K so, I have 4 exchange accounts which I currently manage with an exchange hosting service, for $132/year/user. I have been thinking for a while that Gmail and the other apps, might be a decent solution.

50 bucks a year, for 25gb, (per user) which is more than enough for us. plus some other supporting apps which might be nice. Or the free version which is 4.someincreasingvalue GB, but less features.

What are opinions about letting the new satan own all my data?

edit:to make more sense.

DO NOT DO IT.

It is exactly like the way Microsoft draws you in by making life supposedly easier, but the deal is Faustian.

You may call me paranoid beyond rationality, but IME the more I let them know the worse things are for me. I use them absolutely as little as possible, I let them into my life absolutely as little as possible. This at times makes for more effort that I must exert, but it keeps me relatively free of their clutches. I do everything I can to keep my cards to my chest and a sort of cautious detente, but they're frisked pretty hard at the border.

You have already said it, "... the new satan to own all my data" Jeeperschristmas man, you wanna be like sumkinda eGhostRider? Sure, he made it out reasonably OK at the end, but he's still got the whole flaming head thing which, all-in-all is hard on the love life.

Perhaps a little tellytalk you-n-me to see what you need and if theres a less Methlike solution.

/p

Well, actually, currently it wont work as a solution anyway. I didnt realize they dont have imap for the calendar and contacts yet.

But as for having all my data, and keeping them from it. I actually am starting to think the other way. Do you know how much stupid shit I get in the mail? real mail. out of all the junk I get, maybe 1 piece every 3 months has even remote interest to me. Now, if "they" actually knew all my interests and habits, they could actually send me shit that I want. Sounds silly and simplistic, but its true. sort of.

i dunno, im not that paranoid about google knowing everything about me, same with MS, or my credit card bank, or my phone company, or, whoever else I chose to do business with on a long term.

Really me needs are an email/calendar/contact/todo service that i dont have to deal with and dont need to worry about backups and can use outlook with it. So exchange server has been my choice for a while now. I use 4smartphone, which has been great, but if I can save a few hundred a year, why wouldnt I. I just dont want to manage it, at all. Im done with that shit.

Personally quite like the Zoho suite of apps, definate contenders to google apps, if not more advanced.

DM

zoho is something i looked at as well, but the email is in private beta, as are the rest of the business solutions. The big question is storage space and capability for offline syncing, with outlook for example. any ideas on if you can sync to outlook? calendar,email,todo,contacts are all needed.

NB i know people doing very well from google apps - i dont share perks paranoia - id do it...

my opinion thats all 

My parents were both in aerospace in the 1970's and '80s, and I'm gonna go with Perk on this one (I'm kinda wired for privacy). 

Your computer and your house share an idea - what's in them is INFINITELY more valuable than the container.  Why would you entrust that to people you don't know?

Part 2 - Google, while a publicly traded company, doesn't have to tell you the truth about what they're doing with your "stuff" (selling it, perusing it, providing it to the government to have a look as wll).  In fact, were you to try and sue them and make them prove they're NOT doing that very thing, their defense would be "we're not telling them anything, Your Honor.  That's protected as trade secrets." - and you lose.

Don't do it!  All you've got that is you is your data.  Guard it as carefully as you would the contents of your home.

btw - I'm a

Mac

 nazi and everything sync's with my BlackBerry.  Not an issue.



/ja

$fear = $Google + $personalInformation;

::shudder::

Right on JA

split personality.
approx 2k+ personalities.
hard to keep track
my personalities are very intrested in viagra
$profit = $Google + $personalinfo

It depends what your buisness model is.
How long you need to stick arround etc.

If you plan to stick arround for like a year+ probably a bad idea.
If you make ur investment back in like a week ......

if you think about it, google has this whole
conversation in the time capsule... one good
thing is if aliens come to our devastated pl

anet

 
where cock roaches and twinkies only still live,
they could use a google backup to unravel our
demise....  (doorstops broke  )


Have you considered openoffice? its free and works for
me on my

ubuntu

  so does my phone and everything
else i have tried so far, except these '.exe' files
i keep downloading....



