Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:45, 14 August 2005

I dont know where to write this but this is editorializing: "The assumed reason behind this is that the idea was, in effect, an invasion of privacy. Considering the sheer magnitude of this mess, Google will do a lot of squirming before it's over. "

Old discussions at Archive 1

Gmail received a peer review by Misplaced Pages editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

Gmail Invites

• Wiki gmail swap page A wiki page to post and recieve gmail invites--RobKohr 22:00, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I currently have 6 Gmail invites, and I want to give 3 away to some Misplaced Pages members (mostly because half my friends have no clue what gmail is ;). Anyways, if you would like one...please post on my User talk page. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 20:57, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You might want to think about the gmail invite spooler just send your invites to gmail@isnoop.net and they will be made available to people that want them. ] 21:40, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

70.64.104.100 00:17, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Any reason why it has 0 invites currently available? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 02:07, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

the number fluctuates as people add new invites and people request them, that big graph shows the in/outs over time, if you want an invite you put your email in that box and it will send you one, when it gets some if it doesn't have any right away. ] 05:39, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have three to give out, leave a note on my talk if you want one. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 06:25, 2004 Sep 19 (UTC)

I have six; send me an email if you want one. Thue | talk 08:33, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Has this gmail invite spooler worked for anyone else? I've made two requests already—one yesterday, and one a few minutes ago when about a dozen invites were supposedly available—and I still haven't received anything. Are we sure it isn't just an elaborate email harvester? --dreish 13:10, 2004 Sep 22 (UTC)

Before I added the link to the invite spooler to this article, I requested an invite from it and confirmed that it was working at the time. I then sent several of my own invites to it, and people have since used the invites... So it does work. However I'm sure some people will inevitably abuse it to register many accounts. So it goes.

I would much rather give my invites to wikipedia contributors than random people who might just sell them, so if you still need a gmail account (and you have an edit history on wikipedia) email me and I'll send you one. ~leif ☺ _HELO 20:37, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have three Gmail invites to anybody who wants them. Drop an email--Lucky13pjn 01:15, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

My invites are long since gone, but when and if I get more I will send them to anyone who wants them. This time, I will update here :P.--Lucky13pjn 15:35, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

See bottom of page.--Lucky13pjn 18:35, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

I have 6 (I update this when I give/receive an invite) to give. Drop an email--GatesPlusPlus 13:31, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Invites available. — Jeandré, 2004-12-14t22:37z

• I have 50 invites, open to anyone who wants one. Just leave a message on my talk page. --M412k 03:33, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not a chatroom or discussion forum

New features

There are now some new features in Gmail that should be added to the page. More information can be found from Gmail Help Center
d2s 20:23, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

new images

i put some new images of gmail in a tarball here, just chop off the ogg extension i inserted to get around the upload limit. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 23:13, 2004 Oct 14 (UTC)

DomainKeys

Gmail is the first major provider to sign outgoing mails with Yahoo!'s DomainKeys signatures.

So does that mean that Gmail beat Yahoo in using these DomainKeys, or should after Yahoo! themselves be added to the sentence?--Lucky13pjn 02:06, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think Yahoo is using them, also, I don't think it's been confirmed (officially) that Gmail is using them, but I could be wrong. Dori | Talk 02:07, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

I believe GMail is using them since I see DomainKeys headers in email I receive from Gmail accountsNikita Borisov 21:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Gmail POP3

Just reading on the help page of my Gmail account, and POP3 access was just announced...

POP access is free for all Gmail users and we have no plans to charge. 
Over the next several weeks, we are introducing POP access to all of our users. To make sure the feature is fully stable,
we're giving users access to POP in phases. Once POP access is available to you, a 'New Features!' link appears at the top
of your account, along with a 'Forwarding and POP' tab on your 'Settings' page.

