Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Gmail Priority Inbox Sorts Your Email For You. And It’s Fantastic.

Gmail Priority Inbox Sorts Your Email For You. And It’s Fantastic.: "



Email overload has finally met its match. Tomorrow, Gmail is rolling out a new feature called Priority Inbox that is going to be a Godsend for those of you who dread opening your email. In short, Google has built a system that figures out which of your messages are important, and presents them at the top of the screen so you don’t miss them. The rest of your messages are still there, but you don’t have to dig through dozens of newsletters and confirmations to find the diamonds in rough.


The beauty of the system lies in its simplicity — it’s nearly as easy as Gmail’s one click spam filter. There’s almost no setup: once it’s activated on your account, you’ll see a prompt asking you if you want to enable Priority Inbox. You can choose from a few options (the order of your various inboxes and if there are any contacts you’d like to always mark ‘Important’) but don’t have to setup any rules or ‘teach’ Gmail what you want it to mark important. It just works, at least most of the time.



The system uses a plethora of criteria to decide which messages are most important: things like how frequently you open and/or respond to messages from a given sender, how often you read messages that contain a certain keyword, and whether or not the message is addressed solely to you or looks like it was sent to a mailing list. If you come across a message that’s been marked important when it shouldn’t have been, you can hit an arrow to tell Gmail it’s messed up. Likewise, if a message that should have been flagged gets sent to the ‘everything else’ area, you can promote it. Through these actions Gmail gets progressively smarter, so the system should work better over time.



I’ve been using the service since late last week and have found it to work very well. Occasionally messages that shouldn’t have been marked ‘Important’ are flagged, but I’ve yet to encounter an urgent message that slipped into the ‘everything else’ section. My colleague MG Siegler, who has also had the feature active, has had similar success.


It’s great. I love it. But it isn’t perfect.


My biggest gripe so far is the fact that there’s no way to tell why a given message has been deemed important. Oftentimes it’s obvious — emails from my coworkers are generally given the golden arrows, as are messages from PR contacts whom I frequently communicate with. But occasionally there are oddballs that have been marked important for no apparent reason.


Sure, it’s easy to tell Gmail that ‘this message is not important’ and strip its golden badge. But what if the message was marked important for a reason that is usually sound (perhaps it contains a reference to TechCrunch Disrupt, for example)? It would be nice if I could tell Gmail something to the effect of “this sender is never important”, but not to start frowning on whatever keywords the message contained. Still, it’s a great start.


Of course, this introduces a new dynamic to the way a lot of people are going to be reading email. Email intros will become ever more important, because you’ll want to ensure that your message gets marked with coveted ‘important’ tag. It also has much broader implications. Increasingly, content will be displayed to you based on its importance rather than its time stamp — not just when it comes to browsing email, but for social networks and other content as well.


Priority Inbox will be rolling out to Gmail and Google Apps users alike over the course of the week.


More:









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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Tiny Seattle Apartment

Tiny Seattle Apartment: "

Chelsea brought this article and this fantastic little apartment to my attention. I am guilty of not covering apartments very often but I love the use of space in this one and you must see it.


The article written by The Seattle Times Rebecca Teagarden is titled “Tiny apartment shows the value of a good fit” and talks about Steve Sauer’s 182-square-foot Seattle condo which shows the value of a good fit, from the soaking tub built into the entry floor to the “video lounge” tucked beneath the “cafe area.” Sauer shopped Ikea for many of his home’s furnishings, such as a little table, and used tabletops to fashion cabinet fronts.


Photos by Benjamin Benschneider of the Seattle Times


Steve Sauer watches television in the video lounge, which has seating for two. The horizontal band around the condo, accenting the powder-blue walls, is coated with blackboard paint.


Saurer’s says, “What I really wanted was one place with exactly what I needed and wanted. Quality is more important than quantity for me, and extra space only a problem,” he has written, describing his nearby too-big-for-him, one-bedroom condo.