And I agree with the

black hat

  as far as the
new Satan is concerned, it could take the place of
Dos in the following quote from the Tao of

Programming

  i guess:

A master was explaining the nature of the Tao to one of his novices. ``The Tao is embodied in all software - regardless of how insignificant,'' said the master.

``Is the Tao in a hand-held calculator?'' asked the novice.

``It is,'' came the reply.

``Is the Tao in a video game?'' continued the novice.

``It is even in a video game,'' said the master.

``And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?''

The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. ``The lesson is over for today,'' he said.

the main issue for us is offsite storage and backup.
its not about the client software since that I actually don't care about. I did finally change our email over though. So we are now using gmail, under google apps for domains. Works well and is IMAP capable, so outlook and

iphone

  both play nice.
now all I need is contacts and calendar sync with

iPhone

  for google, without some convoluted hackjob. Then I am set and don't need a desktop involved anymore.

You can bet that'll be early out of the gate when the API is fully in the wild...

I would think you trust

Apple

  with a lot of your stuff Perk. I'm no lover of Google but what makes

Apple

  any better? Just guessing from your use of an

iPhone

  and your love of all things

Mac

 , I really have nothing to back it up. Just wondering about that dynamic, given your paranoid nature.

Good question VS - there's a fundamental difference.

Google has already demonstrated a god-like desire and capability to control the destiny of the

net

  - you and I and many of our compatriots know that only too well. Google has the capability, in many ways, to rewrite history should they desire. Consider simply the number of kids that use Google rather than an encyclopedia to gather their data... It is arguable, or course, that the victors have always rewritten history ergo, we cannot ever know what has really happened. But in a day when the collective conscience can be shifted on an hourly basis by a (relative) few then I start to get really nervous and can't be party simply on GP.

I do not subscribe to .

MAC

 , but I do purchase from iTunes. My computers are no more "open" to the world than any of my

Linux

  or

Solaris

  boxes. I love the

Mac

  because I have that level of control, yet I can empower the people I work with with more capability easily and quickly. My love of the

Mac

  is more connected to the fact that I have a dozen printers, cameras, video devices, scanners,

net

 works, VPNs you name it - and all of it works flawlessly. I could certainly do this with a

Linux

  box (for the most part anyway) but never with a Windows

mac

 hine (interrupt issues, you name it - I despise 'doz). But the important part is that PinkHat can not do it on a

Linux

  box - so I get the power of *nix with the ease of a truly world class GUI - the best of both worlds.

Regarding the

iPhone

  I am not an ostrich about the potential for abuse by interlopers, and I am no less paranoid than I am about any other tech in my life. I am flat-out delighted by the GUI and the pressure that

Apple

  has put on other phone manufactures to create really smart little devices and I love how the underdog keeps spitting in the face of the big naysayers and so-called industry oracles. But if

Apple

  gets closer to violating my privacy and paranoia they will find me in a hasty retreat as well.

Wrapping up:

Apple

  craves my business. Google craves my information and control of my eLife. Two vastly different motivations, wouldn't you agree?

Hm. I believe I do agree. I have not not given much thought to the

asp

 irations of the latter. I know Google is evil - if you ever go to read Digg you would be flabbergasted by the number of mindless fanbois Google has. The startling thing is that it's not a debate. Every

Apple

  article has fanbois and detractors, every Google article has comments full of fanbois shooting huge sticky wads and high-fiving one another.

At any rate, I think I might bite the bullet soon, pick up AT&T and activate my

iPhone

 . My contract with Verizon was up in mid-December.

As NBs will certainly attest, they are not without fault and missing delicacies... but being that it is a pretty robust platform and the API will be available soon now I am REALLY looking forward to what the open source community does with the little thing. Hell - Des

iNet

  @ Syndk8 told me how he has

Apache

 ,

PHP

 ,

PERL

  and MySQL running on his FFS... although decidedly useless, a rather amazing demo...

the thing i am most looking forward to is flash.

once flash is on there, everything can now be done that you can dream of (well almost everything). There really is no more need for any of the built in apps at that point, since all of them are flash-able anyway.

