Gmail weaknesses

[kitchin]

Hey web designers, how much do you charge your clients to set up email filters? I ask because it is a big PIA and wonder if I can charge them for the three hours it took me to figure out Gmail is not as great as I thought? ;)

Seriously, Questmail is looking good now. Gmail:
* Does not have folders. Everything goes to the Inbox or Spam. The most you can do is label mail.
* Filters cannot move msgs. to Spam.
* Filters can move msgs. to Trash or Archive (which is not a folder), but my customers would not look in those locations.

I use FQ spam filters to mark the subject line and/or move it to a junk POP box. But all this gives me when going to Gmail (via secure POP) is a label. Everything goes to the Inbox.

What a mess. Another option is to give the customer the Outlook setup, by piecing together the info here:
http://www.aota.net/forums/showthread.php?t=23722
The needed info is not on the FQ help pages, which are screencaps of Outlook 1997 or so, but Bob suggests this up-to-date help site at Duke:
http://www.oit.duke.edu/email_messaging/email/setup/outlook2003smtp.html

Now with a bunch of marked or boxed spam, the customer needs an Outlook "Rule" (filter) to get it out of the Inbox folder. I'm am not excited about walking anybody through those 5 steps remotely.

[kitchin]

Correction, Gmail has one folder that you can filter to: "Starred".

[kitchin]

Correction 2. "Starred" is not real folder. You cannot even delete messages from it, only move them back into Inbox.

Can I say Arggggggggggggggggggggggggghh ?

[kitchin]

It's all a bunch of ****, ain't it?

[sheila]

:(

[jmihawkins]

I've been playing with Gmail, Thunderbird, Google Apps, and Questmail for weeks now - a little here, a little there. Trying to get my business mail off AOL. I sure aint happy - nothing actually satifies my needs. Gmail offers big space, but not the options I need - and the iPhone/mobile interface is disappointing at best. Same for the free version of Apps. Thunderbird has plenty of options, and the 4 extensions I've plugged in work real well. But it acts pretty unstable, tends to crash, conflicts with other software I HAVE to run, and the kinds of things I need it to do mean I'd have to spend hours setting it up and then maintaining it across all my boxes. Not to mention tutoring each of my users!
Qmail does some of what I need, except the FQ rec is to not use it for primary email. And the FQ install is limited. Squirrell Mail has multiple add-ons available to extend it's capabilities, so a local install looks good. Except I've run the storage numbers, and am wondering just how far I have to push my hosting, and how much I have to throttle my users, just to accommodate the storage needs of my own email install. And all of sudden, AOL doesnt look so bad, despite the unprofessionalism of using it for a business address.
Please keep 'us' (well, me actually) up to date with what you decide to do.

[Jeff]

The concept of gmail labels takes some getting used to (and it's not great for every use) but for some uses I really like it. For example I use one gmail account to fetch mail from 5 pop mail accounts that are primarily used to accumulate logs and/or any error conditions. The label concept lets me have one login to quickly scan the day's activity and then if I want to single out any one account or sub-account label I've assigned I just click the label and only those entries show. To do this with squirrelmail stock, I'd have to login to 5 separate webmail accounts each day or else click on 5 individual folders which would take a lot longer.

It is kind of odd that you can only label or delete spam with a filter and not send it to the spam folder...

[jmihawkins]

I found the thread titled 'Exchange' here in Email (sorry, I dont know how to link to it) very interesting. Have been looking at Sherweb's options and pricing, and so far it looks pretty good. I'm working on a list of questions for them, and depending on the answers, I may well just go that route. 'Course it means a 'reversion' to Outlook, but my issues with Thunderbird and Gmail tend to make that moot. You might want to check it out.

[Jeff]

I've never used an exchange mail server -- what does it allow you to do with outlook that you can't do with a FutureQuest mail account?

[hobbes]

I've never used an exchange mail server -- what does it allow you to do with outlook that you can't do with a FutureQuest mail account?
For a bussiness, the main advantages that I have encountered has been the use (syncing) of mobile devices (e.g., phones, Blackberrys) and shared calendaring. OWA (Outlook Web Access) also provides a way for users to change their email password, whereas at FQ you have to install the POPPass software.

[jmihawkins]

I would have thought the main advantage for a business, over using FQ accounts, is the amount of relatively inexpensive storage space? Plus, not having to change your MX records, so you could still keep some mail here at FQ.

[kitchin]

Another Gmail weakness I'm hitting is that to if you use it check external POP, it uses a mystery algorithm to decide how often to poll the external server. There is no one-click "check now". Instead you have to go to the Accounts set-up tab and request a "check now" from there.

On the other hand I had no idea you could check your gmail acct. via POP or IMAP now. Looks like Google really wants your MX record, considering how inconvenient & rudimentary it makes checking external POP. I mean, "check now" is about the most basic email feature there is.

Thanks for anyone who let me vent here. :)

Also, coincidentally Slashdot has run a coupla possibly FUD stories about Gmail in the past two days. One is about other servers semi-blocking some Gmail since the Gmail captcha was cracked a while back. The other is about Gmail backscatter. Supposedly, Gmail bounces msgs. to non-existent boxes instead of SMTP-rejecting the msg. If I recall what I read right......

[Jeff]

I haven't heard about the captcha break though I remember reading a story about an xss vulnerability and someone losing their domain because their gmail was cracked a long while back. I did start getting some fraud / spam from gmail addresses. But I still get more spam and fraud by a factor of 10x (each) from yahoo, hotmail, and aol addresses, so I can't really imagine other servers would be blocking gmail unless they're also blocking yahoo, hotmail, and aol already.

I also like the fact that gmail doesn't do the graylisting or other odd things that yahoo seems to be doing now. I've found gmail to be reliable in terms of simple sending and recieving whereas yahoo not so much in recent months.

