Last week we looked at Gmail’s General Settings.  As a result of your emails, today we move on to Gmail Labels.

You get to Labels the same way you got to General Settings last week.  You must first be logged into your Gmail account (gmail.com).  Then look to the upper right corner and hover the little "gear" icon.  It should say "Settings". If not, keep hovering until you find it.  Now click it, then "Settings."  Finally, click on the second tab, "Labels."

I think Gmail received a lot of grief because of calling them labels instead of folders because when they first created them no one understood…except for us geeks.  My guess is that in recent times Google has added, "Folders" to their icons at the top of the screen where you can "put" an email to calm everyone down.

The difference between folders in Gmail and other apps is that if you label it from your inbox, it will also have an "Inbox" label and stay in your inbox.  However, when you move it to a folder, it is removed from your inbox.  But guess what, if you move it back from the "folder" you still need to remove the label…too confusing for me, so I suggest playing in Gmail and using the one you like the best.

The only thing I don’t like about Labels (which is my own learning situation) is that if you delete an email with a label of Jokes and it is also marked with the Family label it is deleted from everywhere, not just from that label.  You should remove the label to get it "out of the folder" by selecting the email, clicking the label icon and unchecking the label you want to remove.

Tags: computer, Email, folders, Gmail, google, inbox, internet mail, labels, online, Ron Doyle, software, technology, whim, wife jokes

I receive questions similar to the one I got from Donna recently.  It involves something that sounds quite important in picking an e-book reader so let’s take a look and see. 

I own a Toshiba Thrive which is not actually an e-reader but I can also read books on it, so it will qualify.  My wife owns a Barnes & Noble Color Nook.

This question always involves, "which e-book reader can hold the most books?" 

For our two, the Nook advertises that it can hold around five to six thousand e-books.  It seems that all of them can hold at least three thousand and then it goes up from there.  My Thrive could probably hold that many and maybe two or more times that amount.  I’m guessing here, but I really don’t want to find out since I would have to buy a lot of books.  Yes, I know I can get the e-books and add them to my tablet but again, why?

Now all numbers given by manufacturers can vary in either direction from what they say.  No, they aren’t lying but it also depends on how many other items you store on them.  All but the purest e-readers have the ability to add other applications to them.  Those apps take up room too. 

It also gets a little more complicated as far as numbers.  If you buy a book from B&N, Amazon or anywhere else, you do not "have" to download them to your e-reader (no matter which one it is) until you are ready to read it.  You can leave it in your online "library."

I am amused by the advertising which says you can hold 3,000 – 12,000 (plus or minus) books on the various readers because, well, why would a person want to?

Do some math here. If you are my age, in my 50s, you wouldn’t have enough years left to read 3,000 books. 

If you have 3,000 books on your e-reader, pretend you read one book a week per year.  We will also say that you skip two weeks a year and don’t read due to vacation, health, etc.  That would be 3000/50.  The answer is that it will take you 60 years to complete your reading.  If your e-reader will hold 5,000 books, that would yield 100 years of reading.  I hate to be negative here, but I do not believe that the majority of us will make it that long.

These numbers are just a wonderful marketing ploy.  Most people just download a couple of recent purchases and save the rest until they finish the others.  Once a book is read you can remove it from your e-reader and it is still kept in the B&N/Amazon account for you to download and reread later if you want to.

Have a great time no matter which you finally settle on.

Tags: amazon, apps, barnes and noble, books, ebook reader, ebooks, ereader, library, math, online, reading, Ron Doyle, toshiba

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Last week we talked about the top online email programs.  Today I will discuss the top two I have heard about from readers and others in the area.

Although, Yahoo! Mail was listed as number one around the world, those I have heard from put Gmail and Windows Live Mail as their favorites.  Mine is not a very scientific poll since I used emails from you all and asked people I work with.  Keep in mind, the majority of my coworkers are geeks which could be skewing the results. 

