E-mail: What are my Options?

Right now, my e-mail is provided via hosted Microsoft Exchange.  I purchased six months of Exchange in January, and it expires on July 13th.  I could, of course, renew my Exchange for about $50 for another six months.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Exchange–it keeps my Macs, my PC, my phone, and Outlook Web Access in sync all the time.  But is that really the best option for me?

I love Exchange because, as I said, it keeps everything in sync.  I’m also able to access Outlook Web Access through the strict Web filtering at school, which is infinitely useful.  And, with the September release of Apple’s Snow Leopard, I’ll be able to use Mail, iCal, and Address Book on my Macs with the Exchange server.

One of my alternatives is going back to what I did before I bought Exchange–IMAP.  I get free IMAP hosting with my webspace, and that’s what I had been using up until I purchased Exchange.  It works well overall, but it doesn’t keep everything in sync, and I’m not sure if my phone supports it.

The other service I’m looking at is MobileMe.  I haven’t used this service before, but I’ve heard good things.  It’s designed to work with Apple’s OS X, which is my primary OS, so that’s a big advantage.  The biggest downside of that is that I can’t sync with my phone (I don’t have an iPhone).  I also doubt that the ambiguous “me.com” domain would be allowed through the filter at school.  It also has a heavy up-front cost.

What do you suggest I do for my mail?  What do you do for yours?  My e-mail is very important to me, and I use it constantly, so I’m open to suggestions.

Finally! A blog post!

Alright, I know, I know, it’s been over six months since I made my last blog post.  I’ll try to fill you in, but who knows.  Or, who cares?

This blog first started when I had my MacBook.  You see, I was loaned a MacBook in November 2008 to fix.  That’s when I set this blog up, and that’s why you can see most of those posts were about Mac and OS X.  Now, the way it usually works, when you get something loaned to you, you have to give it back.  That’s kind of where the blog stopped.

After that, I had to go back to Windows.  Let’s face it, who likes Windows?  I let this blog fall into the back of my mind, and stopped updating it.

In March 2009, I bought a Mac mini.  Finally, I was back on OS X.  Yet I still didn’t update my blog–I had nothing to post.  I was also still preoccupied and busy with school.

Now, it’s July 2009, and I’ve since bought myself a MacBook Pro.  Not being tied up with schoolwork, I have nothing better to do, so I can finally update this blog.

If you’ve actually read this, I applaud you for caring.  I could say that I will update more, but you and I both know that I’ll eventually just end up falling into the same pattern again; it’s inevitable.  Oh well.  At least I can use this blog as something other than a spam magnet.

Oh yes, and that plant I bought last December?  Doing well, thanks for asking.

What I miss about Mac and OS X

Most of you know that for about a month, I had a MacBook in my posession .  The task at hand was to fix it, which got done in about two days, but I couldn’t return it until yesterday.

After going back to Windows Vista, I can definitely say, there are tons of things that OS X has and Windows doesn’t that are just… awesome.

• I never thought I’d say this, but Apple Mail beats Microsoft Outlook hands-down.
• The Finder and Spotlight feature is much easier to use than Windows Explorer… Even with Vista’s “Instant Search”
• Expose makes switching apps so much easier, it puts Microsoft’s “Flip 3D” to shame. I even prefer Expose to using the task bar in Windows!
• While I didn’t get to play around with it much, Spaces definitely makes things a lot easier, especially when you have a ton of windows up at once (which I often do)
• The two-finger scrolling on the trackpad is extremely easy to use.  And to think, I thought that moving your finger on the side of a Windows-based notebook’s touchpad was convenient…
• Not so much software as hardware, but the quality of the iSight webcam is astonishing!  I had a hard time believing it myself at first
• I quite like the Safari browser, even with my being partial to Firefox on Windows
• The software compatibility issues were nowhere near as bad as I had expected them to be, and I found that many of my favorite Windows apps also worked on Mac OS X.
• iChat both works AND looks good!  Never have I been able to find a Windows AIM client that does both at once.

Of course, there are many, many more.  I never thought I’d be a Mac person, but now I’m trying to pool together some money and get a Mac of my own.

Merry Christmas

Once again, Christmas has come and gone.  I’m sure you’ve heard this numerous times already, but you’re going to hear it agin: happy holidays!

I really don’t have much else to say.  Hopefully I’ll make another post tonight, this blog seems really empty for the time being… Meh.

Mac Withdrawl

Well, tonight was officially the night I had to give up “my” MacBook…

Some of you know that I was fixing a MacBook for a relative that had spilled soda on it.  A quick keyboard change and a bit of cleaning out on the inside was all it took to get working again, so from the time that I got it back up and running, it was “mine.”

This was, of course, my first time using OS X.  First impressions aside, I can say that I love it.  I may post a video to follow up on this later, but when I thought I’ve been liking Windows all this time, it turns out that it’s just not that great…

Not sure how I’m going to get by, with having to use Vista now, but my future plans do include a MacBook [Pro].  Not sure what the timeframe is on that, but at least I have something to look forward to!

Happy holidays!

I Bought a Plant

I went to IKEA today to look at furniture (mainly desks), and I ended up walking out with a bamboo plant (well two actually).  They look pretty good on my desk, and hopefully look even better on my new desk!

Plants on desk (ignore the clutter, please)

Giving Blogging Another Shot

Some of you may remember that I used to run a blog here. It’s been sitting at my Webmail login for awhile, but I’ve been convinced that I should [attempt to] start blogging again.

My issue isn’t blogging itself, it’s coming up with ideas for content to post.  The Internet changes every day, and you need to have a way to differentiate yourself from the rest of the crowd.  Nevertheless, I’ll give it a try.
 

If you have suggestions, please contact me through the link in the sidebar. I’d be happy to hear what you have to say!