So I've always been someone who believed the best way to access my data was locally.  I like the concept of cloud computing but its always seemed to me that given the option, I should be getting my data locally first and from the cloud second.  While I still think that it is an ideal situation in many cases, there are some scenarios that it doesn't make as much sense for me anymore.  Email has always been one of the big ones for me.  I'm a pretty heavy email user so being able efficiently access my accounts has always been important to me.

Well, when I switched servers last week to Dreamhost, they had an option to let GMail manage my email.  Since GMail supports IMAP I figured, sure, why not.  I changed my settings in Outlook and it was looking good.  But then I started to think.  I maintain like 4 or 5 seperate email addresses.  I have to check all those accounts.  On my desktop, not a huge deal.  On my phone it is a little annoying to check so many emails.  The biggest reason is that for every additional account I have, its just one more account that's polling the servers every so often.

Not only that, but my phone's GMail integration is amazing.  I mean, it is Android so it better be.  I thought it would be great if I could check my personal email through it but that would require changing my GMail login on my phone.  I can only do one or the other.  Except Gmail lets you import email from one account to another.  So now my personal email all routes to my gmail account.  Which lets me eliminate an email account on my phone and improve battery life.

But that's not the end of the story.  I decided I'd use Outlook on my desktop to check email still.  And then I had a realization.  Outlook email really needs to be archived every so often.  Performance takes a hit if you have too much email in your inbox.  (Poor design of that which is a shame since the software is overall great...but I digress!)  I realized that if I archived it that I'd wipe out what was on the server.  And GMail's biggest benefit is the ability to easily search your email.  But I want to get email notifiacations on my desktop.

Enter Digsby, the best IM client I've ever used.  I already use Digsby for my 4 or 5 IM accounts and it also syncs up with Facebook (allowing me to always be online there which is kinda funny) and Twitter.  Well it can also do email.  So I put in my gmail information and voila!  Desktop notifications so I know I have email.  This works out really well for my netbook because now I don't need to download email via Thunderbird (which I like but storage is a premium for me) and I can run less software since I'm already going ot be running a web browser & Digsby always.