For years I have been using Microsoft Outlook as my primary mail program.  I have become pretty efficient with it.  I used it to manage two email accounts.  Then in 2007 I used the built in RSS feeds to manage all my RSS feeds.  This worked pretty good but was quickly replaced by a Newsgator that also synced with the online version and my Blackberry. 

Well recently I made the jump to get off of Outlook all together.  I use Gmail for my two accounts now and the online version works really well.  I don’t even need to keep a browser open.  I use the Gmail Notifier to let me know when I have a new email.

For RSS feeds I use the online version of Newsgator when I am at my desk.  On the road I use my Blackberry.

So far this new setup is working pretty well.  I have extra free memory on my system as I have one less big program running.

The hardest part of the migration was getting all the email that I have filed in Outlook folders migrated to my Gmail account.  To do this I:

1. Added my Gmail account to Outlook as an IMAP account.
2. Dragged each folder over to the Gmail IMAP account.

I did run into some problems doing this as I had too many nested folders which are translated into labels in Gmail.  I guess the labels were getting too long, but with a few renames I got by it.  It also did take a long time to complete (450meg) but I let it go over night. I do recommend you cleanup anything you don’t need before you start this. 

As online programs are starting to get better and better I find myself willing to move my data to online services.  Its one less headache when I have to rebuild my PC.  I’m going to start to look to move my journal online.  That program is always a pain to backup and restore.  Any suggestions?

Labels: Miscellaneous, software, Technology

I consider myself a heavy RSS user.  Whenever I come across a site with useful content I instantly look for an RSS feed and add it to my list.  If it does not have one chances are I may not visit it it in the future.

This also includes forums.  More and more forums these days have RSS feeds that report the new or updated posts.  Some forums work better than others but I’m just happy if a forum has one.

In the past I used a plug-in for Outlook (pre 2007) called NewsGator.  I loved it so much that after purchasing my copy it probably became the most used application on my computer.  Then along came Outlook 2007 with built in RSS feeds so I really saw no need for NewsGator and unfortunately the program I used so much was put aside.

Recently I got a BlackBerry and was looking for a RSS reader that I could load on it.  The only catch I had is that I wanted something that would sync with my desktop so I didn’t have to do the same work twice.  After a few Google searches along came NewsGator again.  I quickly surfed over the site and was excited at what I saw.

They have an online RSS management system where you can centralize all your RSS needs and all of your clients will sync to it so you don’t have to read the same feeds over and over again.  You can download clients for your PC/Mac or for your mobile devices to read news on the go.  I use this heavily and the clipping feature allows me to mark articles to read in more detail when I get to my PC.  The articles are added to a special folder that I can access later.  I LOVE THIS.

I have listed some of the pro’s and con’s I have noticed so far. 

Pros

• FREE
• Centralized management of feeds online.
• Sync all changes including read/unread, deleted, folder changes (rename/move) done on any of the clients.
• Online feed reader.
• NewsGator Inbox for Outlook.
• NetNewsWire for Mac.
• FeedDemon for PC.
• IE/Firefox plug-in.
• NewsGator Go for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Java Mobile
• Clipping feature to mark items to be read later.
• Much more …

Cons

• Require a data plan for NewsGator Go.
• The NewsGator Inbox for Outlook seems to cause my outlook to take longer to startup.  I remember this way back when I used it in the past but its a small price I pay for such a good program.
• Can’t think of much more as I am still getting use to this.

The best way to learn more about this program is to just give it a try.  Let me know what you think.  Did I say I LOVE IT already?

Labels: mobile, software, Technology, web sites

Mozilla has released Firefox 3.0 RC 2.  I believe this is probably going to be the last beta release before the final 3.0 is released.

There currently isn’t a changelog yet but if your using a Beta version of 3.0 already than you can upgrade by going into Help and Check for Updates.

So far I haven’t noticed anything different but I don’t really expect to as I’m sure its mainly bug fixes.

If your still using Firefox 2.0 I recommend waiting until the final 3.0 comes out at this point.  More than likely most of your plugins won’t work on the 3.0 version.  I had to search around for each plugin.  Luckily I don’t use many.

Labels: firefox, software

The newest version of my favourite blogging program has been released.  Lots of new features are included and the interface has been cleaned up a bit.  I love the new tabs on the bottom for the different views.

If you do any sort of blogging you need to give this a shot. 

However I do hope they speed up the loading a bit more or offer some sort of tray option so that we can get instant pop up from firefox whenever I hit the “Blog This” button.

You can download the new version here.

Windows Live Writer Blog

Labels: software