A lot of email programs still give you a tiny little ding to alert you whenever you’ve received a new email in your inbox. But how would you like to hear that ding from outside the confines of your computer speaker?

You won’t be able to buy one of these USB bells anywhere, but you can make one yourself. The bell itself is pretty easy to find; if you don’t see any at your local stores, then filch one from the public library or from some hotel or restaurant. (Just kidding!)

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Seriously though, this little contraption might look pretty simple but a whole lot of work went into turning this plain old bell into an email alert sounding device.

You can find complete and detailed instructions on how to construct your very own USB bell from Instructables.

[via Slippery Brick]

My dad’s reply? “It’s all about the prestige; that’s the whole point.”

While I don’t agree with his views, I don’t really care that much to start an argument about the whole thing either.

Which is why, when I chanced upon the Elite750 Premier Email Club, I immediately thought back to my dad’s response, because it’s probably to people with the same line of thinking that the people behind the club are targeting for membership.

The Elite750 club boasts of being the “World’s Most Exclusive E-mail Address.” Only 750 email accounts with handles that are followed by @elite750.com will be issued. Now here’s the kicker: the initial sign-up will cost you $7,500 and then you’ll have to shell out $750 every month to maintain the address.

Talk about costly – and unnecessary.

Aside from accepting only 750 members from all over the world, Elite750 will also be offering a limited number of slots per country. The club is currently accepting applications for membership, with a pretty snotty disclaimer at the end of the paragraph in the application page: “Elite750 reserves the right to refuse membership without a stated reason.”

You can join here if you’re interested. But honestly, I think having an @gmail.com email address is a whole lot more convenient and sensible than having an @elite750.com email box (plus we’re being kept in the dark here about the features and functionality that their email boxes provide.)

[via Newlaunches via Slippery Brick]

I can already see this service being quite useful, especially if some of your family have computer troubles or don’t like using email. They’ll be surprised to get this handwritten note from you.

I can already see many grandmas getting those letters and being quite happy about it. If it could be partially automated, send them an email, and the letter is printed, put in an envelope and posted, that could also be very handy.

The service works off the generosity of volunteers, and the first round of e-mail to snail mail requests have already reached capacity. They plan on accepting more writing volunteers in future, but can still use help to coordinate other groups of volunteers. You can check with them here to see if they still need any more assistance.

Themes in Gmail have existed for a while, but if you’d rather personalize you inbox even further, then Google has got you covered. The new Create Your Own Theme feature allows you to create a theme for yourself (and make Gmail load that much slower.)

You can set your own colors and starting today, as well as customize your background with images. You just need to go to the Themes tab in Settings and choose “Create your own theme.” Once there, you can select your own background images for the main area as well as the footer.

[via Gmail's official blog]

Or not. Actually the Tableau hides a scanner and a printer; the former is used to digitize what you want to send, and the latter prints what you receive.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

If the Tableau was real, I imagine it would be quite tedious to use it. Also if you receive a lot of stuff, you’ll run out of ink before you know it. Still, the concept is quite charming and magical. I can imagine myself sending secret messages from one Tableau to another. It kind of reminds me of the inter-universe typewriter in Fringe. Check out Kestner’s website for more info.

We talked about the Peek 9 before it launched back in September. The device offers a 2.5-inch screen and has a price of about $70(USD) here in the states – not including service. Peek has offered service in yearly, monthly, and at times lifetime intervals.

Many users of the older Peek devices found late last week that they could no longer use them. Peek reports that the Classic and Pronto devices will no longer work because the carrier used went offline permanently when they launched the new model. To fix the issue, any owner of an older Peek device will get a free Peek 9 upgrade. You can hit up care@getpeek.com if you are an owner needing more details.

The Peek 9 is a device that looks like a smartphone with a QWERTY keyboard and a 2.5-inch screen. This always-on portable can text cell phone users for free, and send/receive emails from web accounts, Outlook, and Exchange, as well as post to Facebook and Twitter. The device also has 8MB of internal memory. The radio inside is a GPRS 800/1800/1900MHz unit. The CPU in the machine is an ARM7 running at a pokey 104MHz, but you really don’t need much power to send and receive messges, do you?

You can pick the Peek 9 up for $69.99 (USD) without any service. You can get it for $99.99 with service for two months. After that service is $19.99 monthly, $179.95 yearly, or $249.95 for lifetime service.

I mentioned yesterday how AT&T had threatened a customer with a cease and desist letter for emailing the CEO twice over a few week period. The dude took his story online and the shit storm raged in an epic and biblical way ultimately resulting in AT&T realizing that someone had better apologize.

That lucky soul was a senior AT&T VP and he was thrown under the bus headfirst to take blame of the legal threat. The guy who was threatened, Giorgio Galante, told Engadget that he got a call from a senior VP at AT&T who said the whole legal threat was a misunderstanding coming from a bad interpretation of AT&T corporate policy. Galante accepted the apology and still plans to leave for Sprint and a shiny new EVO 4G. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson should have just answered the dudes email Jobs style and this would have never happened. Is it just me or if the CEO really felt bad and wanted to look good, would he have not called himself? Our pal Steve has pretty much killed the “a CEO is too busy to read your emails” excuse.

One AT&T customer has really come face to face with the reality that AT&T’s CEO really hates his opinions. Hates his opinions enough in fact to threaten the customer with legal action for emailing him. I blame Steve Jobs for this one. If Jobs didn’t answer his own emails, geeks around the world wouldn’t think a CEO should actually have a rapport with the people who pay for their massive golden parachutes.

