I suppose you all must have already heard about Twitter. The best way to stay tuned and connected with your friends online. Twitter is also famous for it’s plugins that enable users to send and receive Tweets from almost any application or website. A guy even managed to tweak his washing machine, see this post to see what I mean: Washing Machine Tweaked – Posts on Twitter When The Load’s Done.
And now it can be integrated into Google Gmail. Which enables you to send Updates and see Tweets from other users without even going to Twitter website. You just need to apply these 3 easy steps and start Tweeting from your Gmail inbox right away.
Login to your Gmail account and follow these steps to add Twitter to your Gmail inbox:
1. After logging in, Click the green Labs Icon located at the top right corner of your window. (you can click on image below to enlarge it)
If you never used any of Gmail addons from Google Labs then you will not see this green Lab Icon. To fix that, just go to Settings and then click on the Labs tab. After that you should see list of plugins that can be added to your Gmail inbox. I’ve written about this in the post about 5 Cool Gmail Apps here.
2. When you go to Labs, you need to find plugin named “Add any Gadget by URL” (it is usually at the bottom of the list). After you find it, click to enable it.
3. Now go to Gadgets Tab and enter “http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget_gmail.xml” (without quotation marks). See the image below.
Click the Add button and there you go! Now you have Twitter integrated into your Gmail inbox. It should appear in your sidebar and should look something like this:
Facebook and Gmail are two of the most popular services in the social networking and email category, but what if you can check your email while you can take a look at your friends updates in Facebook?
The Facebook Gadget tries to accomplish this by providing users with a handy gadget that will allow you to receive your latest notifications on Facebook, check your friends latest updates, view photos and even launch Facebook searches from your Gmail account or Google homepage.
To get Facebook updates in your Gmail account, just add the Facebook Gadget to Gmail by using the Gadgets by URL feature. The URL you will need for adding the Facebook Gadget is http://www.brianngo.net/ig/facebook.xml, if you are unsure how to add custom gadgets to Gmail.
Once you have added the Gadget, you will see a link to login to your Facebook account to provide access to the Facebook Gadget for Google to your Facebook account, just follow the steps and close the browser window, the gadget will automatically refresh and show you the latest update from your Facebook account in the Gmail sidebar.
More Gadgets :-
The list will look at Gadgets that can be used to search Wikipedia, run a quick calculation, check time in different time zones and more.
On the other hand, if you are new to gadgets in Gmail, take a look at our tutorial for adding custom gadgets to Gmail.
Wikipedia Search
If you use email to research quite a lot, you may periodically have to lookup terms in Wikipedia, this gadget will save you some time searching Wikipedia. Just enter you term and the Wikipedia page will open up in a new window or tab.
Wikipedia Search Gadget URL: http://www.google.com/ig/modules/wikipedia.xml
Google Translate
Want to translate a word quickly before you send it to someone, or want to translate back a word from a email you received? The Google Translator gadget can save you time when you want to do this, add this gadget, enter the word you want to translate, choose the language you want translation for, or let Google detect the language for you, pretty handy gadget.
Google Translate Gadget URL: http://www.google.com/ig/modules/dictionary.xml
World Clock
Previously reviewed World Clock for Gmail is another must have gadget for users who communicate with people from different time zones, with this gadget you can view the time for several different countries and time zones in your Gmail sidebar.
World Clock Gadget URL: http://gad.getpla.net/poly/clock.xml
Ask A Word
Ask A Word is a very handy gadget which will allow you to spellcheck, search Thesaurus, Dictionary and Encyclopedia without leaving Gmail, pretty useful when you want to quickly lookup a word from a email for its dictionary meaning, or while composing emails.
Ask Word Gadget URL: http://www.openinventions.com/spellcheck/openinventions_spellcheck.xml
Google Tasks
Google Tasks quickly allows you to convert emails into To-Do lists, along with adding your own To-do tasks, you can view all the Google tasks in your sidebar with the Google Tasks gadget.
If you are looking for a desktop alternative, checkout the Google Tasks for Desktops.
Google Tasks Gadget URL: http://www.google.com/ig/modules/tasks.xml
Google Calculator
Looking to compute simple arithmetic expressions or convert between units, the Google Calculator is a really handy tool which can compute complicated mathematical expressions and conversions with ease, it even does algebra and you can also use wildcard entries to calculate terms.
Google Calculator Gadget URL: http://calebegg.com/calc.xml
Currency Converter
Want to convert Dollars to Euros or Pounds to Dollars, you can do it all without leaving Gmail, just add the currency converter gadget and you can easily convert from current exchange rates for the currency you choose.
The conversion is done in real time as you type, and you can see the conversion both ways, from one currency to another and vice versa
Currency Converter Gadget URL: http://www.ac-markets.com/forex/currencyconverter.xml
Links To Google Services
Do you use a lot of Google services? If so, you can quickly open any Google service from your Gmail sidebar, without the need to type the entire URL, this Links to Google Services adds links to every Google service.
Links To Google Services Gadget URL: http://blakewest.googlepages.com/googleservices.xml
Do you think there are other gadgets that are useful and can be used in Gmail? Do let us know about them through your comments.
