The Torture Of Gmail
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Like many a damn fool, I'm seriously trying to use Gmail, via the web interface.
Now, I (possibly mistakenly) presume you, fellow gmail users, are not going through the tortue I am. In plain words, it Sucks. Really! So I must ask you to answer one of two questions: 1 - How do you bear it? .. Do you have a stunt to make the web UI more usable? 2 - If not, do you access gmail in some other way? An email client? Or some other way to avoid the Horror Of It All? I will go through a couple of weeks and hope for the best. But clearly if you can handle this, you have Given Up. -- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The Torture Of Gmail
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Hi Owen,
1) Try disabling Java / Javascript in your browser settings when you use Gmail, 2) Alternatively, opt for the "basic HTML" version of Gmail (using the "settings" link, or somewhere at the bottom of the page) Sarbajit On 6/10/11, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: > Like many a damn fool, I'm seriously trying to use Gmail, via the web > interface. > > Now, I (possibly mistakenly) presume you, fellow gmail users, are not > going through the tortue I am. In plain words, it Sucks. Really! > > So I must ask you to answer one of two questions: > 1 - How do you bear it? .. Do you have a stunt to make the web UI more > usable? > 2 - If not, do you access gmail in some other way? An email client? > Or some other way to avoid the Horror Of It All? > > I will go through a couple of weeks and hope for the best. But > clearly if you can handle this, you have Given Up. > > -- Owen > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: [sfx: Discuss] The Torture Of Gmail
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
I've been using gmail via IMAP for at least five years, and haven't found it to be bad at all, though I'm not that fond of its web interface either. I started using gmail with Thunderbird under Windows XP, and switched to using it with Mail.app on OS X about three years ago. I haven't had any serious problems. I started with a whole bunch of nested folders in Thunderbird from 20+ years of POP3 accounts when I switched to gmail IMAP.
First, set up a gmail account and enable IMAP via the web interface. Then add the IMAP gmail account to Thunderbird or Mail.app. I generally didn't explicitly create folders in this account, but instead dragged individual folders from the POP3 accounts onto the gmail account. I was able to drag folders (even heirarchies of folders) from the POP3 accounts to the gmail account. In cases where I had folders with many subfolders (e.g. a "Friends" folder with subfolders for each friend), I did explicitly create the parent folder, and then dragged one or a few subfolders onto it. If the parent folder has messages in it (e.g. in my Friends folder, I also keep messages from misc. friends that I have had very few messages from, and so particularly want to have their own folders), then select all the messages in the folder and explicitly drag the messages into the newly created folder. Since IMAP keeps the client and server in sync, this process also creates the folders on the gmail server. The process is slow and manual, but worked well for me. In the end, you have nicely backed up email that you can access either from your laptop/desktop mail app, or from any computer via the web interface. Also, when I switched to Mac, all I had to do was create the account in Mail.app, and all the folders and messages magically appeared (while burning up a lot of bandwidth - thanks, NCGR for the T3 connection :-), since they already existed on the server. I suspect the idea of lots of nested folders is pretty old fashioned (like me :-) Gmail talks about "labels" instead of folders, which are basically tags. If the labels have embedded slashes, its IMAP treats these as nested folders, so you can have it both ways, although it is a bit ugly to have labels like Friends/Santa Fe/FRIAM/Owen. ;; Gary On Jun 9, 2011, at 9:30 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > Like many a damn fool, I'm seriously trying to use Gmail, via the web interface. > > Now, I (possibly mistakenly) presume you, fellow gmail users, are not > going through the tortue I am. In plain words, it Sucks. Really! > > So I must ask you to answer one of two questions: > 1 - How do you bear it? .. Do you have a stunt to make the web UI more usable? > 2 - If not, do you access gmail in some other way? An email client? > Or some other way to avoid the Horror Of It All? > > I will go through a couple of weeks and hope for the best. But > clearly if you can handle this, you have Given Up. > > -- Owen > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe Complex "discuss" group. > To post to this group, send email to [hidden email] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [hidden email] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: [sfx: Discuss] The Torture Of Gmail
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Me too. IMAP through Tbird on macs and pcs.
