Gmail - My New Email Client
After years as an Outlook user, I've finally decided that Gmail is the email solution for me. Why? The biggest reason is because I'm tired of running a very resource-intensive application to perform a relatively simple task. Viewing and responding to email is a basic need, not too different than water. For those of you that have city water, you don't think about where your water supply is, it simply comes into your home. Of course, to have this luxury you get no control over the water treatment process. I'm good with this. I have too much to think about in my daily life to be concerned about water. Email is the same. If someone has an application that will allow me to not think about my email delivery system, then I need really need to consider it.
But Gmail's web-based interface is not the only or even best reason for my switch. Google's system of organizing your email is a big improvement. Instead of putting your email into one folder or another, you can apply multiple Labels to any single email. Viewing emails with a specific label requires only a single click. Receiving email is no longer an "event" affecting computer performance. Instead, email just magically appears in your inbox. And, of course, searching your email is a snap.
It's not all roses, however. How do I sync my calendar and my contacts to my phone without Outlook? From what I've found, you really can't. And regardless of the buzz surrounding Web 2.0, RIA, etc., actually writing an email in Outlook is a more pleasant experience than in Gmail.
Of course, I'm still in the honeymoon phase of this switch. Some minor issue that I thought I could live with (syncing comes to mind), may be the pain-point that drives me back to Outlook. Hopefully, that's a blog post I'm not going to write.