My hard drive started clicking quite violently the other day, so I thought I would take the opportunity to get myself a new PC rather than fix up my old one, which has served me well for four years. I picked up this rather tasty quad core HP desktop for under £700 which goes like the clappers compared to my last one.

One of the things that worried me was whether my hard drive was going to last long enough for me to get the huge data files (.PST) which were used by Microsoft Outlook. Luckily it did, but I decided I didn't want to be in that position again. I also decided that I wanted easy access to my entire mailbox - including all sent and received messages - wherever I am, and from any PC or device.

So at the time of moving to a new PC, I also took the opportunity to sign up for Google Apps. I had been aware of Google Apps since it became available as an Adsense Referral, but it never really sunk in as to how it could benefit me.

In case you don't know, it's the entire suite of Google collaboration tools - gmail, calendar, docs and google talk but working under your own domain name. It's available free, or for the ridiculously cheap £25 a year, you can get access with message backup/recovery options, anti virus and anti spam etc and without adverts. It's taking a bit of time to get used to not having my folder structure in Outlook, but I'm beginning to really like the GMail interface, which I had only used a little bit for a personal test account previously. The good news is that it renders great on my mobile phone's web browser (and has options for accessing from an email client if preferred) and I can now get into my email from anywhere. Of course, loads of people already have that so I've been a bit slow to get it set up for myself, but I'm loving it.

Definitely recommend Google Apps if you're looking for a good hosted solution for your company email.

Labels: google apps