A lot of webmasters use Gmail for their business email; in fact, some companies even use a customized version of Gmail that maps to their own domain name. Gmail has a number of advantages over setting up your own mail server, not the least of which is less time chasing down technical problems. Gmail also provides easy access to email from any Internet-connected computer or smartphone, and a number of labeling tools that makes storing email easier. You don’t have to worry about backing up your archived email either, and upgrading your computer or switching back and forth between a desktop and laptop is a lot easier because you don’t have to synch email.But if you use Gmail, one thing that has probably nagged you at least once or twice is what happens when you click an email address that’s listed on a website. If the link is designed to open your email client, it probably will cause Outlook Express or some other such email client to load. At this point you’re probably cursing at your screen while waiting for the application to finish loading so you can close it down, load Gmail manually, start a new email message, and copy/paste the target email address into a new message.

Well, if you’re dealing with the above scenario… there’s a simple fix.

Google has released a very simple application called ‘Google Notifier’ that can be set to load on startup. This application can be used to notify you when you receive new email messages via your Gmail account – but it can also be used to fix that annoying little scenario that I mentioned above.

So start by downloading Google Notifier from this page:

http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/

Once installed, look at the settings and click the Gmail tab. Here you can make sure that new mail is composed in Gmail and presto, next time you click on one of those links it will open in Gmail instead of trying to load a mail client you never use.