It is beeing enabled for all the users (according to Google) it will take a while. It works for me and a couple of friends... --Matteo 08:42, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

Invites

I will give one invite to the first Misplaced Pages user with more than 50 edits to leave a message on my talk page.--] 18:02, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

New ones:

https://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-6e6b1db5af-b6db6f1b4d-fcee432502

https://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-6e6b1db5af-00a4480586-ba27c9c2b5

https://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-6e6b1db5af-3456e8798a-b0b6c46c99

https://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-6e6b1db5af-f5a1d831bc-bf8bff3979

Dori | Talk 03:35, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

I have six invites available. Drop an email. --Lucky13pjn 18:35, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

Gave em away to an automatic invite distributor since nobody wanted them.--Lucky13pjn 22:01, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

I have 4 invitation to give. Like Dori, I will strike out this line once all of them are sent. -- Taku 16:30, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

• I have five. Leave me a message on my talk page if you want one... —OvenFresh☺ 19:04, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• I have one to go to anyone who created a 250+ word article about any arts or entertainment topic in the last two months. Drop by my talk page and tell me what it is. -- user:zanimum

____

Misplaced Pages is not a chatroom or discussion forum.

Please make use of Misplaced Pages and use one of the sites listed to trade invites.--Theaterfreak64 03:44, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

It's a talk page, it doesn't hurt anybody. Dori | Talk 04:17, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

unfounded???

"because of both its close proximity to April 1, 2004 and the 1 gigabyte limit of storage space. The former was unfounded and false; the latter went on".

I'm pretty sure that March 31st actually is pretty close to April fools day. To say that this statement if false is just nuts. -Lethe | Talk

---

Hey Lethe:

I created that sentence that you are referring to. For reference, here is the full entry:

"There was speculation that this announcement was an April Fool's joke, however, because of both its close proximity to April 1, 2004 and the 1 gigabyte limit of storage space. The former was unfounded and false; the latter went on to spur competition with other webmail providers."

I originally meant that the 'former' (speculation that GMail was an Apri Fool's Joke) turned out to be unfounded and not true; I didn't mean to state that March 31st is not in close proximity to April 1st. I agree with your revision though, and I think it's a better sentence than mine.

Rajiv Varma

Hm, OK, perhaps I was a bit hasty and harsh to call the sentence nutty, now that I see what it was supposed to mean. Even when I see what the original sentence was supposed to mean, I have some complaints, so I'm glad you like the new sentence better. Of course, feel free to make any improvements. -Lethe | Talk 09:58, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

Up to 50 Invites?!?!

I, and a lot of other GMail users on the Gamefaqs message boards just got uped to 50 invites!

I'm going to post 10 on my user page, and it's first come, first serve!

There's speculation that this means they're almost ready to go public; the Google results are illuminating. —Charles P.  09:27, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Great, just great! I send out about 12 of my 50, and just now, GMail bumps me back up to 50... GMails getting real crazy here. Send EMail to tconxi@gmail.com if you want one. --- T ConX

50 available

Big mailbox trends

Is it worth while listing competitors who offer large mailboxes? Is there any major competitors who still offer < (say) 20mb?--Will2k 04:53, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

Mentioning this again so I can catch anyone who may have missed the above before. I will assume that no response implies the section is set to be drastically reduced.--Will2k 05:01, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, there are: Hotmail. I can hear you saying "but Hotmail offers its members 250MB". Well, it may offer some of its members (an elite few, I would say) those 250MB, but most of us still have the initial 2MB. So I think it does count as a major competitor without a large mailbox. --Fibonacci 23:27, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Attatchment extensions

I think it might be worth adding to the article that GMail will not allow people to attach .exe or .dll to e-mails. And they even scan zip files for these extensions.

Whereas other e-mail services will scan the files for viruses themselves. I'm an avid GMail user, but also a programmer, and the disallowing of exe and dll has been somewhat of an annoyance. - Ferretgames 14:16, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also .mdb(Microsoft Access Database) files. --ElfWord 06:53, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

And mp3 files? Lethe | Talk

Oh yeah, I forgot about mdb. I'm pretty sure it does allow mp3 though. - Ferretgames 08:09, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

mp3's are allowed. I mailed myself a few a couple weeks ago without problem.--Lucky13pjn 12:55, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Can you just encrypt the file? I don't think they would bother to decipher it. -- Taku 18:31, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

What about simply renaming the file extension for transmission? Or does it identify the file type? TimothyPilgrim 15:38, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

I hear your concern, but an inconvenience for a small set of programmers is a small price to pay for the inconvenience it will cost thousands of more (idiot) users. Would be nice to set filtering exe, pif, bat, etc on by default and allow it to be disabled on a user by user basis--Will2k 05:04, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)

scam attempt

Has this obvious scam attempt turned up anywhere else? (I've already notified gmail-abuse@google.com about it, so I imagine the account will be shut down soon.) If so, maybe we ought to report it in the article. —Charles P.  03:31, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Moving keyboard shortcuts & webmail services list

I'm cleaning up this article right now (I probably will be for the next few days). Would anyone object to my moving the list of keyboard shortcuts to a new article and putting the list of other webmail servies somewhere else? Starwiz

Everyone gets an account?

