"If you drink then email , you’re a bloody idiot" (to misquote a popular Aussie ad slogan for drink driving). Google seems to agree and has kindly provided us with Mail Goggles, for Gmail, a way of attempting to help stop us sending emails which we may later regret.
Its method: prompting us to answer some maths problems at designated times – by default Mail Goggles is only active late night on the weekend as "this is the time that most people are likely to need it",. You can change the timings; which is handy if you are prone to long drunken lunches or are an alcoholic.
If your math skills are lacking you can use your windows calculator, if you can find it in your state. If you are really determined to send the email you can, and live to regret it – unless you forget you have sent it. In this case you may live forever in ignorance or wonder why someone is no longer talking to you, has deleted you from SU/Digg friend, is leaving you nasty blog comments …. or the opposite: arrives at your place with all their worldly possessions, asks when you are going shopping for rings…
If you get the maths questions wrong then a new box appears with new questions with the comments “Water and bed for you. Or try again.” If you are too slow in answering the message is “Oops, looks like your reflexes are a little slow. Try again.” I bet they had some fun trying to think of the messages to use here and some of them would not have been quite so politely phrased.
Can you tell that I find this feature amusing? When I read about it I had to remind myself that it was not April 1st and even then go into Gmail to make sure Mail Goggles really existed.
You can turn on Mail Goggles via the Labs tab in your Gmail Settings and then customize it via the General tab.
If, like me, you receive your Gmail via POP mail and have not visited the Labs Tab (how long has it been there I wonder?) there are a few other interesting and useful features that you can enable for Gmail. For example,
- Email Addict which lets you take a break from email and chat by blocking the screen for fifteen minutes and making you invisible in chat. I wish they could come up with a way of blocking my desk inbox (or the pile of things in front of me that need doing) and let me email and chat for fifteen minutes.
- Old Snakey game – for when you want a break from everything.
- Forgotten Attachment Detector which prevents you from accidentally forgetting intended attachments by prompting you if you mention attaching a file, but have not done so.
- Quick Links which adds a box to the left column that gives you 1-click access to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail. It can be used for saving frequent searches, important individual messages, etc.
- Quite a few other ways to customize and improve your Gmailing experience.
Popularity: 11% [?]
This is another reason why I love Gmail. There are so many cool add-ons for it. I’ll have to see what new Labs features are available.
I just found this handy program that integrates Gmail with Windows. G Attach I don’t know how I missed it for so long.
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you would think all those suppose it top-notch programmers at Google could come up with something better to spend their time on. Really don’t see the point.
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Maybe its a ploy to find out who is likely to make rash decisions when under the influence. They can target them for ads during the times the features is switched on
ROFLMFAO
I know a few people who could use this little gadget, might have stopped them getting into hot water a few years ago LOL.
Off to check it out for a good laugh….and that Old Snakey game, too
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It would make an interesting study for your blog, Jayne – look through your entries to find out what may have occurred because someone was under the influence of grog
hmmm… blogging under the influence… sounds dangerous. :O
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i think the forgotten attachment detector’s quite useful. helps me not to embarrass myself.
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I embarrass myself often by forgetting to add the attachments
This is a humorous idea, which probably has some practical value.
One aspect of Outlook that I like more than Gmail is that Outlook doesn’t send the email right away. Emails go into Outlook’s “outbox” before sending. Often after I hit send, I decide to add one more point or change something. But with Gmail, it’s too late—the email has been sent.
Although I use Gmail a lot I usually send and receive the emails via POP mail in Thunderbird. I must check to see if Thunderbird has an outbox feature.
That’s a good point. Many people use POP to send via gmail. I keep hearing more about Thunderbird; I’ll have to check that out. Is there a reason you like it over Outlook?
Are you sure it isn’t April Fools day? This sounds just like one of their normal jokes they make in April!
I suspected the same so I had to check to make sure it existed and then enable it to try it out.
LOL I love the sound of it
I must check it out too.
ps I am pleased to be here – love the welcome comment too … you need a widget that personalises it now that would be cool …
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Hi Trish
Glad to see you here. Agreed, a personalized message would be good.
Hehe
That is actually a great idea. I could imagine that it has saved quite a few agry emails to the boss
But it might be a problem for the people that are really bad at math
That’s were the Windows calculator comes in handy
^ true.
drunk angry letters to the boss. 