I am surprised there is no "flash phone", since really that would cover almost everything phone users could want. games, enterprise apps, nav, comms, etc.

as for native apps, it will be nice to have more options, especially if you can replace out the builtin stuff, but frankly, the built in stuff is pretty solid. Though most of it is filler, like the youtube, calc, weather, maps, stocks, clock. they are all useful, but filler none the less.

if google did make contacts sync with

iphone

  and calendar as well, game over i think, like i said.

it does have its significant short comings though, and it is not an enterprise phone, but the API might change that, we will just have to wait and see. 1.1.3 looks like a first step towards that API, with some functionality features being added that really reek of API customization.

Heres an

iphone

  with no contract, it has flash, skype, runs on

linux

 
not sure about plugins, api , etc..

http://share.skype.com/sites/skypegear/2007/01/the_nokia_n800_skypeenabled_so.html

did that just drop? I don't have my rumor sites handy with me here, nor do I sync up my phone to anything on the road so I don't have any info... what does 1.1.3 do that seems APIish NBs?

@ Skypephone: they're all wannabes. I agree with NBs that a lot of the apps on the phone are filler, although I use more of the probably more aggressively than he does (weather, stocks I use a bunch. Youtube? Are you fishing kidding me? They even allow that tripe to take up MBs? Maps work pretty nicely as well, although when they release the GPS module for the phone then it will be for-reals useful)

Ditch the bitch and make the switch. It is true that you can do just about anything that is on an

iPhone

  on any number of other platforms. But none of them will pass along the cache the same way. Like it or not, the

iPhone

  is the new baseline.

oh i use it all as well, including YouTube, bored in the airport, but not enough time to watch a movie, so dumb fishs on YouTube it is then...


1.1.3 hasn't dropped yet, but the rumor mill has some fairly solid stuff about it.

but short list is:
sms to multiple recipients. i care nothing about this.
reordering of the icons on the homepage (springboard).
paging of springboard
change what icons are in your quick launch.
addition of web bookmarks to springboard (yeay)
google maps gets ghetto-gps via cellular triangulation.
google maps, drag and drop locations (if you dont know the address but know where you physically want to go, like a mall or beach)
hybrid map is now added.
a bunch of minor visual shit.

Yeah going out as soon as my wife finishes drying her hair to activate my

iPhone

  and get her one.

I was REALLY impressed by how websites were rendering on this girl's

iPhone

  last night. I have not turned mine on to see it because I'm afraid AT&T's evil voodoo magic will find out that I haven't bought a 2 year plan yet.

Thanks NBs ... looking forward to all of that

@ Rendering: no lie VS, it's gorgeous. And sites that are sized correctly for the phone are even moreso - my early experiments are showing some unbelievable promise. @NBs - I have had to give up on my

iPhone

  forum theme for a bit because of client load - but if you remember the cinema supper club we visited for the Arizona BH Casual (they are a client) I'm sure you can imagine what I am working up for them on the

iPhone

  now... showtimes anyone? Next step, look, book & buy. (There's nothing there yet, you won't see anything)

Personally, I'd rephrase that.  Both crave profits.  Google has couched their quest in the "o no evil" flag, but just looking at what they've done in China and other countries to get access to eyeballs it's clear that money has usurped principles--you don't need to smell the other dead rats we know the odor of to see that. 

Apple

  it not "good" either.  Instead of trying to mine every piece of profit out of every piece of data, little hands in 3rd world countries assemble their shiny

mac

 hines for pennies an hour and our consumption.  Arguably since they pay more than the other manufacturers you can rationalize that they are a "little less evil".  It's a thorny problem.  Short of not purchasing any electronics at all, I don't see a way to avoid it.

I believe that the only way that we will see a change in the US of corporate behavior is by removing certain of the legal protections that individuals within corporations now have.  Not all of them since many are necessary for corporations to remain viable, but the inability to prosecute individuals within corporations for criminal behavior without going to ridiculous lengths (e.g. Enron)--like securities violations--shows that the system needs overhauling.

Corporate behavior in the 20th-21st C's has been just another sad page out of the book of social Darwinism, IMO.

=RT=

I do love my

iPhone

 , and

Apple

 's support so far has been amazing, but let me just say this:

It's fishing r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s to pay 99 cents to make a ringtone out of a song that you've *already* paid 99 cents for.

Granted, I haven't. In fact I've yet to pay money for an MP3, and if you just rename a < 30 second long sound clip from .m4a to .m4r, iTunes recognizes it as a rintone.

