November 19, 2008
GMail hegemony
When talking about the eee pc I mentioned putting more data into the cloud - a fancy way of saying I'm using and trusting more online services. Here's one example.
Back in September I took the final step in my migration to GMail, a process I began back in August 2007 with the adoption of Google apps.
For a while all new mail had been going to GMail, but I still had a significant archive of mail on various other servers and my laptop. I really needed to get these into GMail as well - it was frustrating having archives split across several places, having to search several places, having to make sure all those servers were working. Not only that, but GMail's initially ropey IMAP implementation meant I had at least two copies of every email in Apple Mail - one in the appropriate folder based on my filtering/labelling, the other in the "All Mail" folder that GMail insisted on using. This was a killer for using Spotlight, for example.
I figured my mail use case might be a good make-or-break test for GMail, since I had some 3GB of archives, with (apparently, according to GMail) over 120,000 messages. I set it going one evening, keeping half an eye on my old mail server for signs of smoke or fire, but everything went smoothly enough, GMail took a fair time over it so there was no need to worry. It was interesting to watch my mail archives slowly appearing in the GMail interface.
It wasn't long before GMail reported that everything was complete - having all the progress charts and statistics in there certainly made me feel more confident in the whole process.
And the final result, after all GMail's hard work? Well, I've hardly dented my MB allowance:
I really like having my email available from anywhere, any time, without needing to lug around my own laptop. Being able to search through a decade of email is also extremely useful. And not having to maintain my own mail server any more, and compete with spammers - that's a real time saver and weight off my mind.
Technorati Tags: computing, email, gmail, google, mail, cloud, servers, sustainability, web services
Posted by savs at November 19, 2008 7:44 AMWhile I am still distrusting GMail (I noticed different number of mails via POP than via web interface) I might still go down that route. Just because it's so much easier.
Backup is a concern though. (Don't understand why Google does not provide a service where you order a backup on DVD or something) And I feel limited by the search.
...but what I really wanted to ask: Extraction status, Extraction progress, Insertion progress ... where are these screenshots from?
Posted by: Registered User at November 19, 2008 11:29 AMI use Google Apps, so the screenshots are from the Google Apps web interface. Dunno if you get the same thing on the normal gmail accounts...
As for backup - I guess it wouldn't be too hard to create an imap tool that slurps the content of the 'all mail' folder, though you're right, it would be nice if it was part of the service.
Found the tool!
http://code.google.com/p/google-email-uploader/
"I really like having my email available from anywhere, any time, without needing to lug around my own laptop" - even refuseniks like me have had email access from their mobile phone for quite some time now, so surely that isn't a Google-motive?
Googlemail is probably the most reliable of the big-three for spam filtering in my experience, but it does still sometimes get it badly wrong and when it does, it's beyond your control. That's a major reason I'm still advising against it.