Hacking Gmail ™ Ben Hammersley 01_59611x ffirs.qxp 11/28/05 11:09 PM Page iii Hacking Gmail ™ 01_59611x ffirs.qxp 11/28/05 11:09 PM Page i 01_59611x ffirs.qxp 11/28/05 11:09 PM Page ii Hacking Gmail ™ Ben Hammersley 01_59611x ffirs.qxp 11/28/05 11:09 PM Page iii For general information on our other products and services or to obtain technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at (800) 762-2974, outside the U.S. at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hammersley, Ben. Hacking Gmail / Ben Hammersley. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7645-9611-7 (paper/website) ISBN-10: 0-7645-9611-X (paper/website) 1. Gmail (Electronic resource) 2. Electronic mail systems. 3. Internet programming. I. Title. TK5105.74.G55H36 2006 004.692—dc22 2005029719 Trademarks: Wiley and the Wiley logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. ExtremeTech and the ExtremeTech logo are trademarks of Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings, Inc. Used under license. All rights reserved. Gmail is a trademark of Google, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Hacking Gmail™ Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc. 10475 Crosspoint Boulevard Indianapolis, IN 46256 www.wiley.com Copyright © 2006 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published simultaneously in Canada ISBN-13: 978-0-7645-9611-7 ISBN-10: 0-7645-9611-X Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1B/RU/RS/QV/IN No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600. 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Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. 01_59611x ffirs.qxp 11/28/05 11:09 PM Page iv Meanwhile, back in Florence, Anna, Lucy, Mischa, and Pico ignored the swearing and kept me fed. Love, as ever, to them. 01_59611x ffirs.qxp 11/28/05 11:09 PM Page v 01_59611x ffirs.qxp 11/28/05 11:09 PM Page vi About the Author Armed only with a PowerBook and some fine pipe tobacco, Ben Hammersley is a journalist, writer, explorer, and an errant developer and explainer of semantic web technology. He’s also liable to spread his dirty, dirty words over at The Guardian. As an Englishman of the clichéd sort, Ben’s angle brackets always balance, and his tweed is always pressed. He’s not worn trousers for six months now. Ask him about it sometime. 01_59611x ffirs.qxp 11/28/05 11:09 PM Page vii 01_59611x ffirs.qxp 11/28/05 11:09 PM Page viii [...]... professional Gmail user With a degree in Gmail A Gmail ninja A Gmail ninja with a black belt in Gmail from the secret Gmail training school on Mount Gmail You might actually be part Gmail Perhaps you’ve named your first born child after Gmail You live in the Google Headquarters You are Larry Page You get the idea Part II: Getting Inside Gmail Where you find out how Gmail works, and how you can use modern... 207 209 210 210 211 Chapter 16: Using GmailFS 213 The Underlying Idea Installing GmailFS The Correct Python Installing FUSE Installing Libgmail Installing GmailFS Using GmailFS Mounting GmailFS from the Command Line Mounting GmailFS from fstab Passing Commands... 197 199 200 201 Chapter 15: Using Gmail to 203 Using Gmail as a To-Do List Using Filters Using gmtodo Using Gmail to Find Information in RSS Feeds Using Gmail to Find Torrent Files Using Gmail as a Notepad Using Gmail as a Spam Filter An Even Simpler Way of Doing It Using Gmail as Storage for a Photo Gallery... Starting to Use Gmail This extension also allows mailto: links to point to many other web-based e-mail systems, should you tire of all of this coolness OS X GmailStatus, mentioned earlier, also has the effect of changing mailto: links to launch Gmail instead of Mail.app But if you don’t want to use GmailStatus, a good example for OS X users is Gmailto, found at http://gu.st/code/ Gmailto/ Gmailto is simple... Introduction Welcome to Hacking Gmail Thanks for buying this book If you haven’t bought it, you should It’s very good, and once you buy it you can stop loitering around the bookstore stacks Go on: Buy it, sit down, have a coffee See? Comfier isn’t it? Ah Hacking Gmail It’s a manly hobby, and this book will tell you how Sorry? What’s Gmail, you ask? Well, let me tell you What’s Gmail? March 31, 2004... all shown in Figure 1-1 At the time of writing, it, like Gmail itself, is in beta Get the Gmail Notifier from http://toolbar.google.com /gmail- helper/ FIGURE 1-1: Google’s own Gmail Notifier in action Mozilla Extension Gmail Notifier Technically, this will work on any platform that can run Mozilla-based browsers, but I’ll put Doron Rosenberg’s Gmail Notifier browser extension here (see Figure 1-2) Although... technique that Gmail brought into the mainstream Two topics for the price of one! What’s in This Book? There are three parts to this book, each lovingly crafted to bring you, young Jedi, to the peak of Gmailing excellence They are: xx Introduction Part I: Starting to Use Gmail Where you learn to use Gmail like a professional A professional Gmail user, no less A really skilled professional Gmail user With... modern scripting languages to control it Part III: Conquering Gmail Where you put these new skills to the test, wrangling Gmail into fiendishly clever uses, totally unlike those Google intended Whom Is This Book For? You Of course it is If you picked up a book called Hacking Gmail, you’re very likely to want it If you’re a programmer looking to use Gmail in wacky ways, this book is for you If you’re a power... links and updates, please visit this book’s companion website at www.wiley com/go/extremetech Hacking Gmail ™ Starting to Use Gmail F irst things first, then Before you get into the deeper workings of Gmail, you need to get yourself up to scratch with the more public side of the application Being able to hack Gmail is one thing, but it’s very helpful to have a full understanding of how the system is... 11 Importing Your Mail into Gmail Gmail Loader Setting Up Pop Access Inside Gmail Setting Up Pop Within an Application IMAP for Gmail And Now 11 11 12 13 14 14 Chapter 3: Gmail Power Tips . Hacking Gmail ™ Ben Hammersley 01_59611x ffirs.qxp 11/28/05 11:09 PM Page iii Hacking Gmail ™ 01_59611x ffirs.qxp 11/28/05. Ben. Hacking Gmail / Ben Hammersley. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7645-9611-7 (paper/website) ISBN-10: 0-7645-9611-X (paper/website) 1. Gmail