Sauer relaxes in the cafe area of his 182-square-foot condo. "I was worried as I filled in all the upper spaces that it would feel cramped, but it didn't," he says. The window is at street level. The little table is Ikea. It has a glass top that swivels open, providing storage.


“I wanted to compress my home to squirt me back out to the community,” he says, taking inspiration from dwellings in Scandinavia and Japan, places where space is dear. “That was one of the philosophical reasons. I want to be able to shop daily, not store a lot and eat really well.”


Sauer checks his messages at the dining table, which includes a leaf to expand for company. The undercounter refrigerator is Frigidaire, from Lowe's.


When Sauer couldn’t find the things he needed, he designed them and built them: The stainless-steel shower caddy, towel bar. For other pieces, “Ikea came through again.” Lighting, cabinet pulls, and butcher block for shelves, the table top and cabinet fronts. The rich flooring, Brazilian walnut, was installed by Matt Messenger. A bureau from West Elm fit to 1/8 of an inch, and so it was ordered.


Sauer designed the tiny condo for two. Just inside the door is the bathroom to the left, and a soaking tub inserted into the floor and covered with a 3form Chroma panel.


“My dream is to put 300 of these in a building and not have it be a tenement.”


Read the Seattle Times article here.


One bike is tethered to the ceiling for storage. Steam heat comes from the building's system. The ventilation chimney runs across Sauer's ceiling, and was easy to pipe into. "It was passing through here anyway."


The bathroom wall is covered in 1-inch tiles from Tiles for Less. Light filters into the room through a 3form Chroma panel, shared with the kitchen. The ceiling is tempered glass meant for a table top from Ikea. The toilet is Philippe Stark for Duravit. Sauer designed and manufactured the stainless-steel shower caddy and towel bar.


The video lounge is tucked beneath the cafe area and next to the dining table. "All along the way this project's had good chi, so that's good," Sauer says. The bureau is from West Elm. "It fit to within 1/8 inch. It was a nice find. I didn't want to build another piece of furniture." The floor is Brazilian walnut.




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Monday, August 23, 2010

Honeymoons: Room With a View

Honeymoons: Room With a View: "

Check this room out!


Day


Night


Have you ever seen anything more amazing?! Conrad Maldives Rangali Island's unique underwater suite is actually the hotel's restaurant 'Ithaa,' which can been converted into a boudoir below the Indian Ocean in honor of its fifth anniversary. One night comes complete with Champagne breakfast and aquatic swim-bys by blue-striped snapper, sting rays, parrot fish, and moray eels. The tab is pretty steep, and you need to request the room at least 14 days in advance, but it certainly gives new meaning to the term 'sleeping with the fishes.'


Are you staying in a specialty suite on your honeymoon? If so, I'd love to hear about it!

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You Can Block Any Facebook User Except Mark Zuckerberg

You Can Block Any Facebook User Except Mark Zuckerberg: "

The title of this post kind of says it all. As pointed out by blockzuck.com, you can block anyone on Facebook except CEO Mark Zuckerberg. If you try to do it (we did), you’ll get a message saying “General Block failed error: Block failed.”


This kind of thing is funny, and adds a little personality to the site. But Facebook is getting way too big and culturally important for things like this to continue. In 2005 it was cool for Zuckerberg to have a business card that said “I’m CEO…Bitch.” And we can forgive early Facebook engineers from perusing confidential user data in their leisure time. But it’s time for this company to go through puberty and start acting more like a teenager than a fifth grader. If you want to block Zuckerberg, you should be able to block Zuckerberg.









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Sunday, August 22, 2010

PostCarden

PostCarden: "






Why send a postcard when you can send a botanical PostCarden?! One of these pop-up transforming mini gardens would surely brighten up any day! Simply unfold, pour in the seeds, add water and wait. Within a week your very own watercress garden will sprout; transforming your card into a beautiful architectural wonder.


Available in four distinct scenes: Allotment: a small courtyard garden. Botanical: a Victorian greenhouse. City: simplified cityscape scene. And lastly, Football: a miniature football field complete with a tiny (Euro style) football. All can be purchased through the PostCarden shop. Happy gardening!





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