Fighting Spam With Google's Gmail

Spam sucks; there is no doubt about it. There is nothing worse for me than checking my e-mail in the morning before work while trying to enjoy my coffee and what do I see in my Inbox? Nothing but penis enlargement and Viagra ads. As a man I find this terribly offensive; as if my man-hood was being directly attacked. But not to worry. I found a solution that has been working great for me. I switched to Gmail, the new e-mail service offered by Google. Gmail has many wonderful attributes, including over 2500MB of storage, the ability to send up to 10MB of attachments, the ability to choose whether you want images displayed or not, and the automatic depiction of e-mailed photos. Not to mention that the service is also free! But one of the greatest things about Gmail that I have experienced so far is their spam filter. Gmail's spam filter catches nearly all spam that gets sent to me. If a spam e-mail happens to get by, then there is a convenient "report spam" button on the top of the menu which allows me to designate the undesirable messages as spam. Another advantage of Gmail is its ease of use. You can "star" important e-mails, create labels and filters and, best of all, you can search your e-mail messages. How many times have you remembered you received some key message in an e-mail but you cannot remember the date or who sent it? But you do remember it was about a certain keyword. No problem! Type the keyword into the Gmail search and it will automatically find the e-mail for you! Another great thing is the ease in which Gmail allows you to select ALL MESSAGES in the spam box and delete them in one fell swoop. What is also great about Gmail is that once you report an e-mail as spam you will rarely receive another spam e-mail from that particular sender; it's that good. So what is the draw back? Well, currently Gmail is still in beta and not available to the public. However, current users of Gmail can invite new people to sign up for a Gmail account. So, what you need to do is find a friend who has Gmail and ask them to invite you to Gmail. If you don't know anybody with Gmail, then you can post a comment on my blog Spam Watch, and I will send you an invitation to Gmail. Of course, I have a limited number of Gmail invitations and will not be able to invite everyone to the service, but I will do the best I can. If all else fails, start asking around at work, as well as your family and friends. Someone you know is bound to have a Gmail account and they can e-mail you an invitation. It is totally free and totally worth it.