Why Do a Bunch of Of Other People Have My Same Gmail Address?

Being the Google Apps loving, Google+ excluded, long-time domain owning cat that I am, I don’t use them much anymore, but I own several regular Gmail email addresses. I get occasional email at these addresses, mostly from websites where I didn’t want to give my real email address, so I have configured my Google Apps Gmail account to check them regularly. Emails to those accounts show up in a designated folder in my regular Gmail app.

gmail

A year or so ago, I started getting emails that weren’t intended for me, addressed to one of those old email addresses: knewsome at gmail. Over time, the amount of email increased. Now I get several a week. Most of the time I just delete them, or unsubscribe, if that is an option. Once I got what appeared to be an important email from a wife to her husband, so I emailed her from another email address and told her that I wasn’t her husband. I got another one from her the other day. She wanted him to call her at work, before 6:15.

At this point, I’ve unsubscribed, deleted and, in that one case, emailed, about as much as I can, to no avail. The emails keep coming.

I can’t get Tim Westergren to give me a straight answer on the Pandora hobbling 6-skips an hour limitation, but I got this today, welcoming some other Knewsome to Pandora:

Thanks so much for joining Pandora! We’re very happy to have you on board, and we look forward to providing you with endless hours of great music listening and discovery. The Music Genome Project has been a 10-year labor of love, and we hope you’ll enjoy the results.

Yesterday, Google wrote me, not to tell me I can finally use Google+, but to tell someone named Kenneth that his newest Gmail email address, signed up for via the Knewsome account, is ready:

Congratulations on creating your brand new Gmail address,
knewsome1968@gmail.com. Please keep this email for your records, as it contains an important verification code that you may need should you ever encounter problems or forget your password.

There’s more. Meredith, Holly and Margaret invited me to the AHHS Class of 2001 10 Year Reunion in Forth Worth, Texas. Hope it was fun. I graduated from High School before they were born.

I got an email about a Scholastic Book Order from a third grade teacher in Florida. Hope those girls got their books.

Someone named Kindal was about to waste his/her money on some software program. The salesman’s email was so over the top, I couldn’t even tell what he was selling.

Clearly, these are not all the same person, and at least some of them are not spammers or scammers. It looks like a whole bunch of people are using the knewsome at gmail address like some sort of shared phone line. I don’t use that address, so I don’t care all that much.

But it is troubling. And apparently not an isolated event. These folks are complaining to Google. As are these.

Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing with their Gmail accounts?

Why Are Google Apps Users Always at the Back of the Line?

appsline Here’s the way it goes when Google announces some new feature, like today’s announcement that Gmail users can make phone calls right from Gmail. First, I read a little about it to see if it’s something I’m interested in. Often, it is. I get excited about it, and when I get home, I eagerly sit down at my computer to try it out.

Only to find out that the nifty new feature is not available to Google Apps users. You know, those who use the platform Google wants us to use instead of those expensive Microsoft Office apps. The same apps that Google would like for us to pay for.

The Gmail blog post announcing this new feature has this all-too-familiar nugget:

If you’re using Google Apps for your school or business, then you won’t see it quite yet. We’re working on making this available more broadly – so stay tuned!

I can’t imagine how pissed off I’d be if I was paying for Google Apps. It’s sort of like if Microsoft rolled out feature after feature to its Docs users and promised to get back with paying Microsoft Office customers “soon.” That probably won’t happen.

SNAGHTML3e5a815

But it keeps happening with Google Apps. It’s messed up. It’s backwards. And it irks the dickens out of me.

A Good Day for the Folders

Yesterday was a great day for those of us who like to organize our content the sane, logical way- in folders. I’ve never understood how anyone could argue while sober and somber that labels/tags are an acceptable alternative to folders. In fact, the introduction of a folder-like archive management system is what initially made Better Gmail 2 the most important add-on since French fried potatoes.

Now, the other features of Better Gmail 2 will have to carry the banner, as Google has introduced nested labels in Gmail. Next to the fantastic spam filters, this may be the best feature in Gmail. I can’t overstate how happy I am that Google has added this feature.

Thank you, Google.

Some will feel compelled to tell me how great labels and tags are. I’ll respond the same way I always do- good, go make some labels and tags. It doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition. We should both have what we want. Now we do.

On the same day, Apple gave the world a preview of the forthcoming iPhone OS 4. There’s a lot to like about the new OS- the main thing being the ability to have more than one Microsoft Exchange email account. Another excellent new feature is the ability to place your iPhone and iPad apps in folders. This is excellent.

Folders. As far as the eye can see.

Now, if Apple would just implement folders in iTunes, I could focus all of my attention on crapping all over the otherwise excellent Evernote for refusing to add folders (or subnotebooks) to its application. Without folders, Evernote becomes unwieldy for power users. I pay for a premium account, but I won’t renew it unless the developers implement some sort of folders option.

You win a few and you lose a few. Yesterday we won.