Outlook Archives - Zoli's Blog

Learn From the Gmail Fiasco: You Need Redundant Copies of Your Email–Don’t Worry, It’s Painless :-)

Posted on February 28, 2011 ·

Cartoon by Dave Walker

A few hundred thousand (numbers range from 150k to 500K) Gmail and Google Apps users had the scary experience of losing ALL their email content yesterday. Their account was accidentally “reset”. Google acknowledged the error, and issued a statement that they are working on restoring “lost” content.

Let’s stop and think here a minute. Is your lifetime’s worth of information sitting in email? Do you have redundant backups / copies? (there is a difference, as we’ll see). If not… stop everything, and rush to fix it.

There are a few steps anyone can take easily to have redundant copies of their entire email account – I don’t mean just backup to restore from, but live copies you can switch to any time.

Keep an offline copy in an email client. I don’t use email clients anymore, much prefer the native Gmail UI. But even if you don’t normally use email clients, you can still occasionally start Outlook, Thunderbird, Mac email…etc. Fetch everything via IMAP, then make redundant copies.
Auto-copy to another Google account. Set up an account you won’t actively use – its sole purpose is to fetch email from all your other email accounts (Google or external) via POP and serve as an archive….

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, SaaS · Tagged: backup, CloudAve, data backup, email, Email client, gmail, Google, Google Account, google apps, hotmail, IMAP, Outlook, thunderbird, yahoo mail, zoho mail

Gmail, Don’t be a Yahoo!

Posted on November 5, 2010 ·

In the 90’s I used to laugh at friends who all used Yahoo! as their personal email service. I did not understand how anyone could put up with the slow speeds of web-mail, and tried to convince them to install a decent email client, like Outlook, which is what most of them used in their corporate jobs.

Then things changed: Outlook grew into a bloated monster, it brought otherwise fairly speedy computers to a grinding halt and finding stuff in the archives of years of email became a gargantuan job. A new web-based email service came to rescue: Gmail was fast, well-organized, included productivity-boosters like labels and conversation-threading, and most importantly, you could not only search but also find old email in seconds! For this former Outlook-fan the switch was a no-brainer – in fact I ended up ditching almost all desktop software, moving online. (Gmail for mail and Zoho for most other tasks).

Life was good, I stayed productive and Gmail grew into a suite of productivity services by Google. Too bad it’s breaking down – again…

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

Filed Under: Software · Tagged: CloudAve, gmail, Google, google apps, hotmail, Outlook, performance, productivity, yahoo, zoho, zoho mail

Promoting SaaS on eBay?

Posted on June 23, 2009 ·

This listing on eBay is hilarious, almost makes me wonder if it’s a true listing or carefully planted advertising for Google Apps (and SaaS in general). But the seller appears to be real, has been on eBay for ten years… Here we go, get Microsoft Office w. Outlook for $75, because:

It’s brand new and never been opened. My boss bought it right before I moved the whole company over to Google Apps.
We never looked back, but here’s your opportunity to live it up, 90’s style, with this great, retro piece of Microsoft 2007 software.

Zoho Office for Sharepoint: Use SaaS, Keep Data Behind the Firewall

Posted on June 23, 2009 ·

One of the major roadblocks to SaaS providers’ entry to the enterprise is IT and Business concerns about corporate security, thinking of the firewall as the last line of defense.

Microsoft SharePoint has a very strong position in the Enterprise as the incumbents behind-the-firewall collaboration server, and for years smart Collaboration and Social Software vendors with better functionality, like Atlassian, Socialtext, Jive Software, Newsgator have been "playing well", adopting their services to SharePoint.

Now Zoho joins, announcing Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint, which combines the benefits of a collaborative SaaS Suite with the (perceived or real?) security if keeping data behind the firewall.

Gmail’s Undo Send Isn’t Really Undo, Just Like Multiple Inboxes Were Not Really Multiple Inboxes

Posted on March 19, 2009 ·

First of all, I love Gmail, it’s my one-and-only email system. And I’m certainly glad to see the ever accelerating rate of enhancements, whether “official” or just the Labs variety. But oh, please, can we have some control here and call features what they really are?

First there was the multiple inboxes announcement. Nice. Except that it wasn’t. Multiple inboxes, that is. Think about it: that would defy logic – unless we’re talking about handling multiple email accounts, which is clearly not the case with Gmail. This feature is multi-pane viewing – no more, no less.

Today we’re getting another new feature: Undo Send. Except that it really isn’t. Undo Send, that is.

Undo Send is what Outlook has offered for ages: you can actually recall a message that had already been sent, provided the recipient has not opened it yet, and you’re both on Exchange. What Gmail offers now is a momentary delay of 5 seconds, during which you may just realize you’re emailing the wrong Smith or Brown, and hit the panic Undo button. It’s not really undo, since the message was never sent in the first place – Gmail was holding it for 5 seconds, if you had enabled this option.

