This week, Google released a new Labs feature for Gmail (and Google apps), allowing you to take your email offline. That means that Gmail will download your messages to your hard drive, and you can still view them when you are offline!

To enable the feature, go to Settings while logged into your Gmail (or Google Apps) account. You should then see an option for Labs, which you should click on. The Labs Settings include a number of neat, somewhat experimental features, and toward the top you should see the one for Offline reading. In my screenshots, you’ll notice references to Schellack.net – that’s because I am signed up for Google to host my email, so it’s like I use Gmail, only it’s Schellack.net! Any Gmail user should now see essentially the same thing, only with the normal Gmail branding:

Turning on the setting and then hitting the Save button will add a new Offline link to the upper right-hand corner of Gmail. Click on that to bring up a little wizard-like screen, reminding you not to download your email messages onto a public or shared computer. Click through, and you will then have to install the program called Google Gears onto your computer, which is a plugin for your web browser to enable web applications to store data locally on your computer, among other things (you have to give it permission for each web application). Next, or if you already had Gears installed, you will have to give your permission for Gmail to use Gears, which will be followed by the downloading of your email messages.

You should see a new, small spinning icon in the top-right of Gmail, and this little screen, associated with that icon, to show you the status of the synchronization:

The Offline feature downloads messages from newest to oldest, so you’ll have the most recent messages on your local machine almost immediately. It only took a matter of minutes for all of mine to be downloaded, and then Gmail began to go back and download all of the attachments. The whole time that the Synchronization is occurring, the status window shows you how far back your synced mail goes, should you go ahead and disconnect. Were you to do that, the synchronization would pick back up where you left off as soon as you reconnect. It all appears to work very seamlessly, and I noticed no slowdowns with my online Gmail or any other downloads.

Finally, you will begin to see a new section of settings in your Gmail for Offline, enabling you to disable offline mail, allowing you to create a desktop shortcut to easily access your mail when offline, and letting you know that new mail will only be downloaded if it is newer than six months old.

Google posted some info on this new feature on their blog on Tuesday, here. If you use Gmail, be sure to try it out and let me know how it works for you.

Grace reads her book, plays with her sleeping sister, and looks for the cat.
It’s about nearly nine minutes long, so be sure you have the time to watch

Perhaps my favorite moment of today’s inauguration of President Barack Obama was the instrumental quartet that played John Williams‘ arrangement/composition called “Air and Simple Gifts.” The quartet featured wonderful musicians:

• Violinist Itzhak Perlman
• Cellist Yo-Yo Ma
• Clarinetist Anthony McGill
• Pianist Gabriela Montero

The piece pulls in a great American song called “Simple Gifts” — a nineteenth century Shaker melody that was popularized by perhaps the greatest of American composers, Aaron Copeland (a favorite of the newly inaugurated President).

You can watch and listen to the performance courtesy of Hulu, below. I have also provided the unsung lyrics to the clear melody. The melody comes out a little ways into the song with the clarinet — after the initial violin-led “Air” opening, an opening that keeps the song from being disjointed from the not-so-rosy-times America finds herself in. These lyrics and their “Simple Gifts” theme, however, remind us that our circumstances need not define us, nor are they what is important in life:

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
    ’Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
    ’Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

The Photos page has been updated for your viewing pleasure, now with more pictures of our second kiddo, in all her cuteness.

I’ve provided an embedded slide show, below, for your convenience!