[Evoir]

I'm a gmail addict now. Their searching is so powerful, between that and labels I can find anything! I use labels alot, and I filter my email into labels. The advantage of labels over folders is this: you can have message with more than 1 label. You can't do that with folders. That's really the only difference. You can filter your spam identified mail and slap a label on it and bypass the inbox. Really, there is nothing you can do with folders that you can't do with labels, and there is a lot more you can do with labels. It's just a slightly different way of thinking, that's all. The biggest change I ahve seen of people using gmail is that they quickly learn the benefit of using very clear subject lines. And Gmailers don't often start torpedoing new emails to you with new subject lines. Gmail trains you to use the subject line wisely, because it becomes your friend.

Anyway, I am a convert, and it has made my life so much easier. I know I may have sold my soul to the devil... but..... well.... errrrrrr.... I likes it. :)

(Oh, and 3 hours of Gmail is not enough... you need a month, I think to undertstand how it works)

[Evoir]

Another thing: Gmail handles spam so elegantly that all these things that you are used to doing here to stop spam at FQ fade away... you just mark things as spam as you see them, and their spam filters are really, really good. I used to spend a lot of time worrying about spam, and now I just read my email. :)

[jmihawkins]

Yeah, I agree about the learning curve. If like me you grew up using only AOL for the past 12 years, even 'normal' email systems are befuddling. Gmail is yet a 3rd type of system, and you do have to re-think. The 2 main kick-outs for me were the arbitrary timeframe for POPing my mail from FQ - 30min to several hours - or having to drilldown to the 'get now' link. And then the use of that Gmail address in most outbound mail as 'sent by' or 'on behalf of' or whatever, instead of just the 'from' line - kinda makes multiple aliases/identities useless, and defintely breaks the professionalism of sending mail from a 'real' business address. The spam filtering is good, pretty much like aol's - they utilize the blacklists, probably spam-assassin rules or similar, the filter is 'bayesian', etc, etc.
Of course, if you use something like Thunderbird or Mulberry or Outlook 07, and IMAP your FQ mail, you can still do some powerful searching, filtering, labeling, anti-spamming, and much more. Plus those prods are WAY more customizable than Gmail. Downside is that the customization is per machine. Well, plus the storage and bandwidth costs on FQ.

[Jeff]

And then the use of that Gmail address in most outbound mail as 'sent by' or 'on behalf of' or whatever, instead of just the 'from' line - kinda makes multiple aliases/identities useless, and defintely breaks the professionalism of sending mail from a 'real' business address.
I know when you view the headers you see:
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:29:40 -0400
From: "My Domain Address" <me@mydomain.com>
Sender: mygmailaddress@gmail.com

Which I consider a drawback as it doesn't look as professional to me, but do any mail clients actually show this Sender field in a visible way, or do they all show the From field? I don't think any significant percentage of people will be viewing the headers unless you're in the hosting/web deisgn field specifically (i.e. it probably wouldn't be so great for those on this forum, but for our clients in any other field, it's probably not really a factor)

[Evoir]

Actually, I think that MS email clients do show the sender, and this is the drawback of just using a standard gmail account, rather than getting an mx record change.... I would say this is the big drawback of using gmail and their aliases....

[Jeff]

Actually, I think that MS email clients do show the sender,

Windows Vista Mail and outlook express on XP don't show the Sender: field, they show the From: (and I don't see a way to add a column to add the sender: field on vista mail, have to check again outlook express when I turn on the xp machine)

Is it the full version of outlook that shows the sender: field???

[jmihawkins]

I know when you view the headers you see:
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:29:40 -0400
From: "My Domain Address" <me@mydomain.com>
Sender: mygmailaddress@gmail.com

Which I consider a drawback as it doesn't look as professional to me, but do any mail clients actually show this Sender field in a visible way, or do they all show the From field? I don't think any significant percentage of people will be viewing the headers unless you're in the hosting/web deisgn field specifically (i.e. it probably wouldn't be so great for those on this forum, but for our clients in any other field, it's probably not really a factor)

Nope, I've played with this, sending from Gmail to other mail accounts I have, including to FG and down to Thunderbird, and that 'sender' is right there in the main header - you dont have to dig into the detailed headers to find it. Have gotten back replies from people I've sent to, and it shows up in their mail as the same thing, or even once it was 'on behalf of' - cant remember it was on behalf of me@gmail.com or me@example.com. But either way, it looks bad.

[Jeff]

Interesting. I guess my windows mail apps gave me a false sense of "it's no problem in practice" since they won't show the gmail sender field for me without looking at the headers. If it's showing up as "on behalf of" in thunderbird and other, that's no good - yuk.

[jmihawkins]

I looked at Google Apps, but it treats email as just one of several applications, and it' Gmail based, so no real customizing - and I dont care about all the little widgets and such or any of the other apps. And I'm loathe to change my MX records.
Which is why I'm beginning to think about outsourcing to a Hosted Exchange environment, one where I can just forward from FQ. Still have the issue of using a customized mail-reader on each machine - headache.
Would really prefer to just login into QMail and be done with it...

[Evoir]

Michael, have you seen this thread (http://www.aota.net/forums/showthread.php?t=23810&highlight=sherweb)?

[jmihawkins]

Yes, I referred to the 'Exchange' thread earlier in this thread. That's what got me looking at Hosted Exchange. Started with Sherweb, then found intermedia, then started just searching and looking around, and lordy, lordy, aint there a bunch of 'em! Realized I need MUCH more info, dont really even know how it all works, how dependent I'd be on per-machine profiles and such. And realized that the search for a reliable host could easily be as long and tedious as the time I spent finding and deciding on FQ. You know how wonderfully unbiased and accurate those top-10 lists are...