How to Preview the Gmail's New "Look"?

Gmail, the free web-based e-mail service offered by Google is one of the most popular e-mail services all around the world. Although I think still Yahoo mail is a bit ahead of Gmail but with new features and less distracting ads (oh well, at least when compared to Yahoo, yikes :P) + the simplicity... Gmail will most definitely have an advantage in the future.

Recently Google introduce a new look-n-feel to their home page (+ SERP pages) with a certain Blue and Red color combination. And it seems that (makes sense) they'll be applying this "look-n-feel" to their other services GUIs as well. Although it won't happen overnight but according to the Gmail team, now you can "preview" some of these new features in your Gmail account quite easily.

Not the most user-friendliest colors for my taste :/...

In their own words this is an attempt to make...

"...one of the reasons we’re embarking on a series of interface updates to help strip out unnecessary clutter and make Gmail as beautiful as it is powerful..."

Although I do agree that after switching to the Gmail preview feature the account looks more simpler but I'm not entirely sure about the user-friendlyness of the whole GUI as a whole because the white background with the Red color aren't that comforting for the eyes and I personally prefer the old Blue and Green combination.

Anyhow you can easily enable this new look-n-feel (which as said before is not fully implemented, yet) by going into your Themes tab in Gmail settings and then scroll-down until you see two themes called "Preview (Dense) and Preview". Choose one of the themes and you're done.

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Gmail Introduces AIM Chat, (No AOL Log-in Necessary!)

Standardizing is a great thing. Among many of its advantageous is the "space" it gives for simplicity, from a user point of view anyway. Since, it may look easy and "simple" for us but for the developers writing an API ain't that simple. Anyhow, few days ago Gmail team announced a new feature which enables the loyal Gmail users to chat with their AIM "buddies" directly from Gmail account.

Wait... isn't that kinda old??. Yes, it is.. but in the past you had to log-in to your AOL account to open a "portal". But with this new service that is no longer necessary!. Furthermore, you can add AIM users to your chat list as easy as adding Gmail users (for instance, add "username"@aol.com in your Chat box and you're good to go).

 
According to Google, not just in Gmail, but you can use this feature in few of their other services such as iGoogle, Orkut, and Google Talk (on Android Phones). Because of the API "collaboration", AIM users can add Gmail users the same way in their accounts as well.

But if you had a massive list of "friends" then adding the one by one is a painful task. In that case, this official AIM Buddies importer is a must. Good luck :).   

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