Google is always come up with new innovative ideas with their products. They wanted to make things simple and easy yet amazing. As you know, Google  has launched an innovative feature collection in Gmail called Gmail Labs, in June 2008 with  13 features.

Gmail team wanted to do experiments with mail and come up with new valuable features to the entire Gmail users, That’s why! These Gmail Labs can be access by clicking the Setting link on the right corner of your Account, and click on the Labs tab item.

Where you can find really nice description about Gmail Labs, which goes like this,

Google Mail Labs is a testing ground for experimental features that aren’t quite ready for primetime. They may change,break or disappear at any time.

If (when) a Labs feature breaks and you’re having trouble loading your inbox, there’s an escape hatch. Use https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0.

There are lots of cool features presently available in the Gmail Labs and since, I am very likely use some of them with my account, which are worth a use. I wanted to share those features with you.

Inserting images

When I wanted to make an email with havin the image embedded in the mail was an difficult task, where I used to run my Thunderbird email client and attach my image to the mail . But, when Gmail Labs introduced “Inserting images” feature was mind blowing for me. That was long waited feature of myself. Boy its very easy now! It Allows me to insert images into a message body. I can upload and insert image files from my computer or even insert images by URIs, awesome!

Title Tweaks

I used to open lots of tabs in my browser when I wanted to search for something, this feature allows me to see my number of emails that I have unread in the inbox on the title bar, even in very tiny tabs’ title. Simply it just changes the orders of the elements in the title bar. So, I can see the tab and find if I have any new mails, even when the Gmail tab minimixed. Sounds cool right?

Undo Send

This is somewhat Life Saver feature. Sometimes I forget to mention the some important links or something in my mail. But this feature allows to get the email back within 5 seconds (I reckon) and add the links or whatever and send to the receiver. This is how this feature described at Gmail Labs page, “Oops, hit “Send” too soon? Stop messages from being sent for a few seconds after hitting the send button.”

Mark as Read button

Sometimes we recieve some mails, that we don’t want to open to see what it is in the mail, because those obviously come from some magazines and site that we have subcribed already. To mark a message as read I have to click on the “More Actions” drop down menu all the time to select “Mark as Read” in Gmail. But, now I have cool button on my inbox where I got it by enabling the Mark as Read button in Gmail Labs. Now it just a button click away!

Custom Label Colours

We always wanted to have diversity in almost everything. It can be anything, so as Labels in Gmail. This feature gives me the freedom to choose the colours for my Label. Where I can create my custom colours by picking combination of colours. Thats lovely and looks fantastic.

Sender Time Zone

I don’t want to explain about this feature, Gmail Labs has description is self-explanatory. “Should I reply to this mail or just call the guy? Oops… it’s 1 am. Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb…” You got it right?

Random Signature

I used to state “Say you can and you will” – a quote in my every email I sent. With the Gmail Labs’ Random signature I can send variety of quotes in every single email I sent to people I care most, I contact. This is an awesome feature, sometimes it gives me inspiration by the way. Worth a use with your Gmail account. I greatly recommend for some inspiration.

Signature tweaks

This is something I really wait for. Before this feature introduced in Gmail Labs, I used to move my signature to before the quoted text in my reply from bottom of the message. And this just removes the crazy ‘–’ in front of your signature. Sounds cool ha..?

Offline

No matter what email service you use, that you can’t do anything without Internet connectivity. But, for the very first time you can access the emails even when you are in offline, by enabling the amazing feature – Offline Gmail. You can do lots of things while you were in Offiline, this video describes about it very well. Just watch it.

Pictures in chat

Just see the profile image of your friend, when you chat with them on the Gmail intergrated Chat feature. Just add some flavour to user interaction. Nice though.

These features allow me to have my routine task using Gmail as simple and fine. It means adding some boost to productivity. Technology always comes to play a major role in making things work for us in a good and better manner to enhance the efficiency and productivity, so as Gmail Labs. What are the favourite features of yours in Gmail Labs?

Here I am going to list what I like most in terms of new Ubuntu 9.04 version, which is I am currently using in my laptop with Windows Vista.

Tip: You can install the Ubuntu as an application in Windows Vista using handy Wubi application, which is very smart, easy and powerful. It takes only 15 minutes to set up Ubuntu and run on your system as an operating system, while you get no worried about losing any of your file or setting on Windows Vista.

First things first, I was really amazed at the boot time that Ubuntu has consume to start in my computer. Its phenomenal. That was great boost for this new version. If I am not wrong, It just took me around 20 seconds to boot. Amazing boy! Fastest boot time ever, I reckon.

Other nice feature that I felt love with Ubuntu new version was ‘Mac like notifications’ on the top right corner, with a nice chime sound. It gave me feeling that I am using a Macbook Pro. Stunning feature. Since, the notifications haven’t got any different model from each other, thus sometimes it bit confusing, where these notifications come from and which application is related to it.

Always I love the Pidgin IM, which comes with Ubuntu. Pidgin IM was a really great tool to connect to friends and family in one place no matter what IM service they use. This application was good at working and making things better.

A Computer Janitor program has been added to the System menu. This is to help clear-up cruft, such as old packages that are no longer needed. But, I don’t think it’ll going make big difference in terms of organizing the applications in Ubuntu.

To remove old packages, simply type,

sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove

at the command-line executing the Terminal in Ubuntu.

System Monitor that incorporated with Ubuntu was fantastic as always, and it gives most information at a glance. The graphical visual presentation of graphs and data are simply superb.

Since the new features come with Ubuntu 9.04 was really simple and smart. As a whole, day by day Ubuntu gets in to its aspiration to become a source of human friendly linux agent of all time.

Ubuntu getting better on and on and on. We can wait for some ground making features coming up with upcoming 9.10 version.