I have been a fan of google for along time. I’ve had a gmail account for as long as I can remember (back when you had to be invited) and gmail has always handled my personal domain email address. I love the fact that no matter how many times I move, change jobs, change internet providers, my email address will always be the same until the day I die (or email dies)
Recently I made the switch to stop using Mail as my email interface and start going to just using gmail. I gotta say at first I was kind of frustrated and tried other apps like thunderbird. I was also frustrated trying to get my exchange (work) accounts working in that workflow. However the more I started using it, the more I LOVED it. I could be on any computer anywhere and have my full featured mail client.
The more I did this the more I loved it and started using other features. I stopped using iCal and started using google calendar. I stopped using word (super slow and buggy on a mac anyways) and started using google docs. This really helped the situation I had with syncing my blackberry. I downloaded google apps for blackberry and had access to all these things now on my blackberry
Then I started putting more and more of my documents online using google docs or box.net or Evernote or dropbox. Then I started using delicious for all my bookmarks. Now no matter what computer I am on, I have access to them and now that I have an iPhone, I can access a lot of those items from my phone.
Now that I have resigned from my job at The MET (details coming soon about that) and have to turn in my computer, I am currently computerless. Sure I have that old powerbook G4 – but as soon as I did the updates to try to get functioning it has frozen. Hopefully I’ll be able to get it working soon. Anyways since I am computerless I am very grateful I made the decision to go google with most of my stuff.
Now if only I could sync my iPod, iPhone, iTunes, iPhoto and TV from any computer over the web. Then I’d be in business!
If you want to read a little more about this go here.
i’ve made pretty much that same move tim. what is interesting to me, which is something a roommate of mine predicted who did security networks for sun microsystems, that we would all be working with just a monitor and keyboard and that we would have some server out there in cyberspace we rented or got for free that housed all our information & files. of course this prediction came back in 2000 from my friend so i suppose the future is now with our friends at google.