GMail

Almost everyone but the true Luddites have gotten onboard the e-mail train by now (in fact, can we drop the hyphen? cool, thanks). Unfortunately, a lot of us hopped on many, many years ago and although email clients have advanced, not all have done so at the same rate. If you're still using the AOL, for example, you're probably suffering unnecessary pain.

My email client of choice is GMail (by Google). Don't be fooled by the eternal "beta" tag; GMail is the webmail service (i.e. email accessed via the web instead of by a desktop application) that pushes all the others to innovate -- for now, at least. If you're really fastidious with folders or otherwise particular about email, you're probably going to want a desktop client anyway. But for the rest of us humans, webmail is pretty darn convenient, especially while traveling.

The most important features that make GMail standout (for me) are:

• Search: Shockingly, Google knows how to do this well.
• Conversations: Rather than displaying each individual message, replies are grouped with the original message. Usually, this is a good thing.
• Fatty Limits: You can store a LOT of data, send BIG attachments, have as many labels, filters, etc. as you want. Google doesn't play the Freemium game.
• Offline Browsing: As of January 2009, you can keep a cache of your mail on your computer and browse it, search it, compose messages etc., while offline. Once you get back online, you can send your saved drafts and synchronize any changes you've made.
• Interface: GMail has an excellent interface that is intuitive, easy to use, simple, easy to look at, and tends to work well. I don't say those things lightly.
• Spam Filter: It works. That's more than I can say for any other email service I've ever used.
  
• Features, Features, Features: GMail supports a lot of features, but even more are behind the scenes in GMail Labs, essentially a playground where Google Engineers add bells and whistles they'd like to use themselves. Just a few include: Offline (mentioned above), Undo Send (that's right!), Forgot Attachment Detector, Vacation Auto-responder, and on and on and on. They are not always bug-free (hence the "labs") and should be used with care, but can be extremely handy.

Another consideration is that GMail is embedded in the Google ecosystem (chat, groups, etc.) which can lead to some handy integration if you use other Google tools. This is similarly true for Yahoo!.

Of course, there are downsides:

• Google can scour your email as much as it likes, though presumably will "do no evil" with your data. If you're fond of your privacy, it's worth noting that at some level, you really are giving it up. The ads it puts along-side your messages also may creep you out by how relevant they are (unless you block them, like me, shhhh).
  
• It's rare, but GMail does go down occasionally, which will leave you out in the cold unless, perhaps, you have Offline enabled. Of course, you could always go take a walk or read a book. And, if Google somehow loses your account or your data, well, I hope you exported a backup.

Check into your current email client/service and see if it supports forwarding. In that case, you can have any email sent to your old address automatically forwarded to your new GMail address. If not, it actually can be kind of liberating to jump to a new email address... not quite email bankruptcy (I give up!), but like moving to a new physical address, you can weed out all the people (or organizations, Russian gangsters, you get the picture) sending you mail that you don't really want to hear from.

Signing up is a snap. And who knows, perhaps you'll be intrigued enough to make the switch. If not, you can choose not to use it, or you can forward your new GMail address to your current email address. Free your inbox! Or feel free to disagree!

Twitter

If a web service is being covered by David Pogue and major news sites, produces over 199 million search results, and it is used by the President and Britney Spears then it's safe to call it mainstream.

Twitter, available at twitter.com, is ostensibly very simple. You can "tweet" 140 characters at a time, what some call a "microblog". Your tweets are available to anyone on the web unless you protect them (which sort of misses the point). You can follow other twitterers and if they also follow you, you can send them a message directly. And, that, technically, is really all there is to it.

What gets complicated are all the ways people use Twitter, proper Twitter "etiquette" (twittiquette?) and the myriad of Twitter clients. There are oodles of articles on all those topics and tips on getting started, so I'm going to write about how I use it.

My account: zazerh_news just to follow news and zazerh as myself, following everything else

How I access it: with Tweetie on my iPhone, Twitterific or Spaz on OS X, and rarely, via the web

When/how often I read my feed: Often I'll browse headlines first thing in the morning unless I have to rush off. I'll peruse it from my phone while waiting for something somewhere (e.g. in line). Many of my OS X use Growl to flash little notification on the upper right of my screen, so sometimes I'll see them flash by as I work. Of course, if I'm crushingly busy, I tend not to check it all.

What I tweet about: I try to avoid answering the actual question Twitter asks ("What are you doing right now?"), unless it's interesting or funny. I'll sometimes "retweet" other people's interesting tweets, pass on interesting links with TinyURL (or some other link shortener) or what I think of a movie or book, make a witty (I try) observation, post a picture with TwitPic, or rarely, reply to another tweet. You get the idea.

How often I tweet: Usually once or twice a day, unless I gotta lot of interesting going on. From following other people, you tire very quickly of people twittering every five minutes if it's not very high quality.

Who I follow:

• for news, CNN @cnnbrk, Newsweek @Newsweek, NYTimes @nytimes, MacRumors @MacRumorsRSS, to name a few.
• the few family members and meatspace friends of mine that are on Twitter
• web developers like Paul Boag @boagworld
• web celebs like Veronica Belmont @veronica and Wil Wheaton @wilw
• political figures like Ahhhnold @schwarzenegger and Obama @BarackObama
• software vendors I use like @CulturedCode (they make Things)
• services like @TrackThis and @FuelFrog
• podcasters like LeoLaporte @LeoLaporte and @GrammarGirl
• musicians I like, such as Ingrid Michaelson @ingridmusic and Trent Reznor @treznor
  
• tech notables like Tim O'Reilly @timoreilly and Craig Newmark @craignewmark
  
• actual celebrities, like @TinaFey
• deal finders like @woot and @gotodaily
  

Other uses: I feed my tweets into my Facebook status using the Twitter facebook app. Twitter is also a great way to find out what people are talking about right now, such a disaster, a live event, movies out right now, what have you. It's surprising how unsuccessful it can be to Google for some of these things... so try http://search.twitter.com and you might be surprised at how useful it can be.

Overwhelmed yet? Take it slow. Read David Pogue's introduction. And a word to the wise, Twitter can be flakey!