The reason why I selected a Sony Ericsson K800i is because… I still use it!   Though I use a SE K800i here to demonstrate the settings, I’m pretty sure you can use the same settings with any phone that supports IMAP to send and receive Gmail messages.

Off to the steps…

Enable IMAP access in Gmail

If you haven’t already done so, you have to enable IMAP access in Gmail, so that you can use the mail client in your mobile device to access your email.

1. Go to “Settings” in Gmail and select the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab:

2. In the “IMAP Access” section, select the “Enable IMAP” under “Status”.

Remember to save your changes

Set up the mobile phone’s mail client

1. From standby, select “Menu” => “Messaging” => “Email” => “Settings”.

2. Select “New Account” and type a name for your account (e.g.: “My Gmail Account”).

3. When you press “Ok”, you will be taken to the first set of settings. Select “Connect Using” and select a data account you have set up in the phone (If you don’t have one, you will have to set up a data account with your mobile operator first. Without a data connection, you won’t be able to continue).

4. Once the data account is selected you will be back to the settings. Now select the next item, “Email Address” and enter your full Gmail address (including “@gmail.com”). Press Ok.

5. Next step is to select “Connection Type”. Select IMAP4 as the connection type.

6. Then change the “Incoming Server” option’s value to imap.gmail.com. Username should be your full email address and set your Gmail password.

7. Change the “Outgoing server” option’s value to smtp.gmail.com, and move on to the “Advanced Settings” option.

8. Under Advanced Settings, you can set your name (how you want it to appear in mails) and a signature. Under “Download S&R”, I recommend you select “Subjects Only” so that you can check the subject and decide whether to press the button on the mail to download it or not.

“Check Interval” can be used if you don’t want to use Push email. Setting a check interval won’t keep the phone connected always. Instead it will check for mail periodically when the check interval elapses (This is recommended if your phone has battery life problems!).

Turn “Push email” on if you want to be notified about incoming email as it arrives (like in a BlackBerry!). This option will not be available at this time. But it will be available AFTER you create the account. The only warning I would give is that it will drain your battery fast. So if it is a problem, leave it off and use the “Check Interval” option to an appropriate value.

9. Now select the “Encryption” option. You will find two sub options in it. Select SSL for “Incoming Server” option and select “TLS” for the “Outgoing Server” option. Use the back button on the phone to come out of the “Encryption” settings.

Select the “Outgoing Username” next and enter you full email address (including “@gmail.com”). And enter you Gmail password for “Outgoing Password”.

Set the “Incoming port” to 993 and “Outgoing port” to 587. That is the last option under the “Advanced settings” section. Now press the back button to come to the previous settings screen. Press the back button again to come out of the email settings altogether.

You should get a popup saying: “Account created. Select the new account if you want to use it as your active account.”

(Note: Hope you remember, I said that the “Push” email option wouldn’t be available until the account is created. Now, either you should get another popup sooner or later saying that Push access can be enabled asking whether to enable it, or you can go into the settings again and turn it on).

To go back to edit any settings you should follow:

Messaging => Email => Settings => (now highlight the account) => More => Edit Account.

10. To send and receive email, come into the email inbox => More => Send & Receive. You can mark mails for deletion. To clear the emails that were “marked for deletion”, you should select “Clear Inbox”.

That’s all folks.. enjoy Gmail through IMAP4, using an old brick.

Hope that helps at least another Sony Ericsson K800i user!

Further Reading:

1. Gmail Help – Configuring other mail clients
2. Gmail Help – Getting started with IMAP for Gmail

Microsoft Photosynth

Adding to the excitement was the use of Photosynth to present the ‘moment’ of the oath using a huge multi-touch screen by a CNN anchor (click here to see CNN’s Photosynth of the moment). Microsoft’s Photosynth can create an interactive 3D panorama from multiple still images.

Around 2 million people were present at the ceremony according to CNN and thousands have sent photos to them which was added to the Photosynth of the moment.

A special moment “captured” in 3D.

Thanks to Photosynth, the 44th US President’s historic swearing-in moment is captured in 3D and can be revisited by future generations, to experience it from many angles (unlike recorded video, which is not interactive… at least until ‘Holographic Video’ becomes a reality!)

So, go ahead and experiment Photosynth (which you can install if you don’t have it already)

I was once an excited user of StreamLoad/MediaMax, who offered 20GB of free online storage. Those are not the only 2 names they had. They had been acquired by many, and they changed a dozen names that I don’t even remember now. I put so many GBs of my precious files in their online drives and lost everything, when they shutdown the website. They said they are free and took all our files into their drives, and when they announced they are going to close the site, they asked for money to give our files back… How rude is that!

But now, this is Windows Live SkyDrive. Something from Microsoft, which is why I am a little more confident to use the service. And for those anti-Microsoft guys, I should say, even if for some reason Microsoft had to bring SkyDrive down one day, they won’t do what my previous online storage folks did to my files (I don’t even like to repeat their name more than once ).

There are other tools like GMail Drive, which is a useful piece of tool that uses the GMail’s storage as a virtual drive through a Windows Shell extension, which I have not tried yet.

Other online storage tools that I have personally tried are:

DropBox – Is an excellent free online storage, that not only stores, but also synchronizes multiple storage locations. Currently they offer 2GB of free online storage.

DropBoks – Is another free online storage that offers 1GB. Simplicity is their strength.

Since I have learned a lesson with my 1st online storage experience, I would not recommend anyone to store their most precious collection of files only in an online storage.

Hope this helps someone.