I was reading Joe Wilcox’ analysis of Ray Ozzie’s speech and later Ryan Stewart chimed in and the whole time I was reading that I was wondering:
Does Joe or Ryan know that Ray is an investor in Second Life?
If he did, that would have explained why Ray believes that the Web won’t deliver the most interesting experiences online. You go try to build Second Life in AJAX. I’ve seen it done and it’s not pretty.
It’s not lost on me either that the first thing I tried to do with Gmail is hook Outlook up to it. I can’t stand using the Web browser for email. And I have both the beta of the new Hotmail as well as Google’s new corporate Gmail and Maryam uses Yahoo’s email (formerly Oddpost). These are the three leading web-based email systems. I know many of you are OK with reading your email on the Web, but I’m too used to having my email offline. It gives me peace of mind to know I’m in control of my access to my email.
I really can’t stand Outlook. I have no use for any email client that traps my messages in a semi-documented, fragile database. Yeccch. I vastly prefer mbox files and their derivatives.
I really can’t stand Outlook. I have no use for any email client that traps my messages in a semi-documented, fragile database. Yeccch. I vastly prefer mbox files and their derivatives.
[...] Some interesting coverage of this event: Microsoft Monitor ZDNet Scobleizer [...]
Brent, I don;t know what having Exchange on the back end has to do with an Outlook experience. There are many service providers that connect Outlook to other email servers. What specific usability does the average user get by connecting Outlook to Exchange? Frequent done time? Exchange is a great free busy server. Beyond that, I’m not sure the back end matters all that much to the user
Cody is right, if you need Outlook to read and manage your email, you need to assess your use of email. Granted going purely web based does have its limitations. And Gmail frustrates me with its lack of a flexible folder structure. But I can manage may mail just fine with other clients besides OL. But, then again, all I’m managing is text files and folders, so it’s not all that difficult.
Brent, I don;t know what having Exchange on the back end has to do with an Outlook experience. There are many service providers that connect Outlook to other email servers. What specific usability does the average user get by connecting Outlook to Exchange? Frequent done time? Exchange is a great free busy server. Beyond that, I’m not sure the back end matters all that much to the user
Cody is right, if you need Outlook to read and manage your email, you need to assess your use of email. Granted going purely web based does have its limitations. And Gmail frustrates me with its lack of a flexible folder structure. But I can manage may mail just fine with other clients besides OL. But, then again, all I’m managing is text files and folders, so it’s not all that difficult.
I’m too used to having my email offline. It gives me peace of mind to know I’m in control of my access to my email.
Using hotmail (which deletes your inbox and deactivates your account if you don’t login every thirty days) will do that to you.
gmail is safe. 2GB of permanent email. In contrast to hotmail users, I have never heard of anyone losing email to gmail.
I’m too used to having my email offline. It gives me peace of mind to know I’m in control of my access to my email.
Using hotmail (which deletes your inbox and deactivates your account if you don’t login every thirty days) will do that to you.
gmail is safe. 2GB of permanent email. In contrast to hotmail users, I have never heard of anyone losing email to gmail.
No one in the corporate world uses Pine or Thunderbird.
Say what?!
Personally, I have always refused to use outlook and have never worked with an employer (nor would I work for one) that forced me to use products from Microsoft.
Eudora and thunderbird are a lot more common in my circle than Outlook.
No one in the corporate world uses Pine or Thunderbird.
Say what?!
Personally, I have always refused to use outlook and have never worked with an employer (nor would I work for one) that forced me to use products from Microsoft.
Eudora and thunderbird are a lot more common in my circle than Outlook.
gmail is safe. 2GB of permanent email. In contrast to hotmail users, I have never heard of anyone losing email to gmail.
Windows Live Mail (which replaces Hotmail) help says:
“Free Windows Live Mail accounts become inactive if you don’t sign in for 120 days, or within the first 10 days after signing up for an account. Once an account becomes inactive, all messages, folders, and contacts are deleted, but the account name is still reserved. If the account stays inactive for a further 90 days, the account name is permanently deleted.”
Gmail Program Policies says:
“Google will terminate your account in accordance with Section 9 of the Terms of Use if you fail to login to your account for a period of nine months.”
Nooo. Noooooo. Not Section 9!!!
Yes, Gmail accounts can be inactive for about five months longer than Windows Live Mail. Which would come in handy if, you know, you get sent to prison for smoking Google Crack (Beta) and can’t check your mail.
