Recently, I’ve had to work on a number of machines that have had Outlook as their primary e-mail client for a number of years and in doing the requisite work on these systems that I’ve come to see a broad issue with locally stored e-mail and the way Outlook in particular makes it very difficult to get away from. What is surprising to me is just how many people are still falling for the locally stored e-mail trap. Don’t get me wrong, allow me to explain. Some people (such as those who heavily value privacy, manage their own e-mail servers, etc.) can benefit heavily from such a system, but an average user who doesn’t know the difference between Gmail and an Exchange Server should certainly not be using the latter.
At first, Outlook seems like a great tool. It’s got everything in one place, e-mail, tasks, calendars, notes and so on. As you continue using Outlook over the years, I imagine it becomes familiar as you begin to make folders and subfolders, add to your calendar and make reminders for your calendaring. I get that.
Now, here’s the thing. Outlook was created a long time ago when most people barely even had a single PC, let alone two or more that is commonplace now. So, Outlook starts to really show its issues when synchronization is attempted between multiple computers. Outlook was never originally intended for this — so every attempt at having smooth synchronization is a convoluted process. Not to mention incredibly expensive.
There are many other small issues that compound as well. Such as, let’s say you have a new domain and you have your e-mail currently downloading via POP to a desktop system. Alright, not a problem. However, let’s say we start downloading the mail onto a laptop as well. Now we have to check whether the e-mails are stored on the server after they are downloaded. If they are, for how long? Will Outlook double-download them if they stay on the server for too long?
There are many things that cloud-computing may be wrong for, but e-mail is not one of them. By leaving your e-mails in the cloud, you could be free to use Outlook with IMAP as a synchronized e-mail platform. However, what about calendars, contacts, tasks and notes? Ah, right. For that you might need another solution such as SYNCING.NET or an Exchange Server. Both solutions which I do not recommend.
In general, my advice would be to stay far far away from Outlook and use something with the strength and versatility of Gmail. I can understand many instances in which Gmail wouldn’t suffice (privacy concerns, for one); however there are hundreds of competitors to choose from and a great percentage of them will be far superior than any minor advantages you might get from using Outlook. However, if you’re just now trying to get away from Outlook — you can actually import your Outlook data into Gmail, which is a pretty good solution.
VariableGHz
When Did The Focus Rules Change?
December 12th, 2009Back in the old days, the concept of “focus,” that is, which active window, button, text field or icon being active or selected was very clear. If a message box or dialogue box appeared on the screen or “took focus” from whatever you were doing, it was clear that you’d have the option to either press space bar, tab, alt+key, or any other combination thereof to make your desired selection quickly and move on.
This was the norm for many years going back as far as MS-DOS to Windows98 SE if my memory serves. After that, somehow the rules changed. Mind you, I’m not talking about Linux here, just Windows. From the limited distros I’ve tested, Linux seems to be pretty spot-on with handling focus consistently.
Now, it is relatively common for another window to appear on top of whatever we were working on yet the cursor can still be seen blinking in the background window that currently does not have the focus. Why is that? Or, the foreground window will have a darkened border around a button (indicating a default if Enter is pressed) yet will not respond if Enter is pressed until the mouse is clicked to re-affirm focus.
In Windows98, when the advent of the scroll-wheel mice and the middle click began to take popularity, it was quick and easy to switch focus rapidly between all windows and subwindows using a single middle click. Now, however, the rules seemed to have changed. Sometimes the foreground window will already appear to have the focus, yet when I try to add text — nothing happens until I actually click into the text field, despite the fact that the cursor was already blinking there.
One of the most important features in Windows has been the long standing ability to reliably operate it without a mouse, using exclusively the combination of advanced shortcuts such as Alt+Tab (“Windows Flip“), Alt+Space, alt+key, winkey+key, and various combinations of tab, spacebar, etc. With the focus rules having changed to where they now no longer operate in a homogenous way between all applications, more clicking is required to perform seemingly basic tasks that could previously be executed in an instant.
This isn’t a big deal for day to day tasks and general use operation, of course, but let’s say I had to perform some tasks over VNC and didn’t have a mouse? It can be a big problem. It seems as though people are now more mouse reliant than ever — I suppose that’s not such a bad thing — it certainly is easier — but it sure is slower.
Tags: focus, microsoft, os
Posted in Commentary | 1 Comment »