The End to Email Headaches

(Author's Note: This article was written for the BiS, a local publication that's part of the Savannah Morning News. For more info on this publication and Jesse's biweekly column, visit www.businessinsavannah.com.)

I'm a nerd. Most of my friends and family would agree with this statement. I'm part of a minority of people who actually enjoy the ins and outs of hardware, software, programming, and the like. The fact that it's 2010 and technology keeps getting easier almost disappoints me. But again, I recognize that I'm in the minority.

The truth is that in today's day and age, technology should make your life easier, not more stressful. Every day I hear people complain about technology, computers, the internet... all of the things that are designed to make our work easier and more convenient. The truth is that, if technology isn't making your life easier, you're not doing it right.

One primary source of techno-frustration is email. How many times have you tried to open an attachment that didn't work? Or have you ever gotten a virus from an unexpected email? These issues don't have to exist today. Enter Gmail.

Gmail is Google's email solution, and I swear by it for several reasons.

1. I have 5 different email addresses from which I can send and receive messages, all from one interface. You don't only have to use an @gmail.com address.
2. They offer a LOT of storage. I haven't deleted a single email over five years.
3. I can search every email instantly. Five years of messages can be very tough to organize. Luckily, I don't have to. Searching for senders, attachments, or subjects is as easy as Google's regular search engine.
4. It lives on the web. That means I don't have to worry about setting changes with new computers. I can check it from any computer, anywhere in the world. And since it's not on your computer, it's not susceptible to viruses.
5. It syncs my devices. My desktop, laptop, Iphone, and Ipad are all on the same page. Gone are the days of double messages and lost emails.

Google provides this amazing service for free by serving small, text-based ads on the side of your email. Detractors of the service claim that there are privacy issues since Google's computers scan your emails and deliver relevant ads. I can appreciate that concern, but the truth is that any email provider has access to your emails if they want to read them. Google's privacy track record is pretty good compared to the rest of the major tech companies.

I've used every major email solution there is. I've used Microsoft Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Exchange solutions... the list goes on and on. Gmail is far and away the best of them all.

Gmail is a solution for both big and small email needs. 2010 saw a high profile case when the city of Los Angeles moved it's entire email operation to Gmail. City officials estimate they will save millions of dollars long-term because of the switch.1

For better or worse, email is an unavoidable reality in today's workplace, and we become more and more reliant on this and other technologies every day. If you've had email headaches, give Gmail a try. Once you get past any small learning curve, you'll realize that email can become a seamless part of your skill-set rather than a source of frustration.

1NPR - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114300948