This post from MicroPersuasion details Steve Rubel’s methods of using Gmail plus Google tools to create a web-based super-nerve center, providing such assets as a personal database, real-time news updates, storing bookmarks, managing calendar and to-do lists, and even blogging all from Gmail as the base.
I applaud this kind of out of the box thinking. Cooking up inventive solutions is what being an Inspired Solo is all about. But I have a cautionary note to sound and it’s best summed up thus by Lifehacker, the uber-site when it comes to all things technologically combined:
Rubel’s methods are certainly inventive, and though they lack the speed of similar offline tools, they are spot-on if you do a lot of work from different computers. Though it’s hard to imagine doing all of this from Gmail (sometimes it’s best not to try to make an apple out of an orange), it can make life easier to integrate tools when you can, and Rubel offers several interesting ways to squeeze more functionality out of Gmail.
This is essentially my watershed test when it comes to any new tech solution: is it actually going to save me time? Or does it just feel like it? Be careful to ensure you’re really creating juicier oranges – not trying to turn an apple into an orange, as Lifehacker puts it – when you explore new “hacks” that promise to make your practice easier.
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Agreed.
I use Google homepage as my main hub for web 2.0 stuff — gmail, google reader, calendar, bookmarks, docs/spreadsheets, etc. (Jeez, if they go out of business, I am toast.)
I don’t know that it is any faster than stand alone products, but I do have an unnatural attachment to having things all under one roof.