Hulver's site || Webmail?

Webmail?

Gmail	9 votes - 56 %
Hotmail	7 votes - 43 %
Yahoo mail	9 votes - 56 %
Other	7 votes - 43 %
None	1 vote - 6 %

16 Total Votes

The Greeks Had A Word For It | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

IAWTP by Rogerborg (3.00 / 0) #1 Sun Jul 04, 2004 at 04:33:59 AM EST

Regarding Tom Holt. I didn't like any of his sub-Pratchett stuff; it doesn't feel like he enjoyed writing it. Mrs Borg was mildly amused to discover that our heroine in Who's Afraid of Beowulf has the same unusual combination of qualifications as her though. Walled Orchard is fine, with a remarkably perspacious description of the slapstick carnage of combat (it's funny because it's random - although it's not really funny at all, what with all the death and all). Olympiad is a little more plodding, and I don't intend to read any more, having a suspicion that Mr Holt is already losing interest - and therefore self discipline - in his new format.

Oh, and even early Pratchett was never as good as early Pratchett. Sort of thing.

-
Metus amatores matrum compescit, non clementia.

: Early Pratchett by TheophileEscargot (3.00 / 0) #2 Sun Jul 04, 2004 at 04:43:27 AM EST

Wasn't that great IMNSHO. Strata and the Colour of Magic were pretty clunky: it took him a while to get into his stride.
I think Pratchett managed to stay original for a lot longer. Firstly he varied his settings and spoofs: Hollywood spoof, Egyptian spoof, Australian spoof etc etc, all providing new material for jokes. He managed to vary his plot formula too, from heroic-journey to apprentice-makes-good to detective to plot-against-patrician as well. Also his style evolved from gag-driven to character-driven comedy to quasi-serious satire.
Even so, his adult books seem to have pretty much run out of steam.
--
"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise." -- Bertrand Russell
[ Parent ]

outlook - not so good by martingale (3.00 / 0) #3 Sun Jul 04, 2004 at 07:25:29 AM EST

It's an intriguing thought, but if they're truly going up against Outlook, then I think it's a pretty stupid move on their part, imho.

There's a lot more to Outlook than email, and even than email + calendaring. Judging from newsgroups on office scripting and related sources, many large companies have built complex inhouse systems on Outlook and Office + plugins + cobbled together simple apps.

Google can never realistically offer an alternative to this ad-hockery, not on the web and certainly not outside of the corporate firewall. Gmail as a web offering, even if they sell it as an in-house webmail server, is at most a small component of the stuff those companies think they need.

They should stick to what they know, ie offering a "service" rather than trying to offer a "solution" like MS and IBM do. If they don't, the big boys will eat their lunch.
--
$E(X_t|F_s) = X_s,\quad t > s$

Probably not much good for that by TheophileEscargot (3.00 / 0) #4 Sun Jul 04, 2004 at 08:27:02 AM EST

But I think for people using desktop email clients at home... maybe Outlook Express more than Outlook itself... gmail is probably a serious competitor.

And there are quite a lot of companies that don't do anything elaborate. My current workplace barely uses of the Outlook functionality at all. And the amount of storage allowed is only a fraction of gmails, and searching is very clunky.
--
"Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise." -- Bertrand Russell
[ Parent ]

I think you're mostly right... by ShadowNode (3.00 / 0) #5 Sun Jul 04, 2004 at 04:53:06 PM EST

I doubt they're really going after corporate users (what sane company would outsource their mail system?), but rather home users. They don't need any of the esoteric Outlook functions.

[ Parent ]

Everything is outsourceable by Tonatiuh (3.00 / 0) #6 Mon Jul 05, 2004 at 01:04:18 AM EST

I don't see why email would be immune, it is a chore to administer, if you don't do it properly you may become an unsuspecting spamhaus, and nowadays many companies are required by law to keep backps, etc., a fulltime task on itself...

[ Parent ]

of course the *can* outsource it... by ShadowNode (3.00 / 0) #7 Mon Jul 05, 2004 at 11:06:07 AM EST

But they'd better really trust whoever they outsource it to, or just not do anything confidential over email.

[ Parent ]

Encrypt it Luke! [n/t] by Tonatiuh (3.00 / 0) #8 Tue Jul 06, 2004 at 11:30:59 AM EST

[ Parent ]

Right... by ShadowNode (3.00 / 0) #9 Wed Jul 14, 2004 at 08:43:41 PM EST

Cause it's so easy to get people to actually do that...

[ Parent ]

You will not ask them.... by Tonatiuh (3.00 / 0) #10 Tue Jul 27, 2004 at 08:18:42 AM EST

... you DIY as administrator.

[ Parent ]

: In which case... by ShadowNode (3.00 / 0) #11 Thu Aug 05, 2004 at 02:53:08 PM EST

You might aswell be running your own mailserver, negating the point of outsourcing it.

[ Parent ]

The Greeks Had A Word For It | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback


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