On 6/9/11 9:07 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote: > I've been using gmail via IMAP for at least five years, and haven't found it to be bad at all, though I'm not that fond of its web interface either. I started using gmail with Thunderbird under Windows XP, and switched to using it with Mail.app on OS X about three years ago. I haven't had any serious problems. I started with a whole bunch of nested folders in Thunderbird from 20+ years of POP3 accounts when I switched to gmail IMAP. > > First, set up a gmail account and enable IMAP via the web interface. Then add the IMAP gmail account to Thunderbird or Mail.app. I generally didn't explicitly create folders in this account, but instead dragged individual folders from the POP3 accounts onto the gmail account. I was able to drag folders (even heirarchies of folders) from the POP3 accounts to the gmail account. In cases where I had folders with many subfolders (e.g. a "Friends" folder with subfolders for each friend), I did explicitly create the parent folder, and then dragged one or a few subfolders onto it. If the parent folder has messages in it (e.g. in my Friends folder, I also keep messages from misc. friends that I have had very few messages from, and so particularly want to have their own folders), then select all the messages in the folder and explicitly drag the messages into the newly created folder. Since IMAP keeps the client and server in sync, this process also creates the folders on the gmail server. > > The process is slow and manual, but worked well for me. In the end, you have nicely backed up email that you can access either from your laptop/desktop mail app, or from any computer via the web interface. Also, when I switched to Mac, all I had to do was create the account in Mail.app, and all the folders and messages magically appeared (while burning up a lot of bandwidth - thanks, NCGR for the T3 connection :-), since they already existed on the server. > > I suspect the idea of lots of nested folders is pretty old fashioned (like me :-) Gmail talks about "labels" instead of folders, which are basically tags. If the labels have embedded slashes, its IMAP treats these as nested folders, so you can have it both ways, although it is a bit ugly to have labels like Friends/Santa Fe/FRIAM/Owen. > > ;; Gary > > On Jun 9, 2011, at 9:30 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > >> Like many a damn fool, I'm seriously trying to use Gmail, via the web interface. >> >> Now, I (possibly mistakenly) presume you, fellow gmail users, are not >> going through the tortue I am. In plain words, it Sucks. Really! >> >> So I must ask you to answer one of two questions: >> 1 - How do you bear it? .. Do you have a stunt to make the web UI more usable? >> 2 - If not, do you access gmail in some other way? An email client? >> Or some other way to avoid the Horror Of It All? >> >> I will go through a couple of weeks and hope for the best. But >> clearly if you can handle this, you have Given Up. >> >> -- Owen >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe Complex "discuss" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [hidden email] >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [hidden email] >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: [sfx: Discuss] The Torture Of Gmail
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In reply to this post by Gary Schiltz-4
Gary: I note you have your own domain ([hidden email]). How did you do that with gmail?
-- Owen On Jun 9, 2011, at 9:07 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote: > I've been using gmail via IMAP for at least five years, and haven't found it to be bad at all, though I'm not that fond of its web interface either. I started using gmail with Thunderbird under Windows XP, and switched to using it with Mail.app on OS X about three years ago. I haven't had any serious problems. I started with a whole bunch of nested folders in Thunderbird from 20+ years of POP3 accounts when I switched to gmail IMAP. > > First, set up a gmail account and enable IMAP via the web interface. Then add the IMAP gmail account to Thunderbird or Mail.app. I generally didn't explicitly create folders in this account, but instead dragged individual folders from the POP3 accounts onto the gmail account. I was able to drag folders (even heirarchies of folders) from the POP3 accounts to the gmail account. In cases where I had folders with many subfolders (e.g. a "Friends" folder with subfolders for each friend), I did explicitly create the parent folder, and then dragged one or a few subfolders onto it. If the parent folder has messages in it (e.g. in my Friends folder, I also keep messages from misc. friends that I have had very few messages from, and so particularly want to have their own folders), then select all the messages in the folder and explicitly drag the messages into the newly created folder. Since IMAP keeps the client and server in sync, this process also creates the folders on the gmail server. > > The process is slow and manual, but worked well for me. In the end, you have nicely backed up email that you can access either