Of course, as just about all TechCrunch commenters note, 5 seconds is not enough, the delay might as well be configurable. Something like this:

Oh, I forgot. It’s from that other Web-mail system (the one that actually has multiple inboxes, too).

Update: MG Siegler over @ VentureBeat agrees this is not real unsend, and he remembers AOL had a real unsend/recall feature, just like the Exchange theme I described above.

Update #2: Oh, please… per Wired, Google already plans configurability, but all you get to pick is 5 or 10 seconds.

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, SaaS · Tagged: aol, email, Exchange, gmail, ms exchange, Outlook, productivity, zoho mail

Life After Outlook: Gmail. But is it Becoming Oopsmail?

Posted on August 1, 2008 ·

Bernard’s title @ ReadWriteWeb, Breaking Free of Outlook perfectly matches my own sentiment: in fact I called the MS Client Outlook-prison repeatedly.

Unlike Bernard, I escaped from prison in stages:

First Using Gmail to boost non-gmail productivity
Next using Gmail servers with my own domain but still in the Outlook client
Finally breaking entirely free, using Gmail natively (web interface). This was part of a bigger move, ditching almost all desktop software, moving online. (Gmail for mail and Zoho for most other tasks)

I’ve never looked back, and am definitely more productive than in my desktop-bound life. I could see first-hand a lot of people move in the same direction: my How to Import All Your Archive Email Into Gmail guide become an all-time classic, probably approaching 100,000 hits by now. Gmail’s IMAP support changed everything, so I issued a Simplified Guide to Importing All Your Archive Email Into Gmail. A while later Google woke up, and started to offer a migration tool to subscribers of the paid Google Apps version. (Oh, and they are being sued by LimitNone, who claims Google basically stole their gMove product).

But the love-affair with Gmail was not without trouble: I first documented some glitches last spring: Gmail, I Love You – Don’t Let Me Down, then real trouble started a month ort so ago.

Formerly rock-solid Gmail has been ill a lot lately. The “Oops…the system encountered a problem (#500) – Retrying in 1:30” error message has became a daily occurance… in fact several times a day.

I somewhat jokingly called “retry now” Gmail’s Penalty Button, when I noticed every time I hit it the wait counter increased by a minute.

Now I have an update: you don’t need the penalty button, the counter increases by itself. Every time, “reliably”. Basically as soon as you see the Oops error, you might as well close the browser tab (or browser itself), as it won’t recover on its own. This annoying error has become the most frequent “feature” of Gmail, to the extent that it really undermines productivity.

I hope Google will fix it. They MUST. It’s the crown jewel of Google Apps. In fact without Gmail and Calendar there wouldn’t be Google Apps at all.

Update: Oops: apparently there’s a real service by the name of Oopsmail. Obviously I am not referrring to them in the title. (Although… ? 🙂 )

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, SaaS · Tagged: desktop, desktop applications, Exchange, gmail, gmail import, Google, migration, Outlook, Web Applications, web office, zoho

How to Make Outlook Cool. Actually, Kool.

Posted on April 20, 2008 ·

Outlook read backwards is Kooltuo. Wow, it would make a good startup name. No, I did not go crazy, but TechCrunch reports that Microsoft just signed a letter of intent to acquire Xobni. And Xobni = Inbox, backwards.

Not that it’s a surprise: I wish I could predict everything with such certainty. This is what wrote in February, when Bill Gates presented Xobni for Outlook as “the next generation of social networking” at the Microsoft Office Developers Conference:

What does it mean when Bill Gates presents your product, a super-cool Outlook plugin to his crowd of developers?

Gates’s message: now go back and copy this fast. That would be the classic Microsoft style, as many software startups can attest to. It would also put the market introduction to somewhere … around 2015? Unlikely.

Microsoft will acquire Xobni in no time. Sweet and fast deal. Congratulations to the Xobni team and investors!

So, yes, congratulations to the Xobni team! On a personal note, I regret I can’t try Xobni, as I long ago ditched Outlook along with a lot of desktop bloatware, and am in happier land now, using Web-based applications. I’m perfectly happy ( and productive) with the combination of Gmail and the Zoho apps, and if I ever leave Gmail, it will be for another web-mail, not back to the desktop. The air is fresher in the Cloud.

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, SaaS · Tagged: bill gates, cloud computing, email, gmail, Google, microsoft, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Outlook, SaaS, xobni, zoho

How to Hire Bill Gates to Demo your Startup’s Product

Posted on February 12, 2008 ·

Actually, I don’t know how, but Xobni apparently does: Bill Gates presented Xobni for Outlook as “the next generation of social networking” (is that why he quit Facebook?) at the Microsoft Office Developers Conference yesterday (video here).

Now, let’s think for a minute. What does it mean when Bill Gates presents your product, a super-cool Outlook plugin to his crowd of developers?

Gates’s message: now go back and copy this fast. That would be the classic Microsoft style, as many software startups can attest to. It would also put the market introduction to somewhere … around 2015? Unlikely.
Microsoft will acquire Xobni in no time. Sweet and fast deal. Congratulations to the Xobni team and investors!