I just got an email this morning from the Gmail Team. Because I signed up in April to be "updated on the latest Gmail happenings" I got sent an invitation from the Gmail Team. Does this mean everybody who signed up is getting an invitation? - sik0fewl 16:06, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I also received a similar invitation thanks to entering my email address to be updated. Means I have 51 to give away now. - Lucky13pjn 17:40, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)

I recieved two invites from The Gmail Team. One of them was to my Hotmail account which I thought blocked them. What's even more weird is I didn't use my Hotmail account as a secondary e-mail when I signed up for Gmail. BRO_co03 15:51, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

I wonder - did you send yourself a test email to/from the hotmail account from/to gmail? I.e. is your hotmail account in your gmail address book? If that's the case, maybe they're trawling through everyone's address books to generate invites. -- John Fader (talk · contribs) 16:51, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yeah I do have my Hotmail address in my Gmail contacts. That's probably how they got it. --BRO_co03 20:24, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

Going public

does anyone think that Google will never really make Gmail "public" but spreading it on the invite basis, so that no bogus spam accounts are created, everyone will invite more people, who will in turn invite more, and so on. Wikipedian231 13:08, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How will that stop spam accounts? Right now, I can give myself 50 additional addresses, and then 50 more apiece from each of those. Yes, it's traceable, but suddenly, I've got an unlimited number of email accounts all for myself. TimothyPilgrim 17:32, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

Incomplete sentence

What up with this sentence? While this is still the case, most Gmail users have multiple invites to spare, as Google has lately been giving quite a few of these out. Invites can be obtained at. I don't really know what's supposed to be after the cutoff, otherwise I would fix it. Someone who knows please do Preisler 18:10, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Google Gone Wild

If any one has checked out http://gmail.google.com you will see that Google seems to be out of control and is increasing their storage amount gradually. Since it's April 1 does anyone think this is another hoax like their Moon base, or is it real like Gmail? --BRO_co03 15:52, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

In what's becoming Gmail tradition, it's a joke, and it's real. ;) They are really moving to 2 GB for all accounts. http://www.google.com/gmail/help/whatsnew.html

Excellent! I like that little counter that they have going at the login page. I think it is supposed to stop sometime around 8:00 am tomorrow. --BRO_co03 21:36, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

The counter will stop at 2075M on 9:00 AM, April 9. Try change the time setting of your computer. The number on the counter changes accordingly... Zikari 01:59, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Scrap that idea! OMG, this is out of control! -- user:zanimum

It seems that, at the current rate, Gmail will hit 3000 MB on New Year's Day.

How many users on gmail

Greetings:

Where can I find statistics pertaining to the number of users currently on gmail network?

142.106.62.76 19:06, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

verbiage from article

I timed the 4th digit after the decimal place and it seems to increase by one every 3 seconds. Assuming that there is 1000 kilo byes in a megabyte, the 4th digit represents 0.1 of a kilobyte or 100 bytes every three seconds, therefore my conclusion of 33.3 bytes per second.

I know this is the most inprecise way to do it. I am sure some aspiring mathematician will use the proper definition of how many kilobyes in a megabyte and the same for the bytes in a kilobyte (something to do with base 2, go wiki it) and do a better job on measuring the rate of change as well.

So some preliminary conclusions based on the 33.3 bytes per second

1) Every Day: 2.877MB 2) Every Week: 20.1398MB 3) Every Month: 80.5MB 4) Every Year: 966.712MB

Note: all these are very approximate.

