Sunday, 21 April 2013
After more then eight years I gave up Gmail as my main email service and the primary client and pushed the “Delete this account” button today in my Google Apps control panel. It wasn’t an easy decision, but one that required lot of thinking and time to make.
Why does one decide to quit Gmail - the world’s most widely used web-based email solution? My reasons were complex and started to add up over time:
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#1 Privacy. To be fair, Google has always been open about mining information from emails in order to display relevant ads. We all got used to it. They are an advertisement company after all. The wake-up call came when the ads crossed the line. They became too specific. Too personal. And not just in Gmail.
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#2 Technical issues. Three times over last year I lost access to one of my email accounts for more than 24 hours. Once it was related to the upgrade of the service, another time it was part of some technical glitch, a couple times I wasn’t able to use other browsers than Chrome, etc.
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#3 Getting locked out of various Google Services. You can live happily in Google’s world up to the point when your activity is evaluated by some unknown automated mechanism as the violation of their T&C . Being locked out from AdWords for no apparent reason was annoying and definitely a big hit for our business. When we lost an unpaid balance in AdSense as part of the account termination a couple months later, it just added to the overall aggravation and made me aware of the risks if such a thing would happen with other services run by Google. All requests for explanation ended in “please, do not contact us again”. To this date we weren’t able to find out what went wrong.
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#4 Customer support is a joke
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#5 Google itself
Leaving Gmail is difficult. Where to? Using a plain IMAP account with desktop client is still an option but being able to access a comfortable web platform from anywhere is too hard to throw away. Running our own dedicated mail server is no longer acceptable (who would do that these days anyway), not to mention rather strange open-source web interfaces.
The situation changed at the end of last year, when FastMail - a prominent candidate on my list for some time - introduced a new sleek web interface. That just topped the list of otherwise perfect features and convinced me to make a jump. First with a random test account. Followed by a secondary email address, to finally switch my primary email account a couple days later. Migration itself was painless, although it took more than 6 hours to copy all messages. The only minor hitch was the fact that all messages were initially duplicated, a problem easily fixed by FastMail’s interface.
And how is it now, weeks after the full switchover? Just perfect, I have to tell you. There’s not much to say about other IMAP/SMTP accounts - FastMail does one thing and does it right. The web interface itself is snappy, easy to use and what’s surprising is that I don’t miss what seemed to be an ‘unbeatable user experience from Google’ at all. Service is improving constantly, for example recently they have added fast-search options across all folders or a new reading pane.
The unexpected bonus you get with FastMail is the ability to use pretty much an unlimited number of domains and personalities in a single account, without having any funny stuff in message headers or difficult configurations. So that’s no more multiple accounts for me!
Obviously I still keep my original gmail.com address as a backup and to be able to use other Google services. But it’s now one of many other email accounts.
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Now that my first screencast has been finalized and published online, I thought it would be a good time to share insights into the things that I learned while producing it. You’ll see that what initially seemed to be a pretty straightforward task, turned out to be a quite a bumpy ride indeed. The first, and probably biggest mistake I made, was to assume that the production of a screencast resembles anything close to the prep and delivery of the regular training sessions that I normally conduct. Talking to a live audience is much more forgiving and natural than making an impersonal recording. For me, it felt like the screencast uncovered all the weaknesses and dark sides of my communication abilities.
Despite your best efforts, it is very difficult to deliver a natural-sounding script during the screencast. I eventually realized that the best method to use was to focus more on what I wanted to demonstrate, in terms of individual steps and important points, than to try and meticulously plan out a script.
I would advise to start recording raw version first. Focus on showing the information that is important and try to talk it through set-by-step. Don’t worry about saying something stupid, making mistakes or mumbling: that’s all very natural. Recording made me realise how difficult is to focus on doing something while speaking about it at the same time.
When you’re happy with the recording (which might take several re-edits), review what you said and make appropriate corrections. I think that the best way to approach this is to write it all down. The trick is to use the edited version as the basis for your voiceover; it will make your speech much more relaxed and natural sounding and you don’t have to worry about timing, because as long as you’re watching the video track at the same time it’s easy to get in sync.
I found that splitting both the recording and the voiceover into 3 - 6 minute long segments provided valuable checkpoints. Although the length of the screencast really depends on the target audience, it is worth noting that, in my (limited) experience and based on the first viewing statistics, it seems that the majority of viewers tend to give up after watching the video for 20 minutes or so. If you really can’t get finish within this time, it’s probably best to split the screencast into several parts.
With the right tools editing can be easy. My software of choice is ScreenFlow for Mac or Camtasia for Windows. Both share similar features like multi-layer editing, trimming, audio and video adjustments, callouts, and also provide streamlined workflow.
While the software you use makes the difference when editing, it’s the microphone you use that can be the real showstopper. My original voiceover was recorded using an everyday Bluetooth headset. Looking back I admit it was foolish to think it might work. The audio quality was just awful, and spending time trying to clean it up/adjust it was not worth the effort. I really would recommend that you buy a semi-professional microphone like Rode Podcaster; it is certainly worth the investment (especially if you’re thinking about podcasting/screencasting on a regular basis).
Friday, 07 October 2011
In last 10 months I became a terrible procrastinator. By the end of the summer, it had reached critical level. Whilst day-to-day work remained more or less reasonable, the long-term productivity imploded. The reason? A dramatic change in my daily routine and significantly different working style.
Beginning in February, I stopped working 9 to 5, and, as a result the so-called ‘normal working day’ disintegrated into patchy fragments. The only way to get back on track was to find ways how to better organize my work and time to regain productivity.
Here’s what helped me so far:
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One inbox became a necessity. Regardless of saying that the tools don’t matter I found OmniFocus extremely helpful. Everything goes there - emails, short notes, tasks, errands, ideas - you name it. It doesn’t matter if you rigorously follow GTD practices or not. Having one inbox guarantees nothing will slip out of the radar. Individual tasks might fall behind, but except in few extreme situations it’s not a showstopper.
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Time boxing improved my ability to do one thing at a time. With Pomodoro technique it’s easy to split everything into 25-minute chunks, short enough periods to overcome the temptation to do something different, and yet just long enough to get something done. After while I found that I tend to plan almost everything in pomodoros.
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Limited distraction achieved by opening email only during the time dedicated for it. Same goes for Twitter. And anytime I have a sudden, eart-shattering idea, I simply add it to OmniFocus inbox, where I could get back to it later.
Still, I found sometimes, that’s not enough. The temptation to lose focus was always there. Until I learned to switch off Wi-Fi completely when not needed. Try it. You get used to it after while. When you overcome the urge to Google everything life becomes much simpler. You begin to remember things again, and you improve battery life (laptop’s, not yours) as side effect.
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But, ultimately, the best remedy against distraction proved to be pen and paper. I bought some Pukka A5 manuscript pads and a nice roller ball, and Eureka, it worked! I re-discovered that scratching notes and concepts down on paper is fast, efficient, and much easier to visualise. Also returning to previous notes feels natural.
Initially, I scanned almost every handwritten page straight to Evernote. Now, I trust the paper even more and scan notes only from time to time. Event this post was originally written by hand.
All in all, these little changes helped me to get back on track, despite my challenging daily routine. That’s something I can work on later… :)