Sims Learning Connections

As mentioned in my Quick Update on 4 October, I recently purchased a new desktop computer (hmm, why do we still call them that when the CPU is clearly under my desk?) with Microsoft Vista. Although I have generally been happy with Vista (more so than I expected to be, or many others seem to be), the bundled Windows Mail quickly became completely unworkable ala the experiences described by others in Microsoft’s forums. I suspect an interaction with McAfee anti-virus software; however, I didn’t have the patience to dig to the bottom of this pit. Rather, last week I bypassed the issue by setting up forwarding for all my email accounts to go to the gmail account that I had been recently using as a test-drive to discover what I was missing out on all these years.

Being a del.icio.us addict and generally a ‘search’-not-’browse’ kind of guy, I instantly felt comfortable using tagging (what Google calls ‘labels’), although it has created some behavior changes…

Previously on Novell’s GroupWise, Evolution, Microsoft Outlook, and most recently on Vista Windows Mail, I had always extensively used folders and mailbox rules to keep some level of order over my inbox flows. In particular I used this strategy to shunt off advertisements from existing vendor relationships and email from mailing list subscriptions.

For mailing lists, the theory was that I would then at least weekly go into these folders and catch-up with the hundreds of posts (sigh, especially in the case of TRDev). In practice, I found that frequently the hundreds became thousands and then the task seemed so daunting that I would just purge the folder…defeating the entire point of subscribing.

Now with the switch to gmail I am re-trying out a much earlier behavior of reading mailing lists daily in my goal of ending each day with no unread email…and, surprise, I’m finding some renewed value in the few mailing lists I still do subscribe to (e.g. in addition to TRDev, also Com-Prac, Online Facilitation, TaxoCoP, and actkm) — who knows, I might even get out of lurking; since previously the conversation had usually already moved on by the time I was reading.

To make this manageable; however, I have also been very quick to use gmail’s filter functionality to automatically delete some individual threads in a mailing list that are going on and on about something that I don’t really care about. It takes seconds to set up a new filter and the time is returned with fewer emails to delete based on subject-line alone.

For advertisements, I set-up filters to automatically tag and shunt to Archive (what Google calls “skip Inbox”.) Then, on the rare occasion that I really do want to get the latest coupon from (say) Barnes & Noble, I can click on the Label name in the list of all Labels and see what is available in emails I previously never even knew arrived.

Net: I really haven’t given up folder functionality after all since if I choose, I can use a Label exactly as I had previously used a folder…but I have gained the significant advantage of being able to have an email in more than one “location” using multiple labels on a single item.

I’ve noticed a couple of suspected bugs so far, and I haven’t made time to see if these already reported and if there are work-arounds:

1. In general, I like the approach gmail uses to keep a continuing thread together under one email link; however, I notice that this gets tripped up with things like LinkedIn acceptances where I now see I have a string of replies with personal text from different people all under a single “RE: Join my network on LinkedIn” instance.
2. Although the user interface for renaming labels is much better than del.icio.us, it doesn’t distinguish between lower and upper case…leading to an error message “The label name you have chosen already exists. Please try another name” when you try to edit for capitalization.

Next in my now full commitment, I need to set-up routine back-up via POP — as even though I may reluctantly trust Google with access to all my email; as good as their IT is, I don’t feel comfortable only having my email reside on someone else’s server.

Lastly, if I again get back to traveling more frequently, I’ll need to decide if I want to climb another learning curve with setting up Google Desktop to facilitate off-line access, or if I just use a back-up to an Outlook client.

For many many more gmail tips, in addition to Google’s own Help pages and blog, see:

• Jim tips: now at #63 and continuing
• lifehacker.com
• makeuseof.com, 18 March 2007
• Web Worker Daily, 10 September 2007

Closing note: If you aren’t already committed to gmail, you might just want to give Yahoo!  Mail a look since the recent buzz is that they have passed Google on innovation.  Myself, I’ve had enough change in my life lately driven by computers and am staying put where I now am, on gmail.