Windows Live Mail (WLM from here on out) has two different address formats.  In 1996 there was Hotmail.com.  Then in 2005 Microsoft decided to revamp the name and add more functionality so Live Mail was born. Therefore, if you have an older account you have a "hotmail.com" address, while the newer members have "live.com" as their address.  Being the geek tester that I am, I have one of each but rarely use either.

With Gmail everyone has the same domain in their address.  They are all formatted as, name@gmail.com.  Gmail started in 2004 by invitation only and then went public for everyone in 2007. 

WLM  will very shortly (maybe by the time you read this) be expanding storage on the site to 25GB.  They will allow this for email and all other types of files with their "Live Sky Drive" app.  Gmail started out with 1 GB of storage and continues to expand daily.  It is now at approximately 7.5 GB.  The issue I have with Gmail is that the storage is not contained in one location.

As stated above Gmail provides an ever increasing 7.5 GB of storage for email only.  Google’s Picasa Web Albums offers 1 GB of storage for photos and videos only. Google Docs gives you 1 GB for everything else; all of your docs, spreadsheets, presentations etc.  You should know this free storage is not transferable from one product or application to another.  My belief is that Google will be merging them together sooner or later. It will most likely be sooner, once Microsoft finishes rolling out their 25 GB.

Both WLM and Gmail offer calendars, address books and more online.  One very important factor is that it is all free.  Of course, both offer upgrades in storage size for a charge.  The basics should be more than enough for the average user.

After doing a review of the two I found that even though I exclusively use Gmail; Live Mail has a lot to offer.  Of course, there is Google Voice but more on that another time.

Tags: applications, Email, Gmail, live mail, microsoft, online, yahoo

First today I would like to thank all of you who read and applied what you learned from last week’s column.  It was regarding the cloud storage platform Dropbox.com.  Because some of you used the link I mentioned, I gained an additional 2 GB of storage.  They have a maximum of 8 GB allowed free so if you still wish to sign up and haven’t yet, this is still a good link, http://bit.ly/aszzao.

No, I don’t really need that much cloud storage but it is a fun experiment…so thanks again to those of you who registered!

I gave you all a link several weeks ago that generated a lot of email, bit.ly/965cg3.  It is a scrabble-like game site called, “SSCrabble”.  I am sure the naming is due to copyright issues.  Many of you wanted to know other games or gaming sites I regularly visit.  Well, I hate to sound like an old curmudgeon but I don’t game as much as I used to in the last century.

I stopped buying gaming consoles when they changed too often to the latest and greatest and my old games were no longer playable.  So, “No” I don’t have an Xbox or any of the latest.  I gave up somewhere after the Atari 5200, Nintendo (NES) and the Sega Genesis.  I finally put them in a garage sale with all the Mario games and stopped trying to keep up. 

For a while I bought a few PC games but found that unless you upgraded your computer to the fastest and best, the newest games were unplayable.  I think my favorite PC games were the Myst series and Morrowwind.  I still have both and occasionally fire one up.

I play a couple of other online games now.  I wrote about Evony.com last year, which too time-consuming so I quit that one.  Today I wanted to mention a couple I occasionally play, just to relax sometimes.

One that I like is called, “Defense” at bit.ly/cQoWtu (shortened link for space).  You set up an arrangement of armament to defend your area from attack by land and air.  There are many games at the main site and when you get there and see the link, chop off all but the “.com” part to see them.  The main site is onemorelevel.com.  I will shorten the others here too.

Next is, “Dogfight”, bit.ly/agxQ35 think WWI.  

Last but not least (my favorite actually) is, “Double Wires” at bit.ly/cy0uEj, which plays best in MSIE.  Once you get there you should get a gangly Spiderman type guy who jumps around a lot.  If you get to the main ‘onemorelevel.com’ page you may need to go to DoubleClicks.info and type in the actual link which I will post here  (www.themaninblue.com/experiment/SSCrabble).  You can find a mass of games are at miniclip.com too.

Have fun gaming!  Let me know if you like any of these and tell me your favorites.

Tags: cloud, games, online