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I send out alot of group e-mails and I get so concerned with sending it out that I forget to add the attachment. Something like this would save me alot of duplicate e-mails.
Yes it would be a very useful feature if you send out group emails – especially for business purposes.
That’s a great idea. I hadn’t thought about group emails, which require more carefulness.
Oh my word I would have a hard time anytime after blogging all day.
Are they nutz or what?
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My emails are more comprehensive and comprehensible when sent earlier in the day before my brain is too addled by being on PC for hours and hours
Well, someone at Google thought it was worth the while to invent it and their boss thought it was worth the while to deploy it. Personally I think Constant Contact and Mail Chimp have a better approach to this problem. Before you send an email to a target group with HTML mailers, you can send a test back to yourself. So first, you get to look at the email before you send a flaming arrow. 2nd, it gives you time to cool off a little before going into editing more.
That can be a big drawback to email – it is too easy!
Seriously tho, if I get that far in the bag (doesn’t happen very often these days) there is no computer handy.
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The entertaining portion is when a feature like this becomes a regular feature, as some individuals think that a feature such as this may soon be removed once the enjoyment has been had.
I didn’t know anything about this gmail feature. It is damn true the weekend night emails and messages are too bad idea sometimes, they should use protection like that on the social networking sites too.
I was certain you were joking about this addon. I guess I don’t drink whilst I’m emailing so I don’t see the practicality. But we could all use some inhibitions from time to time.
But do you ever email when you come home from drinking?
I think it’s Google’s humorous way of recognizing that many of the emails that get sent out shouldn’t be sent.
Man, You may be completely sure – I do send emails, well, not exactly emails, but messages in social networks early morning, when I just came home from somewhere and don’t want to sleep yet. It’s quite a fun sometimes to see what I ‘created’ but sometimes it’s really awful…
Those are some funny plugins. No wonder guys at Google have such a big paychecks. I have to check this out a bit more, it seems that there are more options then I thought at first.
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Sounds great except I know some people so good at math that they could be totally wasted and still get through. They should have an IQ adjustment so those guys get calculus problems or something. LOL
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Thanks for sharing the cool plugin. I will check it out. Can’t wait for more plugin.
The guys at Google rock. I love GMail for its cool addons. And I think this one is ridiculously cute. And yes their attachment reminder will always be a boon.
Haha, for those those emails you type up out of frustration… If you accidentally click send (or press the keyboard shortcut for send…).
(You should fix the tabbing, when I tab from Name to E-Mail, it goes to find at the top of the page)
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Hmm, interesting, I being using gmail for sometime, but didn’t aware of this feature.
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Forgotten attachment detector’s quite useful for me. Sometimes I send out and email and tell my friend to check the attachment file, but there’s no attchment file.
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That’s why I’m using Gmail and I luke it
Pretty interesting, nowday, I use microsoft outlook to access my google mail, so I seldom got the change to access this interesting feature:)
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That could be frustrating if you happen to be someone who works better later at night. Pretty hilarious add on though, this obviously happens enough for them to make something like this.
OMG they need to install one of these on myspace mail, I cant count the number of times that I have spilled my guts to some girl in a drunken stooper via email there….god I wish I could take back about 100 drunken messages, this tool would have probably stopped all of them, seeing that 90% of the message was mispelled
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This could be a really helpful plugin. What I do most of the time before going out or drinking heavily, is shutdown the laptop and pack it up in it’s case. That way I at least have to unpack and set it all up before doing something stupid. Drunk forum posting anyone? I find that for me it’s enough of a barrier to prevent it.
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This sounds mad! I like to have a couple of glasses of wine and it makes me work better. Whether I can do math after a couple is another matter. Fun though to give it a try.
Ahh no wonder I’ve never seen this while I used Gmail, it was because I didn’t know about it in the first place, lol. But then again… I haven’t used Gmail that much… since I’ve mainly used Thunderbird instead of actually signing onto Google.
Till then,
Jean
Ahh..this is a funny one..I think when you go drinking we should put a sticker on the computer just to remind us, off how silly we can be in drink…ahh guys..christmas is coming up careful…of the office party’s….Ahh Ahh..Thanks..Better watch out….