Posts

Showing posts from December, 2016

How to Add a Picture Password to your Google Forms

Image
Google Forms have this “all-or-none” problem. The forms are either public (anyone can fill your form) or, if you are on Google Apps, you can create forms that are visible to everyone in your organization. It is however not possible to restrict access to forms to specific people. Another shortcoming is that Google Forms do not allow passwords or CAPTCHAs to prevent spam bots from filling your forms with random data. Google itself maintains the reCAPTCHA project but it is not known if integration with Google Forms is in the works. There is a workaround, though. Google Forms with Picture Passwords Google Forms do not support CAPTCHA but they do offer an option to attach images with questions. These can be used as picture passwords. The idea is simple. We add a multiple-choice question where the user is asked to pick an image from a selection of multiple images. If they select the correct image, the main form is displayed else an error message is shown. Also, these images are shuffle

How to Generate a Report of Bounced Email Addresses in Gmail

Image
Some of the email messages you have sent through Gmail might not get delivered at all. There could be a problem with the recipient’s email address, their mailbox could be full or maybe the mail server could be specifically blocking your emails due to the content of the message. When an email message is returned, you get a bounce-back notice from MAILER-DAEMON@gmail.com  and it will always contain the exact reason for the delivery failure along with the SMTP error code . For instance, an error code 550 indicates that the email address doesn’t exist while a 554 indicates that your email was classified as spam by the recipient’s mail server. How to Get a List of Email Addresses that Bounced It is important to keep track of your bounced messages and remove all undelivered email addresses from your future mailings as they may adversly affect your sending reputation. Mail Merge  keeps track of all your bounced messages in Gmail but if you are using mail merge yet, here’s an open-source

An Undocumented Gmail Trick – Search Emails by Date and Time

Image
Gmail supports a plethora of search operators to help you instantly find that elusive email message buried in your mailbox. You have  size search  – like larger_than:5mb  – to find the big messages in your account. File search – like has:attachment filename:doc – will locate email messages that contain file attachments of specific types. This graphic illustrates all the known search operators that work both on Gmail and Google Inbox. Date Search in Gmail Date search in Gmail helps you locate emails sent or received in a specific period. Here are some examples: newer_than:7d from:me – Emails sent in the last 7 days after:2016/12/01 to:me – Emails received in the month of December 2016 Specify Time Modifiers in Gmail Search Gmail also supports time-based searches allowing you to find emails in the specific hour, minute or second. For instance, you can limit your Gmail search to emails that were received between Dec 10 8:15 PM and Dec 10, 2016 8:45 PM. To get started, conver

How to Receive Notifications for Google Forms on your Mobile Phone

Image
The Email Notifications add-on for Google Forms will send you the form data in an email message each time a respondent submits your form. You can use the same add-on to also send automated emails to the form respondents immediately after they complete your Google Form. The popular Google Forms add-on has been updated and it can now send push notifications to your mobile devices as well. That means when respondents complete and submit your online form, you’ll get an instant real-time notification ( sample ) on your iPhone or Android phone. The notification text can also include answers from the Google Form. A fast response time is a key to success, especially in areas like customer service and closing sales leads, and mobile notifications will ensure that your important form entries are never lost in the daily deluge of emails. Setup Mobile Notifications for Google Forms It takes a few easy steps ( video tutorial ) to get up and running. Install  Email Notifications for Googl