Is 120 days the same as 30 days? No.
Is nine months the same as permanently? No. Not unless you’re pregnant, in which case it probably only feels that way.
gmail is safe. 2GB of permanent email. In contrast to hotmail users, I have never heard of anyone losing email to gmail.
Windows Live Mail (which replaces Hotmail) help says:
“Free Windows Live Mail accounts become inactive if you don’t sign in for 120 days, or within the first 10 days after signing up for an account. Once an account becomes inactive, all messages, folders, and contacts are deleted, but the account name is still reserved. If the account stays inactive for a further 90 days, the account name is permanently deleted.”
Gmail Program Policies says:
“Google will terminate your account in accordance with Section 9 of the Terms of Use if you fail to login to your account for a period of nine months.”
Nooo. Noooooo. Not Section 9!!!
Yes, Gmail accounts can be inactive for about five months longer than Windows Live Mail. Which would come in handy if, you know, you get sent to prison for smoking Google Crack (Beta) and can’t check your mail.
Is 120 days the same as 30 days? No.
Is nine months the same as permanently? No. Not unless you’re pregnant, in which case it probably only feels that way.
Some of the influential people in the tech industry have spent nearly $20 million on that Second Life gimick.. That may not mean anything, but it’s a good sign to me that It may be more than a gimick.
Some of the influential people in the tech industry have spent nearly $20 million on that Second Life gimick.. That may not mean anything, but it’s a good sign to me that It may be more than a gimick.
[...] I’m skeptical of the new-media, private-network-pretending-to-be-public, advertising-based, LIFE 2.0. So naturally I take everything Scoble says with a grain of salt. I’ve come around, blogging is here, its useful in its own way. So this was kind of a suprise… Scoble mentioning that he’s still attached to the outside the browser apps. As I work on Exchange (Email is our b&b), I’m more than familiar with the difference between OWA (the team that practically invented AJAX) and Outlook. [...]
LazyZ: Sounds like you’ve worked for companies with people who don’t know how to manage Exchange. I’ve lived with and without Exchange and in a corporate environment, I’ll take with everytime. Exchange gives me Outlook web access, global address book and free/busy scheduling to name a few. Maybe not a big deal for personal email. Outlook 2007 has some pretty nice features as well.
LazyZ: Sounds like you’ve worked for companies with people who don’t know how to manage Exchange. I’ve lived with and without Exchange and in a corporate environment, I’ll take with everytime. Exchange gives me Outlook web access, global address book and free/busy scheduling to name a few. Maybe not a big deal for personal email. Outlook 2007 has some pretty nice features as well.
Cody, I don’t know what you are using e-mail for. Granted, e-mail isn’t the right file transfer tool and maybe not the best tool for long discussions, but for every other purpose – why not? Ask questions, request stuff, getting hotel/flight/whatever confirmations, delegate tasks, etc. I know a lot of UNIX guys you force themselves to use Pine or similar command-line based tools, just because they think it’s cooler and that all the “mouse” tools are just crap. But if you’re using e-mail to do your everyday business, not just to delete NDRs
, than you need a good e-mail application, that helps you creating rules, tracking and categorizing your e-mails, etc. This tool can be Outlook, but could also be Entourage, Evolution, whatever. But I really think you won’t be as productive with Pine. Some years ago, when I needed to use Pine, it was good for send/reply/forward, but managing a lot of folders, storing e-mail for later reference, tracking e-mails, etc. was just really bad and not very productive with Pine.
Cody, I don’t know what you are using e-mail for. Granted, e-mail isn’t the right file transfer tool and maybe not the best tool for long discussions, but for every other purpose – why not? Ask questions, request stuff, getting hotel/flight/whatever confirmations, delegate tasks, etc. I know a lot of UNIX guys you force themselves to use Pine or similar command-line based tools, just because they think it’s cooler and that all the “mouse” tools are just crap. But if you’re using e-mail to do your everyday business, not just to delete NDRs
, than you need a good e-mail application, that helps you creating rules, tracking and categorizing your e-mails, etc. This tool can be Outlook, but could also be Entourage, Evolution, whatever. But I really think you won’t be as productive with Pine. Some years ago, when I needed to use Pine, it was good for send/reply/forward, but managing a lot of folders, storing e-mail for later reference, tracking e-mails, etc. was just really bad and not very productive with Pine.
