Gmail’s Down! – Rethinking Cloud Computing
I've been a big proponent of Gmail and most Google Applications, however I've always been wary of the pitfalls with 'cloud computing'. I think storing information online is a great idea, but I still feel that it's unreliable, Google services rarely go down, but I don't think that's good enough. Most people are dependant on online services and if they break there could be major repercussions, be it loss of money or not being able to hand in a college assignment. Cloud computing just isn't at the point were we can completely rely on it.
My current method of backup was to forward my college email to my Gmail, but this doesn't help if I can't access the internet and really need to check something. This interruption is the reason I've decided to revisit Google Gears as I've come to a point in my life were email is very important to my academics and I've got important documents I should really have local backups of.
I prefer Google Gears to other email clients such as Thunderbird or Evolution Mail, because I’ve grown accustomed to the Gmail UI and in my mind when I think of email I think, browser.
Ultimately I think the best solution is syncing your local information with the 'cloud' to give both reassurances that your information is backed up, read locally, but also be accessed from other machines via the internet if needed. Programs like Dropbox are a prime example of this unity.
Note: I noticed Gmail went down around 9PM GMT and is still not back up, just logged back on and it's back up.
Gmail Finally Out of Beta, Who knew?
I just notice while looking through the Gmail Labs list of features that you can put the "beta" back in the Gmail Logo, but the thing is I didn't even notice it was gone! I suppose Google finally manned up and decided they can't use the excuse that it's still in beta if something goes wrong (This happened 7th July 2009, I'm only noticing now...oops).
Gmail is far from a beta product, it's a rock solid web based email client. It's fast, easy to navigate and search your inbox (or multiple inboxes) and packed with great features - such as being able to download all your email to your local machine using Google Gears and enabling the offline feature in Gmail Labs. I especially like this because it gives me piece of mind that if something happened to Googles servers I still have a copies of my email locally.
Here's a few great Gmail Lab features:
- Offline (manage your email locally)
- Google Calendar gadget
- Undo Send (for those times you spot a mistake just after you've hit send!)
- Authentication icon for verified senders (anti-phishing)
- Multiple Inboxes
- Forgotten Attachment Detector (will make sure if you've said you've attached something in your email it will check for you)
- Mail Goggles (prevents drunk emailing your ex!)
- Navbar drag and drop (lets you organize the gadgets on the left as you like)
Google Labs does say that all these features are experimental so "they may change, break or disappear at any time." I guess there not completely getting ride of there beta life jacket just yet.
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