One thing Google has really done a good job of is implementing a few unique features into Gmail that other mainstream email services don't offer. To give you an example, IMAP support. Of course some services do offer it, but many, especially those that are free, do not.

Remember those Gmail Labs features that Google launched back in June? They included features for Gmail like mouse gestures, the option to choose from additional star icons, and more. The great thing about all of these features are that each is opt-in so that only the additional features you want added, will be added to your Gmail account.

So many people have unlimited SMS text messaging plans on their phones these days that a lot of services, such as Twitter, are using them as a way to notify users of updates. By doing this users get a simulated push notification experience without needing to have a push-compatible device.

It's always surprised me that Google has a few desktop applications (Picasa, Google Desktop Search, Google Talk, etc...), but for one reason or another they don't have any programs that leverage some of their other big services. Having a program for Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and several others would all make a lot of sense in my book.

Google Docs as we know it today includes mainly Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations, but it looks as though soon it will include Photo Albums as well. The Google Operating System blog points out how using information from Google's code, you are able to get a list of items you can create in Google Docs which include Photo Albums. Take a look at the image to the right.

Yesterday was a day of outages for MobileMe and Gmail. Apple's MobileMe, which had a rocky introduction to begin with, saw a four and a half hour mail outage yesterday. MacRumors mentioned this outage yesterday but also took a look at MobileMe's overall uptime which is about 96%. That's not an impressive number when you put it into perspective.

In the past we have said that it would be nice if Gmail offered the option to create a white list for messages from certain email addresses that should never be sent to the spam folder. We can't really complain about Gmail's spam filter because it does a fantastic job catching actual spam, but on occasion it will manage to take a "good" message and put it in the spam folder.

I know that there are a lot of you out there who are using the Gmail Redesigned skin, and you'll be happy to know that version 2 of the theme was recently released for all Firefox users. This new version includes a few dozen bug fixes, but more importantly they focused on increasing the performance.

Anytime you are on a public network, you are more vulnerable to having your data stolen than if you were on your own home private network, unless you take the proper security precautions. If you have a Gmail account, Google would like to help you with those security precautions.

Google has done a great job of making Gmail an easy-to-use email service, but one thing that has always bothered me is the fact that they automatically add people you email to your contact list.

Google has just taken an extra step to protect Gmail users from eBay and PayPal phishing attempts by implementing technology called DomainKeys. With the technology, email messages sent by phishers attempting to trick unsuspecting people into giving out an eBay or PayPal password are completely blocked.

The Gmail Team over at Google has just added some new security and protection features that will leave some of their users feeling a bit more at ease that their email account is safe. Starting yesterday, Google began rolling out a feature that will allow users to view the time of their last activity on their Gmail account and whether or not it's still open in another location.

A few weeks ago I received an email from the developer of a Windows application called gAttach, and it looked pretty cool. At the time, however, the program was new and I wanted to give it some time to mature before I gave it a whirl. Since then it has had a handful of updates, and it is on its way to becoming a handy little program.

Having an email client that is built-in to the browser is one of those things that you either love or hate. Both the Opera and SeaMonkey browsers include this functionality out-of-the-box, but if all you're looking for is basic emailing capabilities you may have to look no further than a Firefox extension. The Simple Mail extension brings POP, IMAP, and SMTP support to Firefox.

One of the things that still surprises me is that Google has not released any way to create HTML signatures for emails in Gmail. As a result there have been a descent number of Greasemonkey scripts for Firefox that give users the chance to automatically insert HTML signatures into an email, but for some of you a simple bookmarklet might be all you need.

Google has decided to take a few risks with Gmail by introducing Gmail labs. They say that they receive a lot of ideas for Gmail from both users and employees at Google, but they don't always have the time to develop and implement them all.

One thing that Google is quite adamant on is making sure that you're using a browser they officially support, and more times than not Opera users are left in the dark. The new Gmail interface is no exception. If you try visiting the email service in Opera you'll be forced to use the old-school version of Gmail that doesn't have color-coded labels, among other things.

Earlier this week we showed you how you could take advantage of Firefox 3's built-in support for web applications. To be more specific we demonstrated how you can preview iCal calendars using 30boxes.com, and thanks to Lifehacker it looks like you can do the same thing for MailTo links.

Back in March last year, Google launched themes for personalized homepages that change with time and weather. The themes quickly became a hit and since then, they've added new themes and even launched an iGoogle Themes Directory so that people can create their own and share them with others.

A bout a week ago, I came across an article over at Webware about using Gmail as a baby book. Rafe Needleman pointed out how setting up a new Gmail account would be a really simple solution for parents who want to keep a record of what is going on in their children's lives.