Windows: Have you ever thought of using all that generous Gmail space for online storage? Gspace is the FON friendly site that provides free online storage to access your files everywhere. Gspace turns the 2GB of your Gmail account into free online storage. With Gspace you can manage unlimited Gmail accounts to store all type of files within its simple, user friendly interface.

Blackberry: If you're the kind of person who likes to keep up with the latest news then perhaps Journal Bar should be the next app to install on your Blackberry. The program automatically downloads the latest news, weather, and stock information for you to peruse whenever you like. As a result, you don't need to pay for Internet charges just to read the news.

Mac: If you own a Mac, chances are that you've already discovered the simple joy of image organisation that is iPhoto. While not exactly built for the professional photographer, iPhoto's packed with enough features to keep anyone from beginners to pro-amateurs happy, and all in a clear, easy-to-use interface. iPhoto 7.1.5 Update includes enhancements to the way iPhoto offers print services for books, cards and calendars ordered through the program.

In comparison to my frustrations with Windows Live Hotmail, using Gmail couldn't be a more different and pleasurable experience. From the day I received an invite to use Google's e-mail client, I've never looked back. Threaded conversations are surely one of the greatest innovations in e-mailing making it insanely easy to follow discussions. That's not to mention Gmail's brilliant search tool - what else would you expect from the world's number one search engine. However, as good as Gmail is, there are also several very easy ways that you make it even better with a few add-ons and extensions. If you use Gmail regularly, you'll get even more out of it by using one these.

Better Gmail 2 - Designed by the editor of Lifehacker, this fantastic script adds a host of useful new features to Gmail such as the ability to see how many unread messages you have in a tab, labels to categorise and file-away important e-mails and an array of keyboard commands to cut down on mouse time.

Gmail Drive - Gmail gives you an awesome amount of storage space to work with and it's increasing all the time - approximately 1MB every 11.8 minutes in fact. It's a travesty not to take advantage of this and use it for something more than simply storing a few e-mails which is what Gmail Drive does by adding a virtual drive to your desktop which allows you to save and retrieve files from your Gmail account as if it were a physical drive.

Gmail and Google Calendar - Along with Gmail, Google Calendar is probably one of my most used Google products and this superb script allows you to integrate Gmail with your Calendar. It embeds Google Calendar into Gmail by adding a hyperlink making it much easy to transfer important dates discussed in your e-mails to your calendar.

GSpace - This is similar to Gmail Drive in that it allows you to save and store files to your Gmail account but it also allows you to stream music and video from your account. It features four different modes - File Mode, Photo Mode, Player Mode and Gmail Drive depending on what you need to do. You can also access it from anywhere without logging into Gmail.

GmailClipseClient - Sometimes you might not be able to access your Gmail for some reason but that's no reason to be without it. GmailClipseClient allows you to access your Gmail account if you don't have access to POP3 or SMTP servers in an office (if you're not allowed to access them for some reason).

You may not know it – I didn't myself - but Microsoft features a free online storage service that's been up and running since August 2007. When it first launched as a beta version, Microsoft Live SkyDrive offered 500MB of online storage, a tiny amount according to today's standards. But just a few days ago, SkyDrive users saw their online drive upgraded to a far more generous 5GB of free storage that you can use with you Live ID account.

So, what's the point of subscribing to an online storage service? There may be several reasons: it's definitely a handy way to share large-sized files with your friends over the Internet; it also comes in very handy for collaborative tasks such as school papers and work team projects; what's more, you can also use your online drive to store files that you need to access from different computers in different locations; and finally, they're also useful for backup copies, though I'd advise you to keep those copies on offline support too – just in case.

Besides Microsoft Live SkyDrive, there are other software tools that, working together with online services, offer you free online storage for your files. Check them out:

• Gspace - a Firefox extension that lets you use your Gmail account mailbox as a free online storage drive.
• Gmail Drive - this Windows Explorer plug-in creates a virtual folder structure in your Gmail account to use it as an storage service.
• IDrive - Get 2GB of free online storage with an intuitive interface, very similar to that of Windows Explorer.
• Omemo - have a universal virtual online drive shared with users from all over the world.
• VMN Storage - a 1GB free online drive for all your files and backup copies.
• Mozy Remote Backup - 2GB of free storage space, protected with encryption and with scheduled backups.
• Wuala - P2P online storage system where you get as much online space as you share from your hard drive.

Gmail accounts offer high-capacity mail inboxes, but do you really need that much space just to store your emails? I don't know about you but sometimes I do get the impression that I'm wasting my Gmail space by using it just to store a few valuable messages, a dozen newsletters and tons of spam.

This is why I looked for a better way to use Gmail and make the most out of this space. Soon I found the perfect solution: it's called GSpace and it's a Firefox extension with which you can turn your Gmail account into a free online file storage system.

Although it doesn't feature as much space as other storage services and it's mainly intended for personal use (i.e. no file sharing) the GSpace extension is still a great way to transfer files between your office and home computers, or to keep backup copies always at hand, just to mention two possible usages.

Gspace is really simple. Install the extension and click on the icon that will appear on the bottom right corner of the browser's interface. Click on the Manage Accounts button and enter your account details – you can configure as many Gmail accounts as you want. Click on the Add button, close the window and you're ready to use your new online hard drive. You'll be able to create directories and move up and down the folder hierarchy, but if you want to start transferring files, go to Tools > GSpace and the GSpace manager will open in a new tab.

This manager works just like any standard FTP drive: select the files you want to upload on the left pane (the local drive), browse to the destination folder on the right pane (the remote drive) and start uploading them. From this tab you'll also be able to open the extension's preferences menu and access the GSpace FAQ and tutorial sections, in case you have any problems with it.