gDrive takes file storage and GMail to the next level. Based on the popular libgmailer, it offers a PHP web interface with the following features:

- upload / download files of any size
- delete files
- keep regular emails in the same account
- compresses uploaded files
- displays space remaining
- send files to other gMail accounts (*)
- forward stored files to other gMail accounts (*)

(*) requires other accounts to use this gDrive feature

The web page also mentions some possible future features such as a “shareit” link. This would allow you to upload a 200mb file and then generate a link that will allow others to download the file without actually accessing your GMail account. This should get interesting…

Best of all, the source is available for your private use.

Source: gDrive

I don’t know what’s up with this - Firefox Office. I found the link in an add at the top of Yahoo when I searched for gmail drive. These guys want to sell me OpenOffice, Firefox, and G-Drive for $29.95. Although I am a little unclear as to the exact nature of G-Drive, I do know that OpenOffice and Firefox are available for download free. That leaves us with G-Drive - for $29.95. I also have it on good authority that you can download Gmail Drive (Windows) or GMailFS (Linux) for free. Of course, they do promise a “new approach to office productivity” and they will include all this great (free) software on a CD and ship it to your home or office. Do they provide a GMail invite? Possibly… but you can always get one for free from the GMail Invite Spooler.

In the same spirit I am running a special this year!

AimlessOffice - You can take your office productivity to new highs!

Due to the amazing price of AimlessOffice I can’t send you a CD and I can’t provide support but you can download these products for free from the original source vendors. You can also get support from the original authors of the software so all you are really missing is a CD. Of course, you can always crank up Nero and burn a CD!

OpenOffice
Firefox
Gmail Drive (Windows)
GMailFS (Linux)
Free GMail Invite - act fast only 300,000 invites left!

and if you act now I will throw in an awesome mail program for free - Thunderbird!

* I’m all for capitalism. I simply question the value of this offer. It seems to me that nothing of added value is available beyond a CD with 3 free pieces of software and a free GMail invite (maybe.)

Looks like we are getting closer to the general release of GMail. I am on the signup list mentioned by akaDruid below but I have not received an invite as of yet…

Just thought you might be interested, for your blog.  Gmail has gone semi-public by emailing invites to the mailing list they had on the front page for a long time.  You can’t sign up to it anymore (not that I can see anyway) but it used to say something along the lines of ‘enter your email address to be told about updates to Gmail’.

More Info: akaDruid’s text dump of the invitation from Google

You know this has to be keeping Bill up at night. I mean, he paid hundreds of millions of dollars for HotMail back in the day. My GMail account is up to 200MB. How fat is yours?

Between 52 to 56 percent of customers switching to Gmail came from a Hotmail address each month, said Return Path. This compares to only 24 to 34 percent being from a Yahoo account. The rest of Return Path’s clients were switching from MSN, AOL and Comcast, though at much smaller numbers.

(Via BetaNews.)

Die Wikipedia, DIE! But seriously, die.

Since the day I discovered Wikipedia, I have been a user and sometimes even a contributor but WP’s adoption of rel=”nofollow” has made me reassess my undying support and love of WP. Sure, WP has a SPAM problem. We all do. By adopting NOFOLLOW, they have ceded the war to the spammers. I am only one man but I deal with the trackback and comment SPAM on aimlesswords.com as part of the cost of being part of the web. On average I receive 280 SPAMs, per week. They have dozens of active volunteers and thousands of occasional volunteers. They can handle the SPAM issue with “breaking” the web by making all WP links NOFOLLOW. Seems to me they are just being lazy:

The good boys and girls at webmasterworld are discussing member MulitMan’s personal observations that some Wikipedia pages are suffering dramatic loss of rankings.

The surmise is that the addition of nofollow to all outgoing links within hours of the announcement is the cause, with the requisite “no evidence whatsoever” rule strictly adhered too heh.. My feelings remain the same however, i see nofollow as an insult to the intelligence of webmasters and a barely veiled attempt to quell the rising whine of bloggers by saying “well, we did try…”

(Via Threadwatch.org - Search & SEO/SEM.)

Also, an article about the guy responsible for many of Google’s doodles: Google Doodles

There are a few lite implementations available on the web for GMail but this has to be the most attractive (at least when viewed from a desktop browser. Pocket GMail offers a version of GMail formatted for PDA-sized screens and although Pocket GMail is setup to graphically represent a Pocket PC device, it can be viewed from any PDA browser of the correct size. Best of all, the source is available so you can setup the system on your own server and feel comfortable about entering your account ID and password! Pocket GMail is based on libGMail.

Source: Pocket GMail

The beauty of GMail is illustrated on many levels. One of the more exciting aspects of GMail is that it is CSS-based and can look different than Google intended. To pull this off you will need to use Firefox and will need to get your hands on a custom stylesheet built specifically to modify GMail’s appearance.

The following article is a great introduction to GMail skinning: Skinning GMail

I have updated the free offers page to include several of the new programs from the free offers companies Gratis and OfferCentric. Additions include:

Gratis - added iPod Shuffle offer, added Mac mini offer, added game systems offer.

OfferCentric - added iPod Shuffle offer, added Mac mini offer, added digital cameras offer, added notebook computer offer, added Nintendo DS offer.

Check it out here: Free Offers

Hmmm, yes and the value of web-based services is that people won’t lose their mail when their local hard-drive goes south. And that a person’s email is available anywhere, anytime as long as a web connection is available unlike local mail databases. Plus, GMail has that awesome search! BBC also has a great rundown of the top services in the U.S. and Europe:

Web-based e-mail services like Hotmail, Yahoo!, Gmail and AOL Mail on the Web are becoming databases by default as a growing number of people use them, to store data and photos so they can retrieve them from anywhere.

(Via BBC.)