I use GMail for my personal email needs; in fact, my whole family does. If you aren't a GMail user, it is time to get with it. If you are a GMail user, then I hope you have checked out the major improvements to GMail over the past couple of weeks through the implementation of GMail Labs. Specifically, undo send and the media preview plug ins are making GMail something to contend with.

If you aren't familiar with GMail labs, it is the sandbox that Google programmers get to play around in. The programmers have the opportunity to experiment with various plug-ins and the GMail users get to capialize on their fun. The newest plugins include the "undo send" function which will give you a five second window to pull back that message that you screwed up, and media plug-ins for YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, and Yelp. The media plug-ins will preview a media link that gets sent to you without the need to go to the external website. If you are interested in these plug-ins, then open your GMail account and browse the Labs tab (the link is a green Erlenmeyer flask).

The other plug-ins that are (in my humble opinion) necessary include advanced IMAP, Offline browsing, and Title Tweaks. If you want the fullest GMail experience possible, including the ability to completely stop using Outlook, then look into GMail Labs. There are some jewels in there.

via Google Blog