Have you got an iPhone and a Gmail account? If so, you're probably using IMAP, and you may not even realize it. What's IMAP? It's an email protocol that has been around for many years, but is not nearly as well known as its counterpart, POP.

First, the definitions:

POP, or POP3: Post Office Protocol 3, the most commonly used email protocol for retrieving remote email to a local client over a TCP/IP connection.

IMAP, or IMAP4: Internet Message Access Protocol, an email protocol for accessing email on a remote server using a local client over a TCP/IP connection.

While the two definitions seem very similar, take note of the difference. POP is used for retrieving email to the local client, whereas IMAP is used to access email located on a remote server.

When you use POP, your email comes in to you local client, and typically the remote version is purged. There is no concept of multiple clients having identical synchronized versions of your inbox and email folders.

When you use IMAP, your email actually lives on a remote server, and is not purged. You can access it with a local client, which downloads a copy of your messages, and synchronizes the contents of your local mail store to that of the server's. Changes that you make locally are reflected on the server, and if you wanted to you could connect with another device or email client that is capable of IMAP, and you will see exactly the same thing - all of your messages in your inbox and other folders will reflect exactly what is on the server.

Sounds pretty great, right? Well, yes. Most of us probably have some hardcore geek friend that has been extolling the virtues of IMAP for years, only to have it fall on deaf ears. Most of us have either never had the need for such synchronization, or have not had an IMAP capable mail provider.

Checking multiple accounts is just a fact of life for many users. Log into a Yahoo account, then switch over to Gmail, then off to Facebook. Fuser aims to make things a little easier.

With Fuser, users can check multiple email accounts and social networks from one place and with one interface. Emails can be pulled in, read and replied to from popular email apps like Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail and SquirrelMail as well as POP and IMAP emails and such social networks as MySpace and Facebook with a single login.

There is no limit to the number of email and social network accounts you tie into Fuser. All emails can be sent to one inbox, or the application can be set up so that incoming mail can be better organized through folders. As for security, Fuser does not store any of your emails. It simply views them. So if you delete an email from your regular email account, it is deleted in Fuser. All information is stored in encrypted databases, including passwords, usernames and any information that is transmitted.

Fuser is a great way to streamline emails, and a real timesaver if you find yourself switching between a number of locations.

[via TechCrunch]

In today's multi-device, always-connected world, one has to wonder how loud the call for Gmail to do IMAP has to get before Google pulls their head out of their ass server room and flips the switch. Our trick for using Gmail over IMAP might not be an easy 1-2 setup but it definitely works well. If you're looking for an easier method to simply allow multiple email clients to download your Gmail, however, UneasySilence has highlighted an unsung Gmail feature that should do the trick. Simply adding a 'recent:' prefix to your login credentials (i.e. - recent:user@gmail.com) in any of your secondary POP clients will allow that client to download up to the last 30 days of mail, regardless of whether you've already downloaded it. For those who would like to check their Gmail on a mobile device in addition to a desktop client, this is definitely a great trick to have, but it certainly isn't a replacement for IMAP as UneasySilence seems to be indirectly stating. For example: when checking messages over IMAP, you can use Client A (for the sake of discussion) to read a few messages, delete a few, maybe move some into folders or tag them using the plug-ins we mentioned. Across all your other email clients - including mobile phones - those messages will appear as read, deleted or filed away, with no further effort on your part. This is the beauty of IMAP and one of the many reasons why so many Gmail enthusiasts - widely known to be early adopters and power users - are clamoring for Google to join the rest of us in the 21st century by providing IMAP in addition to POP. Heck, even a nominal fee for IMAP wouldn't be out of the question.

So how about it Google? While spending all that time trying to make it easier to find and manage information, are you listening to how your customers would like to be able to manage their mail?

If you are a big fan of custom start pages like the new MyYahoo, and a user of a POP mail account, you might get excited about a new feature Yahoo has added.

In iGoogle, you can only pull in your Gmail account, well, Yahoo thought hey, why not, let's make it so that any mail account can get imported into our customers start pages in the new MyYahoo. So they came out with the POP Mail module that launched yesterday; Pull in mail from any mail account, Yahoo or not, as long as it supports POP.

