There are many reasons why I prefer Gmail and the two most important aspects for me, are;

1. I can access my mail from Gmail “web based email” rather than off the server.
2. I have a number of email accounts for personal and business and I can access all my business and personal mail in one spot from anywhere with internet access.
3. If my computer crashes I don’t lose any email
4. I can use my own domain name to identify my email

Since I’ve been using it I am continuing to find more and more features and benefits such as;

• Plenty of ‘free’ storage for large files!
• Super fast search function to find older emails (“I know I saw it here somewhere”) using a particular email address, subject or text.
• This has got to be the bonus… We all hate spam and Gmail blocks spam before it gets to the inbox!
• Displays, in order, all my back and forth emails – grouping replies and responses in the one place.
• Allows me to quickly store emails in an archive for future reference – or to read later.
• I can create labels – instead of folders – to group my mail for easy reference and search.
• Works seamlessly with other Google Applications, including Google Docs, Analytics, Calendar, Reader, etc., Not to mention Live Chat and Mobile Access – how cool is that? Using one web platform has the potential to make my life, and yours, a little bit easier… and that’s got to be good!
• Don’t forget to personalise your home page with iGoogle. Synchronised to show snippets of your Gmail, News, Google Calendar, Weather and more customised features.
• Gmail does show Google ads – ‘not really a benefit’ you say – but for a free service its ok and only ‘good ads’ relevant to the email topic will show.
• More info on Why Gmail?

It’s easy to setup your existing email accounts in GMail too -

• Mail Fetcher -Gmail’s Mail Fetcher can download messages from up to five other email accounts, centralising all your email in Gmail.
• Adding a custom ‘From’ address when managing several email accounts.
• Set up multiple Inboxes – really helps viewing  multiple accounts

Like I said there are many benefits and features but the first step is to sign up at Gmail.com and give it a try.

Firefox Version 3.0 is due for release in the next few weeks and includes a number of pretty flash updates that will make their web browser better and more appealing to the computer using audience. If you don’t already know what a web browser is, it is the program you use to surf the internet. Most likely if you fit in this category you will be using Microsoft Internet Explorer, as it is the default web browser in Windows, and is still by far the most popular web browser.

Firefox is an open source program, which tries to focus on being quicker, more secure and most importantly – free to use.

Current figures from the W3Schools website show that IE still holds the majority of the market share, but Firefox is making good inroads into Microsoft territory.

So what is Download Day and why is it cool?

The next big software release, Firefox 3, is due for release in the next couple of weeks and the first reason that it’s cool and exciting is that it is a great program. It is faster and more secure, and it does a great job of rendering well coded web pages – which makes our job as web designers much easier. It also has a lot of cool addons and plugins to give you a more customised browser to suit what you want to do.

The second reason is that the release is coming out in rather a cool and exciting way. The Firefox team is asking everyone to sign up and download the new version on the same day, Download Day, to try and set a world record for the most downloads of a software package in 24 hours. I have never been a part of a World Record attempt that I know of, so I want to give this a good go – even if all I am doing is clicking a button.

The third reason is probably the best reason, as it is the main reason this post is in this blog. The Mozilla Foundation, the company behind Firefox, has harnessed the power of web promotion as well as any company on the internet. Their marketing of the Firefox browser has relied on the users to spread the word on the browser, through blog posts, buttons to put on your website, an active loyal community and a far sprinkling of Anti-Microsoft sentiment. With the cool idea of Download Day, you can see that Mozilla already has a million people willing to download the new version of their software.

It goes to show that with a good product and a little bit of creative thinking, you too can compete with some of the players that pour almost infinite amounts of money into their products over many mediums. As the economic climate starts to become a little tighter, web marketing represents the greatest ‘value for money’ promotion that you can find.

So that’s it – cool, huh? Well… maybe it was not that convincing, but go to the Spread Firefox website and check out the Download Day website anyway. At the very least check out what all the fuss is about.

A great resource that the Australian government has put together is a website called Scam Watch.  This Web site provides Australians with a wealth of information regarding current scams that they are aware of.  A couple of handy tips that they provide for protecting yourself from on-line fraudsters include:

E-mail Best Practices

• Do not open suspicious or unsolicited emails (spam): delete them.
• Do not click on any links in a spam email, or open any files attached to them.
• Never call a telephone number that you see in a spam email.
• NEVER reply to a spam email (even to unsubscribe).

Protecting yourself on the Internet

• If you want to access an internet account website, use a bookmarked link or type the address in yourself: NEVER follow a link in an email.
• Install software that protects your computer from viruses and unwanted programs and make sure it is kept up-to-date.Beware of free websites and downloads (such as music, adult sites, games, movies). They may install harmful programs without you knowing.
• Check the website address carefully. Scammers often set up fake websites with very similar addresses.
• Never enter your personal, credit card or online account information on a website that you are not certain is genuine.
• Never send your personal, credit card or online account details through an email.
• Try to avoid using public computers (at libraries or internet cafes) to do your internet banking.
• Do not use software on your computer that auto-completes online forms. This can give internet scammers easy access to your personal and credit card details.
• Choose passwords that would be difficult for anyone else to guess.

The best advice I can give you is to always be sceptical of anything that turns up unexpected and make sure that you keep your virus and spyware software completely up-to-date.

If anybody else has any tips or advice on protecting yourself online please feel free to chime in through the comment section below.