Email, everywhere

Posted by admin | Filed under Web

I know a lot of people out there who are stuck with the “email is safer on my computer” mentality. So tell me, when your computer explodes will you have all your email and contacts? Do both of your dual-booting operating systems give you access to the same emails? Yeah, I thought not.

Here are my top reasons for moving to web-based Gmail:

  • Searching
    One of the best features of Gmail is searching. There’s no waiting 20 minutes for outlook to go through the one folder you have open. You just type it and it’s all there. Labels are far more effective than folders as you can tag one email with multiple tags.
  • Mobility
    At home, at work, on the laptop, on the cell phone – all of your email is accessible. If you’re on a different computer for whatever reason, there’s no configuring/installing an email client just to download new mail and missing everything from before.
  • Spam Filters
    The spam filters on Gmail are the best I’ve seen yet. I’ve had maybe 4 messages in my inbox in the last month that weren’t caught.
  • Free, supported by non-intrusive ads
    It’s completely free, and without the ugly and distracting flashing advertisements that plague yahoo and msn. There are some text ads, but they are at least relevant to the content of the email.
  • Anti-virus
    Automatic virus checking of every email.

Maybe I have your interest now, but you don’t want to change your email address? All you have to do is turn on forwarding on your current email address, then setup Gmail to send email from your email address. Emails appear to come from the same person, but incoming messages will be delivered to Gmail. Take a look at Gmail’s Switching page.

Something else that might be holding you back from switching can be feeling disconnected from your mail, like you don’t have access to it all the time. While there was one time when some accounts were emptied by hackers stealing passwords, you can download all your email to your computer using POP access. I download my emails as a backup every week or two into outlook.

There have been rumors of Gmail offering the same service as yahoo mail where it will download email from external pop3 accounts. This would be useful when forwarding is unavailable, as is sometimes the case.

If you need an invitation to Gmail, just leave a comment.

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Permalink | February 6th, 2007

3 Responses to “Email, everywhere”

  1. JuMu Says:
    February 24th, 2007 at 12:22 am

    So, are you saying that you could “technically” always, say… have your bosses’ entire email both archived and accessible from anyware? That could cause some peoples’ heads to POP (pun intended). ;)

  2. James Says:
    February 26th, 2007 at 11:47 pm

    I hate to say it, but MS Exchange is one of the best options for business with its push technology for mobile devices and centralized storage. Problems booting up your computer? No problem, all the email and contacts are still on the server. Also, all the data would be accessible and securable by1 the company, whereas a third-party service relinquishes company control.

    I’m on several computers regularly and I need to have all my email with me. Running exchange at home isn’t feasible so the next best thing is Gmail.

  3. Petah Says:
    March 16th, 2007 at 6:01 pm

    Agreed. I love having access to Gmail from everywhere (even my phone!) and the interface is just slick.

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