This is part II of getting ready to move out away from Boeing. Dealing mainly with technology issues of changing from Boeing provided technology to providing my own.
Most of my time at work was spent in MS Outlook. I have thought about going and getting a copy of this, and may still do this. At $109 dollars it might be a good deal. Before I do that, I want to exhaust the use of two other Google products.
The first, for Email, is Gmail. Right now I’m using it just for Job search email, but I expect to use it for all of my personal email at some point. Currently, I have a Comcast email account that the bulk of my personal email goes to. For email, Comcast is alright, but I want to get away from being locked into a single company for my internet service. Losing my address by changing broad brand providers keeps me from quickly changing companies. With Gmail, my email account would remain constant no matter what provider I go with.
Google Calendar seems to be working out for my calendar program. It will have the advantage of being shared with those I choose to share it with via the internet, (mainly family which my corporate outlook calendar wouldn’t do this well).
My outlook contacts have been exported to both Comcast and to Gmail. For a number of years, I have loaded Boeing contacts into my personal contacts folders and added information like birthdays, personal emails, etc as I could. Most of these be with Boeing email addresses as the only contact, but that will be fine for a while. Before I finish with my computer I plan on making another backup of my contacts, just to make sure I have them. Today, I found that I person that I have known for quite a while was not in my Gmail contacts for some reason. Now I’m worried that I may have missed others also.
The last functionality the I use a lot is Tasks is outlook. Google Gmail and calendar tasks are not very functional. The tasks work together with both Gmail and Google calendar work but either I’m missing something or they are just a bit overly simplistic for what I want them to do. There is another application that I have been very happy called Remember the Milk (RTM). This has an easy interface without being overly simplistic. I am able to get reminders and set up all kinds of repeating functions. The integration with Gmail and Calendar is seamless once it is set up and I could use this more though I often just go to the home page.
Google Calendar, Gmail, Documents and RTM all have offline capabilities so you don’t always have to be connected.
Another product that I have used and really like is Google Voice. This is like a phone answering/routing system. You set up your own number in Voice. Mine is set up to spell out my name. This number is not linked to any particular phone. I then link in the phones that I want it to call when I get a call. Right now it is routing to my home phone and to my Boeing cell. When I receive a call both of these phones ring until I pick up. Then I given a list of options about whether I want to take the call or send it to voice mail. Voice mail records the call and then sends me notification via email along with a recording of my message. It tries to transcribe the message also, though it does a pretty bad job at this so far. This will also allow me to make free long distant calls to anywhere in the US and has some conferencing calling capabilities that I haven’t tested yet.
Today, I used the Boeing discount to get a new personal cell phone. With Google voice I have linked this new number and Voice will also start ringing that number. I have put this number on my resume and won’t have to make changes as my numbers change, (same as with the Gmail account not changing when I change broadband suppliers. Tomorrow, I hope to get my Boeing Blackberry number transferred to my new phone.
I have chosen to go with the Samsun Android phone. This will allow deep integration with the Google products I use. Seems like Google and Apple are driving the technology market right now. Since I’m a PC, Apple doesn’t have the products that I need where as Google does.
Couple last bits on technology. I friend, after reading part I of this said I should mention Thunderbird and Firefox. Both excellent products. I start using Firefox as my main browser about a year ago both inside of Boeing and outside. I recommend it, though I also use IE version 8. There are some MS extension that really only work with IE, otherwise I wouldn’t use, though version 8 is much better.
Thunderbird is a free email product that is distributed by Mozilla, same people that manage Firefox. I have heard good things about this but I have not as yet tried it out. Now that Google has added offline capabilities to their products, I will continue with Gmail and Google for now, but I wouldn’t mind giving Thunderbird a try.
Today, I finished up my last piece of work for Boeing. I just have to deliver it in a quick presentation and then do my exit interview. I have to collect Boeing equipment from home and take it into the office, Clear out my desk, and write some farewell notes.
Then it’s on to bigger and brighter things. A new day is rising.
I haven’t been searching much for jobs this week because of finishing up other things. I the LinkedIn Group has grown by 3 or 4 members this week.
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