A Google Slave
Posted by rbultje at July 4th, 2007
Good things generally happen when you least expect it. After Apple support was kind enough to erase my HD without asking, I started using Google Mail and Google Calendar. One word: wow!
- Did you actually know that there are good spam filters out there? I mean, filters that catch more than 10% of spam without having to install and set-up spamassassin (I mean, the thought alone is tiring already). I actually read real email again.
- I can actually read my mail and calendar on multiple computers and multiple OSes without having to go through pains of installing imap, maintaining a calendar syncing server or other such pains where the thought alone just drains all your energy.
- Google Mail Conversations are just… Insanely smart. I actually can keep track of which email is a reply to which without tearing hear out of my head or needing 3 screens to see the tree of the email list.
- Never again lost my agenda or mail when Apple once again offers their service to erase my HD. I should maintain my documents on some storage space online also…
Now if only…
- Google Calendar had capabilities to serve as a Todo list…
- GTalk would not be so incredibly annoying. I just hate it. I hate it.
As of today, I’m a Google convert.
What bugs you about GTalk? Depending on your particular peeve, you can connect virtually any standard Jabber/XMPP client to googletalk and do all your chatting that way.
What is wrong with gtalk?
its just googles implementation of jabber.
You can just click “standard without chat”. I hate that thing too.
Welcome to 2004!
I don’t actually know if it’s GTalk, it’s that little chat thingy on the left of the mail. I somehow don’t like others seeing me online, so I barely use it, I’m usually set to way, which makes it kind of useless for any practical purpose… Maybe it’s just the idea I don’t like, maybe the implementation is actually really cool, I don’t know…
you can either click “sign out of chat” on that left panel or disable it entirely by clicking “standard without chat” on the bottom of the gmail screen.
Oh I don’t like the in browser chat thing to much ether but it is nice if you use pidgin with it
Although I use GTalk, I don’t like using it from GMail as well.
It can be disabled.
Google notebook can be used for for TODO lists ( http://www.google.com/notebook ).
And from now on, Google knows who you write and talk to, and where you are at a certain time. Isn’t that great?
You can use Google Docs & Spreadsheets as well. It’s great.
Hi,
for Todo´s you can try http://www.rememberthemilk.com, it´s quite googleish.
Yup, Google’s offering is awfully nice in many cases. I would personally remove Evolution entirely from Gnome and just replace it with a link to Gmail… For mostly the reasons you just stated.
Usability and reliability are just plain superior. I think you should send the TODO idea to Google as email (you can find the address from the site somewhere.. if not, Google for it), they actually do read those although they nearly never answer.
For todo list inside GCalendar, did you try “remember the milk”?
http://www.rememberthemilk.com
I know its not as good a solution as being integrated with Calendar and Mail, but I use a site called RememberTheMilk for ToDos.
There is support for iGoogle and Google Calendar, you have all sorts of import and export options, its free, and it supports google offline storage.
While the chat inside gmail is generally really annoying, it’s again really handy when you’re suddenly at another machine and want to IM someone. I usually use pidgin, but if I find myself at a friend’s place and I need to talk to someone, I can just enable it, talk to them and then disable it again.
You might also consider checking out the Apps for your Domain, which does all of this on your own domain name. http://www.google.com/a I switch raspberryginger.com to it for everything except for my acutal web site hosting, and it’s been really nice.
I use the customized Google Homepage for Todo-Lists, it is available at http://www.google.com/ig and you can add as many widgets as you like, including various todo lists
Another alternative to remember the milk, which also integrates into gmail is todocue.com
Very light and fast todo list
http://todoist.com/