My Set Up Part 1: Email

I am going to make a series of posts concerning how I set up my applications/and how I do what I do. Everything I describe I get without cost, unless you count google ads as a cost.

I use gmail. Gmail is hands down the best email client I have ever come across. For free, you get about two and a half gigabytes of storage, ridiculously effective spam protection, unlimited mail forwarding and all manner of nice little tricks and extras. The only bad part is that by dealing with e-mail entirely online you have no access if your isp goes down, or if (more rare) google experiences technical difficulties. You can alleviate this by fetching your mail from gmail (or any other online e-mail provider) with a program like thunderbird or outlook, which automatically fetch your e-mail and store it on your pc (among other things). The other bad part would be that Google would have access to all your private data.

I actually use two gmail accounts, john.jperkins@gmail.com and somethingelse@gmail.com (note, not my real address).

The reason I do this is s that I can direct people I know personally/professionally at the john address, whereas the somethingelse address is for gaming handles, forums ect. With corporations in particular taking a keen interest in the online activities of job applicants, I do not want to worry about what I am doing or whom I am associating with online and how it might look to a hiring corporation. Someone could still track my other activities down, it would just be more difficult (anyone who searches for john perkins without my e-mail address gets a shaman/economic hitman or a famous doctor). All mail is forwarded from the john address to the something else address, and I can even send mail I compose in the somethingelse address from the john address.

Web 2.0 summary

Web 2.0 is a term bandied about with a reckless abandon these days. It means a lot of things to a lot of different people. Let me try my hand at explaining.

As near as I can figure, web 2.0 mainly describes the resurgent development of the internet (similar to the tech bubble in the late 90's). This wave is driven primarily by a programming methodology/discipline called AJAX (click here for examples of the how and what of Ajax, or just click on the star rating over in the side bar). This is coupled with a design which tries to harness the incredible value of user interaction, networking, and desire to replace desktop functions with web based ones. Of course there is lots of money for development right now, and that never hurts.

Wikipedia defines Web 2.0 as "a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes."

The idea is to change the the web from a assortment of static websites (think book pages with music and videos) to services, aggregators (automatic collectors and sorters) and social networks which draw on the unique advantages of placing data/programs in a almost universally accessible platform (the internet). I can't really think of a picture to explain this, things are being done now that can only be done because of the unique properties of the internet.

I will get into some more specifics later (specifically how I use Web 2.0 products) but a few services I can definitely recommend (and use) are del.icio.us, GrandCentral, and Google Reader (I intend for my next post to be about RSS and Feeds, so if you are unfamiliar with these wait till check out Google Reader).

If you want to be overwhelmed, this is a nicely formatted directory of sites claiming the Web 2.0 banner.