Here are the steps you need to plow through to create a signature:
1 Choose Settings ⇒ See all settings.Gmail opens the Settings page with the General tab displayed.
2 Scroll way down until you come to the Signature setting.
3 Click Create New.The Name New Signature dialog box appears.
4 Enter the name you want to identify your signature and then click Create.
5 Use the large text box to compose the signature.Figure 2-6 shows an example.Feel free to enhance your signature with any of the formatting options that appear just below the text box.FIGURE 2-6: Use the Signature setting to create a signature that says “you.”
6 If you want Gmail to add a signature whenever you create a new email message, use the For New Emails Use list to select the signature.
7 If you want Gmail to tack on the signature whenever you reply to a message or forward a message to someone, use the On Reply/Forward Use list to select the signature.
8 When you're done, scroll down to the very bottom of the Settings page and click Save Changes.
Scheduling a send
When you compose an email and click Send, Gmail dutifully ships out your message right away. However, there might be times when you want your email delayed until a certain time or even a certain day. For example, you might want a newsletter email to go out at midnight tonight. Similarly, you might prefer that a message to your team be delivered first thing Monday morning.
Whatever the reason for the delay, you can set up a message to be sent later, by following these steps:
1 Create, address, and write your email in the usual way.
2 Click More Send Options.More Send Options is the downward-pointing arrow to the right of the Send button.
3 Click Schedule Send.Gmail offers up the Schedule Send dialog box, which looks suspiciously like the one shown in Figure 2-7.FIGURE 2-7: Use the Schedule Send dialog box to tell Gmail when you want it to send your message.
4 If one of the three offered dates and times works for you, go ahead and click it and then ignore the rest of these steps. Otherwise, click Select Date and Time.Gmail opens the Select Date and Time dialog box, which offers a calendar and a time text box.
5 Use the calendar to select the date on which you want your message fired off.
6 Use the text box to enter the time you want to send the message.
7 Click Schedule Send.Gmail makes a note to send your message on the date and time you specified.
Undoing a send
It's a rare emailer who hasn't experienced “post-Send” regret, which is the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that comes when you realize you’ve just posted a long lament about the sad state of your love life to the entire company.
The Gmail programmers must have experienced that regret a time or two themselves because they did something about it: They created the Undo command. After you click Send, Gmail displays the Message Sent pop-up, shown in Figure 2-8, for a few seconds. Crucially for those of us with overly sensitive Send trigger fingers, that pop-up also includes an Undo command. Click Undo and Gmail plucks your message out of the outbox and opens it again so that you can make whatever changes you need (or toss the message in the trash). Whew!
FIGURE 2-8: Right after you send a message, you can change your mind by clicking Undo.
By default, Gmail displays the Message Sent pop-up (and therefore the Undo command) for only five seconds. If you'd like a bit more time, follow these steps:
1 Choose Settings ⇒ See all settings.Gmail opens the Settings page with the General tab displayed.
2 For the Undo Send setting, use the Send Cancellation Period: X Seconds drop-down list to set the number of seconds you want.You can choose 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds.
3 Scroll down to the bottom of the Settings page and click Save Changes.
The Inbox: Handling Incoming Messages
Some people like to think of email as a return to the days of belles lettres and billets-doux. (These people tend to be a bit pretentious.) Yes, it's true that email has people writing again, but this isn't like the letter-writing of old. The major difference is that the turnaround time for email is usually much quicker. Rather than wait weeks or even months to receive a return letter, a return email might take as little as a few minutes or a few hours. So, if you send a message with a question or comment, chances are that you’ll receive a reply before too long. This section shows you what to do with those messages after they arrive.
Refreshing your messages
One of Gmail's handiest features is that whenever it receives a message, it automatically adds it to your inbox. Nice! However, Gmail sometimes doesn't add a new message to the inbox immediately. It will get there soon enough, but if you're waiting impatiently for a particular message to arrive, you can often speed things up a bit by clicking the Refresh icon (pointed out earlier, in Figure 2-1).
Reading your messages
Figure 2-9 shows the Inbox label with a few messages. The first thing to notice is that Gmail uses a bold font for all messages you haven't read yet. For each message, you also see the name of the sender, the Subject line and the first few words of the body (separated by a dash), and the delivery time (if it was delivered today) or date (if it was delivered before today).
FIGURE 2-9: The inbox with a few messages received.
To read a message, click it. Gmail opens the message and displays its text, as shown in Figure 2-10. To navigate your messages, use the following techniques (all shown in Figure 2-10):
To display the next oldest message, click Older.
To display the next newer message, click Newer.
To return to the inbox, click Back to Inbox.
FIGURE 2-10: Click a