Martin Gordon's Blog

Since at least 10am EST today, email delivery of Google Groups posts seems to be down. The posts show up on the site but not in my inbox. I haven't seen anything on this out there yet except for a few posts on the Google Groups help site (with no replies yet) and one Tweet. This means that either no one uses Google Groups, no one cares, or no one has noticed; none of which really help me out.

BEGIN RANT

I think part of the reason Google is so profitable is that they don't have to manage giant call centers (or any call centers, for that matter). So while their products are generally reliable, there's no place I can go to get a quick answer when a problem does exist. Even a quick post on the Official Blog saying, "we know there's a problem and we're working on it" would give me more hope than a few unanswered posts on a group page (which is run on the service experiencing the problem).

END RANT

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Groups, reliability, email, outage

Seventy-eight days after the self-imposed deadline, Penn has chosen Microsoft over Google to replace the aging SAS (School of Arts & Sciences) mail system. The new "Penn Live" offers 2 GB of storage and integration with other Windows Live services. The Wharton School has also adopted the new service, although I'm not sure what's different between "Penn Live" and the already-existing Exchange system.

Many comments left on the Daily Pennsylvanian's site are criticizing the decision to go with Microsoft over Google, but I think anything is better than the system currently in place. As a Wharton student, we've been (relatively) blessed to have Exchange as our backend (I don't know what the College (what we call SAS) is using, but it looks like HoTMaIL circa 1997). Here's some history: coming in as a freshman in 2003, I was afforded with 50 MB of email/storage space. GMail launched with 1 GB in the spring of 2004 and sometime between then and now our quota was raised to 250 MB. For all my time here at Penn, I can't remember a single time that our email servers had gone down. What I do remember is reading in the paper every few weeks about yet another SAS email outage.

I don't have enough experience Windows Live products (which may or may not say enough about the product), but it's got to be better than what the College kids have been using. That said, much of the complaint has been about the choice over the time it took to make that choice. I'm as big a Google/Apple apologist as anyone, but I see the decision to go with Microsoft as a non-issue per se. Again, I'm not sure if Penn Live or the old system provide IMAP access, but I know Wharton provides it. I also know for a fact Google does only POP, so inbox syncing is at the very least equal to the Google solution. Most complaints contend that many Penn students already have Gmail accounts, so why change over? I see this group as a very small minority, as I know people who use their school emails as their main addresses and people who keep school addresses for school matters only.

I trust that Microsoft can do as good or an even better job than Google at providing email and collaboration services to the University (they definitely have more experience with large organizations). My only hope for this is that Windows Live can be truly platform agnostic. I don't have any stats on actual Mac adoption on campus, but from anecdotal and personal evidence I know that it is rising. I just hope Mac and Linux users aren't treated with a second-class experience as is the case with Ruckus.

Technorati Tags: Google, Microsoft, webmail, Hotmail, Gmail, collaboration, Penn, UPenn, University of Pennsylvania, Penn, school, college, university, email

Google has finally rolled out a feature that allows users to get email from other POP3 accounts right into their Gmail inbox. This is great since I won't need Outlook once I'm out of school and work uses POP email. Instructions on setting up "Mail Fetcher" are here.

In other Gmail-related news, Lifehacker has a good howto on setting up an automatic nightly backup of your mail using the command line program, fetchmail.

I've recently switched to Google Reader (more on that later) and now my transition to an all-Google life is almost complete (and is a bit scary).

Technorati Tags: Google, Gmail, backup, Lifehacker, lifehacks, POP3, mail, Google Reader, web app, Web 2.0

I am on Twitter, but I don't know why. At least for me, Facebook status updates are much more convenient and more readily accessible to anyone that would care to know what I'm doing, if not equally useless.

Technorati Tags: Twitter, SMS, email, phone, IM

I've been busy being at home with my family and celebrating my birthday, so I haven't had much time for blogging.

Paul points us to the GMail Notifier replacement, Google Notifier, which incorporates a Google Calendar notifier as well. I've been running it for a day and I already want to go back to GMail Notifier. This new version has popup notifications, but it doesn't use Growl, so I can't customize it at all. The notifications last way too long if I don't click on them, and if I do click on them, the email doesn't open up. A bigger issue, however, is that the clickable region doesn't extend all the way to the top of the screen like it did in GMail Notifier and it does in every other menu bar item. It bothers me more than I thought it could, but it's enough to make me go back to the old app.

(EDIT: I just discovered GMail+Growl, which was updated yesterday to support the Google Notifier)

The My Dream App contest launched today. Phill Ryu and an all-star cast that includes Steve Wozniak, Kevin Rose, and Guy Kawasaki are serving as judges in the contest where anyone can submit an idea for their dream app with the chance of the application actually being created. It's billed as American Idol meets software development. Prizes include iPods, Mac minis, MacBooks and software royalties. Get your ideas in and may the dreamiest app win!