The JavaScript on the login page puts the capacity at 2450 megabytes on midnight, August 1, 2005, and 2550 on midnight, September 1, 2005. The JavaScript figures out what the capacity should be right now, based on the current time and a constant linear rate. Assuming Google keeps that pace, and assuming that representation is reflected in the real capacity, it's increasing at 100MB each month. Exactly. Jtamboli

isnoop gone?

is it just temporary or did the isnoop spooler stop for good. as i write this, i cant get to isnoop.net. hopefully it is temporary.

i also heard that yahoo and hotmail are starting to block invites.

O praise be to google

O Praise be to Google
With its Gigabytes of Storage
And the Conversational Threads Therein
Shalt Make the World a Better Place

142.106.62.76 16:12, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

competition

I moved most of the "competition" section to the Webmail article. be bold and all that. --DavidCary 14:22, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

plus (+)

The majority of email services support the plussed-user plus-sign addressing technique. So rather than discuss it only in the Gmail article (or worse, re-hash the discussion in the article for each email service provider), could we make a separate article for it ? What would be a good name for the article ? I imagine we'll have several redirects, since I've seen it called variously:

• "Plus-Addressing"
• "plus sign technique" ( http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SpamMail )
• "plussed user" ( http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/3/24/22222/2368 )

--DavidCary 14:22, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Plus-addressing

Gmail also supports "plus-addressing" of emails. Messages can be sent to addresses in the form: gmail.user+extratext@gmail.com where extratext can be any string. (...) Plus-addressing even works when sending email from a Gmail account to itself.

Does that work for every one here? I have tried it, and does not work properly - I sent a message to myself using plus-addressing (with a two-letter extratext, by the way), and it did not arrive until I sent another message to myself without plus-addressing. I sent then another message to the first address (+extratext), about half an hour ago, and I'm still waiting for it to arrive. Does anyone else have this problem? --Fibonacci 23:45, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Multi-language support picture: Unicode

Is anyone able to identify the language in the picture that demonstrates Gmail's multi-language support? We should label it properly, and change the name of the image from "gmail.jpg" to something a little more descriptive. Starwiz 00:41, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

It's Japanese. --Pmsyyz 02:02, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Duh; I should have checked the description. In any case, it's all fixed now: New filename, new description.

It would be really nifty to have several different languages in the screenshot. Also, consider using .png PNG for screenshots, to get better quality than .jpg JPEG).

Does Gmail handle Unicode properly ? Unicode and Email. I've heard rumors that the "subject" lines sometimes get messed up, but I don't know how to verify. --DavidCary 17:47, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

For me, I sended thousands of Japanese emails, and received thousands as well, it supports Japanese characters perfectly, so there should be no problems with subejcts lines. It's probably your computer don't have the support. --Yamamoto Ichiro 8 July 2005 03:29 (UTC)

Giant advert for Gmail and Google

I think this article is too long and too in depth. It doesn't need to be. It reads like one gigantic advert for Gmail and presents it though all issues surrounding the service have been unanimously settled.

It needs to be much shorter and sharper, demonstrating a clear, descriptive neutrality, not one long feature set.

Cool

Remember, Misplaced Pages is not paper. It is fine for articles to be quite long. But please feel free to correct any POV bits you see. --Pmsyyz

Spam

There is a comment about independent studies from May 2004 but no reference. Is this verifiable? Trödel|talk 14:43, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't know. I doubt that it is. Personally, I would grade Gmail's spam filter of being 98% accurate, because it is very rare that I get spam in the inbox, or normal messages in the spam folder.

EliasAlucard|Talk 17:29, 27 May, 2005 (UTC)

Free Gmail Promo is down, but may be back again

I noticed the free Gmail Promo when you type "gmail" in Google's search bar is gone. See here. It may come back, however, so but don't be upset. I actually noticed my edit about the promo when i searched for "Gmail wikipedia" in Google's Web Search, so they may have gotten wise to it and shut it off. Anyway, don't forgot about the Free Gmail accounts project for non-robots and non-evil non-corporations project from User:RobKohr. (My name, not his.) 8^) I was already going to make a similar page myself, but since he already made one, why not use his? Also, if you really need an account, walk onto the campus of any technical college (or regular college even) in the United States and ask random students to give you an invite. I bet atleast one out of every three students will have a Gmail account. Trust me on this one. ;^) -Hyad 05:53, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