Yahoo also added in a Gmail module, because hey why not allow Google's Gmail users the ability to pull in their mail. If you want to get hooked up with the new My Yahoo beta that serves this content, sign up for an upgrade if you haven't already, and you'll be on your way. The page is clean and as easy to use at Netvibes. However, even though I enjoyed having the Gmail/POP modules preview my emails, when emails are clicked out to read more, you will have to sign into your email account. A little hassle, but that could be easily forgotten about. Yahoo is on their way to building a serious contender here, and it's definitely one you might want to consider. Netvibes is still a leader in this space, and is for sure a location that Yahoo and other "start pages" want to study when finding out what works, especially when it comes to a clean and uncluttered space. In other words, if My Yahoo got rid of that giant ad, and tightened up the top of the page so that we could fit in more content, it might get a little higher on the list.

MyYahoo has also updated their Scoreboard, Weather and Shopping modules.

Consilient wants to push your email. Should we forget about Blackberry's and try out Consilient's new push mobile email application? This former partner of RIM looks like it has the inside scoop on push technology with this new offering that was built for the Asian market, and has recently traveled to North American soil.

Consilient's free push offering includes access to five email accounts, including Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo, along with IMAP and POP accounts. The company states that they do not store passwords and the free application will push out emails in real time as they are received into personal and corporate email accounts that have been setup in the application. The push application is available for most popular phones and Windows Mobile devices, and does have the ability to accept attachments in Word, PDF and Excel formats.

For users wishing to upgrade from the free account, a $5/month (plus a $10 activation fee) plan is available that will unlock enhanced features that allow content sharing and mobile social networking.

Gmail offers a lot of flexibility when it comes to the way you manage your email. Innovative features like labels, a dedicated mobile phone client and rich script-ability via Firefox's Greasemonkey plugin create a unique appeal for users from nearly all walks of life.

Since you can do so much with and to Gmail, I thought I would round up my favorite tips and hacks for users both old and new. Some of these are simple ideas for thinking about labels in a different way, while others add more powerful functionality for the most dedicated of Gmail ninjas. Of course, this list is by no means complete, so have at it in the comments with your own tips, scripts and workflows. For now, here are mine:

