Digithoughts

Recently, the laptop I've been using for the last four years tanked on me due to a severe Windows error (yes, I'm PC owner - shoot me). This is an event that would have ruined my life two years ago, but this time around I was quite lacksadaisical about it all. How is this possible? After doing some thinking about it, I realized that the big difference between now and two years ago is that now most of my digital life is "in the cloud." 

For the uninitiated, "the cloud" is, put simply, the Internet. Nearly everything that matters to me (digitally speaking) is stored on the Internet somewhere and available from any computer at any time. This shift has occurred slowly and is so ingrained in how I do things now, that I wasn't even conscious of the peace of mind and organization that it has brought to my life.

With that in mind, I thought it might be nice to do a series of blog posts on the tools I use in the cloud that make my life easier, more organized and more efficient.

To kick it off, let's start with the most obvious: Google Mail, or Gmail

Gmail is easily one of the most widely known and widely used of all of the cloud-based applications. Here at Digitaria, we use Google Apps for email management, which means that my @digitaria.com email address is actually a Gmail address. When I first started at Digitaria, I was very resistant to receiving and managing all of my email in the standard Gmail interface because it was so different than what I was used to (Microsoft Outlook). You can access Gmail through Outlook, so I did that for the first several months. However, running Gmail through Outlook has its pain points and over time the idea of running my whole digital life in the browser began to appeal to me, so I dumped Outlook and committed completely to using Gmail as it was intended.

Once I got used to the way Gmail groups emails by conversation and uses tags (what they call "labels") rather than folders, I began to really appreciate the benefits of buying into the system all the way. Of course, the biggest benefit is being able to access my email from any computer, anywhere, as long as it has a browser and Internet access. But the benefits don't stop there. Over time, I've discovered several others that have made me more organized, more efficient and secure in the thought that my data is safe and accessible. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Labels -- Labels are awesome. Basically labels are tags. You can create as many labels as you want inside Gmail and assign them to as many emails as you want. These labels can be assigned custom colors and when associated with an email they appear in the subject line of your email, both in your inbox and in the full message. If you label an item and then archive it, you are essentially putting that email into a virtual folder. However, what makes labels better than folders is that you can assign multiple labels to any email conversation.

For example, if I'm having an email discussion about a new iPhone project with a client, I might assign that conversation the following labels: "Client A", "mobile", "iPhone", "opportunities." Each client label I have has a unique color, so when I'm scanning my inbox, I can quickly find client emails based on color. Each category label ("mobile," "iPhone," and "opportunity" in this example) uses the standard light gray, so they don't distract but still provide deeper info into what the conversation is about.

Every tag I create gets added to the Labels list that appears on my Inbox page. When I click a tag, it takes me to a page that displays every email conversation I have ever tagged with that label. So, if I ever need to figure out which clients I have discussed iPhone development with, I just need to click the "iPhone" label and it will display all iPhone-labeled conversations and I can scan to see which client labels appear in those conversations.

• Contacts -- In past computer crashes, one of the biggest, most disruptive losses was the loss of my Outlook contacts. With Gmail, all of my contacts are stored in the cloud and I can easily access them and update them from anywhere. Moreover, all updates to my contacts are sync'd to my mobile wirelessly.

• File storage -- In my line of work, 85 percent of the most important documents I create get emailed to someone at one point or another. The simple act of emailing these documents stores them on Gmail's servers. Should I need to retrieve them at a later time, all I need to do is browse or search for the the email that I sent the attachment in. Considering my Google Apps account offers me over 25GB of space (a personal account offers about 8GBs), I have gotten in the habit of emailing myself important documents, both to have access from anywhere to edit it and as a backup, should my system crash.

• The Interface -- The Gmail interface options keep improving, especially with the launch of "Labs." You now have the ability to pull in all kinds of gadgets that can sit on the right and left hand columns. Currently, I have all of my Labels, my Calendar, my most recent Google Docs, my Google Talk list and a cool little Twitter gadget.

• Offline Email Access -- One of the concerns many people have with making the switch to Gmail is that they won't be able to access previously read emails when they don't have Internet access. This all changed a few months back when Gmail integrated Google Gears. When Gmail users enable Google Gears, it downloads all of your past emails and stores them (and their attachments) locally on your machine. Going forward it works in the background storing locally as you use Gmail.

• Mobile -- Gmail has a suite of fantastic mobile apps, both web and native, depending on your platform. Most are nearly as full featured as the full version.
Although Gmail wasn't the first to offer email access in the browser, it's easily the best, and makes a great introduction to browser-based computing.

Over the coming months I'll be introducing you to more of the cloud-based applications I use on a regular basis, so you too can break free from the over-stuffed hard drive and live a worry-free life in the ''cloud.'' Doesn't that sound nice?

Michael Brown VP, Media & Entertainment

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