Dropping Outlook for Webmail (an update on my adventures in cloud computing)

It was almost a year ago when I posted about my 60 day experiment to stop using Outlook as my primary email program and contact manager and instead moved to a web-based email system. Several people commented on that posting and I felt it was time for an update.

Let me say that after having moved my email onto the web I have been much happier and accessing my email is much more flexible. In fact, that move has prompted me to move  other services I need, such as my calendar and to do list, to the cloud.

So let me briefly review what is no longer an experiment, but is now the new way I am working.  First off, as for email, although I started by using Yahoo Mail Plus – after about 4 months I decided to give Google Apps and Gmail a try.  There were a number of things I liked about Yahoo but there were some things that made me crazy too – such as often losing a message while writing it for no reason (the screen would just go blank), plus a big problem: the Yahoo Calendar. This is where Yahoo lost me as a user and Google won.

With Outlook, I had my email, calendar, and tasks all in one program.  In moving to web-based services I was looking for something to replace all 3 of these and give me easy access not only from any internet connected computer, but also from my cellphone.  While Yahoo does have a calendar program that integrates fairly well with it’s email – it is outdated in that it does not support the iCal format (which is an open internet calendar format).  The advantage of having an iCal compliant calendar is that you can then share it with others (like friends, family, or colleagues) as well as with other applications.  It also allows you to easily import or display other calendars alongside your own.

It was my search for a good web-based calendar that pushed me away from Yahoo and into using Google Apps – specifically Google Apps for Your Domain (GAppsFYD). One of the main advantages of GAppsFYD is that it integrates a number of services (Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Documents, etc.) and allows you to use your own domain for your email rather than using an @gmail.com email address. Another huge advantage is that it’s free (although there are paid versions if you need certain additional features).

When I first moved to Gmail I planned to use the free open source Thunderbird program along with it’s Sunbird Calendar counterpart to access my Gmail.  This would essentially give me a desktop program feel while accessing my email and calendar even though it lived online – however, after a week or so of doing that and reading more about some of the power, advantages, and speed of the Gmail interface – I decided to forgo the desktop apps and work solely in Gmail and Google Calendar.

Google Calendar is awesome and allows me to easily set reminders for my appointments and events that either pop up on my screen, send me an email, or send a text message to my phone (which has now become my default reminder type).  And I can easily access my mail and calendar using the special WAP interface from my cellphone’s web browser.

Now Google Apps isn’t perfect (no system or service really is). A main issue is that it lacks a task feature for to do lists, but that is where Remember The Milk (RTM) comes in.  This is another free, and very popular, online service.  Despite it’s funny name (which I happen to love) it is an amazing, easy to use online to do list and task manager.  What makes it really great is that using a Firefox browser extension I can integrate RTM with Gmail.

This allows me to show all of my tasks in a pane on the right side of my gmail window.  The Remember The Milk for Gmail Firefox extension allows you to manage your tasks in Gmail (complete, postpone, and edit tasks), add new tasks (and connect them with your emails, contacts, and Google Calendar events), automatically add tasks for starred messages or specific labels, and much more!

RTM also provides instructions for integrating their service directly within Google Calendar as well.

So in short, I no longer miss Microsoft Outlook. I have been happily using Gmail for mail, Google Calendar for my scheduling, and Remember the Milk for task management for a little short of a year.  I can easily access them all online from any web-based computer or from my cellphone, which means I can get at my important information from just about anywhere.

It isn’t all perfect, and of course there are features I would like to have that aren’t there yet (like offline access to Gmail through Google Gears so I can read and use email when offline like on an airplane), but overall the flexibility and freedom is wonderful! In most cases where there are shortcomings I have found other plugins, services, or workarounds.

I am still using Microsoft Office to edit and create most of my documents, but I have begun testing Google Docs which allows you to do this using their online applications.  Time will tell whether I move my document editing fully online as well but for now I am happily working with my head in the clouds!

Have you been using any software as a service or cloud computing platforms, systems, or applications that work well for you?  If so post some comments and let us know about them.