The Chris Gonyea Project

For the longest time, I had been downloading my e-mail using Mozilla Thunderbird, which is a great open-source e-mail client. It did everything that I ever wanted an e-mail client to do, and then more. Most importantly, it did it securely unlike some other e-mail clients out there that shall remain nameless.

The crucial drawback though to any software e-mail client is the fact that it is tied directly to your computer for the most part. Sure there is IMAP and webmail packages…but while IMAP is great, most webmail software absolutely stinks for functionality. This makes it tough when I am not in front of my computer but have access to another computer and need to check my e-mail.

I had a Gmail account since the beginning, but I never really used it out of really lack of time and a few missing features. However, a recent spin convinced me otherwise to give it a shot.

So I made a bold choice. For the past week I have been forwarding my chrisgonyea.com e-mail directly to my Gmail account. It turns out, I am hooked by this. I am nearly sold on using Gmail as my sole e-mail client.

Gmail makes sorting and finding e-mail a snap. Too easy in fact. I absolutely love how fast it is, as sometimes it is even faster then Thunderbird. 2+ GB of space for free? Priceless. The conversations layout is spectacular, as I can easily backtrack between past replies.

Perhaps the biggest and most interesting feature though is the great junk mail and phishing protection. Even with Thunderbird’s junk mail filtering, I would still spend too much time reviewing the decisions of the filter and make sure there were no false positives. Gmail’s filter is amazing accurate and it is drop dead easy to delete the bad stuff while saving the good stuff. My time filtering out junk has gone from maybe 10 minutes a day (yes I get a ton of junk mail) to maybe a minute tops.

Then there is the phishing protection. Gmail is fantasting in spotting those e-mails that aren’t really from eBay and PayPal. So fantastic in fact, that I feel much better about recommending Gmail to Katie and my family (everyone is converted), as I know they won’t be tricked into clicking a bad link.

I’m still not 100% sold on Gmail, as I have to find a way to import 3 years worth of saved e-mail into the service while keeping everything in the e-mails intact. This is one area where Gmail needs some love…wouldn’t it be awsome to upload all of your past e-mails and then be able to search through them on a whim? I could forward them all, but that is 1) time consuming and 2) I don’t want a bunch of FW: e-mails lying around. I also don’t want to keep an old e-mail client lying around just to go back into my archives.

Decisions decisions.

In the past, I have written very positively about my experience with Comcast. Great customer service, awsome up-times (as in never going down), and so on.

Well there has been a recent trend and it hasn’t been pretty, although there are some positive signs…

One night about a month ago, we lost all cable/internet for the night. Since it was the first problem ever we had with Comcast, Katie and I pretty much just shrugged it off. We took the realistic view that just like with the power company, one night of no cable or internet would harm us.

Then there was a billing problem. Magically, my bill payment disappeared somewhere in Comcast land and was never posted to my account, despite clearing with the bank. Imagine my shock at a $180 bill arrived in the mail. After a month of haggling with the bank and Comcast, it turns out that Comcast had changed my account # with them when we moved to our apartment in October and never told us of the change, so the check was posted to the old account number. Nevermind the fact that they happily cashed and noted I paid my bills between October and January just fine without issues, only to decide in February that it wouldn’t work anymore. I still am scratching my head on this one…why change the account number when I move across town? I can understand changing the account number when I move across the country, but not across a town! Anyways, the problem was resolved, if not in a belated way.

Then this past week…it has simply been a nightmare. Three nights in the past six days, Comcast has had nationwide outages due to a DNS server problem. Don’t get me started on the stupidity of having every subscriber nationwide use the same two DNS servers. Instead of limiting the damage to regionally if they had regional DNS servers, they basically had their entire nationwide network shut down.

So three times in the past week, we had no internet all evening. I finally found out that we could switch DNS servers manually (should have realized this in the first place), so I programmed my wireless router to use three DNS servers from an awsome list on BroadbandReports.com. Instantly back online. Makes you wonder why they couldn’t do the same on a nationwide level and get everyone back on.

The silver lining in this…Comcast would be crazy to let another nationwide outage happen, especially with the in-roads that DSL is making since it is sometimes cheaper then cable. I would in fact look at Verizon DSL (cheaper and now nearly as fast), except it has an awful reputation in Manchester, NH.

I must thank the person at Comcast Customer Service who was willing to credit me $10.72 for the past week on my account due to the outages. That was very kind and hopefully a sign that things will be getting better.

Note: Just as I was about to post everything, it looks like there is another outage tonight…thank you alternate DNS numbers…

National

General Outage

(Connection to the Internet is currently unavailable. Our technicians are aware of the situation and are working to resolve the issue. This outage was logged at : 4/14/2005 8:22:00 PM EDT.)

I was given the Bourne Identity as a Christmas gift…and took this long to watch it. I am pathetic, I have to watch movies more often. What a movie.

That was the best episode of 24 yet. Wow.

Tonight is the start of what all of us Red Sox fans have been waiting for…the first game after winning a world championship. It has been a long time since any Red Sox fan has been put in that position (1919)…I guarentee it will be well worth the wait.

Even better is the fact we are facing the Yankees in this first game. Too bad the game couldn’t be at Fenway, but that just gives us an opprotunity to win a few games in enemy territory before rubbing our rings in the Yankee faces at Fenway

Honestly though, I am just estatic to be in this position. It is hard to believe that it has already been 6 months since that final out in Game 4 and the parade that I attended in Boston. It just brings smiles back to my face whenever I think about it.

Tonight is the beginning of the rest of our lives as Red Sox fan. We now have 160 games to work our way through in order to defend the title.

Wouldn’t have it any other way