Here at Stone Ward, we use Google for our corporate email and make extensive use of Google Docs. So do some of our clients. That’s why I thought it would be useful to share a few neat things most people don’t know you can do with Gmail and Google Docs. Enjoy!
Unlimited Google Mail aliases: If you have an email address, like I have psuda@stoneward.com, you can actually receive email at psuda+123@stoneward.com, or psuda+is+awesome@stoneward.com, or psuda+anything@stoneward.com. Say you want to start tracking your mailing lists more easily, subscribe with something like this psuda+mailinglist@stoneward.com. Then, you can search for all email sent to that address.
Or, say you want to see who’s sharing your email with other 3rd parties. Whenever you sign up to receive promotions or get on someone’s mailing list, give an address that includes the name of that company. Then you can see who they share their email list with, when you start getting email addressed to that unique email from other companies.
Try out adding “+something” to your email address and sending yourself something!
Spreadsheet Script Gallery: Google spreadsheets allow programmers to script activities using Javascript. This is much like macros or VB scripts for Microsoft Office.
Some of my favorites…
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Batch Geocode – For web development work I have to get latitude and longitude coordinates for long lists of addresses sometimes. Maybe you do too. This will help.
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Facebook Likes Counter – Let’s say you track FB likes for a list of web properties. This script will help you keep those stats organized in one convenient spreadsheet.
There’s lots of others that link your spreadsheet to social media and other services you use. And, if you can’t find one that does what you want, all it takes is a little Javascript knowlege to write your own.