@ Carolus Holman: There exists a plugin for Outlook to load up “remote calendars” (http://remotecalendars.sourceforge.net/)
I’ve used it a few times, but I found it not very useful for Outlook.
Like some-one said before, Outlook 2007 can use it by default. However, mine seemed to “forget” its calendars.
@ Carolus Holman: There exists a plugin for Outlook to load up “remote calendars” (http://remotecalendars.sourceforge.net/)
I’ve used it a few times, but I found it not very useful for Outlook.
Like some-one said before, Outlook 2007 can use it by default. However, mine seemed to “forget” its calendars.
Former Microsoft Blogger Reads Mail Offline! News at 11!
Former Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble writes:… I’m …
That said, one can’t deny that the web is definitely front and center of most applications. Yes games are not going to be played on the web per se, but without the web there would be no Everquest or World of Warcraft. S
I definitely think that the integration between online and offline tools needs to improve. Alternately, we need to be in a situation where we are always online, but that isn’t happening anytime soon. Personally, since I am almost always online, I am fine with gmail, since its ideal for my workflow, but your point on being able to access email offline is very valid. In theory though, shouldn’t the blackberries and treos of the world take care of being ona plane and needing to catch up on email?
To those who hate Outlook/Exchange, I hope you never have to use Lotus Notes/Domino. Enough to test the most magnanimous amongst us.
That said, one can’t deny that the web is definitely front and center of most applications. Yes games are not going to be played on the web per se, but without the web there would be no Everquest or World of Warcraft. S
I definitely think that the integration between online and offline tools needs to improve. Alternately, we need to be in a situation where we are always online, but that isn’t happening anytime soon. Personally, since I am almost always online, I am fine with gmail, since its ideal for my workflow, but your point on being able to access email offline is very valid. In theory though, shouldn’t the blackberries and treos of the world take care of being ona plane and needing to catch up on email?
To those who hate Outlook/Exchange, I hope you never have to use Lotus Notes/Domino. Enough to test the most magnanimous amongst us.
Brent, you still didnt’ answer my question. You told me what Exchange give me. I acknowledged that it is a great free/busy server. What I want to know is what SPECIFIC advantages I get by having Outlook connecting to Exchange. A plethora of mail server options provide web access and global address lists. I’ve not seen anything in your list that is all that innovative or unique. I love the: “don’t know how to manage Exchange” defense every time its stability issues are brought up.
Brent, you still didnt’ answer my question. You told me what Exchange give me. I acknowledged that it is a great free/busy server. What I want to know is what SPECIFIC advantages I get by having Outlook connecting to Exchange. A plethora of mail server options provide web access and global address lists. I’ve not seen anything in your list that is all that innovative or unique. I love the: “don’t know how to manage Exchange” defense every time its stability issues are brought up.
Cody seems like he is our of his mind!
You implied that if you use Outlook you are out of your mind, but did not give any evidence to support it. Tell us some feature that Pine or Thunderbird has that Outlook misses. Btw, can your Pine read RSS feeds? Outlook 2007 can do so!
Second, you said that Robert talks the talk, but you walk the walk. Using MediaWiki is not walking the walk IMHO. If you wrote your own wiki software, your own OS, your own email client, your own word processor, your own browser… now THAT would be walking the walk! If you use a software that someone else wrote, where is “walking the walk” in that?
Cody seems like he is our of his mind!
You implied that if you use Outlook you are out of your mind, but did not give any evidence to support it. Tell us some feature that Pine or Thunderbird has that Outlook misses. Btw, can your Pine read RSS feeds? Outlook 2007 can do so!
Second, you said that Robert talks the talk, but you walk the walk. Using MediaWiki is not walking the walk IMHO. If you wrote your own wiki software, your own OS, your own email client, your own word processor, your own browser… now THAT would be walking the walk! If you use a software that someone else wrote, where is “walking the walk” in that?
First, I can read RSS feeds via the command line if I wanted to. Second, WTF does an RSS feed have to do with email? Nothing. NEXT.
Robert talks about wikis…can’t install one himself.
I don’t talk about wikis often…but I can install one.
There was nothing about programming your own wiki. A true computer geek can install a wiki, no big deal. I was proving my point, to which I succeeded.
