As I am getting ready to move to a new phone platform, and maybe a new computing platform, I am reevaluating the services I use. Email is perhaps the most basic service I use, so I have been playing around with Gmail lately. I use Chrome as my main browser, so it made sense to check out Gmail again. So, I am at work and PC more or less stops responding. I check the task manager and Chrome seems to be bandit and after killing it my machine comes back to life. This prompted me to check out Chrome’s own task manager, and imagine my surprise when I saw the window above. I am not so sure Gmail ind I will have a future together. I am not even sure Chrome and I should keep going. Perhaps Firefox deserves another whirl.
Projekt Gmail
Som jeg skrev tidligere, sidder jeg i disse dage og leger lidt med Gmail. Jeg har alle dage været ret glad for min Hotmail, men da der gerne måske lidt nyt indimellem besluttede jeg mig for at rode med Gmail.
Faktisk er Gmail ikke så slem som jeg huskede den, og jeg bruger den faktisk mere og mere. I forhold til features er der ikke noget, som man ikke umiddelbart kan finde i Hotmail eller Yahoo mail, men alligevel synes jeg der er noget je ne sais quoi over Gmail interfacet.
Da jeg bruger mit eget domæne til mail har jeg konfiguretet Gmail (og Hotmail) til at sende mails via juel.me. Det er ret nemt at sætte op i begge applikationer, og det betyder at jeg ikke skal skrive rundt til alle mine kontakter, og fortælle dem at jeg har fået ny mail adresse. Derudover har jeg konfigureret mit domæne således at alle mails sendes i kopi til min Gmail konto. I Hotmail har jeg opsat POP3 access, hvilket fungerer rigtigt godt.
Jeg har efterhånden samlet en kæmpe bunke mails, som jeg gerne vil have med over i Gmail. Der ligger en import funktion, som jeg har prøvet med en gammel mail adresse, men det tog over to dage før der skete noget. Desuden tilføjede Gmail en hel masse labels, som jeg senere måtte ind og slette.
For at undgå dette oprettede jeg Gmail i min Windows Live Mail applikation, og konfigurerede min account med IMAP. Herefter kunne jeg kopiere indholdet af de ønskede foldere i Hotmail over i min Gmail indbakke, hvor de kort tid efter dukker op – uden labels. Da jeg kopierer en mappe ad gangen er det nemt at markere alle mails, og anvende de korrekte labels.
Jeg tvivler på at Gmail bliver min foretrukne mail applikation, især nu hvor den nye Hotmail er på trapperne, og som iøvrigt skulle være kick-ass, men nu prøver jeg i et stykke tid i hvert fald.
Gmail notifier plus
Jeg sværger normalt til Hotmail, men af en eller anden grund har jeg oprettet en Gmail konto, som jeg sidder og leger lidt med i øjeblikket. I den forbindelse fandt jeg en rap lille applikation, som hedder Gmail notifer plus, og som lægger sig Windows taskbar og som fungerer med Jump Lists.
Det er ret fedt at man man ikke hele tiden skal bruge en browser for at tjekke sin Gmail, eller et tungt email program. Desuden er der mange brugere, der sværger til Gmails minimalistiske bruger interface, hvilket man stadig kommer til at bruge selvom man har installeret Gmail notifier Plus.
Jeg tror ikke jeg ender med at skifte helt til Gmail, men denne lille applikation er et rigtigt godt argument for at gøre det.
Gmail Notifier Plus kan hentes her.
Gmail Acting Up? It’s Not Just You
If your Gmail account is down or consistently throwing random errors your way, like my account is right now, note that it isn’t just you. According to the Apps Status Dashboard, a “significant subset of users” started running into trouble at around 9:45 AM Pacific Time
Kilde: Robin Wauters @ TechCrunch
Nu bruger jeg ikke Gmail så meget længere, men dette nedbrud gik fuldstændig over mit hoved. Det virker som om der er mange problemer med Gmail i øjeblikket, men det kan jo også være fordi det er en højt profileret Google service.
Webmail
Jason Calacanis tends to show Google so much love that his knees must really hurt. However, he has sort of an interesting post about Gmail, and how he has filled up his account of 2.8 gb. Nice work Jason, you must be popular
You can read the all the comments yourself, but interesting thing for me to learn was that Gmail does not offer a premium account with extra storage and no ads. I am personally addicted to my Hotmail Plus account (soon to be Live Hotmail Plus ) because it works as a datacenter for me. I collect all my email, except work email, through Windows Live Mail Desktop, and upload it to my premium account. This means that I have all important emails in one place, which I can access easily from any computer connected to the Internet. Me likes.
For me the once periphiral hotmail service has become my number one email account because of a couple of things:
- I have had since before Microsoft bought Hotmail
- It works with Live Messenger
- I can access it easily from anywhere
- If I use Live Mail Desktop i get all the functionality of client-type software
- Since I have the premium subscription, I never see any ads in my applications, including Live Spaces making it seem more like “my” account, rather than some ad sponsored second rate crap.
This is a huge step away from the 2mb webmail services that we had accesss to only a few years ago, and Ithink we have Google to thank for that. The Gmail service pushed the boundaries for conventional thinking within this particular category, and now we see companies like Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft delivering even better services. Competition, in this case, has really benefitted the end-user in my humble opinion.
As we see more and more service type apps on the Internet, I am curious to see how the operating system will evovlve. At least for the time being the OS is still the foundation, but how will the world look in 5-10 years time? In the respect I belive Microsoft is much better equipped to handle that transition compared to Apple, who is still focused on the Mac as a platform. On the other hand, Apple will not be making computers by then because they will have made the transition into a fully fledged consumer electronics company like Sony. The dominace of iTunes and the iPod will ensure that Apple will still be making tons of money in the future. Unless of course they have to go to court over their monopoly…… that would be funny as hell
Technorati tags: Windows Live Writer, Hotmail, Google, Apple, iTunes, Microsoft, Gigaboot, Webmail, Saas, Gmail, Yahoo