Comments on: I Ditched Google Reader & Gmail to Increase My Productivity

By: Greg Syferd

Greg Syferd — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:22:03 +0000

New reader…first time poster.

You hit on my overall impression of Google. They do a lot of good stuff, they really do. However, I have found more and more often their products are like those all-in-one scanner/fax/printer devices you get at Best Buy…they do a lot of things, but none of them are exceptional.

I tried to go the opposite way, from Mail and NNW to Google Apps. I found the Google Apps lacking in features, visually uninspiring, and lack of integration with other products to be non-existent.

Use the best tool for the job…Google some instances is that tool. Just be sure you have considered alternatives.

Look forward to exploring your site further.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:16:18 +0000

@ Kevin,

I’ll let you know, certainly!

By: Kevin Becker

Kevin Becker — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:46:17 +0000

Can you let us know how this feels after a month or two? For me, the initial breaking of a habit is only half the problem- staying on the wagon is the hard part.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:25:37 +0000

Candy – When Chrome gets released for OS X I think I’ll try running gmail in it and give it a separate space. Great thought!

By: Candy Schwartz

Candy Schwartz — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:21:54 +0000

Ditto – gave up on GReader a year ago and moved to a NetVibes page with four tabs and far fewer feeds. On the other hand, just moved all mail into GMail, but in fact that’s turning out to be quite efficient. Using Chrome to set up kind of “spaces” equivalents for mail, calendar, and desktop Twitter et al. apps on second screen; FireFox, Word, etc. for work in main screen. I have noticed that a lot of folk have been talking about this kind of thing recently, including the famously hypersocial.

By: lauren pressley

lauren pressley — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:17:14 +0000

I love this! I have been through nearly exactly the same transition in the past few weeks and it’s been great. I can’t use a Mac at work, so I just use this set up at home on my personal machine, but I do use it there. It’s a little frustrating to not be able to check in on the NNW on my PC, but it does work on the iPhone, so if I just want to scan, it works well for that. I try not to check my Gmail at work, so knowing I use the mail.app version helps me avoid browsing to the site. Thanks, too, for the spaces information. For some reason I left it limited to four, but after seeing how you’re using it, I added a new column. Good stuff!

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:48:45 +0000

I appreciate this. I started with NNW back in the day… never took to Google Reader and now use Safari’s RSS and Netvibes to monitor things. I have also cut way back on the blogs I monitor everyday. Good post.

By: Greg Schwartz

Greg Schwartz — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:37:08 +0000

So true. I remember Andrea Mercado once referred to RSS readers as slave makers. I’m really starting to get that and re-evaluate my practices. I’m not sure desktop apps are the solution for me, but I like the line of thinking that got you there.