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E-mail As the New Database
jira writes "BBC has an article confirming the trend of using inbox as a sort of personal database. At my workplace I can personally attest to the growing sizes of those pst files and an unwillingness to erase any emails because of 'loss of information'." From the article: "The trend has become more pronounced as the services have dramatically increased their storage capacity in response to upstart Gmail offering a free service with 1,000 megabytes (Mb) of storage." Update: 04/22 23:03 GMT by Z : To reflect that the story is at respected news organization BBC, not a BBS.
I must say, I'm very guilty of this.
I only tend to delete spam. It DOES get handy when I need something though.
3 gmail's search.
Foxed Design
Gmail is up over two gigabytes now.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
Mb = Megabits MB = Megabytes
8Mb = 1MB
I hope this clears things up!
Thanks to Google's Infinite Improbability Storage Drive, storage space is now at 2.120 GB to 1 and rising.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Doesn't GMail offer more space than that now? When was this article submitted?
Maybe it's submissions get rejected immediately but take weeks to be accepted? This one clearly sat in the queue for 3 weeks.
It's not uncommon for users to have several GB of email on the server and multiple archive files. Disk is cheap, backup windows are MASSIVE. At what point does reliability outweigh convenience? According to users? NEVER.
-Randy
Yep. I do desktop support and nobody wants to delete anything. that's their paper trail and the one email they delete may mean their job down the line as people are looking for somebody to blame and heads to chop. Most communication is done through email with proper CCs (and sometimes BCCs) and they require it even between people sutting next to eachother just so there is that paper trail at a later date. When they've told somebody or reported an issue, they want to show proof they've done so later if somebody else drops the ball and there are people looking for blame.
"Gmail offering a free service with 1,000 megabytes (Mb) of storage."
I don't know about you, but my Gmail has 2121.046851 megabytes of storage space. I mean 2121.047702 megabytes. I mean 121.048913 megabytes. I mean...
Personally, I think it is a good idea, I would really like to see Google Implementing some kind of "GDrive", where I can have all or most of my documents, I know there is an ap for doing it in Gmail but, I maybe a Google's service with web page and file browser interface (as cool as their Gmail interface) would be nice.
.ppt etc) talking about Scotland vacations, I get some ads about vacations.
Of course, I would like it to be free (as all other Google's services), and I would not mind having the ads at the side if for example I have a document (.DOC,
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
My personal database says that I'm a pervert with a small penis who uses lots of prescription drugs financed by taking a 2nd mortgage and my relative in Nigeria.
Doesn't anyone else just think that email totally sucks? I can't remember the last time I checked my email other than to hit 'confirm' when I signed up for some stupid web service like nytimes.com.
Every time I try to save an email, it ends up getting deleted anyway when I'm throwing out the spam 100's of emails at a time. Email is useless as it is and nothing important should ever be done with an email.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
PR As stated, trend reports are almost always PR. At least it isn't a dupe.
2*31*37*263
Like other people I have all this information (emails, ebooks, papers, photos, mp3s, whatever) but there really aren't any good applications out there for organising it. In fact, the best applications out there are probably file systems but they aren't exactly smart. It's incredible that the organization software we have is so bad that people are finding that their email clients are serving this purpose even though their ability to do this is basically a side effect. Only now have companies like MS and Apple finally realised that searching though data is something important. Why has it taken this long?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
But searching sucks, and I depend on Evolution to do virtual folders. I'd love it even more if my email server was actually a true RDBMS where I could have, besides the traditional IMAP interface, a D (Tutorial D or D4 or something the like) language interface where I could query at will, and save my queries as views that would show up in IMAP as (virtual) folders.
BTW, even non-relational ISO SQL would be so much better than what we have now.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
"BBS has an article confirming the trend of using inbox as a sort of personal database. At my workplace I can personally attest to the growing sizes of those pst files and an unwillingness to erase any emails because of 'loss of information'." From the article: "The trend has become more pronounced as the services have dramatically increased their storage capacity in response to upstart Gmail offering a free service with 1,000 megabytes (Mb) of storage."
.PST
BBS = The BBC
pst = Microsoft Outlook
Gmail is no upstart, they're run by Google. Gmail currently offers 2121MB (that's Megabytes, not Mb - which is MegaBITS)
This isn't news. This is what Google had in mind when they started the Gmail service.
Actually, it's the British Broadcasting Corporation...
