Month: August 2011

About a month ago or so we ditched our Microsoft Exchange server and moved everyone at our firm to Google.

I had moved to Google about a year before everyone else but it was a hack. I basically forwarded all my Spark Capital mail to google. It was messy. I had a screwed up address book. And I had mail in gmail and contacts and calendar on the Exchange server. Like I said – it was a hack.

Now we are all on Google, the good clearly outweighs the bad although some of my colleagues despise how gmail handles “coversations”. I love it but it’s not for everyone. 

I won’t list out all of the good stuff. It’s a long list and probably obvious to many. 

But here are the shortcomings of an all google world. hopefully the folks in Mtn View are working on these things.

-Calendar font is too small and squished. Scanning my week at glance isn’t very useful. i usually just pull out my iphone to see a specific entry more clearly. I even have a tough time when i’m looking at a day at a time. 

-Contacts. There is no way to easily share your address book inside of an organization. there is a way to share a master group but that’s not what I want. I don’t want to create a new address book. I just want to share my address book with everyone at Spark and I can’t do it.

-Gmail. Offline mail doesn’t work in Chrome. My work around is to use the native mail client on the ipad when i’m on a plane. I realize I could use Apple Mail on MacOS or Sparrow but I’m addicted to the keyboard shortcuts, starring and search. other desktop apps dont do it for me right now. maybe I should give it another try.

Like I said the good is so damn good.

I hope some of the rough edges improve and Google can address some of the stuff listed above.

I’m just happy we don’t have proprietary servers behind our firewall anymore. I like living in the cloud. 

i’ve been thinking about your question and I’m not sure I’m ready to turn back on comments. It’s been about a two month test so far and I’m going to keep it this way for the time being.

I do agree conversation is very important. That’s why I participate so much online and other people’s blogs, etc. 

And comments on Tumblr works for many folks. But I dont think it’s the best for me. at least not now. 

Just like Twitter doesn’t have comments per tweet, I want my own Tumblr without comments. I’d rather hear from you and others via Tumblr Replies, Tumblr Ask, Tumblr reblogs, tumblr likes, or tweets via @bijan or email. 

It’s just how I’m feeling right now. 

I’ve always felt that comments were a choice not an obligation. And I don’t agree that a blog without comments isn’t a blog. Some of my favorite blogs have comments and others don’t. I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules.

I think the soapbox scenario happens when you stop listening and responding to others. And I’m not doing that. Or at least I don’t think I am guilty of that one. 

I recently finished “The Life”, an autobiography by Keith Richards. Now I’m in the middle of Philips Norman’s biography of John Lennon. 

Amazing that both artists were blown away by the same song – Heartbreak Hotel.

John Lennon:

“Heartbreak Hotel’ sounded a corny title, and his name seemed strange in those days. But then when I heard it, it was the end for me…I remember rushing home with the record”

Keith Richards:

“Good records just get better with age. But the one that really turned me on, like an explosion one night, listening to Radio Luxembourg on my little radio when I was supposed to be in bed and asleep, was "Heartbreak Hotel.” That was the stunner. I’d never heard it before, or anything like it. I’d never heard of Elvis before. It was almost as if I’d been waiting for it to happen. When I woke up the next day I was a different guy.“

One song can change the world.