First, I can read RSS feeds via the command line if I wanted to. Second, WTF does an RSS feed have to do with email? Nothing. NEXT.
Robert talks about wikis…can’t install one himself.
I don’t talk about wikis often…but I can install one.
There was nothing about programming your own wiki. A true computer geek can install a wiki, no big deal. I was proving my point, to which I succeeded.
Pine is fantastic for reading email. Lack of calendaring, RSS feeds, tagging – that’s a feature, not a bug. Seriously. You have to use the right tool for the job. If I want to deal purely with written expression in an email, pine is great.
That said, I tend to use webmail, and view offline mail readers as archiving tools. (As mbox readers, basically.)
I have yet to find an RSS reader that I enjoy using enough to be bothered to tweak. An integrated one shows some promise as a concept, but I’d rather be able to pick which RSS display engine is used by Outlook than be tied to only one.
Oh, and calendaring? Not helpful if my coorespondents cannot read/write to my calendar database. The universality of email is what is wanted – not vendor lock in. [apple, I'm looking at you] I haven’t found one yet that is good enough at approximating solutions (to known hard problems) of complex scheduling conflicts. I’d even settle for one that could correctly manage appointments/events across time zones. Does Office 2007 do these things?
-r.
Pine is fantastic for reading email. Lack of calendaring, RSS feeds, tagging – that’s a feature, not a bug. Seriously. You have to use the right tool for the job. If I want to deal purely with written expression in an email, pine is great.
That said, I tend to use webmail, and view offline mail readers as archiving tools. (As mbox readers, basically.)
I have yet to find an RSS reader that I enjoy using enough to be bothered to tweak. An integrated one shows some promise as a concept, but I’d rather be able to pick which RSS display engine is used by Outlook than be tied to only one.
Oh, and calendaring? Not helpful if my coorespondents cannot read/write to my calendar database. The universality of email is what is wanted – not vendor lock in. [apple, I'm looking at you] I haven’t found one yet that is good enough at approximating solutions (to known hard problems) of complex scheduling conflicts. I’d even settle for one that could correctly manage appointments/events across time zones. Does Office 2007 do these things?
-r.
“Tell us some feature that Pine or Thunderbird has that Outlook misses.”
Er… able run on something other than Windows? That’s the first thing that comes to mind.
Uh… Thunderbird is free?
“Tell us some feature that Pine or Thunderbird has that Outlook misses.”
Er… able run on something other than Windows? That’s the first thing that comes to mind.
Uh… Thunderbird is free?
Pine deals with email. I’m not sure what kind of email YOU send.
What, is Plain Text too hard for you to grasp?
Pine deals with email. I’m not sure what kind of email YOU send.
What, is Plain Text too hard for you to grasp?
Things I like about GMail:
1. Instant access to all my mail on the three machines I use almost every day: two Macs and one Windows XP PC.
2. Wicked fast search of the nine thousand email messages I have received and sent over the last two years. For example, GMail found my 190 email messages that include the word “Robert” in less than three seconds. The oldest received in 7/04, the newest received yesterday.
3. Very reliable, seamless spam filtering.
4. Automatic harvesting of every email address I ever received or sent mail to into my contact list, currently over 550 contacts.
5. Conversations. This was the hardest feature to get used to but now I find it difficult to follow email threads in Yahoo! or Hotmail without this UI feature.
6. Ability group emails using tags or Labels. Emails can be associated with more than one label.
7. Really nice Ajax-based spell checker.
8. Awesome email access on my Nokia 6625 mobile phone.
9. Automatic parsing of email for events to be included in the integrated Calendar.
10. Automatic SMS alerts for calendar reminders.
11. Optional forwarding to another account. I do this to my free Yahoo! account for redundency.
12. Over 2.7GB of available storage and growing every day
Things I like about GMail:
1. Instant access to all my mail on the three machines I use almost every day: two Macs and one Windows XP PC.
2. Wicked fast search of the nine thousand email messages I have received and sent over the last two years. For example, GMail found my 190 email messages that include the word “Robert” in less than three seconds. The oldest received in 7/04, the newest received yesterday.
3. Very reliable, seamless spam filtering.
4. Automatic harvesting of every email address I ever received or sent mail to into my contact list, currently over 550 contacts.
5. Conversations. This was the hardest feature to get used to but now I find it difficult to follow email threads in Yahoo! or Hotmail without this UI feature.
