Communication and Email woes answered - Microsoft, RIM, Mail2Web and Apple save the day!!
I posted a few weeks ago about my frustration that so few email solutions provide the functionality and convenience I’ve come to expect. My problem was the following: (1) multiple computers and access points, all of which I expect to remain sync’d at all times (2) a blackberry device that also needs to remain sync’d (3) a calendar system that needs to communicate with my blackberry and interact seamlessly with other communication platforms. While gmail was exciting to me initially, it proved inefficient, as deletions required more than one click, my inbox soon reached 1,700 messages, and messages often slipped through the cracks, sometimes falling off my first page, sometimes lost forever. GCal was extremely disappointing. It couldn’t sync with the blackberry, only sending SMS messages before appointments, making scheduling a challenge and checking my calendar a nuisance. I looked into Yahoo Mail, but wasn’t impressed with its blackberry compatibility either. Well, after a bunch of research, my problems have all been solved. I researched virtual exchange servers and decided to purchase a plan from Mail2Web for $20 per month. Their virtual exchange sever allows me to use Outlook or Entourage to manage my mail, and keeps my email, calendar and contacts wirelessly sync’d between computers and devices at all times. This is the way the blackberry device was designed to be used and boy, does it make a huge difference. Never again will I miss a conference call because I forgot to manually sync my blackberry. Mail2Web offered the best package of the Microsoft certified partners and as a Canadian company based in Toronto, I found their 24-hr customer service department to be unusually skilled and helpful….note: no outsourcing to India here, every representative I spoke to was a true Canadian, eh? Finally, to throw another wrench in the mix, I recently switched to a MacBookPro for my work laptop, a move that I’m thrilled about…this is the most fun I’ve had on a computer in a long time. I played with Entourage for a week or so, but found it extremely inferior to Outlook 2007, which incidentally, I found to be a huge improvement over 2003. Running XP over Parallels on the mac, and adjusting the settings to optimize for performance, I’m able to run Outlook with good speed, not sacrificing email and calendar functionality. So there you have it. If you want more info, I’m considering doing some IT consulting on the side….
Friendship, weddings, groomsmen and toasts
Over the weekend, my friend, Jeff Cohen, married Gabby Etrog at Camp Point O’ Pines in the Adirondacks. It was the third time I had been asked to perform best man duties (not including my dad’s second marriage). After giving many a toast at weddings over the past few years as both a best man and groomsman - toasts that ranged from the "power nap" (a series of emotional and rambling stories that dragged on for 20 minutes in my less experienced days) to the "Al Michaels" (an ad lib play-by-play commentary that I performed in more recent years) - my co-best man and I agreed to do something a bit different for this one. We began by delivering a standard toast with a few anecdotes about our relationship with Jeff, playing well off each other as it unfolded. At the moment the toast began to drag, I interrupted and suggested we change our tune. We stepped off-stage, put on white long hair wigs, beards and cowboy hats and reappeared on stage as Kenny Rogers I and II. Then, we called out into the audience for a guitar player. As one emerged (someone with whom we previously rehearsed), we stepped up and began to perform. The lyrics to our little ditty are below. As we sung the final chorus verse, the crowd erupted in applauds and a cheering standing ovation. Tal and I were unsure of how this unorthodox toast would be received by a diverse crowd, so we were particularly excited. Compliments poured in throughout the night, to the point that I was gushing…nearly embarrassed. In fact, I received two more mentions of it today, three days after the fact. At this stage of the game, it’s unlikely that I’ll experience first-hand what it’s like to get up on stage and receive a rock star’s reception, so this may be the closest I ever get. And I’m loving every minute of it.
Google Calendar (GCal) is pathetic, but are there better solutions?
In an effort to migrate my life to hosted organizational tools, I switched to Google Calendar a few weeks ago, hoping that managing my email and calendar in the same place would prove effective. After a few weeks of using it and several hours trying to export my data and stop using it, it would be difficult to accurately convey my disappointment with the application. GCal sucks. Not only does it not work elegantly with GMail, but it doesn’t sync with PDAs. The sharing functionality - the reason hosted apps are helpful in the first place - is only so-so, and after several frustrating hours trying to figure out how to export my data to a better solution, I’m giving up because Google’s instructions and forums on the topic are pitiful. I’m hoping to give 30boxes a try, but my expectations are tempered, and I suspect I may have to return to Outlook. Despite all the attention paid to hosted apps over the past 10 years, from my perspective, it seems they’ve progressed only minimally. Is it so difficult to design a solution to manage email, calendar and contacts seemlessly in a hosted environment? If anyone has suggestions on apps I should try, please leave a comment.