• Greasemonkey repository at Google Code: Started by Mihai Parparita, a Google employee (though unaffiliated with Gmail), this Google Code repository has some of the coolest and most functional Gmail scripts for Greasemonkey, an add-on for Firefox. Scripts for adding colors to labels, saving searches and even integrating Gmail + Google Reader can all be found here.
• The Macros script: Found at that Google Code repository, I firmly believe this is *the* essential Gmail trick to end all Gmail tricks. It adds a serious dose of productivity that can make Gmail more functional than any desktop email client on the block. This script has shortcuts for label navigation, simultaneously marking as read + archiving, labeling messages on the fly and much more - all from the keyboard. Once you get this script installed, pressing 'h' should display a slick overlay of all available shortcuts.
• Trick your labels: Using unique characters to prefix label names brings them to the top of the alphabetized list of labels. The @ symbol, numbers and even underscores are all useful for bringing important labels out of their standard organization, and they make labels more accessible to other hacks like the Macros script.
• Join the Power Users group: The Gmail Power Users Google Group attracts many users just like you, looking for ways to extend and bend Gmail to their will. If you find yourself getting as hooked on Greasemonkey scripts as I have, this is a great place to find other people who are customizing them to their specific interests.
• Quicker Contacts: Gmail includes a built-in chat feature with a clever pop-up window for easy access to some of the contacts with whom you communicate the most, but why limit this handy functionality to the tiny chat area? Quicker Contacts is another fantastic Greasemonkey script that adds this pop-up window to every message in Gmail. One catch, however, is that you need to be using Gmail's standard + chat mode in order for this script to work. If you don't like chatting inside of Gmail though, the good news is that you can simply sign out of chat and collapse the panel to avoid being bothered with it.
• Bookmark any label, folder or message type: Another apparently undocumented Gmail trick is the ability to bookmark a label, a standard folder or even a message type such as 'read' or 'unread.' It isn't quite as easy as bookmarking a website, but it's useful: simply copy and paste this link into your address bar: https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1: and then add any label name, folder or message type after the colon (examples: fs=1:todo, fs=1:Drafts and fs=1:unread). Press enter, and then bookmark that page once Gmail loads.
• Backup Gmail offline: Some Gmail users can occasionally find themselves needing access to their email when they're offline somewhere, or - worst case scenario - their account might have accidentally disappeared. No matter what the reason is, it's always a good idea to have a backup of your data, and email from an online service is no exception. Gmail offers instructions for accessing and downloading your email to a desktop client, with a ton of customized instructions for nearly every client in the book. As an added bonus, it seems Gmail has recently introduced a "recent" mode just in case you want to download your email with more than one client.
• Manage multiple Gmail accounts: For one reason or another, many Gmail users find themselves opening multiple accounts. Throw the ability to run Gmail on your own domain with Google Apps for Your Domain, and things can get complicated. Gmail Manager is an add-on for Firefox that untangles your Gmail web by allowing you to manage, swap between and receive new message alerts from multiple Gmail accounts, including those run on Google Apps.
• Fetch your other mail: A recent and quietly introduced Gmail feature is Mail Fetcher, which can check up to five other email accounts and download all that mail into your Gmail. To help keep things organized, Mail Fetcher can automatically label and archive all this incoming mail.
• Bookmarklets: These are typically javascript-enabled bookmarks that do something instead of simply 'mark something. To make Gmail more functional, there are two bookmarklets which the Gmail community have cooked up to make the web service feel more like a desktop app. The first is Compose (drag that link to your browser's bookmark toolbar or 'mark as you see fit), which skips directly to opening a compose window in Gmail (sidenote: To save my life I can neither find nor hack this one to open a new window; if any readers were more successful, I would join many others in thanking you if you shared in the comments). The second bookmarklet is really handy for sharing whatever page you're viewing: Gmail This opens a new, smaller composition window with the title of the front-most webpage in the subject and a link to the page in the body of the email. If you selected any text on the page, this will be added to the message body as well.
  
  [Update: Download Squad reader bcnewman hacked the Gmail This bookmarklet to create a new, blank compose window in a popup, just like the Gmail This 'marklet. Get the javascript from bcnewman's comment here, or simply drag this link to your toolbar to create the bookmarklet. Thanks a lot bcnewman!
  

Like I said, this list is by no means complete. There are plenty of runner-ups in my book, such as the dragdropupload Firefox add-on which allows you to (amongst other things) drag and drop files you want to attach directly onto the "Attach a file" link, so be sure to (try and) trump me with your own perfect Gmail setup.

If you're one of the folks that saw the story about Google having some trouble with a few Gmail accounts, and wondered what you could do to protect yourself from such an unfortunate eventuality, you're in luck. It's a simple tip, and one that can be implemented in a number of ways, but the gist of it is that you're going to want to download all of your email out of your Gmail account using the POP download functionality in your account.

Now, if you're wanting to use an email client that you already happen to use for other mail (for example, your work email), you may not want all of that Gmail spilling right into your inbox. So to prevent that, make sure that your email client supports message rules based on the incoming mail account. In Outlook 2007 (I remember seeing it in 2003 as well) there's a rule called "through the specified account" that allows you to choose which incoming account it should act on. That way you can move all mail coming through a specific account to a folder, which can then be moved to a different PST file for archiving.

Once you've determined how you're going to keep from mixing up all of your email, go ahead with setting up the connection.

To back up ALL of your Gmail, simply navigate to the Forwarding and POP section of your Settings in Gmail, and in the POP Download section click the radio button beside "Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)".

Then configure the email client exactly as described on the Configuring instructions link at the bottom of the POP Download section. There are instructions for virtually every major email client out there, and even if your client isn't listed, it should be fairly simple to see how to configure yours from looking at instructions for a similar client.
And that's it - now all there is to do is wait, and wait, and wait. If you're like me and your Gmail box is already well over half full, it can take quite a while to download close to 2 Gigs of mail. But think of the peace of mind you'll have knowing that your mail is safely in your hands.

