The Problem: Google missed the mark (or rather the company has technical limitations that we don’t know about) on one feature in its mobile Gmail app: You can’t view your Drafts on your mobile device. Yet, if I access Gmail through my mobile’s Internet browser, I can view Drafts. But using the browser to check Gmail on a mobile phone takes more work and time.

I use Drafts as a way to take notes and keep revising or adding on to them. It can be for an article, brainstorming, grocery list, anything goes. While I could email these notes to myself in Gmail and access them on my mobile device, I can’t add on to sent emails unless I reply and that makes a mess.

By the way, I do synchronize “memos” between the Palm Desktop organizer and Gmail. Accessing these memos requires going through Gmail Contacts app, which sometimes hangs when I click “Contacts” in Gmail. That’s because Gmail collects every address and duplicates them. I could turn off this feature, but it has its advantages. Anyway, the Drafts route is more manageable than the Memos route.

Now. I could go find another app for note taking, but haven’t found one that integrates seamlessly with Gmail and Gmail for mobile. Not crazy about the idea of finding and adding another separate app to use everywhere. Maybe you use one. If so, please share the app and your experience. Maybe I’d be willing to try it!

I’ve figured out a way to work with this. It’s not pretty or as efficient as it could be if Gmail for mobile would make Gmail Drafts accessible. But it works.

The Ugly Workaround. Create a Mobile label (aka folder). When I have a draft that I’d like to access on my mobile phone, I copy and paste it into a new email and send it to myself to file it under Mobile. Anytime I need to access the info, I just jump to the Mobile label from my phone. No searching or scanning through hundreds of messages. I keep this label organized with Mobile critical info.

Next time the Draft receives enough updates, I delete the old email in the Mobile folder and replace it with the updated draft.

Like I said, involved — but takes much less work than accessing Gmail through my mobile browser. I bet one of y’all has a better way.

What tips do you have for staying organized between mobile and desktop?

The wallpaper border in the bathroom has been peeling, so finally got motivated to remove the wallpaper. I talked to a friend and did research online to see what method would work best. Turns out it’s a combination. The wallpaper is from 1996 — so the method may not work with older wallpaper.

We started with scoring (using Papertiger: a rolling tool that pokes holes in the wallpaper for easier removal) so liquid could go through to soak the wallpaper. However, we stopped using the scoring tool as we modified the process. My friend suggested using water with a few drops of fabric softener. This article had a similar method except it states to spray each area three times and wait 30 minutes.

I tried this first and it worked OK. The wallpaper’s outer layer (gray) was stubborn in a few spots. Since this is in the bathroom — the wallpaper was tougher on liquid. I even used a steamer we have (for clothes). Later Paul discovered we could just scrape the wall without wetting it. But I hit a lot of areas that wouldn’t budge using Paul’s method.

I noticed the gray was harder to get off with liquid, but easier to peel when dry. The layer behind the gray, however, came off easily when wet. So, we peel off the gray with a little help from something like a joint knife. While peeling, you might want to hold a grocery bag with your arm to dump the paper in for easier clean up (once in a while I missed the bag).

Spray the wallpaper’s second layer with warm water and let it sit for a few minutes. With the joint knife, it peels right off. The areas using the first method have more scratches and dents than the ones using the improved method.