Google offers a number of online services, each of which can require regular attention. If you use Google Mail, you will need to check your inbox from time to time to see whether new messages have arrived while Google Calendar will need checking to ensure that you don’t miss an important appointment. If you manage your RSS feeds in Google Reader, checking the web site is essential if you want to keep up to date with the latest news and posts.

Scott's Gmail Alert 4 can do all of this for you, monitoring multiple Google Accounts and alerting you when something needs your attention. Each account can be assigned a different colour label so when an alert is displayed you can tell at a glance which account it relates to.

The appearance of alerts can be customised in terms of colour, size and transparency, and you can also opt to show an on-going message count so you always know the state of your inbox. A great feature of the program is the scheduling option. This can be used to change when Scott's Gmail Alert 4 checks Google for new alerts - if there are times of the day when you would rather not be bombarded with alerts, you can configure these as quiet hours.

There are a number of programs that can be used to monitor Google Inboxes, but Scott's Gmail Alert 4 takes things to the next level, supporting not only additional Google services but also multiple accounts. As an added bonus, the program can also be run from a USB drive so it can be used on any computer.