A guy named Giorgio G. emailed AT&T CEO Tooly McTool, I mean Randall Stephenson. The subject of the email the first time around was to ask for a change in the guy’s iPhone upgrade status and the second email landed him a call from an executive response staffer telling him to stop emailing the CEO. Brilliant. The customer is always right, right?

Feel free to drop Randall your own email here.

[via Tumblr]

Way back when I started using email daily, it was through a Unix terminal at school. Then, when I had email at home, I juggled a few Hotmail accounts and one that was provided from my ISP. By the time Hotmail was bought by Microsoft, I had already moved on.

Now, I use Gmail. I’ve got a few different accounts and addresses that are all managed by a single one. It works really well and I use Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero concept to keep my inbox empty. How about you guys? What kind of email address do you use?

[via Clusterflock]

I know what you’re thinking, Shane – if this keeps up I’m going to… email Steve Jobs! I suggest that you write a draft using The Joy of Tech’s Steve Jobs Email Generator. I’ve taken the liberty of writing your first draft:

I’ve also written El Jobso’s most likely reply to your email:

Have something to say to Steve? Check out the email generator at The Joy of Tech. But don’t blame me if the cops come crashing through your door after you try it.

[via TUAW]

The Lilypad Arduino on the shirt is paired with a Bluetooth dongle (the red “stalk” in the middle of the Lilypad). When Chris gets new email, his Android phone sends a signal to the Lilypad, which then activates the light or lights that will add up to his total number of new emails.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

This would be way cooler if Chris could make it work over long distances. Or if the shirt electrically shocked him everytime a new message comes in, for as many times as the number of new messages. What do you think, Mrs. Ball?

[via Forever Geek]

Here’s how it’s supposed to come in handy: “This mail notifier connects to your private e-mail account, when you cannot, to let you know when you have mail! It can tell you how many un-read e-mails you have so you can sneak off to the bathroom to check them on your blackberry when you see you have a lot!” Uhhh…what?

That’s just so wrong on several levels. First of all, this thing has to be connected to a computer to work, in which case why not just use any of the myriad bits of computer software out there to notify you of emails? Second of all, if you already have a smartphone, why not use that to see how many unread messages you have? And if this is for people who are not allowed to check their email at work, what could be more freakin’ obvious than a envelope-shaped block lighting up and announcing that you have mail? Am I missing something here?

[via AVING]

The email’s continued below, but I think you get why I said that they’re trying.

These guys made (no they did not! thanks Anna!) published Disgaea for god’s sake! That’s got to be one of the funniest and weirdest RPGs ever made, and all they can come up with is this? It’s a shame Atlus’ PR department chose cats over a bunch of insane demons (and penguins). Meh. I guess it’s better than a vanilla message. Here’s the official Atlus walkthrough, in case you are indeed confoozed (see how annoying that was?) by Demon’s Souls’ Soul Tendencies feature:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

What’s the name of the Power Rangers guys in Disgaea again? They were funny. And Mid-Boss! So much wasted potential.

BlackBerry (or as it’s commonly known, crackberry) addiction is actually getting to be somewhat passé, what with the iPhone mania. Still, look at every train, plane, and automobile, and you can generally find someone buried in their blackberry, furiously typing on those tiny keys and scrolling through their email.

These are handcrafted by picnicbybarbfeldman. They’re made of Fimo with all the details built in, not painted on. You can get them in dangly form, or studs (gents, that means you!) A pair can be yours for $19 from Etsy.

[via GeekSugar]

From the look of these images, the new model will come in several bright, candy colored finishes which should appeal to the teen market. The T-Mobile Sidekick ID is at the low-end of the line, costing about $99 (after $50 rebate and contract.) While skinny on price, the phone is expected to include all of the most popular features including AIM, Yahoo! and MSN Messenger clients, e-mail, a web browser and a phone. The device is also said to deeply integrate T-Mobile’s “myFaves” feature. The Sidekick ID is should be available around April 18th.

[via Engadget]

The 8800 is a full quad-band GSM/EDGE phone, and lifts many of the features found in the popular BlackBerry Pearl model, such as its well-received trackball navigation. The phone has a solid 320 x 240 pixel color display with light sensing technology to automatically adjust screen brightness depending on ambient light levels.

Since the 8800 has added both media player software and expandable memory via an SD slot, it has the potential to be your primary media player now. Built-in GPS and mapping features are also included.The 8800 also features enhanced battery life, with a standby time of 22 days and talk time of 5 hours. As is the case with other full-sized BlackBerries, this one also has the standard full QWERTY keyboard, push/pull e-mail, web browsing, calendar and contact management capabilities.

The BlackBerry 8800 should be available from major carriers (Cingular/AT&T for sure) later this month, but pricing has not been announced yet.

The project has real snails delivering electronic messages via tiny RFID tags attached to their shells. The messages are delivered literally “at a snails pace.” to their destinations. At the Real Snail Mail website you can send your own message to be queued up for snail delivery. It sits in the queue until a snail comes close to an RFID hotspot. The reader checks the snail’s RFID to decide whether or not it already has a message to deliver. If not, the snail is assigned the next message from the queue. All the way at the other end of the snail pond, there’s another RFID hotspot which delivers messages if and when the snails ever get there.

The installation is on display until October 21st in London at Space Studios along with several other RFID art exhibits.

[via wemakemoneynotart]