Installing a gmail notifier

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Followed instructions at Ubuntu Geek to install CheckGmail, a Gmail notifier for Ubuntu.

Ran the command

sudo apt-get install checkgmail

Instead of pressing ALT+F2, I just typed checkgmail in Terminal. It started the program. I entered my Gmail account information, changed the External Command to

firefox-3.5 %u

and left all other defaults unchanged. The program was unable to log into Gmail. It complained that the userid or password was incorrect. After checking to be sure I had entered the correct values, I decided the program simply does not work, and I removed it with

sudo apt-get remove checkgmail

Next, I tried gm-notify from Launchpad. Downloaded the tarball, unpacked it, and read the README for installation instructions. It's a Python app and has some dependencies, duly noted in the README. Per the instructions, I ran

sudo apt-get install python-indicate python-notify python-gst0.10 python-gtk2 python-gconf python-twisted-mail

to install the prereqs, then from the top-level directory of the extracted files, ran

sudo ./setup.py install

The README says the application will appear in the menu Applications > Network > GMail Notifier, but in fact it appeared in Applications > Internet > GMail Notifier. Furthermore, the README says the configuration app will appear under System > Settings > GMail Notifier Configuration, but in fact it appeared in System > Preferences > GMail Notifier Configuration.

Sent myself an email to see what the application would do. Works well, is simple, looks good. I'll keep this one.

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