Tag Archives: GMail

by Michelle Lentz

Other than a bad pun, what is Google’s Appy Holidays? Well, it’s a surprisingly useful collection of their applications themed and ready for the holiday season.

Appy Holidays links you to Google Docs, which has templates for things such as invitations, cards, holiday gift lifts, wish lists, gift tags, address lists, and holiday letters. It also links to your Google Calendar, with no holiday theme, but it does allow you to share appointments for those cookie baking dates and holiday parties you’re attending. Appy Holidays links to Picasa to share and edit your holiday images. Finally, it links to Google Chat’s new video integration. Your relatives aren’t that far away after all.

I found the holiday templates in Google Docs incredibly useful. I’ve been keeping a list of everyone we have to buy for in my head, so a holiday spreadsheet I could easily share with my husband was the perfect solution. Like me, you’re probably familiar with the rest of it, but I like the fact that Google has grouped it so easily in one spot and tied it into the holidays.

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by Michelle Lentz

So I opened my Gmail today to find a closable banner across the top, letting me know about themes. Similar to the fun themes you can add to your iGoogle, you can now theme your Gmail.

According to the Gmail Blog:

Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their inboxes for a while, but up til now themes haven’t been an integral part of Gmail. We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we’re launching today, there’s a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company. There’s even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) which was the result of a bet between two engineers — it’s not exactly practical, but it’s great for testing out your geek cred.

So log in and spice up your Gmail. Click Settings –> Themes. They’re rolling out themes to everyone over the next couple of days, so if you don’t see it yet, it’s coming.


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