are automatically recorded, transcribed and accessed using the application.

Photo: Google

Oh snap! The millions of us who use Gmail everyday logged in and saw a very peculiar and unexpected notification – you can now make VoIP calls right out of the mail client. That’s Google’s way of saying ‘What’s good, Skype? What’s really good?’

How it works

Basically, when logged into Gmail with the classic view, where your Gtalk icons are, you will see a green phone icon. Pressing that button brings up a keypad on the bottom right of your screen – where your Gtalk conversation would default to if that. Now dial the number you’re trying to contact right out of the window. It can be a landline or mobile number – Google is non-descriminatory – and it will connect through its Google Voice protocol to the person you’re trying to contact, wherever in the world they may be.

Super cheap

Calls to the US and Canada within Google Voice for Gmail are free. Calls to regions like the UK, China, Europe and Japan will be as low as 2 cents for each minute of talktime, according to the folks at Google. Google was smart enough to give every user $0.10 of credit to test the service out, and like all responsible users the first person I called was, well, myself. Verdict? It works pretty well.

Google Voice a big deal

Photo: Stock.Xchng

This move to integrate Google Voice into Gmail is just one piece in a puzzle Google is slowly beginning to flesh out with its phoning system. TechCrunch had a report on how Google Voice payphones would begin sprouting up in US universities and airports, while others noted the push for Google Voice on the iPhone continues, regardless of Apple’s obvious resistance.

And though Google VoIP seemed a mere hobby for the company, it’s clear with this move that Gmail has Skype squarely in its sights.

A sign of the future

Google VoIP, Skype, and VoIP handset manufacturers all point to a future that can no longer be ignored – the day when Internet protocol-based calls circumventing the traditional networks are our default way of calling one another. Google Voice and Google VoIP are here to stay and Gmail is the gateway drug to get us all hooked on the service.

Photo: Google

If you logged into Gmail today, as millions of people do around the globe every day, you may have been surprised by the new, sleek interface. Though difficult to come to terms with initially, we quite like the refined update that not only adds visual improvements, but has a small handful of usage refinements, too.

Compose simpler

Outside of the fresh lick of paint and web 2.0 polish the first thing you’re likely to notice about the new Gmail is the bold ‘Compose mail’ button, replacing the previous link. This makes it far easier to find the button when you’re scrubbing through in a hurry, but in the short term, it has the adverse effect of making you ‘lose the button’ because habit dictates it should look slightly different.

Contacts revamped

The contacts section has seen by far the biggest update. The first thing is they work far more like mail does, so use should come naturally to those who’ve previously ignored the feature. In the new Gmail, you can customise the labels on your contacts, so you’re not limited to the default contact options you previously had, as well as sorting contacts by surname. You’d be best served to look through Google’s full changes update on its Gmail blog if you’re looking to take full advantage of the mostly aesthetic changes.

Android strategy

The search giant is crystal clear about Google Android being a distribution channel for deploying Google Apps and familiarizing people with Google’s service. Gmail, outside of search, is quickly becoming Google’s second most identifiable brand and this slick update brings the web interface in line with that found on the mobile phones. Hopefully the dedicated Gmail app will get a fresh paint job, too.

Sound off: do you like the new look Gmail or do you prefer the older?

Photo: Microsoft

The technology press was invited to a special Microsoft event, where the software giant previewed its latest build of Hotmail. Early impressions? It looks good but it sure will take a lot to pry Gmail converts away from the service.

First things first – alignment

It’s clear that Gmail was central to the Hotmail team’s discussions in their planning how to rollout the service, and this is evidenced in the product composition. Hotmail now has greater storage, an improved spam filter, an optional threaded conversations feature, and chat integrated elegantly into the service (finally!). Additionally, the Microsoft Hotmail team spent time optimizing for mobile browsers, and especially for the current generation of smartphones like the BlackBerrys and iPhones of the world.

The notable features

Gmail trail blazed by having YouTube embedding both in Google Talk and in emails, but Microsoft Hotmail is taking it a step further by embedding Hulu, Justin.tv, and the aforementioned YouTube.

Microsoft Hotmail also has smart slideshow tools, both for attachments in mails as well as links that lead to SmugMug and Flickr.

Photo: YouTube

A feature that really interests us – and anybody who’s ever subscribed to a newsletter you just keep marking as spam, which is nearly everybody – is the ‘sweep’ tool. What this does is it automatically deletes all communications from things you’ve willingly signed up for without dubbing the sender a spammer.

The odd omission

In a world where social networking may become the defacto way people use the web, the omission of thorough social integration in the new Hotmail is strange. Startups like Posterous have shown the value of getting your hooks into everything and simply, while Microsoft itself with its Windows Phone 7 Series and Kin phones seem to understand the value of social networking, so this omission leans more toward laziness than a gross oversight.

Early impressions are pretty solid, with a renewed drive in Hotmail being legitimately viable. However, getting Gmail ninjas to switch will be highly unlikely unless Microsoft has an ace in their pocket they have yet to reveal.

Photo: Google

There is finally a patch for a bug in Google’s sync tool for Outlook that has been overlooked for several months. The bug slowed productivity for Outlook end users as it prevented incoming emails being downloaded from the Gmail server, causing the users to regularly check their Gmail account online for any new mail not downloaded to Outlook.

What bug?

When the bug arrived is being disputed, with end users claiming that they’ve been experiencing problems with the server since July last year. Google, however, in an official statement, claim that the bug came with the March upgrade of Gmail’s server. This dispute raises the question of whether Google’s monopoly over the Internet is causing things to slide in some departments, but looking at the Internet search giant’s other projects, hopefully it was just an oversight.

Sync tool bug being fixed

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Google officially recognized the bug on 12 March. A patch to fix the server was rolled out from Wednesday and continues to be uploaded onto Google’s email server. There is no need for any Outlook users to download or fix anything, as the problem is on the server and not with the actual sync tool. End users will also receive confirmation of the bug being fixed in their email accounts and can then go back to normally checking their mail through the Outlook sync.

Google sync apps for Microsoft Outlook

The Google app for Microsoft Outlook sync was launched in June 2009 with two editions, the free Education edition, and the Premier edition costing $50.00 (approximately £33.56). Google launched the sync tool to allow end users who prefer using Outlook to access their mail, rather than using the Internet to access their mail through the Google mail server.

Google will hopefully have the bug fixed by next week and continue to improve the Google sync apps for Microsoft Outlook.