But that doesn't change the fact that Joe Average is going to cough up money. Now

Apple

  has every right to close up their shit and make it as proprietary as they want, but I don't have to just sit idly by and say "oh that's great, that's such a good decision". I am *very* unhappy at how their attitude has been so far towards development, and I have a suspicion that their developer API is going to consist of some web-only interface that makes use of

iPhone

  capabilities (like we've seen so far). That sucks. What if I want to play solitaire or minesweeper or tetris some place where I don't have any reception? Better question, why would I want to play minesweeper or solitaire or tetris at some place where I HAVE reception?

Ummm, let's just imagine for half a moment that

Apple

  is in business to make money.

IMO, if Joe Average shells out 99c for a ringtone then he is either: A) willing to pay for the convenience of it because he doesn't have the time to figure it out or B) completely stupid, in which case he is a victim of The American Way.

A 30 second Googling will tell you what you need to know to make perfect ringtones - I use a freeware app called WavePad to do my editing (no sense pulling out the big guns for such a little job) and kerpow you're good to go. There's even nice little apps out there like iToner which will do a good job syncing them for you if your rom and iTunes versions don't work with the m4r trick.

I agree with you that it seems ridiculous, but since you are capable of avoiding it, there is an argument to be made that you can do whatever you want with a phone that was, in part, subsidized by the brilliant marketing and capitalization efforts of the aforementioned company and their bunnies

Last night when I took my wife's phone to the

Apple

  store (she got a bad

apple

  [pun intended] which turned its phone radio off and sent all incoming calls straight to voicemail whenever it went to sleep), the guy we dealt with was sort of arrogant. First unpleasant experience so far with

Apple

  support. This was of course at their "genius bar". We got her a new phone without too much ado, he asked to see my phone at one point to give her phone a call to verify that it wasn't just my phone. I assured him that other callers had had the same problem, and that he "wasn't going to like" what he would see when he looked at my phone, but he insisted so I handed it over. "OMG THESE APPS ARE ILLEGAL!!!11". Well man, if I knew you were going to look at it I would have reflashed it back to factory before I came in, but I'm here for my *wife's* phone. Geez. Anyway, still not bad, but the guy was kind of a dick through the whole thing, and moreso when he saw the third party apps on my phone. Started insisting that somehow it was related. I assured him that my wife's phone was not, and had never been, anything besides 100% stock factory and that even I'd wanted to play with it, she wouldn't have let me.

That story, to me, is the WORST part of

Apple

 . I regret for you that you had that experience.

Harkening back to the king of old world hackers (Woz) it is unfortunate that the dogmatic portion of the

Apple

 nistas bowl over the cool, experimental and more 60s- oriented folks. I'm sorry to hear about the VS.

And it also REALLY REALLY bothers me that just because some geek is behind a bar that has the word "Genius" on it he thinks that he is one. I completely get the arrogance and yet incompetence that follows folks like that. And in retrospect I have similar experiences with those boys, except that I am very used to shutting people down quickly in stores... they might pop off with something and I'll go right to my 30 years exp. and what I am doing now ... sort of baffle them hard from minute one so that they know they can't bullshit me, which is insluting, degrading and a bad mark on them. I don't brook assholes for very long at all... and certainly not when they are stupid but THINK that they know what they are doing.

i usually go for the insult.
"is this your career?"
yes
"im sorry"

::makes note for future::

Yes. I think perhaps 5 years or so ago it would have been a harrowing experience, but I'm a bit more mature and wordly wise now. No biggie. The funniest part was at the end he goes "I really wanted to blame the third party apps, but it's your phone and you can do with it what you want. That will void the warranty though." I replied "Technically, it's my phone but the software on it is

Apple

 's intellectual property, so I can't really do with it what I want, which I think is sad." He just kind of gave me a blank stare, apparently this was news to him, and ammo of which he'd not previously thought to use on unsuspecting geeks who've modded their

iPhone

 s. At any rate, I could tell he was the type who'd taken the job because he was barely qualified and it was a job. Let's just say he was far too good looking to be a true geek. Mind you geeks can be good looking, but I mean he's the type you'd see shopping at Hollister.