Gmail is da bomb

I signed up to my first web-based email service a few months ago, that is, one that was actually going to use in my daily life.  I wanted something that wasn’t tied to my email server.  I was missing emails or getting them with much delay simply because my mac-based email server was in the basement and my laptop where I work a good portion of the day is not.  The Mac works very well, and it’s nice to be able to download and store stuff that people send you.  Being a user of email since the mid 90’s it’s perhaps important to note that now there seems to be little reason to stick with the traditional POP account where downloading occurs, except, if you wish to have files locally available for backup.  Or perhaps if the end of the world comes and you wish to read your emails one last time before your power also goes out.

I signed up to gmail thinking it would be a good alternate or ‘junk’ mail stop.  To my surprise I find myself using it exclusively.  I have a few workstations, a couple laptops and a whole world of online PCs that I could not read my email from.  To suddenly have complete access to email from any workstation without using pathetically unstable software to download my email (outlook) was a complete revelation.   My old ways were transformed.

The only negative I can see to gmail is it’s inability to actually organize your inbox.  You can create ‘categories’ and show only those categories, but when in your inbox everything that has not been deleted is there in a big everlasting stream, much like a blog.  I suppose blog format, a stream of chronological data is the new paradigm for data management.  I’m getting used to it, but I guess I’m still a hierarchical dude at heart.   Science fiction has been touting the idea of a central data link where all users don’t actually have local data but log in and access data live over a network link.  This model seems to be what is actually occurring in data sharing.  Freaky.

The original idea to write this post was because I just checked my email and noticed that my ‘free space’ has more then doubled since I signed up a few months ago.  Google seems to have the idea that rewarding you for continued use is a good thing. Who am I to argue.  My personal email storage capacity has grown from around 1900MB to 4631MB.  Yes, that IS over FOUR gigabytes of space… for emails!  The need to have a dedicated home based email system is evaporating, if not completely gone.

On the other hand, if you decide later to move back to a POP server model you can use this with gmail!  There seems to be very little in the ‘downside’ department.

the converted.