I release now that free Gmail promo appears only on random IP addresses when you search for "gmail" on google. It was on my computer for a few days before it went away. For example, it was on my home computer from July 11 (but probably earlier) to July 15 and now it's gone. However, when I log onto this remote Unix machine using Cygwin/X, the promo does appear in Firefox. Don't think that by searching for "gmail" 1000 times improves your odds by 1000. Once you see the promo, it's going to still be there the next time you search for "gmail" (atleast for a few days anyway). Also, the browser you're using doesn't matter either. In the mean time, if you're still one of those people who doesn't have Gmail, and the promo doesn't appear with this link, you can now go to bytetest.com. They are giving away free Gmail accounts just like Isnoop.net was doing (atleast until they run out or get shut down). -Hyad 22:09, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Inviting others

I just got Gmail. How long does it take to be able to invite others? ‡ Jarlaxle 23:54, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Instantly! Open your mail by going to gmail.google.com. Log in, then look on the left hand side. You'll see "Inbox", "Labels", and "Invite a friend". You know that last one, well enter the person's email address into the box and add click "Send Invite" and, bingo, you're done! I think the image to the right (or above depending on your resolution) might help. You get 50 invites, but i think they "refill" after a while, or so I've heard. BTW, anyone want to update this Gmail picture here. A newer version with the "Invite a friend" heading included might be better. -Hyad 03:28, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, but for me, the "Invite a friend" box isn't included for some reason. The page that I get looks exactly like this one, except on the bottom, mine is copyrighted 2005 instead of 2004. ‡ Jarlaxle 21:23, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

D'oh! It talks about it here. That really sucks. ‡ Jarlaxle 03:03, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Wow, I didn't realize that. I just checked. I have 3 gmail accounts that I signed up for back in April 2005. With 2 of them, my main one, and my other email account, Gmail gave me 50 invites each. But with my third one, they didn't give me any, just like yours. I think they are "randomly distributed" based on how much space they have free on their servers. So if they are running out of space, they may not be giving too many people the 50 invites. But the longer you have your gmail account, the more likely you are to get randomly chosen to give invites. That's why I've heard of people's invites being "refilled" back to 50 - they were randomly selected twice. For now, if you are reading this and you have 50 invites, but want more, I'd suggest inviting yourself to a few new accounts and until you get one with another 50 invites. I have created a tally (see below) to see what percentage of people have invites or no invites.-Hyad 03:50, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

50 Invites or No Invites Tally

This is just a relatively unscientific tally to see approximately what percentage of people have got 50 Gmail invites to give or no Gmail invites to give (see the section above). Put a "1" down if you have started with 50 invites next to "50 Invites" and put "1" next to "No Invites" if you have no invites to give. I have 3 Gmail accounts, 2 with 50 invites, 1 with no invites; they are marked below. If you got 50 invites, but used some or even all of them up, you still put a "1" next to "50 Invites". If you do not have a Gmail account, do not mark anything - here's how to get one one, follow this link. -Hyad 03:50, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

• 50 Invites:XRR
• No Invites:11X

Notes:

• If you start off with no invites and then get randomly selected to give 50 invites and already put a "1" down next to "No Invites" - erase your "1" next to "No Invites" and put an "X" in it's place; then put a "1" next to "50 Invites".
• If you know you started off with no invites and then got randomly selected to give 50 invites and haven't put anything down so far, put an "X" next to "No Invites" and and "1" next to "50 Invites". It's just like above, except you aren't erasing anything.
• If your account was refilled back to 50 invites, in addition to the initial "1" next to "50 Invites", add the letter "R" next to the "50 Invites" for each time your account was refilled.

I started my Gmail account on May 13, 2005 with no invites and got 50 invites on May 28, 2005. Furthermore, I got a refill in early- or mid-July 2005. How many days did other people wait before they got 50 invites? - Mhwu 06:08, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

I used 7 of my 50 invites on July 15, 2005. I noticed them refilled on July 23, 2005. So that's 8 days - pretty quick. By the way, the account I still don't have any invites in only has one email in the Inbox. Perhaps they give your invites or refill them based (in part) on how much you use your account. They said it's "random" - I'm not totally sure on that. -Hyad 07:00, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

• Old requests for peer review