;)
(and they turned me down for a job last week, the ignorant fools
One good turn - gets all the covers.
One possibility is that Hotmail's market dominance could be affected by rival services better equipped to search through thousands of e-mails.
You're telling me. I've had about 10-15 people fed up with hotmail ask me for Gmail invites and they're spreading them to friends and family as well afterwards. Lately I've been having trouble with hotmail and completely switched over to Gmail because of it. I think hotmail had its time to shine, but hasn't been able to keep up with the any of the new services. The one nice feature that Gmail includes that hotmail doesn't ironically is the ability to forward e-mail, unless I'm just totally blind they seemed to have removed it. The other item I noticed is the decrease in spam after I switched, I barely get any and I use my gmail account to sign-up for everything!
I say we just grow up, be adults and die.
No, that's what Mailinator is for. (to hit confirm when you sign up for a service like nytimes).
Welcome to Mailinator(tm) - Its no signup, instant anti-spam service. Here is how it works: You are on the web, at a party, or talking to your favorite insurance salesman. Wherever you are, someone (or some webpage) asks for your email. You know if you give it, you're gambling with your privacy. On the other hand, you do want at least one message from that person. The answer is to give them a mailinator address. You don't need to sign-up. You just make it up on the spot. Pick jonesy@mailinator.com or bipster@mailinator.com - pick anything you want (up to 15 characters before the @ sign).
Later, come to this site and check that account. Its that easy. Mailinator accounts are created when mail arrives for them. No signup, no personal information, and when you're done - you can walk away - an instant solution to one way spammers get your address. Its an anti-spam solution for everyone. The messages are automatically deleted for you after a few hours.
Let'em spam.
One gigabyte is 1000 megabytes. Perhaps you're thinking of a gibibyte?
It must have been a *really* slow news day, or someone at the BBC is rather slow. Techies have been doing this since the 1st email message was received, and everyone else has been doing it since they discovered email.
I know a small handful of people who tend to keep their email cleaned out and very small. For everyone else, it's a huge. mostly convenient database.
This "story" is only about 1% less sill than reporting that "recent study shows people prefer to breathe than to stop".
Back in the days of paper, people had document shredders, if they did not want a record of a conversation it was easy to convey information without having a record.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I've just started using David Allen's system Getting Things Done (GTD) for organizing my work, mostly in response to a new position at work that has me involved in a lot more projects than before.
It's the lowest-overhead way I've found of staying organized. One of his tenets is getting your Inbox (both physical and virtual) to empty. I've done it.
Here I am on a Friday afternoon with exactly three items in my email Inbox, and none in my physical one -- although I've been working on three different projects today, and am currently involved (off and on) in a usability role in half a dozen others.
The biggest benefit so far in implementing this system has been rapid context switches: the biggest benefit so far has been faster context switches: I'm moving from project to project, meeting to meeting, and nothing gets lost - email, papers, usability test results, are all quickly and accurately accessible.
I guess my point is that even if email is being used as a personal database, it probably shouldn't be. Or at least, it should be structured in such a way that items are (1) only archived if they need to be for future reference, and there's no action to be taken on them, or (2) filed because you're waiting for someone else to do something, but you think you'll need to act once they're done.
I've only been at this for two weeks, but the benefits thus far have been dramatic, with very little overhead. Look up the book in your library or favorite local bookstore; I've been very impressed.
But, I find my email working in exactly the way he proposed. My email package provides the best database I have of my work and communication. Searchable by date, correspondent, content, subject; control-click to organize by date, sender, header; automatic filters to sort by same; subfolders; attachments of all kinds accessable by the search; and I can add to it from anywhere by emailing myself. I use email to mainain to-do (email myself), I use email to maintain a calendar of past activities by searching for email on the topic (when did we do X?) , I use email to store minor documents and search for them as attachments. By using pop and downloading all email to my harddrive, I have no limitations of an account.
So, while dubious about "lifestreams", I've backed into it as the core of my work habits.
Ever have to deal with a bloated and corrupted .pst file?
:-)
No fun.
Users that like to keep everything on the planet should probably think twice about trusting it all to Microsoft Outlook (or any local POP email client, for that matter)
IMAP rocks.
In spite of Google's business principle against evil and in spite of the my frequent use of gmail, I think it is fundamentally bad and potentially evil. "Possession is nine points of the law", and there is no good reason for Google to be in possession of *MY* email. A few GBs of storage is *NOT* the issue, and I have plenty of free GBs right here in my possession, even including space for the indexes. Perhaps Google really is a good company and they will never abuse the power of possessing someone's email--but the historical evidence does not support that belief. Every power gets abused sooner or later.
