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There's an enhancement available for Google's Gmail service which lets you see multiple views of your inbox on one screen. It's called Multiple Inboxes.
It's important to note that this feature doesn't let you view multiple Gmail accounts or multiple inboxes on one web page. Instead, it shows you multiple views of your inbox on one page. So, you can have one pane show all incoming messages, one pane for starred messages, one pane for messages with a particular label, one for drafts, and so on.

Contents [hide]
1 Activating 'Multiple Inboxes'
2 Altering the Default View
2.1 'Stack' the Inbox Views
2.2 Set Labels and Filters
2.3 Additional Reading

Activating 'Multiple Inboxes'

The feature can be activated on Gmail's Labs page
1. While logged in to Gmail, click on Settings.
2. Go to the "Labs" tab and check the Multiple Inboxes box.
3. Back in your inbox, you will now see the default three-panel view. To make changes to the default view, go into Settings and click on the "Multiple Inboxes" tab, which should now show up.

Altering the Default View

The default view puts two panes (starred and drafts) to the right of your mailbox. However, you can change this default view and set up your multi-panel inbox however you'd like.
This page is a wiki and can be edited by anyone. Got extra tips for modifying Gmail's Multiple Inboxes? Add them here!

'Stack' the Inbox Views

The default view minimizes the amount of scrolling needed to see everything, but it also does away with the checkboxes in the smaller panes, meaning you have to leave your split-screen view if you want to archive, delete or bulk process any of the messages in the filtered panes.
In the Multiple Inboxes settings, you can change the configuration so that your filtered panes appear above or below your master inbox. You get the checkboxes back, and your subject lines aren't truncated as sharply, so you can see more information about each message.

Set Labels and Filters

You can set up custom searches in the panels using Gmail's standard search syntax. Enter terms like these below into the appropriate pane in the Settings tab for Multiple Inboxes.
label:foo - Shows only messages with a specific label
label:foo label:bar - Shows messages labeled both "foo" and "bar"
label:foo OR label:bar - Shows messages labeled either "foo" or "bar"
is:unread - Shows only unread messages
is:starred - Shows only starred messages
is:chat - Shows only archived Gmail chat sessions
is:sent - Shows your outbox, or only e-mails you've sent

Tip: You can combine any of these criteria and refine your searches simply by separating the terms using spaces. To run "or" searches, which include all messages that meet any of the criteria you're searching for, put the word "OR" (with both letters capitalized) in between each search term.

Tip: To keep messages from showing up in multiple places, you can set Gmail's filters to auto-archive any of the messages that will end up in one of your secondary panes. That way, they never show up in your master inbox, they just go straight to the smaller panes.

Additional Reading

There's a Google Group for Multiple Inboxes, and people are posting additional tips there. You can also go there to ask a question if you need help.
http://groups.google.com/group/gmail-lab...le-inboxes

Gmail's New 'Add Location' Feature Is Too Honest
By Michael Calore

Most of Google's web-based tools are all about empowering users, but the latest release from Gmail Labs is actually a step backward in that regard: Turn it on, and you give up your ability to easily lie about where you are.

The various enhancements to Google's free e-mail service have been arriving at a furious rate -- we've seen Sync for mobiles, Multiple Inboxes and Tasks in recent weeks, and we love just about all of them. But we're dubious of this latest feature, which adds a text string announcing your physical location to your signature in Gmail.

Normally, location data adds value to just about every web service. It increases the relevancy of search results, makes online mapping more useful by a factor of ten, and, when combined with a good social network site, it makes meeting up with friends easier. It's also an essential ingredient to the concept of Address Book 2.0, whereby adding location data to your social graph gives communication more context -- let your friends know when you're in New Zealand, and they'll be encouraged to send you an e-mail rather than call.

But any truly useful location-awareness tool must include the ability to broadcast fake data. It's the only way to ensure the user is in complete control. Gmail's newest Labs feature doesn't let you lie, and you shouldn't turn it on until it does.

Why is lying so important?

The obvious argument is centered around privacy. Sometimes it's trivial, like when you send a note to your boss saying you're sick, only to have your e-mail signature rat you out by announcing that you're sitting behind home plate at the ballpark. More seriously, there's e-stalking and the open invitation to unwanted guests. Also, letting everyone know where you are all the time is just creepy. As a society, we're not ready for that yet.

Some would say Google wants to keep us honest so it can sell more location-aware ads. But the company can determine where you are (with a certain level of accuracy) simply but looking at your IP address. A feature like this one is about exposing your location to those on the outside.

What's really needed here is an easy way to obfuscate your whereabouts. That way, you can gain all the benefits of location-awareness when you want them without lifting a finger, but still duck off the grid when you don't.
Somebody at Google understands this -- the Latitude app for Android lets you manually set a false location.

Yahoo gets it, too. When it launched its Fire Eagle location storage service last August, it built in the ability to lie -- Yahoo's Tom Coates stated that his team considered adding the ability to lie about your whereabouts "essential" when designing the service.

Since then, several apps have sprung up for updating Fire Eagle. Among the best is Sparrow for the iPhone, which lets you use the phone's built-in GPS to automatically send your location to Fire Eagle, or just plug whatever you want into a text box. "Mars" is a favorite choice.

There's also been much debate over privacy within the W3C's draft of its Geolocation API specification. As it stands now, the W3C is comfortable letting user agents (browsers, iPhones) do what they want as long as they make geolocation opt-in.
The lesson here, as with all social data sharing, is that you shouldn't opt in unless you fully understand the consequences.

And opt-in I did. I went into Gmail's Labs settings and added the location string in my e-mail signature this morning to test it out.
By default, the system uses your IP address to determine your location. I'm on the corporate network, which is routed through our headquarters in New York. Even though I'm in San Francisco, Google thinks I'm in the Big Apple. I tried again using an off-network DSL connection and Google guessed correctly.

Google acknowledges the inconsistency and recommends installing the latest version of Gears to achieve more accurate results. Gears uses wi-fi signals to pin-point your location, and I don't understand what good that would do me on a hardwired desktop PC. Still, I checked out Google's Geolocation API docs, and it seems I could hack together an app that only gathers premises data (usually your building name), and then populate that field with whatever I want ("Mars"). Still, this is not easy.

The only real way to obfuscate Gmail's auto-location tool is to go into my signature every time I want to lie and physically change the text. But where's the added value in manually updating an automated tool?

Meanwhile, Google's implementation of location-aware services across its offerings is inconsistent, with one app allowing for obfuscation while another does not.
This "Add Location" feature a Labs release, and therefore experimental. We can expect it to be improved and updated in the future. But I won't be turning it on again until it lets me lie.