Author: joanvinallcox

Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. is a lifelong learner, retired communications professor, and rabid reader who has taught in both the college and university systems. Her Ph.D., in 2004 was an Autoethnographic Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry focused on moving from technophobia to technophilia. She is a widow from a pretty happy marriage and a mother to a strong and kind daughter. Her interests include Centering Prayer, Multiple Intelligences, Attention Deficit Disorder and its connection to creativity, Jung, Campbell’s Monomyth, and Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry.

Why I Like gMail’s New Tabbed Inbox

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This might make some of the people and organizations that send me emails unhappy, but why I like gmail’s new tabbed Inbox is because it makes it so easy to sort my mail, and throw out what I’m not interested in. Let me explain. I sign up for lots of stuff; I like having blogs I follow come into my inbox rather than using RSS.  and a Reader. Lots of people, especially the highly tech-able ones, may criticize that, but it’s my habit, and I’m sticking to it. What this means is I get a lot of mail, and only some of it interests me. gMail’s new Inbox makes it easy for me to continue in my subscribing habits without being too overwhelmed or annoyed by piles of messages. Here’s what I do:

After checking my Primary tab for personal and important messages ( To learn how move messages so they land in your Primary tab – see https://joanvinallcox.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/gmails-new-inbox-tabs/ ) I go to one of my other tabs. The first thing I do is click the little box just above the Primary tab.

Select all above the Primary Inbox in gmail
Select all above the Primary Inbox in gmail

This will select all the messages in that tab.

All messages are selected in this tab
All messages are selected in this tab

(This works best on my laptop, and not so easily on my tablet or phone.)

I de-selecting the messages I want to keep, which I find easier than individually selecting the ones I have no interest in.

Once I’ve done separated out the ones I want to read, – –

gmail tabbed inbox with some messages selected
gmail tabbed inbox with some messages selected

I simply click on the trash can –

gmail's Trash
gmail’s Trash

and all the checked and highlighted messages that I don’t want disappear. Easy and time-saving. I could individually check the boxes on the ones I don’t want, but I find it emotionally easier to make one (large) negative selection by clicking the box at the top, and then saving (unchecking) the ones I do want.

The nest and final post will explain how to get rid of the tabs and go back to the previous plain, untabbed gmail Inbox. Coming soon.

The New gMail Inbox’s Other Tabs

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gMail has a new structure for its inbox. The Primary tab is the one that opens first and is the most important because it contains your personal messages – as described previously – https://joanvinallcox.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/gmails-new-inbox-tabs/

The Other Inbox Tabs

The slightly altered image below is from (and linked to) Google Support – https://support.google.com/mail/answer/3055016?hl=en

https://joanvinallcox.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/gmails-new-inbox-tabs/
The New gMail Inbox Tabs

As well as the Primary tab, there are Promotions, Social, Updates, and Forums. Depending on your web activities you may only need some of them. For example, if you have set up a Groupon account, or other promotional sites, those messages will automatically go under the Promotions tab.

Here’s how it looks:

gMail Inbox's PromotionsTab
gMail Inbox’s Promotions Tab

You can see the kind of messages that land in the Promotions tab. Remember, if you want messages from a particular source to land under a different tab, all you have to do is drag the message to the tab you want, and then, when “Do this for future messages …?” appears just above the tabs, choose “Yes”.

You may have noticed that I changed the order my tabs are in to suit my interests. I’m more interested in what comes in under my Social tab than what’s under my Promotions tab.

Another thing to notice, I have “1 new” message waiting in my Social tab. Each tab shows how many new messages are waiting for you there. Sometimes I want to know what’s in my Updates tab right away because I’m expecting a confirmation. Usually, I leave checking my Forums tab till I have some free time.

