Over the years I have dealt with the frustration of managing my email. I tried using my ISP, but SPAM was getting through and in mass and I found myself willing to settle. It bothered me to send people email from my Gmail account for business communications, but I could not sort through all my SPAM. I have been a freelance web developer for years, so hosting an Exchange server for just me did not make much sense. I wanted to avoid being the system administrator for another service, but I needed something I could count on that would also give the impression that I was a competant web developer. A web developer without hosted email seems rediculous to me.
This was all before the advent of Google Apps and their hosted email solution. Gmail could block the generous supply of SPAM I get from a 10+ year old email address. Beyond the SPAM Gmail was a great web based interface. When Outlook decides it would rather not work anymore, I need to be able to get my email. For me the money question was: How do you keep your life in sync when it is spread across networks and devices. The Microsoft solution was just too involved for me to purchase, host and manage.
Not only was I searching for an alternative, but several non-profit organizations that I develop solutions for could not afford the Microsoft path either. One organization has 130+ staff, of which all are volunteers. Buying licenses for all of those people was too costly.
Then Google Apps happened. I quickly started moving everyone over to the Google hosted solution. It was heavenly, and most people already used Gmail for personal communications so it already made sense. The average users were satisfied, but the geek in me was not satisfied, I needed Cobra Command to play with G.I. Joe. Gmail had POP, but just try to keep that in sync on two or more computers (desktop, laptop, &c.). What about the calendar? Outlook worked great, so did Google Calendar, but they just would not play. I tried different tools to try and sync things up, but plugins for Outlook is usually not the best idea.
It is obvious the smart people at Google figured all of this out. In my little farret world, the pieces of this puzzle can't get here soon enough. Google releases IMAP, great! Wait, not so great, or at least for me. I have 3 accounts I check using IMAP with Outlook, it's slow. POP was so much faster for obvious reasons. But if you follow one simple rule, archive your Inbox...all the time, at least once a day. The smaller the folder is to sync, the faster it syncs. If you actually read this, I must be the biggest moron by now. But really, since there is no button in Outlook to archive a message, I find that my inbox can swell up like a baluga wale. It gets very annoying going back and forth between Outlook and the web interface. Keep your inbox clean though, and you will enjoy a much faster and more reliable experience.
Now for the calendar. In Outlook 2003, you could not subscribe to calendar XML feeds, but with 2007 you can, and for me this was enough to upgrade. The problem here was that you can only sync one way. I can live with that to a degree, but it is still annoying going to Google Calendar to add events. Not too long after I upgraded to 2007, Google releases a calendar sync tool. It only allows you to sync to one calendar, but it works and it goes both ways. It is obvious that Google understands what most people want. Not everyone needs Exchange, and so I am very glad they are providing alternatives.
Now my last major problem to solve is getting Window Mobile Device Center to actually sync with my Palm 750. It seems that Vista and WMDC just don't work all that well. At first things were looking good, but now I only get errors when I try and sync. I have tried deleting the relationship and creating a new one without success.