from your laptop/desktop mail app, or from any computer via the web interface. Also, when I switched to Mac, all I had to do was create the account in Mail.app, and all the folders and messages magically appeared (while burning up a lot of bandwidth - thanks, NCGR for the T3 connection :-), since they already existed on the server. > > I suspect the idea of lots of nested folders is pretty old fashioned (like me :-) Gmail talks about "labels" instead of folders, which are basically tags. If the labels have embedded slashes, its IMAP treats these as nested folders, so you can have it both ways, although it is a bit ugly to have labels like Friends/Santa Fe/FRIAM/Owen. > > ;; Gary > > On Jun 9, 2011, at 9:30 PM, Owen Densmore wrote: > >> Like many a damn fool, I'm seriously trying to use Gmail, via the web interface. >> >> Now, I (possibly mistakenly) presume you, fellow gmail users, are not >> going through the tortue I am. In plain words, it Sucks. Really! >> >> So I must ask you to answer one of two questions: >> 1 - How do you bear it? .. Do you have a stunt to make the web UI more usable? >> 2 - If not, do you access gmail in some other way? An email client? >> Or some other way to avoid the Horror Of It All? >> >> I will go through a couple of weeks and hope for the best. But >> clearly if you can handle this, you have Given Up. >> >> -- Owen >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe Complex "discuss" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [hidden email] >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [hidden email] >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Santa Fe Complex "discuss" group. > To post to this group, send email to [hidden email] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [hidden email] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/a/sfcomplex.org/group/discuss ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: [sfx: Discuss] The Torture Of Gmail
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Wow. LOTS of us using mail.app or tbird. Thanks for the info.
If you look at Google's instructions, it looks like sucking on razors: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=12806 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=78892 .. do NOT do this, do NOT do that .. basically sounds scary. But this: http://goo.gl/ZU9eY .. basically said that you can Think Different .. I've been following her directions but am waiting for The End. I do find that my posts to list no longer send them to me .. maybe some setting in gmail? BTW: This is coming to you from gmail, but via a forward from my hosting service so I can keep "backspaces.net". And natch from Mail.app using the instructions above. -- Owen On Jun 9, 2011, at 9:30 PM, Michael Kaufman wrote: > I access gmail through Apple Mail. Works fine. I don't like doing mail through a browser unless I have to... > > Michael On Jun 9, 2011, at 9:11 PM, Grant Holland wrote: > Me too. IMAP through Tbird on macs and pcs. On Jun 9, 2011, at 9:07 PM, Gary Schiltz wrote: > I've been using gmail via IMAP for at least five years, and haven't found it to be bad at all, though I'm not that fond of its web interface either. I started using gmail with Thunderbird under Windows XP, and switched to using it with Mail.app on OS X about three years ago.... On Jun 9, 2011, at 9:01 PM, Gary Lee Nelson wrote: > I do it through the Apple mail program. Works fine. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
Got some specifics? What are the usability issues? I'm curious,
because I love the interface, so I'm worried that I must be missing something! --R On Thursday, June 9, 2011, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: > Like many a damn fool, I'm seriously trying to use Gmail, via the web interface. > > Now, I (possibly mistakenly) presume you, fellow gmail users, are not > going through the tortue I am. In plain words, it Sucks. Really! > > So I must ask you to answer one of two questions: > 1 - How do you bear it? .. Do you have a stunt to make the web UI more usable? > 2 - If not, do you access gmail in some other way? An email client? > Or some other way to avoid the Horror Of It All? > > I will go through a couple of weeks and hope for the best. But > clearly if you can handle this, you have Given Up. > > -- Owen > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: The Torture Of Gmail
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
I use many of google functionalities. Docs, calendar, web sites. My main email account is provided by google but using my own domain. With such amount of space I collect in this account all my pop3 and imap mail accounts provided by others (gmx, hotmail, aol, etc). I only have had problems to get my yahoo mail. Netbooks with Chrome OS are (or will be) small machines designed to make you live in Google world. Chrome OS seems to has been designed to make you use all google web services. Google allows colaborative work. For example, I have done work with some members of this list using google tools. Really useful. Years ago I worked developing documents managment systems but when Google launched google docs and made It popular I stopped doing that work because google tools were enough to satisfy needs. Theoretically, google helps to reduce costs in companies because covers some software needs. Google is amazing and smart but sometimes they seem to be invasive. 2011/6/9 Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> Like many a damn fool, I'm seriously trying to use Gmail, via the web interface. -- Alfredo ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Robert Holmes