6. Ability group emails using tags or Labels. Emails can be associated with more than one label.
7. Really nice Ajax-based spell checker.
8. Awesome email access on my Nokia 6625 mobile phone.
9. Automatic parsing of email for events to be included in the integrated Calendar.
10. Automatic SMS alerts for calendar reminders.
11. Optional forwarding to another account. I do this to my free Yahoo! account for redundency.
12. Over 2.7GB of available storage and growing every day
Outlook is now more than an email client. What has RSS to do with email??? I like how RSS feeds integrate so well with Outlook 2007. Why have different clients for everything when you can roll your email, RSS, calender, everything in one!
Text emails? I honestly think it has been AGES since I have received a text-only email. Most of my emails are HTML or Richtext!
Yes Outlook runs on windows only – that is a valid argument. I still do not think pine is the best – thunderbird is alright – I would give it a try if I were moving to a non-windows environment.
Gmail and live-mail are great, but I still do not like web-based email. I prefer to get them on Outlook (or another good email client capable of reading html and richtext emails), preferably using IMAP or Exchange protocol. The AJAX interface may be good, but I prefer my thick client to the AJAXed thin-client.
The other good thing I like about Outlook is the spam filters – they are updated almost every month, and they really catch 90% of my spam, of not more.
That said, there is one thing I *really* want to see in Outlook – ability to send personalized emails (without using the crappy mail-merge feature in MSWord).
Outlook is now more than an email client. What has RSS to do with email??? I like how RSS feeds integrate so well with Outlook 2007. Why have different clients for everything when you can roll your email, RSS, calender, everything in one!
Text emails? I honestly think it has been AGES since I have received a text-only email. Most of my emails are HTML or Richtext!
Yes Outlook runs on windows only – that is a valid argument. I still do not think pine is the best – thunderbird is alright – I would give it a try if I were moving to a non-windows environment.
Gmail and live-mail are great, but I still do not like web-based email. I prefer to get them on Outlook (or another good email client capable of reading html and richtext emails), preferably using IMAP or Exchange protocol. The AJAX interface may be good, but I prefer my thick client to the AJAXed thin-client.
The other good thing I like about Outlook is the spam filters – they are updated almost every month, and they really catch 90% of my spam, of not more.
That said, there is one thing I *really* want to see in Outlook – ability to send personalized emails (without using the crappy mail-merge feature in MSWord).
Also, I like lotus notes, but the company I work for uses Exchange server, which is working well for me as well.
Also, I like lotus notes, but the company I work for uses Exchange server, which is working well for me as well.
Outlook is not free, but I pay anyway for the MS Office suite (yes, I know as soon as I type this someone is going to talk about OpenOffice and how its better than MS Office, etc; but my company policies do not allow me to use that on any business machines), so I am really paying nothing extra. I will give thunderbird a try on my personal machine, from the screenshots and features described it looks good.
Outlook is not free, but I pay anyway for the MS Office suite (yes, I know as soon as I type this someone is going to talk about OpenOffice and how its better than MS Office, etc; but my company policies do not allow me to use that on any business machines), so I am really paying nothing extra. I will give thunderbird a try on my personal machine, from the screenshots and features described it looks good.
“Tell us some feature that Pine or Thunderbird has that Outlook misses.”
How about natively storing their mail in an accessible, nonproprietary format that literally thousands of tools on every platform can easily read from, write to, search, and archive?
Ever had a PST file take a crap on you? It’s not a place you want to be.
“Tell us some feature that Pine or Thunderbird has that Outlook misses.”
How about natively storing their mail in an accessible, nonproprietary format that literally thousands of tools on every platform can easily read from, write to, search, and archive?
Ever had a PST file take a crap on you? It’s not a place you want to be.
“Tell us some feature that Pine or Thunderbird has that Outlook misses.”
Storing email as searchable, accessible, archivable text, accessible on every platform.
“Tell us some feature that Pine or Thunderbird has that Outlook misses.”
Storing email as searchable, accessible, archivable text, accessible on every platform.
Oops — sorry about the double post…
Oops — sorry about the double post…
It’s $400 dolllars for the Microsoft Office 2003 Standard Edition.
OpenOffice, AbiWord, Pine, Thunderbird, etc…FREE
That’s $400 I don’t have to spend. So that’s one big reason why I hate Outlook, because of that fact.