—–

Not finding the new tabbed inbox a good fit for you? I’ll blog about how to limit your tabs or even return to a single, tabless, inbox soon.

gMail’s New Inbox Tabs

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What I like about having my mail automatically separated into 5 mailboxes:

Screen Shot 2013-08-21 at 12.02.03 PM

My Primary Inbox

I go there first to see all my personal email. It’s addressed to me. Google Help explains it well:

Primary Inbox
Primary Inbox

Moving Message from One Tab to Another

I’ve found I can pull emails from other tabs into my Primary Inbox and set them to always land there. This is good for my favorites:

For example, Facebook notifications automatically arrive in my Social tab. I can simply drag the message into my Primary Inbox, then choose “Yes” to have all my future Facebook notifications land in my Primary Inbox. Cool, eh?

Moving messages to my Primary Inbox
Moving messages to my Primary Inbox

More soon on why the other Tabs are handy.

When Obligations Collide

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Totems

When obligations collide, my heart unfolds.
I try to read what is written for tomorrow
without my glasses. I must decide.
This slippery road leads me into strange spaces.
The centre collapses unexpectedly, but the periphery
may knit into a new street view. I search.
Steering blindly by what is yet hidden
I try to avoid the road rages of others
and drive cleanly into the mystery. I meditate.
 May 1, 2013 – Joan Vinall-Cox

 

Getting Older

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A poem I wrote about the experience of getting older –

Getting Older Stings

Like a spray of hot pebbles – little stings that you feel but shrug off.
Slowly blisters form: skin over tears.

Nodding off during the news,
Getting no questions when I ask for a senior’s discount,
Noticing I think anyone under 50 is young,
Going to retirement parties,
           Little stings.

Learning I’m two inches shorter,
Noticing I can’t run up stairs anymore,
Wobbling if I walk too far,
Hearing that child call me an old lady,
            Blisters.

Socializing at funerals,
Listening for ages in death announcements
Fretting because I haven’t updated my will,
Wondering who that I love will ‘pass’
            before I die.

Joan Vinall-Cox 2012

Advent – Waiting in the Dark, for the Light

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Advent  Meditation

Midwinter is a time of darkness, a time when the light lessens and disappears, a time when we mix hope and fear. The worldly powers compel many, but not every detail of our lives. We can, as this Christian story asserts, face our lives with faith, with belief that out of our struggles, meaning will emerge.

This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” – Matthew 2:15

by  Joan Vinall-Cox

It was a dark time –
Mary had wanted to be glad
Joseph had chosen her
but that strange dream …

and old Elizabeth, swollen  with  child,
calling her blessed, saying a
Child was growing in her
too, yet she’d never…
except in that strange dream;

and she had swollen
and Joseph,
angry and sad and puzzled,
had planned to hide
her disgrace, but he dreamed
too,
and married her but slept
apart
and would not look at her.

It was a dark time.

It was a dark time –
the rulers had decided
to count them all where
their ancestors had lived
so Joseph and Mary must walk

for days, weeks, and her so
large and tired, and both so
puzzled and hopeful and fearful.
Could the Holy One really have  chosen
them?

Still they must walk,
as the rulers
demanded, in the cold,
in the darkening time, they must
walk into Bethlehem, this ancient
town, filled with others obeying
the rulers who wanted to count  them and did not care
about walking, or a room for a
young woman with her time
pressing on her,
with the Holy One’s Gift demanding
His time on earth,
and no room for this family

It was a dark time.

There was light at His birth –
light in Mary’s eyes and
light in Joseph’s smile and
light flowing out, pulsing out
around the wondrous Child

light that brought the amazed
shepherds,
and star light that
brought the Wise Ones from
afar to worship
Him

and light that the eyes in
the dark could see, whispering to
a man with too much power
that he was nothing
beside such Light,

and the Holy One sent another
dream to guard the Light, to
hide it in a foreign land

and Mary and Joseph fled
into Egypt, carrying the Light
away from the darkness of
Herod’s massacre of babies.

It was a dark time.

It was a dark time –
waiting in a foreign land,
watching Him grow, and learning
patience and trust, waiting

for a new dream, yearning for
home

and then

out of the dark time,
the dream came.