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Have you ever found yourself typing an email and wishing to send it at a later time? You can save it as a draft, but that would require a few steps of saving it as a draft and returning later to manually send it.

Fortunately, there is another Google script that can automate this for you. Here are the steps for setting it up:

• Click Google link to access the Google script page.
• Click the page link and you are redirected to a new page.

• Click continue button to authorize script.

• Click Allow and you will be re-directed to a configuration page.

• Configure,  the settings in the and click Run Now.

• Return to your Gmail and draft an email. You will include the future date/time for it to send, then save it as draft with the "GmailDelaySend/ToSend" label. This step is not necessary but it helps to test it out before using it.

Now,  you are setup to write emails when you have some time and Gmail will send them at your designated time.

I enjoy using Gmail because it's free, has a large amount of storage, and you can make scripts to keep your inbox tidy,  but you don't need to be a senior developer to create one. Here are some steps to create your own script to maintain your inbox.

• Log into your Google account.

• Go to Google Scripts and click on Start Scripting to create a blank project.
• Click on Untitled project and give it a name.

• Copy and paste the following script in the Code.gs tab (copy over default myfunction) :

function auto_delete_mails() {  
  var label = GmailApp.getUserLabelByName("Delete Mail");   //This is the label you assign to a message in your Gmail account's inbox
  if(label == null){
    GmailApp.createLabel('Delete Mail');
  }
  else{
    var delayDays = 30 // Enter # of days before messages are moved to trash   
    var maxDate = new Date(); 
    maxDate.setDate(maxDate.getDate()-delayDays);    
    var threads = label.getThreads();  
    for (var i = 0; i < threads.length; i++) {  
      if (threads[i].getLastMessageDate()<maxDate){  
        threads[i].moveToTrash();
      } 
    } 
  }
}

• Update the  delayDays to the number of days messages are to be removed from your inbox.
• Save. It will create a "Delete Mail" label that you can use to assign an email for it to auto delete from your inbox.
• Set trigger through Resources>Current Project's Triggers> Add one now to run it daily.

Now, you can label an email after reading it for your helpful script to keep your inbox tidy and free of old messages.

Restrict Links in Messages

Use the following to enhance your default configuration to prevent links being added to your contact form:

$disallowed_text = (
	"[Hh][Tt][Tt][Pp]|[Hh][Tt][Mm][Ll]|[Ww][Ww][Ww]","Please remove links from your message to continue.",
);

Add A Preview Step

Have you ever wondered why you might review your message on a contact form? Simple adding an additional step can prevent a spam because many spam bots are not able to complete it.

Add Anti-Spam Fields

What is "2+2"? What color is the sky on a clear day? Have you ever answered a simple question on a contact form? Spam bots often target many sights and are unprepared to answer simple questions, therefore, they are unable to send their spam.

Bot Trap

Add an invisible contact form using via CSS style to have spam bots  try to fill out it out, which will prevent submission when they try to fill it in. This field is created with a type "trap" in the contact form configuration.

Captchas

Sign up for an account on reCAPTCHA, then generate a public and private reCAPTCHA key for your domain, and put the keys in the contact form configuration

Have you ever wondered why a URL contains " ", "%", and other characters.

Gizmodo explains the reasons that "modern" contain "garbage" characters.

Have a great day!

If you would like to experience using a computer from the 1980's but don't have access to a working "vintage" computer, then visit PCjs to run a simulation in your browser. Here a screen shot of an IBM PC (Model 5150) with monochrome display:

It's complete with the beep once that you would hear after booting the computer and you can use your keyboard to interact with it. Visit the site and try it out.

Have a great day!

Here an interesting article about  Dr. Scott Fahlman and the Smiley, but it also covers his professional research in science.

:-)

Have a Great Day!

Did you ever use a hit counter to track and/or display the number of hits to your website? Here's an example of some:

Visit "Hit Counters: The Analytics Tool of the Early Web" for more details.

Have a great day!

Have you ever wondered what those symbols mean on your iPhone box? This article explains them all!

Have a great day!

Let's all wish Moore's law a happy fiftieth birthday!

The future is now!

Do you remember rotary phones? Maybe you're too young to know what it is? Here's an interesting video of children seeing a rotary phone for the first time: