Make a shortcut to your unread Gmail

One thing about e-mail, no matter how much more convenient it is over opening a letter and reading a piece of paper, we always want to make it easier. Here's a trick for making a shortcut to your unread Gmail in Firefox. Gmail makes it easy to bookmark different parts of itself. For instance: you can book mark your in-box at mail.google.com/mail/#inbox. That keyword after the pound sign is the key. Change that to #sent and you can book mark your sent mail. Unread mail doesn't have a nifty keyword like that. Instead, you need to do a search within Gmail. Phrase it this way is:unread in:inbox. Now you can bookmark that rather ugly but useful URL. The easiest way would be to drag it right to the toolbar. Now that seems simple, so let's make it more complicated in order to make it easier later. You won't want to hunt around for that bookmark, right? Not you. So, do this: right click on the bookmark you just created and select properties. In the keyword field, type a name you'll easily remember like gunread. Sounds all western and tough, GUNread. Hmm...but too long. Let's shorten it to GU. OK, now, watch the magic. Open a new tab. Type GU in the address bar and press enter. Boom! You're taken directly to your unread Gmail. Nifty. Now take those milliseconds you gain and do something to save the world, will you? Of course you will. I know you. I'm Tom Merritt, CNET.com