Mail Changes For Me

I’ve decided to make some mail changes. Nothing you’ll notice, but it’s a big change for me. I’ve moved all my mail to Gmail servers, run by Google.

Whatever your email address, someone is hosting two mailservers for you. There’s one to send (SMTP) and another to receive (POP). My servers had been at Hostforweb, who also maintains the server this blog sits on.

My problem is, I check email from a few machines at home and another at work. I had to make sure all my emails got to one specific machine for archiving. That meant if I looked at my mail on one of the other machines first, I’d see the same unread email over and over.

Moving to Gmail allows me to use a web interface. Anything I do on one machine is seen on any machine! No more repetition.

Unfortunately, a web interface is slower. That’s the price you pay. It’s even worse on my ‘desktop’ machine at work, an old Pentium 900 with 256 mb RAM, running Ubuntu Linux.

Here’s how it works. Geofffox.com mailserver is actually hosted by Google Apps. Once received, it is automatically forwarded to a Gmail account which also gets mail for a few other accounts I have.

I like Gmail, but I wish it were more versatile as far as ‘canned’ responses or signature files are concerned. There’s not much you can do there with pre-written files… though there’s lots I want to try.

As long as I’ve switched over to Gmail, I’ve also started using Google Calendar, which is integrated into the mail page. I’d like to be a little more organized. Maybe the ability to have this same calendar wherever I am will help me become more structured.

Google has a nice suite of applications, including online word processor and spreadsheet (which doesn’t read the overnight ratings I’m sent every day). Every part of it is free. It desparately needs a ‘to do’ list.

Switching to Gmail removed the spam filtering Hostforweb employs. H4W used to discard some email before they ever got to my inbox. Now everything gets to my account, though much is filtered into a spam folder.

I’m getting well over 100 spam a day on geofffox.com alone! Luckily, I only see them when I need to.

One thought on “Mail Changes For Me”

  1. Geoff… Google Apps/GMail is probably the best free mail server that you can find out there, especially if you are the lucky owner of a BlackBerry. I’ve had it as my mail server since April ’06 and I love it. Same thing with the calendar and documents… which is especially good if you forgot a flash drive at home and you needed to type something up. I could rant forever but you’ll eventually discover all the joys of Google Apps!

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