In simplest terms, here is the threat of online gmail: Would you want your worst enemy to have access to all of your email? If you have put it into gmail, then all it would take is a single password leak.
The constructive alternative is obvious. Gmail should live primarily on your own disk, preferably integrated with the Google Desktop. The nine points of possession would remain on *YOUR* side, since you would still possess all of your email.
Many extended services could then be built on that model...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I am suprised the RIAA has not gone after email companies yet, they have to be an attractive target. It is going to be an easy way of sharing MP3's. I might have a CD, rip the best songs to MP3's and email all my friends. Hell, maybe we'll even form an email group that does nothing but share MP3's. I wonder if the RIAA will come after them if that becomes the next trend.
Why on earth would a person need 2 gigabytes for email? If it is a company, they must have their own storage, nobody would want to trust a free email account for buisness.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
You can't change the accepted use of something mid course and expect people to use it.
If you need to invent a new universal quantity for measuring computer storage, then feel free to use a new acronym, but don't steal existing ones.
(I know this rant is not aimed at the parent poster, more about the shitfit of ambiguity that this subject brings up, and whoever green lighted this as a proposal should be shot. I'll stop now, sorry)
liqbase
I'd say metadata, and its acceptance.
When people used to have a couple hundred mp3s or photos, it wasn't a big deal to just operate by file names or date imported. This is completely anecdotal, but I'd guess people are starting to be smarter about tagging their docs, pics, music, etc properly and thoroughly now that your average user is acumulating larger and larger amounts of data. I know with iPhoto and iTunes, I've found that investing the time is a good tagging strategy had made life a lot easier.
Now that users are using metadata, makers of OS's can utilize metadata to make a better product.
You know what?
Of course, after having this pointed out to me it I realised -- "too late" -- that this should have been obvious to me, only I had never bothered to give it any thought.
My point is, thanks for reminding us all of this fact in an appropriate forum. Google fanboys may mod you down but, you raise a very important and relevant point that deserves consideration. I hope I'm not the only one who thinks so.
IANAL, but I would hazard a guess that your company might be in deep shit if they ever go to court and in the discovery phase are required to produce emails older than 30 days, unless you are maintaining some form of back up. These days, *everything* can seemingly be construed as discoverable evidence - meaning even Instant Messaging traffic should be recorded and backed up if it concerns business operations.
Now, I am sure your legal dept knows what its doing, but I am very suprised to hear that you nuke it all after 30 days. In a couple of cases, discovery costs have been huge because of improper storage and availability. For instance in Simon Property Group L.P. v. mySimon, Inc. I believe a company was required to turn over multiple computers so they could be examined for deleted files, since deleted documents are still considered evidence. If a court case demanded company-wide analysis of all your desktop computers and relevant servers for deleted emails it could prove quite costly, and I am sure the other party would have pretty good legal support for asking the court to put the bulk of the restoration costs on your company.
Its often the case that the legal folks and the IT folks don't talk the same language, and given the level of litigation that goes on these days I think its becoming more important to bridge that gap, if only in self defense. :)
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
You know what - changing jobs every couple of years is a nice way to clear out mental, virtual, and sometime physical clutter that is no longer needed.
Truth is this is the only real reason I left my last job four years ago. After six years I had become the go-to guy for every damn thing that computed. My ability to accomplish anything was approaching zero. Now, another half decade later, the same thing is occurring.
As far as email goes my policy is; delete nothing, period. Spam is the only exception. On at least three different occasions in the past ten years I've had to dig hard to find something I wrote years before. In each case I found it and saved my own ass. You can pry my old email out of my cold dead disk, but you best bring plenty of ammo.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Every respectable mail client from pine through gmail allows you to save mail to folders other than "Inbox". Anyone who does not take advantage of this feature, and allows their inbox to grow to hundreds or more megabytes is a damned moron.
Inbox is for messages you have just received or otherwise still require your attention. If you got it four years back, it doesn't belong in your inbox.
When you get a magazine subscription via snail mail, do you leave your back issues out at streetside, clogging up the mailbox, or do you bring them in and store them in a rack or closet? Why would electronic mail be any different?
And, yes, I keep archived copies of my .pst files so they can't "accidentally" disappear from the server.
