Note: They are rolling the feature out to select test accounts now. If you do not have IMAP options in your settings, you are not cool enough. Google will most likley do a full scale roll out shortly.

For ages, Gmail has been strictly POP3-only for external access. It got the job done, but it lacked functionality. There are a few key differences between POP3 and IMAP4 (at the user level) that make the addition of IMAP very exciting news. With traditional POP3 access to email, you generally are required to download the message (thus removing it from the email server). This sucks if you use a web interface (such as Gmail) & a remote client or mobile device equally… you would be missing emails from the web interface as they were downloaded to the remote client or mobile device. Google tried to combat this problem by adding a “keep on server” option. This was cool, but now things you do to the emails do not sync between the web interface and the remote client or mobile device (such as an email being marked as ‘read’). IMAP solves these problems! With IMAP you aren’t removing the email from the server on download, and all actions performed on an email, are synced between the clients and server. And the best thing of all? IMAP PERSISTENT CONNECTIONS! Think Microsoft Exchange-like functionality… without Exchange (or Microsoft). You can have a constant connection to an IMAP server and be notified instantly of new mail and have changes synced on the fly. This is why IMAP rules.

Good job Google. Good job! I have been waiting for a LONG time to see IMAP available on my account. I use Gmail for domains, so I have @nexdot.net and a bunch of my other sites hosted at Gmail. I was previously using my Motorola Q to access them all via POP3… it sucked. Now I have switched them all over to IMAP and I couldn’t be happier.

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ctx=%67mail&hl=en&answer=75726

After the presentations are created, the users attempt to send it to people inside and outside of the company. They quickly receive a “Mailbox is over its size limit, or you are trying to be a dumb ass and send a 91MB Power Point presentation to someone”.

They then call me and yell at me for putting limits on their email. I try to explain to them how stupid sending a 91MB Power Point presentation is, but they wont listen. So I grab it off the network drive and work magic on it. I quickly turn that 91MB Power Point into a 7.2MB Power Point, which is the EXACT same quality on screen and in print.

Here is how:

1. Step1:
   Open your gigantic Power Point presentation. The one I am using in this demo is a sexy 33.98MB (35,631,104 Bytes).
2. In Office 2007, click on ANY photo/image in the Power Point Presentation.
   1. Up in the Ribbon (fancy name for Office 2007 Tool Bar), click on the “Format” menu, under “Picture”.
   2. Now click on the “Compress Pictures” option to the left
      
       
   3. Make sure “Apply to selected pictures only” is UNCHECKED (see below)
      
       
   4. Check the top 2 boxes, and select “Screen (150 dpi)” (or, if you are really advantageous and wanna stick it to the MAN, choose “Email (96 dpi)”)
      
       
3. In Office XP/2003, you simply right click the photo, click “Format Picture”, goto the “Picture” tab, in the bottom left of the window, click “Compress” and use the same options as above!

This works in Office XP/2003/2007 in all programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc)

The Power Point presentation used in the example above is now 3.36MB (3,527,168 Bytes).

Enjoy.