Gmail’s mobile application is amazing, but Google Apps subscribers could be left out because you are required to login with [username]@gmail.com, not @yourdomain.com.

Read on for one easy way to get your Google Apps account to work with the mobile utility.

The Steps

• Sign up for a regular Gmail account.
• Login into your Google Apps e-mail.
• Go to Settings – Forwarding and POP/IMAP
• Under “Forwarding” choose:
  • Forward Copy
  • Fill in your new Gmail account
  • Then select “keep [domain]‘s copy in the inbox”
  • Save changes
• Login into Gmail
• Go to Settings – Accounts
  • Under “Send mail as…” click “Add another email address”
  • Enter the name you want, and enter your Google Apps e-mail
  • Go to the next step, and verify your e-mail
• You can then download the Gmail app on your Java-enabled phone and use it

Now whenever you’re on the road you get a copy of the e-mail on your mobile that you can respond to with your Google Apps account, and when you go back to your Google Apps account you’ll have those e-mails, including the complete conversation, saved!

Update: Steve pointed out in the comments that Google has made their Gmail mobile application available for Google Apps. Just point your phone to m.google.com/a and download it. Thanks Steven!

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Use Features in Your RSS Reader

A RSS reader is a great way to manage information in a way that brings information to you instead of having to go to it. The problem comes when you have many feeds to organize it. Fortunately, popular RSS readers have options for us to organize our feeds.

Google Reader (which I recently move to) has a “starring system” similar to the interface found in Gmail. By “starring” an article it is saved in a central location for your future review. This way, articles that would once get lost in the shuffle can now be easily retrieved. Bloglines has a “clip” feature which does the same thing as Google Reader with different verbiage.

Power Tip: The new beta version of Bloglines includes the ability to organize your saved items into folders, and I hope Google will add a similar feature. Be sure also to add labels to saved items in Google Reader for organization.

The Read It Later Extension

If you have Firefox a great way to manage articles you find it to use the Read It Later extension. In a very easy manner you can simply click the toolbar button, and it is added to a bookmark folder for easy retrieving. You can cycle through your saved articles, and when you’re done reading you can either remove it from your list or post it to your favorite bookmarking service.

Power Tip: Use Google Browser Sync or Foxmarks to sync your Read It Later folder across many installations of Firefox.

Google Notebook

Google Notebook is one of those applications that I had to sit on for a while before I really saw a use for it. With this application you can save snippets of text, code, or whatever you want to save for future reference. You can then order them by different notebooks and/or labels. Use their slick Firefox extension to use it effectively as a notebook and not have to visit the site.

Power Tip: When browsing with the extension, copy the text you want to save and “note it” through the content menu. It will take your note into a new entry for you automatically.

Social Bookmarking Tag

As I mentioned in one of my previous articles, you can use del.icio.us or any other social bookmarking utility to save articles/links for further review. Just create a tag/folder with a title such as “review” and set a time to actually go through those articles.

Managing My Personal List

It is all well and good to save everything, but you have to be diligent to go through what you have saved. I have dropped the social bookmarking tag mentioned above, but I use the other three. Here is how I use them to maximize their usefulness.

• Google Reader – I set aside a time to review the articles usually every 2 days. I then either bookmark them in del.icio.us for permanent reference or remove the star.
• Read It Later – This tool has become the bulk of what I save my articles in. This is reserved for either (a) articles someone has shared with me through e-mail, IM, etc.; but I also use this extension for articles that I want to write about. Because you can’t organize by folder I daily check the queue. Every Saturday I also spend time clearing out as much as possible.
• Google Notebook – I use this primarily for research, because I can order them by notebook and label if I choose. This is more for saving excerpts of texts instead of links. If it’s a link I’ll save it to the Read It Later extension.

How do you organize articles you want to read later?

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Every once-in-a-while I find an application like Jott that truly revolutionizes the way I organize my life.

We all write notes on pieces of paper, napkins, etc.; but they often get lost in the shuffle. Jott comes along and helps you consolidate your tasks, notes, and events into one spot. All you do it call the Jott number, and you hear a voice that says: “What do you want to Jott?” You then give the folder name you’ve created, contact, or application and simply speak your message. Jott translates voice into text and then, based on your preferences, either e-mails you or adds the event. It also stores the message for historical purposes on the Jott website.

The premise is simple, the sign-up is easy. After signing up you can then call the Jott number to record messages instantly.