Kent Newsome's morning reading includes an Instabloke article with 10 reasons why he doesn't like my blog. I think I've got 1-4, 6, 7 and 9 covered so that leaves 5 (…too authoritative, too boring, too argumentative, too hard to comment, or I didn't show your comments any love…), 8 (I don't post consistently), 10 (I don't link [fixing that now, I hope]). I would add 11 to the list: I don't write enough top 10 lists about why your blog is good, why it's bad, why no one goes to it or how to make it better.

Technorati Tags: GMail, GCal, Google Calendar, Google Notifier, Mac OS X, My Dream App, Steve Wozniak, Kevin Rose, Guy Kawasaki, Kent Newsome, Isnstabloke, Top 10, blogging, blogs, writing

Alex Tabarrok over at Marginal Revolution links to an article stating why charity runs and races are very inefficient economic activities (a part-time job where you donate all your income will generate much more for the charity) yet other aspects of the activity make it a better money-raiser than more efficient means. A few hours after I read that post, an email appeared in my inbox that was sent to everyone in the office:

Greetings,

I am riding in the Delaware MS Bike to the Bay with my daughter [name], a high school senior!

This is my 11th year of riding and fund-raising for MS.

My other kids are not available this year as my oldest daughter [name] is running a marathon in October and Scott is studying in China.

We are preparing for the 150 mile weekend by cycling more often and for longer periods of time.

Last year we contributed $3,531 to MS! The same as the previous year. You are all extremely generous. This year I am going back to the significant goal of $3,500.

[name] is again our honorary rider as we dedicate our ride to her. Others we know with MS are honored too.

Multiple Sclerosis is an unpredictable disease that randomly attacks your nervous system, wearing away the control you have over your body, e.g., numbness, paralysis and blindness. The research is making great progress and the local services are helping many.

It takes more than half of [the company's employees] to reach our goal, please help those with MS.

Sign up now — E-mail reply or use kitchen sign-up sheets. Checks to "MS Society" or cash can be submitted now or in late September.

You can use your credit cards as several did last year. www.msdelaware.org -> Epledge icon

Thanks,

[name]

(Names withheld to protect privacy; I left the donation link in there in case you're feeling generous :))

Isn't it great when economic theory works in real life? And this particular incident is especially great because it only took a few hours to prove the theory. Instant gratification!

Technorati Tags: economics, charity, charity race, Bike to the Bay, multiple sclerosis, inefficiencies, economic theory, microeconomics

Now that my iMac can boot Windows and I'm spending more time in general away from my computer, I'm looking for ways to synchronize my data across OSes. The easiest way, I've realized is to do everything on the web.

I've taken the first step today by deactivating POP access for GMail in Mail.app. That way I can manage all my GMail email online. If Google decides to offer IMAP sometime, I'll turn it back on. Until then, I need my email to be the same everywhere and that place is online. My school email is IMAP/Exchange, so there's not much of a synchronization issue with that, except that Mail.app's IMAP isn't too good and the school only gives us 50 MB of storage. Exchange Webmail is as good as Outlook if you're using IE, but in anything non-IE (e.g., any Mac browser) it reverts to an old version of Outlook Web Access which is terrible. Once I can spend a bit more time with Parallels, I can decide if running it 24/7 for just Outlook is worth it. If it's not worth it, I don't know what to do. Is there any way to push 3rd party email accounts through the GMail interface?

I was never a big fan of iCal and the lack of Exchange over HTTP on the Mac kept me from using Wharton's Exchange calendar, so I haven't really used an electronic calendar. Instead, I've been resorting to text files and post-its. Until Google Calendar showed up. Google Calendar has everything I need in a calendar (save Tasks), and with text messages to/from GVENT and RSS feeds, I can access my calendar away from the computer or offline.

I am still in search of a decent online RSS reader as I have yet to find something that can replace NetNewsWire. I like having a desktop client because I can read feeds offline if I have no connectivity. There is always NewsGator's multiplatform syncing solution, but I'd rather save myself the $50-$80 ($30 each for a Mac client, Windows client and $20 for the online reader) if there's a free solution available. My main requirement if I do decide to stick with NetNewsWire is that any online reader has to be able to do status syncing. I don't want to have to go through 100+ posts deciding what I've read and haven't read. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if I can find an online reader that is fast and fits my workflow (is that readflow?).

I listen to a relatively small number of podcasts and I'm so far behind that I don't need a cross-OS sycning solution. I'm backed up enough that I always have something fresh to listen to on my iPod even with only syncing once every few days. I haven't had a chance to set up iTunes in Windows yet, but I think with MacDrive I'll be able to share libraries between OS X and Windows without a hitch.

My other main concert with "going online" is that I won't have access to anything if I'm without an internet connection. There were many a time where I would be on-the-go with my Powerbook and still have my RSS feeds to read. I have no idea how good my internet connection will be in the new apartment, but if it's spotty then I'll be in trouble. Another issue is backup. Can I really trust Google and Mr. Online RSS Reader to hold my data for as long as I want it? What are my backup options for GMail/GCal, etc?

Technorati Tags: online, RSS, GMail, GCal, Google, Google Calendar, OS X, dual boot, Windows XP, Google OS, NetNewsWire, Exchange, synchronization, sync