SodaRatings is a place to rate your favorite soda (or pop) in a social web 2.0 way. Their logo is even a bit web 2.0. There are all kinds of sodas, flavors, and the results of all the ratings are displayed for everyone to view. Sure, the idea is a fun one, not aimed at being productive, but it is a nice break from the work-a-day web and an interesting use of social voting to see what the most and best rated sodas actually are. If you have ever wondered about that, now you don't have to. This site, like your favorite soda, can be quite addicting.

Are you into Cola, Grape, Orange, Vanilla, Diet (yuck) or something else? Let the whole world know. SodaRatings has soda badges you can put on your blog, MySpace, or wherever else you want. Be loud, be proud, and by all means, tell everyone about your fave soda (or pop).

Google's darling Gmail has just launched a new feature they're slowly rolling out to users: POP checking of other accounts. If you're one of the lucky few, under the Accounts tab in Gmail's settings, you can now add up to 5 other accounts (if they have POP3 access enabled) for Gmail to pull email from.

Of course, you've always been able to forward email from most other accounts to Gmail, but the significance here is that by enabling Gmail to check your other accounts, it can grab virtually all the mail you've ever received in those accounts (if you haven't taken it all off the server with a desktop client, that is - not just the messages *after* you turned on forwarding.

While this is certainly a great new feature, I must again echo the requests of many by asking: why on earth Google hasn't joined the rest of us in the 21st century by adding IMAP access? Considering the plethora of devices consumers are using (desktops, public terminals, phones and PDAs) and the multiple ways they have already offered for accessing Gmail (web, WAP, mobile client, etc.). Is IMAP that much more difficult or expensive to implement? I realize their intention is to keep you doing email the Gmail way - labels, web ads and all - but I still say its time to grant usable access to those who need the power of desktop software and tools for their emailing needs.

[via digg]

A few weeks ago I wrote about ePrompter, a standalone (Windows-only) email notification app with a UI reminiscent of Windows 3.1. Responses in the comments ranged from nonplussed to downright offended (including speculations about malware). Now, I'm no ePrompter cheerleader; I just report on what I find. And today I've found a much better - and much more Web 2.0! - solution for managing multiple email accounts.

Jump2Mail bills itself as a "free web-based email retrieval application" that lets you check all your email accounts from one central location. Its web-based approach to email management makes a lot more sense than the desktop-centered approach offered by ePrompter, since these days most of us move around and use more than one computer.

In addition to allowing users to send, receive, delete, and reply to emails, Jump2Mail also includes:

• Planning and reminders
• Spam filtering
• Personal rules
• Contact management
• Ajax-based RSS reader
• Support for 7 different languages

More features are in progress, such as an RSS feed of new emails. Jump2Mail currently supports POP and IMAP, which can pose a limitation if you use a web-based mail service such as Yahoo (which doesn't allow free POP access). However, support for purely web-based accounts may be available at a later time.

Oh, and did I mention the delicious-looking strawberry icon?

On our own CEO Jason Calacanis posted on his blog yesterday (hey, he's a businessman. He knows about business, man) that Kiko Calendar - one of the many web 2.0 services that sprung like so many weeds - is up for sale on eBay. Jason's post is, in fact, titled bluntly: "AJAX is not a business model."

Now forgive me for pimping our CEO's blog a little too much, but the guy might have a point: could this be sounding a roll call for the virtual horde of similar web 2.0 services out there that seem to be offering some (admittedly) stellar services without much more of a plan? The now-famous business model from the South Park episode with the under wear gnomes:

• Develop cool web 2.0 service
• ...
• profit (or in this case: "hope to get bought by Yahoo! or Google")

doesn't count either. So what say you, DLS readers? Is the web 2.0 bubble ready to blow, or do you think there's still room in this post's screenshot for yet another calendar, photo-sharing or [insert favorite service here] logo?