I frequently move between computers, and so have found the 'old way' of keeping all my communications and organisation on one computer to be increasingly limiting. Based on recommendations, I've made the effort to migrate to Google Mail, Google Calendar and Remember the Milk. While it's nice to be free from specific machines, I have found the desktop integration to be lacking.
My main bugbear is desktop notification. Gmail is fine here, as it uses standard mail protocols (its IMAP implementation is 'interesting', but it does work) - a desktop applet polls the inbox and tells me when there's something new. The same can't be said for Google Calendar and Remember the Milk. How can I be notified when there is an appointment or to-do item due? Gcal can show a pop-up within the Web browser window (so I need Firefox to be open and visible at all times for this to be useful). SMS and e-mail notification are nice, but not optimal. Remember the Milk has a similar problem, except that SMS reminders don't work here (ironic considering the company is based on Chatswood, but perhaps understandable given how telcos operate here). What I want is a desktop reminder similar to what you'd get with Korganiser/Kontact, Evolution and so on - something in-my-face that I can't miss, but with an option to snooze/suspend. It should also not be dependent on a Web browser being in the foreground (or even open at all). Gcal and RTM _should_ allow for this easily, except that they don't export VALARM parameters in their ICAL feeds. Currently I just use the e-mail notification, but that isn't optimal. So, how does one have their head in the cloud without losing sight of the real world? - Sridhar -- Bring choice back to your computer. http://www.linux.org.au/linux -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
