But just in case you are looking for some incentive to spend a little more time in the bathroom making yourself smell nice, take a look at these two soap bars that will definitely get you washing as much as you can.

That’s the Star Wars soap bar, obviously. I found it on Etsy, and the creator calls it the “greatest soap ever.” While I would not go that far, I think that it’s pretty cool. It’s obviously handmade using a custom mold. Each order is made as it comes in, making sure that you get only the freshest soap. The scent is mandarin sandalwood, and the soap contains soy and wheat proteins. No chemical foaming agents added! The bad news is that it’s currently sold out but I am sure they will make more if you order.

Here’s another one – I think it’s cooler: the Gmail soap bar. Well, the Star Wars soap looks cooler but the idea of having Gmail in your bathroom appeals to me more. Not everyone may agree with me – indeed a lot of people online call it ridiculous, but I still think it’s a pretty neat idea. The bad news is that no one seems to know where to buy one. Maybe you do?

In essence, it’s the FaceBook update screen integrated into GMail. You can post updates, link photos and attach the RSS feed of other sites such as Blogger, Flickr, Picasa, etc. Essentially, Google is giving its users a easy time to adapt into a new social news service on their terms. And we’re fine with that.

It appears that Google Buzz seems to be an answer to its competition: Yahoo! Meme. By integrating updates and API’s into GMail, you won’t need to log into another website. Everything is within GMail.

Also, while the office bans Facebook and Twitter during work hours, I sincerely doubt they ban GMail. Teehee. Try it out one. A simple refresh to your GMail should do the trick.

No, it doesn’t sound like me, either, but if you are, or know someone who is, the Gboard might be what’s needed.

It’s a 19-key preprogrammed USB keyboard which has a number of GMail’s important features available, so you no longer have to worry about what keyboard shortcut does what.

I’ll be honest, I’d much prefer to get a programmable external keypad that could be used with a variety of different applications. Though email is important to me, it’s not so vital that I want separate hardware for it.

I can imagine most geeks who use the web interface (exclusively or from time to time) will already know most of the shortcut keys, while others probably continue to use the mouse for all operations.

I’m sure it will fit someone’s need, and at $19.99 it’s not a huge investment. It adds a bit of colour to your desktop if nothing else, though if your computer is anything like mine, USB ports are at a premium and this may not be a welcome addition.

It’s not Google endorsed, so there’s no Google logo on it. Not the most attractive bit of kit going, but it’ll do.

Product page (Via)

I found out soon enough when I tried to send the minutes of the meeting through my Google Apps e-mail. At first I thought that the error I was getting was because of our Internet connection – it does become funky at times. Then I realized that everyone was experiencing the same thing. Pretty soon, I saw proof of the worldwide “blackout” on the Web – Tweets about Gmail were all over the place.

So what happens when Gmail goes down? The world comes to a standstill!

If you haven’t noticed, or you haven’t been keeping track, this is actually the 6th downtime in 8 months! That’s almost once a month of outage! For personal e-mails, I suppose that that is not such a big deal but if your work e-mail is on the line, then such a frequent occurrence is not a very good thing. Google has no explanation for the latest glitch as of yet but it has already been dubbed as “The Great Gmail Outage of 2009.” And great it was indeed – I lost about 2 hours of work time yesterday. What were you doing when it happened? How did you deal with it?

Not too sure if you know about this already, but something worth your attention is waving at Gmail.com. Gmail now offers themes… yes, themes! Well I know know it was there for a long time through third-party aps, but now Gmail has ported the theme function from their very own.

Getting your theme is as easy as clicking the theme’s tab when you log into your Gmail account.

Now to some of you this is a GREAT step towards making Gmail work a little livelier. I could imagine those who work using their Gmail accounts every day. I know how bland and bleh Gmail can be at times. But hey, Google heard yah, so here are themes.

According to Annie Chen on the Gmail Blog, the Gmail team wanted to “go beyond simple color customization” so “there’s a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company.”

Thanks, Netaku!

Update: Just to clarify… the “visit site” link below is the gmail atom feed link. If you want to subscribe to it in your RSS reader, though, you’ll probably need to use a URL in the following format:
https://USERNAME:PASSWORD@gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom
That’ll plug your username and password into the request, since your RSS reader probably can’t prompt you for one. Also, this is mostly just to let you know you have mail.. it only displays what you’d see on the gmail inbox screen. This is probably what they’re using for the Gmail Notifier, behind the scenes.