Google has fixed a Gmail bug that was causing emails to be sent multiple times. The bug was first reported by Google on Thursday and affected about 2.5 percent of Gmail users.

Several Gmail users posted about the bug in the Gmail Help Forum. Google posted a warning about the bug on the Google App Status Dashboard and provided a fix for the bug within two hours after the post. Currently, the problem has been fully resolved.

This week Google launched a new voice-calling service for Gmail. While there are speculations that this may have something to do with the bug, there are no indications that this is indeed the reason for the bug.

Rich text signatures have long been one of the most anticipated features in Gmail. There are some work around such as Greasemonkey scripts, browser plugins, and even canned responses from Gmail Labs. Many of us have not bothered about not being able to change the colors or font size of signatures, or insert images and links. Either way, this is good time as Google is  launching the ability to write rich text signatures right in Gmail.

In the Settings page, you’ll see a rich text editor in the signature section. This can be used to customize the signature by adding pretty formatting, links, and images.

Gmail also now supports a unique signature for each email address associated with your account. If you send email using a custom "From:" address, you can use a different signature for that address. From the Settings page, you can edit the signature for each account by changing the email address that appears in the dropdown menu.

Currently, only the desktop version of Gmail supports rich text signatures. The HTML version of Gmail and the mobile versions use a plain text version of your primary account’s signature. In other words, rich text signatures will not work in them.

Via: The Official Gmail Blog

If you’re thinking of using Google talk for Linux, there is bad news! Google has not yet launched an official Google talk client for Linux. This is rather strange because Google is one of those companies which places a lot of emphasis on open source software. However, we can expect it to release a client in the very near future. Linux is gaining more and more popularity and a large number of Google users are Linux enthusiasts.

There are other ways to use Google talk on Linux. For example, there are several instant messaging software that run on Linux which can be used for connecting to Google talk. One such software is Pidgin. The software is available on many Linux distributions such as Ubuntu. In other words, you don’t have to download and install the software — it comes automatically inbuilt with the distribution. If you are running other UNIX distributions such as FreeBSD, you can still run it because it is available for a number of platforms.

Pidgin can also be used to connect to other instant messaging networks such as MSN and Yahoo. However, not all the functions provided by Google talk can be found in this application. For example, filesharing doesn’t work properly. It also doesn’t support Google voice.

Other clients which support Google talk include Kopete and Psi. You can download these files by searching for them in Google or Yahoo. Alternatively, you can also download and install these applications from the software management system available on your Linux distribution. For example, if you use Ubuntu you can download and install the software by using APT.

More information can be obtained by visiting http://www.google.com/talk/otherclients.html

How to Backup Your Gmail Account

It is important that you back up your gmail account. Your emails may contain confidential information such as bank statements, money details, etc. and should these land in the hands of some unscruplous hacker, it could prove dangerous. Your email account can also be hijacked by password cracking or some other means. So, it is better to delete confidential emails once you read them or back them up to your hard drive and encrypt them.

There are two ways to backup your gmail account:

- Forward your email to another account:

This will be depending on your other account’s stability. Go to Settings, then Forwarding and POP. Select Forward a copy, and enter an email address. Then Save Changes.

- Download all your email to your computer:

Enable POP for all mail and then follow Google’s guide to configuring your desktop email client such as Thunderbird or Outlook. Download all emails to hard disk and keep them safe.