Update (2/15): Xobni has a new CEO: Jeff Bonforte, Yahoo’s vice president of social search until now. Did he just escape from one Microsoft acquisition and get into another one? 😉

Update (3/2): TechCrunch has sources confirming the Microsoft negotiations.

Update (3/20): Bob Warfield believes Microsoft is about to close the deal with Xobni.

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, Software, Startups · Tagged: acquisition, bill gates, email, microsoft, ms outlook, Outlook, startup exit, Startups, xobni

Simplified Guide to Importing All Your Archive Email Into Gmail

Posted on October 24, 2007 ·

This is now so simple, it shouldn’t even require any guidance… but first things first.

Why would you want to import all your old email to Gmail? Because it gives you an All-In-One, searchable archive. I know there is real demand for this: my blog visitor log tells me, since my old post on the subject, How to Import All Your Archive Email Into Gmail still receives a good 5-600 readers every single day. That means:

people do want to migrate to web-based software (Gmail)
they don’t want to lose their historical “baggage”
so far it has been rather complicated

Now that Gmail supports the IMAP protocol, everything’s changed. My most-popular-ever post is all of a sudden obsolete. Forget all the “Gmail-loader” tools on the Net, most of them did not work anyway, forget even my multi-step process… I’ll show you all you have to do now. I’ve tested these steps with Outlook, but they should work with Thunderbird or whatever your favorite desktop email software is.

Enable IMAP in your Gmail account
Setup the Gmail account in your client software, based on these instructions
This will create a folder structure matching your Gmail labels
Open your old archive.pst files, if any
Drag-and drop all your old email into the Inbox folder in your new IMAP account.
- You can do this across accounts, or even archive files.
- If you don’t want to “move” old email out of the archives, use “copy” instead.
- Instead of Inbox, you can drop old email into any other Folder (create new ones if you like), to match the Gmail labels
Drag-and drop all your old “Sent mail” into the “Sent Mail” folder in your new IMAP account.
Wait patiently – with thousands of emails (my archive goes back to 1996) your upload bandwidth may be the bottleneck.

Voila! Your email is now up in Gmail, all labeled, searchable, with original sender info and dates intact (this was a problem with previous methods).

Happy Gmail-ing

Filed Under: Personal Productivity, SaaS · Tagged: email import, gmail, gmail archive, gmail import, IMAP, Outlook, thunderbird

Gmail IMAP and Microsoft’s Desktop Push

Posted on October 23, 2007 ·

You’ll have to appreciate the irony of this TechMeme screenshot:

Microsoft’s Jeff Raiker defended desktop applications, mocking of Google for “backtrack(ing) on what we’ve been saying and to offer things like Gears in order to be able to be offline and or take advantage of global computing power”, reports Infoworld.

As if to support Raiker’s statement, just minutes earlier the hot item on TechMeme was Google’s Gmail offering IMAP. Yes, it’s there, if you don’t see it in your gmail account, log out and come back again.

Unlike POP access, which is basically a dumb download, IMAP synchronizes your mail folders (not just the Inbox) with your online account, and your read/unread status..etc are maintained both in the desktop client and online. In fact IMAP is an easy way to sync several desktop clients on multiple machines. (Note: Gmail does not have folders, but I assume labels would take their place – assume only, since I no longer use desktop email software)

Where’s the irony here? IMAP is clearly beneficial only if you use a desktop email client* with your gmail account, which is exactly Raiker’s point. And a bit of a personal irony: for over a decade I was a faithful Outlook user, mocking my friends who used web-based email (typically Yahoo) for their personal accounts. How could they live with such a dumb, slow service?

Well, times change: Outlook grew fat and slow, it needs a cornucopia of software fighting for CPU and memory: virus scanner, desktop search (Copernic), backup (Mozy), sync with other desktops (Foldershare), and who knows what else, all of which need updates that tend to fail … what a nightmare! I ditched the desktop and have never been more productive! I’m using Gmail natively, on the Web, and am quite happy with it, so IMAP means nothing to me. (Apparently I’m not alone, as evidenced by the 5-600 readers my client to Gmail migration guide written half a year ago is still getting every day). For all other productivity needs I use the Zoho Suite. Incidentally, little birdies are singing that Zoho Writer will soon have offline edit capabilities.

Seamless online/offline computing, as it should be.

*Update (10/24). This post was my quick first reaction late last night, when the news first hit (in fact before it became official news). As Marc Orchant correctly points out, IMAP may very well be useful even if you don’t use a desktop email client, as it makes it really easy to use the client software on your mobile devices, and still have a sync’d Gmail on the Web.

Update #2, (10/24): Simplified Guide to Importing All Your Archive Email Into Gmail

Filed Under: Collaboration, Personal Productivity, SaaS · Tagged: desktop applications, gmail, Google, IMAP, microsoft, office 2.0, Outlook, Web Applications, web office, zoho