I'm wondering about a total swap to Google
Sitting here on a Friday evening working away and going through my inbox, whilst everyone else is out playing, does get to you.
What’s really quite annoying me at the moment is that my inbox — running via Microsoft Entourage on my MacBook Pro — is filled to the brim. 1,117 items, at the moment. Almost each of the items has at least 5 minutes+ work associated with it.
Going through mail in Entourage is a total bitch though.
It doesn’t matter how powerful your device — in this case 2GB of RAM and an ultra fast dual core just doesn’t seem to cut it. It takes seconds for emails to display and to open up.
Ok, maybe it takes a second. Two seconds max. But, still, I’m bordering on having had enough.
I teach a class of 11-12 year olds every Thursday evening at the moment — web design, web 2.0, google training, that sort of thing — and I’ve got each of them setup on Google Mail. Prior to that they were all languishing in HotmailHell or, heaven forbid, didn’t actually have an email address of their own.
When I saw them navigating through their email really fast, with just a browser… well, it really got to me. I do use my gmail account, but not that regularly. I used to. I used to exclusively use it for a while. I stopped when I got the Apple to ponce around with their Apple Mail software.
More and more though, I want to be device independent. I don’t really enjoy lugging any laptop about. I’d much rather use Google Apps. I think.
So here I am struggling away with 1.6 gig of email folders via Entourage. The only reason I’m doing it is because I’ve got Good Mobile Messaging running on my Nokia E61 which is heaven when you’re on the road, as I am often. When someone calls with an appointment, I can put it straight on to the device whilst sat on the train and then, crucially, forget about it — safe in the knowledge that it’s automatically been transferred to my Exchange folders. It’ll then pop-up at the right point on my Entourage.
My epiffany moment came just now when I’ve been playing around with the Gmail application on the Nokia E61. It is usable. It’s not as quick as I really do like it with GMM — but it is certainly workable. What’s more, Gmail works across any number of Nokia devices. So I could, conceivably, just take the N95 with me on some days and still remain connected to what’s going on, albeit via a T9 key interface.
But let’s face it, I hardly ever write more than two lines on my E61 running GMM.
The kicker? Well, there’s no integrated calendar.
Ah. But I’ve just remembered Goosync. That’s a good fix isn’t it? That’ll allow me to use the native device calendar.
And contacts sync? Well… that, I think, is a little bit more difficult. Google doesn’t appear to have a contacts sync option as yet. That’s a bit of an arse.
Running SMS Text News — and despite having a degree in Information Management — I don’t quite think I recognised how critical a function email is. The overhead of running on a legacy system such as Entourage is quite apparent when I take a step back and look.
When an email comes in, I read it and then I have to manually organise it, mostly by dragging it to a folder. Then trying to find it again is complicated if I haven’t precisely organised it. The spotlight search and even Google Desktop are ok, but dreadfully slow compared to a Gmail search.
A lot of the time I’m whacking back one-liners to people. A thank you or a confirmation or I’m forwarding stuff. Each action comes with an organisational overhead which, when you’re talking hundreds and hundreds of mails a day… no wonder I’m spending hours daily just coping.
So…..
Where does that leave my mobile email and my email solution strategy?
I’m thinking about dumping it all and going to Gmail and living with it.
Any suggestions?
