Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Why feel guilty? It's a good database, with a pile of space. You're going to forget, your hard drive is going to die, your house is going to burn down with all your notes inside, you're going to get fired. What's left? Your Hotmail account, your Gmail account. I pay 20$ a year for virtually infinite data storage with incredible reliability. With Gmail, I get it for free. I pass e-mail between the two for redundancy and as a result the only thing that will kill all my data is an apocalypse or massive economic failure.
My little site.
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.
"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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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?
OR, if you're not paranoid, you can store stuff in your email account and not worry about people in black suits sporting dark sunglasses trying to get to your data.