Gmail offering a free service with 1,000 megabytes (Mb) of storage
Gmail doesn't offer 1gig anymore. They offer 2.1gigs and the number is always increasing.
or else!
- This is a good thing
- it is an emergent property of email technology and the role of email in everyday life
- it happens because email forms a chain of events related to your life that maintains temporal and spatial relations of information
- this is good for finding things you might want again
- I think services like GMail need to expand on this idea and continue to add features that make email a better personal database -- searchable on more axies, and good at filtering out the noise
If you are interested, read my http://www3.telus.net/cgapeart/2005/04/email-as-pMore Caffeine. NOW
I have a filter set up that checks for
"From:kejaed@gmail.com" and "To:kejaed@gmail.com"
basically checking if I sent the message to myself. If this is the case, it's filed under the "notes to self" label. Quite handy, although searching for what I want usually gets me there too.
Mail and Usenet are the two hardest things to backup. A large mail system or a usenet feed can have hundreds of thousands of tiny files being added and removed per minute (if you use a single mail file, a few kilobytes written to the end of the file every couple of seconds, followed by 1 GB of data being copied over itself because the user finally erased that first email from the head of the file since they were over quota.
Seriously attempting to keep a backup of this mess means mailservers that refuse to delete a message that hasn't been on the server for more than one backup cycle. It means using either a checkpoint/snapshot filesystem or mirrored RAID array then pulling out one of the drives to perform the backup from, then putting it back and hoping that it synchs up before it's time for the next backup.
This is why nobody bothers doing this for usenet. Too much work just to save some porn.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
So if your girlfriend is willing to keep your notes in read-only format, and send you notes in the same format, then it'll protect you, or if your unindicted co-conspirator wants to stay unindicted, then you won't get an Ollie North what do you mean the email's backed up on optical WORM disks?!?!? surprise. But if your girlfriend cuts&pastes your email to her diary, she can later post it to alt.sex.ex-boyfriends.losers, and if your co-conspirator prints out emails because it's easier than reading small type on screen and then stores them in his file cabinet, you can still get busted later. Also, if the Feds hand a warrant to the privacy server operator requiring them to hand over any keys they have for mail to or from you, and they have any keys they haven't already deleted, you lose, but any keys they've already deleted are gone. (I think they also did a version of the keyserver for companies that wanted to maintain them in-house.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
It's been very useful for helping maintain her system - when Somethine Bad happens to her PC, whether it's spyware or bit rot or hard drive problems, whichever child is nearby can just format the disk, reinstall whatever generation of Windows is handy, get a new AOL coaster (I picked one up in the hotel lobby last trip :-), and she can log in and all her bookmarks, email, buddy lists, etc. are all there right away. We did have to buy an actual install-from-scratch version of XP once, because she'd lost the old Windows ME disk, but WinME was such a loss that scraping it off the disk and getting rid of Compaq's "helpful" system backup software were a pleasure anyway.
Meanwhile, *my* mom's still happily using her decade-old Mac Performa 630 with System 7.x, Netscape and Eudora, keeps her data on disk as text files that she backs up to floppy, had to buy some more RAM a few years ago so a new printer driver would work reliably, and her only real problem is that her local Mac repair guy retired and no longer makes house calls. It's much more reliable, but she's never been afraid of technology.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If you've been collecting emails from a long time, reading your oldest emails are really interesting, a bit like time travel. I checked mail from ~9 years ago, was surprised how immature some subjects were, but was impressed with the writing, I used to write better...
I'd really be interested in my current emails 30 years from now. I wonder if the email companies can 'hide' older mail, and sell them to you years later at a high cost, or to your relatives when you die.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Don't pick up the phone. I don't want to waste time talking to you when I could be getting work done.
I definately don't want to see you in person unless it's a social visit and I happen to have a moment of freetime.
I want you to list out, in written detail, exactly what you need so I can reply, in written detail, with useful information. Be clear, consise, and detailed.
I plan to pull up this email next week when you claim we never discussed the topic. I'll kindly remind you that we did discuss the topic and you agreed to take care of your business. If I asked to record the phone call, you'd probably have a panic attack.
If you really have something important to discuss, you can write it down. Spoken words are meaningless and forgettable.
Phone calls are interruptions that require my full attention. Emails can be replied to as my time becomes available.
I'm still waiting for Gmail to let me upload my Outlook.pst file.