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The Bat: Great program, terrible documentation and support

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JavaJones:
There are ways to backup Gmail. Other than the "local storage" issue, it answers all the other concerns as far as I can see. *shrug*

- Oshyan

timns:
There are ways to backup Gmail. Other than the "local storage" issue, it answers all the other concerns as far as I can see. *shrug*

- Oshyan
-JavaJones (February 26, 2011, 05:04 PM)
--- End quote ---

Yes, and sorry to be off-topic. But I don't want to use gmail. Admittedly we do weird things with email here, and it's not stuff that we'd achive on google's servers. I'm sure cloud storage is excellent for most people. But we're not most people, and I even forgot to mention we have NDA's in place so shouldn't have files outside of locked buildings.  :-[

But for Joe Blow, I'm sure the mechanisms described above are super!

Out of interest, how long would a 4gb email backup take from gmail?

JavaJones:
Companies all over the place are using Google Apps/Gmail, so either they don't care about security, or they've had assurances that it's secure somehow. All your email passes through multiple mail servers to get to you (and to get to your recipients) anyway so security with email is somewhat a moot point IMHO.

I wouldn't backup the full mail store every time, just do an "incremental" of sorts. The easiest way to do mail backup on Gmail for me is to run a POP or IMAP message sync. It will only update what is new. Then you just backup the resulting file (incrementally, ideally). Speed is not really an issue.

So what are these "weird things" that you do with email that Gmail can't do? Honestly I've still yet to hear a specific, concrete example, much less one that makes me think "Ohh, yeah, that makes total sense.". :D

- Oshyan

timns:
Companies all over the place are using Google Apps/Gmail, so either they don't care about security, or they've had assurances that it's secure somehow. All your email passes through multiple mail servers to get to you (and to get to your recipients) anyway so security with email is somewhat a moot point IMHO.

I wouldn't backup the full mail store every time, just do an "incremental" of sorts. The easiest way to do mail backup on Gmail for me is to run a POP or IMAP message sync. It will only update what is new. Then you just backup the resulting file (incrementally, ideally). Speed is not really an issue.

So what are these "weird things" that you do with email that Gmail can't do? Honestly I've still yet to hear a specific, concrete example, much less one that makes me think "Ohh, yeah, that makes total sense.". :D

- Oshyan
-JavaJones (February 26, 2011, 05:25 PM)
--- End quote ---

I have two objections:

1. What happens if we lose connectivity to gmail for whatever reason

2. An email coming through to me, yes, passes through countless locations. But that's temporary. GMail is a centralized target for attack. I may be completely wrong about this.

The "weird stuff" we do includes regex searches looking for "items of interest" also data extraction, automatic filing and auto-response, and some basic CRM integration which could be improved upon.

All of that feels like it's under my control at the moment. Call me a luddite, but I would not feel that way if all my email files were elsewhere.

superboyac:
JJ, I can speak for myself: I do not like using cloud applications.  It's not because they "can't" do anything.  I'm sure they can all do everything anyonoe can want.  That's not it.  First, I don't like using software through the browser.  Everything is slower and browser-y.  I almost always prefer a local app.  So I'll have a hard time getting past that first point.  Furthermore, cloud apps tend to be subscription apps...yet another reason to avoid them.  i hate subscriptions.

I'm just against the idea of cloud computing.  I don't think they are nearly as responsive as local programs, including google's free ones like gmail.  Now people will ask me, what do I mean by "responsive"?  Clicking things and doing stuff is just....not as responsive.  I don't want to get into a technical thing here and measure times with a stopwatch.  I know gmail is plenty fast enough and all that.  But I don't want to use the browser as my OS.  There's a reason why I prefer Windows over other operating systems.  You really can't compare Windows to Firefox, if we're talking about using them as operating systems.  Just because we are so used to using the browser as an OS these days, doesn't mean it's better.  The local OS is still much better....in so many ways.  I'll fight committing anything to the cloud as long as I can.  I will spend money to avoid it.  I will go to very extreme measures...I'll use the Bat instead of webmail...I'll run a server to avoid Dropbox...and so forth.  If you are not concerned about using the cloud, then go for it.  But if you are after true independance, local programs are the only way to go.

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