Lots of folks are having trouble accessing Gmail today, and today's outage is just one in a long series of outages in our favorite webmail application. However, you don't have to let that stop you from accessing your email and getting things done. Here's how to get your Gmail even when you can't access Gmail.com.

Access Gmail Through Alternate Modes

Just because the Gmail web interface went down doesn't mean that Gmail is entirely down—often you can continue to access your account using one of the alternate web interfaces, which often are still accessible even when the regular web interface goes down.

Here's a quick look at each alternate method, one at a time, from the simplest to the most complex. (The more complex solutions are often better long-term solutions, while the simpler solutions are probably the easiest if Gmail just went down and you haven't already prepared for it.)

              Dear Lifehacker,
I think Google+ is pretty great, but the budding social network hasn't caught fire with most of my friends. So what can I get out of Google+ if it's not really my Total Facebook Replacement?

Sincerely,
Hesitant Early Adopter

Dear Hesitant,

You're asking the right person at the right time. Your humble author is just a few days away from sending Google+: The Missing Manual off to the printers, after many, many hours exploring the innards of Google's deeply inter-connected social thing, many revisions for yet another new feature, and quite a few jabs from friends and compatriots.

So, with the disclosure that I'm professionally interested, but personally pragmatic, here are five neat things you should keep Google+ in mind for, even if it's not yet the primary place for your online networks. At least not yet, maybe.

We've been clamoring for a dedicated Gmail app on iOS for so long that, now that there's one available, we couldn't help but take it for a test drive. Once installed the thing differentiates itself from the previous, HTML5-based app by using a darker, more mysterious black background for the app icon. Otherwise it's the same white and red envelope. Open that up and the app inside looks mighty familiar too. Join us after the break for some quick impressions.

Update: Google's confirmed on its blog that the Gmail app contains a bug that breaks notifications, and it's pulled the app while it fixes it. A new version is promised "soon."

On either the iPhone or the iPad the experience is much like the HTML5-based apps we've used before. On the phone (or iPod touch) the main view is a simple list of messages within the current label. Tap "menu" and a black bar pops in from the left, enabling your selection of other labels. We haven't yet found a way to specify which of those is kept in sync for offline viewing, but hopefully that's something coming in a future release.

Composing new emails does allow for attachments, but otherwise this offers little more functionality than we had before, and less than is found on the Android version -- most notably, if you have multiple accounts fed into your Gmail account, you can't choose which of those to send a message from.

SAN FRANCISCO — Google announced a new generation of Chrome OS-based laptops at the company’s I/O developer conference on Wednesday.

The new device will be called the Chromebook, and its interface will be based entirely on Google’s Chrome browser. In other words, everything you do with a Chromebook will be on and through the web.

Google has formed partnerships with two manufacturers to build the hardware, Acer and Samsung. Each of the companies will produce one Chrome netbook.

Acer’s model will be running on Intel’s dual-core Atom processor, with an 11.6-inch HD display. Google claims a 6-hour battery life, with instant-on capability. It weighs just under three pounds, and will come in Wi-Fi or 3G models, starting at $350.