Tony Abou-Assaleh

Gmail is a great products with powerful search and labelling systems that changed the way I use email. There is a small annoyance though – when doing search, Gmail does not return the total number of results if you have more than a few. Further, there is no easy way to access older results or see more than 20 results per page. Basically, you’d have to keep hitting the “older” button until you get to that last message. But what if you had hundreds or thousands of results from a mailing list, like I do?

Here is a power tip for Gmail users with thousands of messages on how to find the exact number of search results, browse 100 results at a time, and easily access the oldest messages:

1. Do a search, either regular or advanced through the “Show search options” link.
2. Select all the results by hitting “Select: All”
3. Really select ALL the results by clicking on the “Select all conversations that match this search” link
4. Apply a new label to the results, such as “Results Count”
5. A popup dialog will ask you “This action will affect all conversations in this search. Are you sure you want to continue?” Hit OK.
6. Now you can go to the “Results Count” label on the left side bar and:
   1. See the total number of messages
   2. See the total number of unread messages
   3. Paginate through the messages up to 100 messages at a time
   4. Access the oldest message easily through the now available “Oldest »” link.
7. If you no longer need this label, you can select all the message and clear the label so it’s usable in future searches.

Did you find this tip useful? I’d appreciate some feedback in the comments. Feel free to link to other Gmail power tips.

After a recent report by Mobile Crunch that the mobile location-based game Booyah has outgrown Foursquares and Gowalla reaching 1 million mobile users, combined with recent reports on the future of the Web at top conferences on the subject, and affirmed by recent trends in VC’s investing strategies in the IT sector, I have become convinced that the future of the Web is in mobile apps and not Web-based applications, sometimes referred to as “software as a service”.

In the last decade, we have witnessed a revolution in Web app design both in terms of the user experience and the richness of functionality. Arguable, the most successful and revolutionary Web app for consumers has been Gmail, and more recently Google Apps. Facebook is another great example of a Web app, with more social focus. All is good, and more Web apps are coming, but then what?

While the laptop is becoming a replacement to the desktop for many, smart phones such as iPhone and Blackberry are becoming a replacement for laptops. The new trend in mobile consumer usage, set by Apple’s iPhone and followed by RIM’s Blackberry and Google’s Android, is to access services and information through apps instead of mobile-friendly websites. Is your website optimized for mobile access? Big deal – new mobile browser can render most websites in a usable fashion. But who cares? If you don’t have an app to access your site then it’s simply boring. I believe boring is not the main reason though. It all boils down to the look and feel. Mobile apps provide a consistent look and feel with the rest of the mobile interface, a lot more so that a Web page does.

Based on these trends, I believe that the value of “software as a service” as being the future of desktop apps for consumers will slowly (or quickly?) diminish; while mobile apps will increase in sophistication and become the norm for accessing your email, social networks, documents, spreadsheets, organizer, etc.

Some may argue that the desktop, or the laptop, will still be ahead in software due to the limited screen size that mobile devices affords. Apple has negated that claim last month with the release of its iPad. QED.