Category: gmail

Goodbye Google?

I opted for a Gmail account back in the day when you still needed an invite to get it. It still said “Beta” on the logo. My gmail account has been my primary email address for pretty much EVER. I had an over abundance of blog subscriptions in my Google Reader.  I’ve got stuff in Google Drive. I use Google Calendar to share data with my hubby who’s an Apple fan-boy.  This blog is on Blogger.

And now I’m falling out of love. I’m worried about the compatibility with Microsoft and Windows 8, on my computer and on my phone. The end of support (and extension of support) for Exchange Active Sync is worrisome. And now they’ve told everyone to use CalDAV, but that’s going away too.  And Reader, well, everyone knows about what’s going on with Reader.

But my gmail address is so ingrained in stuff, I’m just not sure I’ll ever be able to cut the ties. But maybe a partial migration – I’m not sure. I’m really liking the two-factor authentication features. So instead of rushing and making any rash decisions, I’m taking it slow.

When it comes up, I change an email address registered with something away from my Gmail address. Starting to spread my eggs around in some other baskets, so to speak.

I took this opportunity to start fresh with my RSS feeds.  Today, instead of hunting for a place to move my subscriptions to, I culled them down to about a dozen feeds that I gravitate toward on a daily basis. New feeds will have to earn their place on my reading list and I’m hoping by July 1st, I’ll have found a new home for them.

What are you plans for your use of Google services?  Have they finally jumped the shark?

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To Trash or Archive? That is the Question…

I’ve spending most of the week here in chilly Bellevue, WA at the MVP Summit!  For this trip, I’m staying connected with my Windows Phone 7 and my new HP Envy X2 with Windows 8. I’m  accessing my Gmail account from both OSes and I noticed something interesting with the handling of mail within their individual apps.

On the Windows Phone, the mail application has a trash icon for deleting messages.  When I delete from the phone, the API call to Google is “archive” and that message is simply archived and moved out of my inbox.

On the Windows 8 native Mail application, the trash icon sends the API call for “delete” to Google, sending the message to the trash, which is removed after 30 days.

Perhaps the reason is because when you are on your phone, you probably aren’t actively “managing” messages and archiving them allows you to remove them from your device, but not really delete them.  From your computer, you might be more actively sorting and addressing messages, where a true “delete” function is more desirable.  Or maybe I’m over thinking it.  Since the applications were developed by different Microsoft product groups, they simply selected different API functions. 

While it might be desirable to have the same experience across both of my Windows devices, I can use the difference to my advantage – making sure that my mail ends up where I want it, depending on where I delete it from.