The snap and yawn of e-mail
- TAGS:e-mail, Gmail, Lotus Notes, Web 2.0
- IT TOPICS:Applications, Desktop Apps
The icons for two e-mail systems sit side by side on my desktop. The Gmail icon is an application shortcut I created using the Chrome Web browser. The other application shortcut brings up Lotus Notes.
Gmail launches in under four seconds. New e-mail appears in the inbox immediately; updates are virtually instantaneous. The interface is clean, uncluttered, simple. My Google calendar and GoogleDocs, equally streamlined, are just a click away.
Lotus Notes loads in about 10 seconds (Yawn). After 25 seconds it has finished sychronizing and my new e-mail and other updates finally arrive. Like Micosoft Office, Notes is big, bulky, monolithic. It is laden with features and icons that I never use. Elsewhere in the interface, legacy applications from a bygone era lay abandoned and unused.
The hourglass icon is a perpetual feature as Notes does whatever it is it does in the background. This behavior doesn't go away, whether I configure the client to pull mail directly from the Notes server or chose to work from a local copy and replicate. I am always waiting for Notes to catch up with itself.
That never used to bother me. But now that I run both e-mail clients side by side I find myself becoming impatient with those wasted seconds of my life. My expectations are higher.
I cannot wait until the era of overwrought software finally draws to a close.
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