It's been a frustrating week. My also perfect PIM management system had a melt down.
I am using a hosted Microsoft Exchange service. Last Saturday they had a server meltdown. All this week I've had access to my latest PIM data one way, but have to restart Outlook to get access to get my old data. Or use Webmail or my online backups. Everything is there but it's basically not as easy as it usually is to access it and it's not in one place. I'm used to working efficiently and this is not working. I've missed appointments, my data is all over the place and I'm behind with email. I feel like I've lost a week of my life and I have to wait until things are fixed to catch up. This has raised a lot of questions ... I'm always looking for ways to do things better.
So what are my options? Well I guess the main reasons I'm using Microsoft Exchange is that I still like to have the security of an offline backup that I control plus it gives me offline access to selected folders on my Windows Mobile phone. Google is the only other option I can think of at the moment that would be a decent alternative if it had these two features. (Google does have a mobile app for Windows Mobile but it doesn't work on my device). It's also a big headache and commitment to move all my data and workflow to GMail.
I guess I have to spend the weekend to think about this. Technology is great when it works, but when you get used to it and suddenly it doesn't work it not nice. My feeling at the moment is that I'll stick with my previous plan ... but if they have a server meltdown again I'll definitely be changing to another provider.
