E-mail Fail?

This post is inspired by a recent post by top internet technology venture capitalist Fred Wilson, titled "Email Fail" (LINK).

Basically, as I understand it, he's been struggling for years with an e-mail client that will handle masses of e-mail. Programs such as Outlook, Entourage and the like can't deal with the size of his e-mail archive. Thunderbird choaked. GMail is the answer but he can't get used to the way in which GMail threads all e-mail, without a choice to view e-mail in the more standard way.

I've said this before, but GMail works for me because:

- The threaded conversation interface is a true innovation--get used to it! Having all your e-mail in a conversation, with both the incoming AND outgoing e-mail all pulled together is so much more effective. To me, this is the "killer" feature that prevents me from trying anything else. This design is what truly distinguishes GMail from everything else.

- It can handle a seemingly unlimited amount of e-mail, seemlessly, without choking.

- The search capability is great.

- There are wonderful add-ons like GTD Inbox (LINK)

- It has you tag e-mails instead of putting them in folders allowing any e-mail to exist in multiple places

- Google for Domains provides great, small workgroup e-mail management services

- Being able to have all your e-mail searchable via the BlackBerry GMail client is wonderful (and so what if it's not "push" in the same way that the regular BlackBerry client works--a slight wall against crackberry addiction is ok with me)

- Google's junk mail filter seems to work better than any others

I also occasionally use Thunderbird via IMAP for:

- offline GMail (although I have found the offline GMail function to be perfectly useable)

- as a backup, just on the off chance Google loses all my data

Salesforce Mobile Lite: great value for non-profits (free!)

If you are part of a non-profit, you should know that you can get ten seats of the "Professional" level of the Salesforce CRM application for free. Just yesterday they launched "Mobile Lite", a free version of their application for Blackberry and iPhone that gives you mobile access to all your data stored in Salesforce--contacts, organizations, tasks etc. Although you can only edit tasks from your mobile (versus being able to edit everything in the for-fee version) it's a wonderful application on both platforms and a great boon to non-profits. (It's also a great boon to anyone who's paying for Professional level Salesforce and above, because this Mobile Lite application is free for them too.)

Waterfield case for Kindle

I never realized until yesterday why Waterfield Designs--the San Francisco briefcase and bag company that sews everything right in San Fran, where the "labor and rents are high"--was called "Waterfield". It's named for Gary Waterfield, the founder. If you have a Kindle (or really any other electronic device) you should take a look at their offerings. Here's their slipcase for Kindle 2 in brown. Just a simple thing, really, but beautifully made.

Kindle and brewing coffee

I've had my Kindle now for about 10 days. For someone who likes multi-tasking, who likes capturing those tiny moments--like waiting for the coffee to brew, 10 minutes on the subway, 5 minutes waiting for a meeting to start--the Kindle is an amazing device. Instead of flipping through e-mail on a BlackBerry, reading a free newspaper, or staring into space, you can be picking up where you left off with Thomas Friedman, Thomas Hardy or whoever is top on your list.

For those who don't like using up little slices of time, ignore this note! But for those who do, the Kindle allows great thoughts, great language to insert themselves into your life in a way that I think significantly improves the flow of your thoughts and the firing of brain synapses that make life pleasurable.

Voicemail transcription compared: Jott vs. Google Voice

Original text:

Brian Sheppard, the computer scientist who created Maven, described Scrabble, in the journal Artificial Intelligence, as "a game of imperfect information with a large branching factor," which means that no one can precisely control or anticipate the changing shape of the word tree.

Jott transcription of voicemail to text:

Brian Shepherd, the computer scientist who created Maven, described Scrabble in the journal, Artificial Intelligence, as a game of imperfect information with a large branching factor, which means that no one can precisely control or anticipate the changing shape of the word tree.

Google Voice transcription of voicemail to text (most significant errors in bold):

brian shepherd the computer scientist to created made and describe scrabble in the journal artificial intelligence at eighteen looking perfect information with the lord ranching factor which means that no one can precisely control or anticipate the changing shape and upward free

Further proof that Lenovo is the anti-Apple

Lenovo just announced a new service that will create integration between BlackBerry's and Lenovo laptops called Lenovo Constant Connect (LINK). The first feature of this service is interconnection of e-mail between the two devices. Via Bluetooth, a user's BlackBerry will automatically update a Lenovo laptop's e-mail, even when the device is off, allowing synchronization of e-mail without use of WiFi or cellular service on the laptop.

But what's most interesting to me is the step that Lenovo takes with this product launch towards strengthening its position as the "anti-Apple" by making use of what has got to be the most amateur-looking corporate launch video ever.



The extreme geekiness of that video, the complete lack of attention to any style cues, is remarkable and in a bizarre way admirable and attractive. So post bubble! So depression sensitive. Scratch: nice clothes, nice background, nice furniture, nice camera angle. And don't even show the product in operation!

good, detailed explanation of BlackBerry Enterprise Server

CrackBerry.com has a good, detailed overview of how a BlackBerry Enterprise Server works and what its features are. LINK