I’m a big fan of the google empire of products. Docs/Sites/Forms/Gmail/Gtalk etc. I’m sure alot of you who use gmail know that you can embed Gtalk on the sidebar. Well now you can embed other cool apps too.

Google recently opened up APIs to developers and these are one of the first to jump onboard. Remember the milk is a cool app for you to manage tasks. Its pretty flexible for both casual users (free) or advanced scheduling features ($25/year). Instructions to add it to your sidebar available here. You DO have to sign up for the service though. I just use it casually, keeping up to date with appointments and items that i need to follow up on etc. Like a postit note attached to my gmail. 

Another cool app i added is google docs. I use them ALOT for presentations and just demo’ing stuff on the go. Google forms are very useful as well. Drawback on goog docs is that Its quite lightweight, its useful 99% of the time but it isnt a full fledged MS-word/excel with macros etc. Anyway linking it to gmail was great for me cause I’m perpetually on it.

Instructions to add apps:

1) Sign in to gmail
2) go to Settings > Labs
3) Select the cool apps you want to integrate. There are quite a few - change your sidebar to the right, etc.
4) Check Enable. Click Save

Enjoy