On Jun 10, 2011, at 6:17 AM, Robert Holmes wrote:
Got some specifics? What are the usability issues? I'm curious, because I love the interface, so I'm worried that I must be missing something! --R Here's a copy from and off-line chat w/ Roger. I was tempted to respond "Gawd, let me count the ways!" This reply was more difficult than in Mail.app, and I bet the formatting is not what I'd like. I've noticed most gmail displayed within mail clients has odd characteristics like tiny text, text size changes, and so on. Philosophical note: The WWDC Apple keynote by Jobs made a good point. The trend away from browser interfaces to Apps. This is not a biggie for us, but Google's in a tight corner now. Most vanilla computer users will want an App for every Google service. Jobs' comment that raw data in file hierarchies is too weird for the general user. I thought that odd until I spoke with a few educators who say their students despise looking around for where their files are and launching the right app for them. Hard to believe. But Google really is in a tough place with the new iCloud. I was at a talk with all of Apple engineering in the early '80s where Negroponte, discussing Mac color displays will have to be twice as good as PCs due to being late to the party. Well, Jobs listened and spent LOTS of engineering time on getting color right across computers and printers. He's going to do it right this time with iCloud. Us old farts will hang on to our splintered unorganized world till the End Of Time. The rest of the world is passing us by. On Jun 9, 2011, at 11:51 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote: > Owen -- > > I've been using the gmail web interface for years, since March 11, 2005 to be precise, and I have no idea what you're whining about. > > -- rec -- Mainly poor integration with the rest of my desktop. Difficult to DnD text/images in/out of gmail .. but I may not understand the WUI well enough and it has hidden treasures I haven't discovered. Its never easy to move to a new interface. I thought it would be easier than it has been because I use google's calendar and contacts. But then, I mainly just contacts as a way of having one set of contacts for several machines so don't really use its interface. If/when I get an android, likely all this will change and be worth the trouble. How do you connect your domain to your gmail? Also: I've noticed my email to Friam and Wedtech do not send me a copy for some reason. You too? Here's to loving the No Evil gang! -- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Owen Densmore
I hate to admit it, but I'm finding a few things to like. And I found
a chrome/firefox solution to the screen space problem. First of all, I really do like one less window on my screen, replaced by a tab in chrome. I finally found DnD but alas only works in the mailbox view, not the individual email. No huge deal. But the saver for me was finding this: http://goo.gl/V42vv It removes the adds etc from the right margin, moves the useful buttons/links to the top of the middle view, and makes the middle column stretch to the right margin. Very useful. Amazingly enough it uses css only .. no javascript. I did find out why my emails to friam etc (i.e. posts to lists) are not sent to me: Google puts my original in the sent folder/label and figures that I dont want a duplicate. Wrong! But at least I know its by design and not an IMAP/gmail screw up. -- Owen On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 9:48 PM, James Steiner <[hidden email]> wrote: > I've been using Gmail and the web interface for years now. I actually > like it... There must be things you want to so with mail that I just > don't need to do or something. > > I find the web UI quite usable--for how I use it. > > ~~J > > On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 10:30 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote: >> Like many a damn fool, I'm seriously trying to use Gmail, via the web interface. >> >> Now, I (possibly mistakenly) presume you, fellow gmail users, are not >> going through the tortue I am. In plain words, it Sucks. Really! >> >> So I must ask you to answer one of two questions: >> 1 - How do you bear it? .. Do you have a stunt to make the web UI more usable? >> 2 - If not, do you access gmail in some other way? An email client? >> Or some other way to avoid the Horror Of It All? >> >> I will go through a couple of weeks and hope for the best. But >> clearly if you can handle this, you have Given Up. >> >> -- Owen >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >> > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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