Oct 13, 2008 | blog
Its no secret that I’ve long been a fan of Gmail. In fact, I moved my main email domain to Google’s hosted service about two years ago. I’ve loved the flexibility, space, search, and tagging that are tightly incorporated into the service.
The only problem was a few niggling odds & ends. Not big issues mind you, but a few things that just make it hard to switch 100% to a web-only email environment. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been about 87% of the way there already. When out & about I use the web interface daily for most email tasks. When I need to find something – use the web interface for searching. I’ve used both POP and IMAP to view mail on my Windows Mobile phone since I signed up – and much more.
The few items have been enough for me to keep an email client installed, and here they are:
- Creating HTML emails
- Custom HTML Signatures
- Contact Synchronization with my phone (the real biggie)
A number of these I’ve gotten around. Early on I found that I can cut & paste an email signature from a web page to a Gmail email when composing. Simple, but not convenient. The number of specialized HTML emails that I send are small and the Gmail editor is up to 99% of the tasks. The contact thing is the hardest to get past though.
I have a Windows Mobile phone, and contacts in Outlook sync right to the phone easier than anything else that exists out there. Period. I’ve had Nokia, Samsungs, Motorolas, and BlackBerrys – and all had sync tools that worked, but none as easy as Outlook to Windows Mobile.
At any rate, the real issue with contacts is getting them synchronized between Outlook and Gmail. It’s extremely tough. With the upcoming release of the T-Mobile G1 “Google phoneâ€, it looks like all that might actually be ending. With built-in Gmail support it also has the ability to sync your phonebook with Gmail contacts. Sweet!
So I’ve been debating whether to throw down on this device or not. It may be the one, the final piece that let’s me go web-only for email management.
Oh, the signature piece – yeah I found this great Firefox plug-in called Blank Canvas Gmail Signatures which allows you to have up to four HTML signatures for each Gmail account. Highly recommended!
So is this the final piece to my text communication puzzle? It very well may be.
And 3G to boot! 😀
May 29, 2008 | blog
Ok, I’m quite happy that Google released a Google Calendar Sync tool for Microsoft Outlook. Really happy.
Sure, I’m a Microsoft guy and have been for quite awhile. Because of that I’ve got significant investments in money & time in the mainline business products, namely Windows, Office, and Windows Mobile.
On the flip side, I’ve moved a number of tasks and work that I do to web based systems. GMail is obviously one of those, and earlier this year moved my calendar to GCal.
Since late March it’s been great to sync GCal with Outlook – works darn well. Now, since I use GMail (and Google Hosted Domains), I need to have all my contacts there & up to date as well. Also, there are dozens of contacts in GMail that I would like to sync to my Windows Mobile phone via ActiveSync. Currently, there is no easy way to do that.
Nearly the same time that Google released it’s GCal-Outlook sync tool, it announced a Google Contacts Sync API. I’m sure there are good things coming for everyone on nearly every platform for syncing Google Contacts with the major mail clients – at least I hope there is!
So Google, can you drop a few hints, or some info on plans to release a Google Contact Sync tool? We’d be very grateful.
Mar 6, 2008 | blog
It seems that Google itself has released a useful little utility that will sync your Microsoft Outlook Calendar with your Google Calendar. No, I don’t think hell has frozen over, but it’s gotta be colder there anyway.
You can read more on the utility over at Google’s “Calendar Help Center“. Or you can skip the reading and download the tool here.
See, now this complicates my choice to wean myself from Microsoft Outlook!
Technorati Tags: Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Calendar Sync
Dec 18, 2007 | blog
Hey there, ho there – with the current mini-meme of online office app’s getting a bit more attention, I thought I’d give ’em another go. That is, I have used all the major ones in the past year and a half, but have mostly come back to Microsoft Office.
Of course, I truly need MS Office Pro – my clients need documents in Word, drawings in Visio, sheets in Excel, projects in Project, you get the point. So I can’t get rid of Office anytime soon.
However, I can move my needs to the web. This is nothing new as I’ve done this before, and will continue to look at both online & offline solutions for the tasks at hand. What’s interesting is that, most of my existing data is already online. Either in Zoho or Google Docs, I’ve already migrated my “old” data to either one of these services.
Now, some of these posts today talk about the numbers of users, and how these must be an example of the lack of interest by the user community. While it may be true in many instances, my belief is that the applications are just now becoming really comparable to desktop-based solutions. I do think that there is a big future for online app’s, and as more tools like Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight are incorporated, there is very little limit to the things that can be done as a service.
The pieces are already in place, I’m switching back to online app’s instead of Office for my personal use. With the advent of things like Zoho Notebook – even my need of Microsoft OneNote can be addressed.
How about you? Do you use online app’s on a regular basis, just dabble, or avoid these like the plague?
Other people talking about online office app’s & suites today:
Dec 17, 2007 | blog
It’s perfectly natural, and something that we’ve wanted for some time. Using the Google login for their online properties was the first step (and not finished mind you), but integrating the GMail address book, and adding basic sharing options is a huge step.
When we talk about social networks connecting people, we rarely take a close look at the tools in question. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Plaxo… these are all tools – and so are the Google services. Having some best-of-breed, and some adequate online tools be able to provide sharing capabilities is a huge improvement. It’s much better to add sharing tools to these apps rather than try to build new one’s in someone else’s sandbox.
For me, using Google apps (and Yahoo and MSN/Live apps) every day, I’m looking forward to finding ways to enhance communication and productivity because of these new features. In my opinion, it’s this type of evolution of “social networking” that will become more useful to businesses as well as individuals.
As business-relevant social networking tools become incorporated into the software that businesses use, that’s when you’ll see perceptions of social networking change.
Via: Steve Rubel – Reader Integrates Google’s Stealth Social Net: The Address Book