Jott has tapped into some of the most popular APIs including Google Calendar, Twitter, Tumblr, and even WordPress.com amongst others. You can do things like create a folder, associate it with a co-worker/team member, and when you post to that folder it sends them an e-mail with the tasking. You essentially have an on-the-go project management utility.

Jott can extend beyond its predefined Jott links. For example, to use Jott with Outlook, simply use the Plaxo application as a synchronization tool between Outlook and Google Calendar. Now, when you post to Google Calendar from your Jott account it will automatically be synced with your Outlook calendar.

Wishlist:

• An add-on for managing Jotts directly inside Microsoft Outlook. It would be nice to create tasks, notes, events, etc. without using an extra application such as Plaxo.
• The ability to send text messages to my Jott number and have them be translated into Jotts.

Have you tried Jott? Are you finding it useful?

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Everyone, especially computer people, love lists of resources. I do as well, and I decided it’s time to share many of the resources that have helped me in my career. All of these resources (except for the print books) are either freeware, open source, or the application offers a free version.

Firefox

• Firebug – Essential tool for CSS/JavaScript debugging.
• YSlow – Firebug add-on to help determine performance bottlenecks.
• Web Developer Toolbar – Provides tools to compliment Firebug.
• Fireftp – The best FTP client and in a browser no less!
• Dust-Me Selectors – Scans the page against your current style sheet to determine extraneous styles.
• Server Spy – See the server technology for current page.
• Colorzilla – Awesome color picker.
• HTML Validator – Validate pages and clean them with this tool.
• IE Tab – View pages in IE inside Firefox.
• Selenium IDE – Record and playback end-user testing.
• X-Ray – Bookmarklet to examine elements in DOM.

Web Worker Applications

• Box.net – Backup your files with this tremendous tool.
• Harvest – Time tracking utility.
• Jott – Record messages from your phone and add them to various applications.
• Gliffy – MS Visio replacement for diagramming.
• Yugma – Free video conferencing.
• 101 Essential Freelancing Resources – Need more than we’ve got here?

Print Books

• Designing with Web Standards – A great introduction to web standards design by Jeffrey Zeldman.
• CSS: A Definitive Guide – Eric Meyer’s magnum opus on CSS.
• Don’t Make Me Think! – The acclaimed introduction to usability.
• Codin’ For the Web – Great book to teach application development to designers.
• Web Design in a Nutshell – Invaluable desktop reference.

Online Books

• Version Control with Subversion – Introduction to the precepts of Subversion.
• Getting Real – 37 Signals famous work on design.
• O’Reilly Library – Various O’Reilly books you can read online.
• The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web

Tutorials

• W3Schools.com – XHTML, CSS, PHP, SQL, XML, etc.
• Good Tutorials – Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, PHP, HTML, etc.
• PHP for the Absolute Beginner
• ASP.NET 2.0 Quickstart Tutorial
• Learn CSS Positioning in 10 Easy Steps

Editors

• CSS Vista = Neat CSS editor.
• PSPad – Simple, fast editor that I used for a long time.
• Aptana – Editor built on Eclipse that, I think, is the best out there.
• Microsoft Visual Web Developer – Free MS editor to create ASP.NET applications.
• SQLYog – GUI interface to MySQL.
• SQL Server Management Studio Express – The free edition of the GUI to SQL Server.

Templates

• Open Source Web Design
• Themebot – Themes for Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, and phpBB among others.
• Open Web Design
• The Open Design Community
• The CSS Tinderbox – CSS layouts.
• Little Boxes – CSS layouts.

Project Management/Version Control

• Assembla – Free TRAC/Subversion workspaces.
• TRAC – Slim, extensible SDLC tool.
• Subversion – The great open source source control.
• TortoiseSVN – GUI interface into Subversion via Windows shell.
• AnkhSVN – Browse Subversion repositories inside Visual Studio.

Testing/Validators

• UITest.com
• The Scrutinizer – SEO validators and analysis.
• Test Everything!
• Web Site Tools
• WAMP - Apache, MySQL, and PHP on Windows

Application Comparison

• Wiki Matrix – Compare wiki applications.
• Forum Matrix – Compare forum applications.
• WebBlog Matrix – Compare blog applications.
• The CMS Matrix – Compare CMS applications.
• OpenSourceCMS – Demo various CMS’.

Web Designer Blogs/News Aggregation

• Design Float – Digg style site for designers.
• Web Developer’s Handbook – More resources then you could ever need.
• CSS Juice – CSS tips and utilities.
• Smashing Magazine – The best resource for resources.
• .net Develop – Cutting-edge articles on web technology best practices.

Chris Poteet is a web application developer under his company name, Siolon.

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