In which I mumble about software in a way that is of no interest to anyone but myself.

I can’t figure out what the fuck to do about PIM.

Once upon a time, I used Outlook on my computer and carried a synced PocketPC. Email, address book, calendar, tasks: all in one place and portable.

I no longer carry a PocketPC so I’m trying to keep all my data online, where I can get to it from any computer or my phone with no fuss. I’ve been auditioning various calendars, task managers, and webmail interfaces for a couple of years now.

I have most of my stuff at Gmail currently, but I don’t like their lack of old-school folders or drag-and-drop capability. (I don’t like Google calendar either, truth be told. And while I’ve tried to love Google Docs, somehow I don’t.) I also don’t like my Google user name, but the other names I’d want have been taken and I’d lose all my other Google content or have to move it if I moved to a new account…

I’ve tried Yahoo! Mail but the ads piss me off. I’ve tried my local Horde installation but while it’s robust, it’s fugly. I’ve tried to find server-side applications I could install and host here at the ‘box, but most of them don’t do everything I want or they’re ugly or expensive or need to run on architecture I don’t have.

I’ve tried several web-based solutions, but the good ones are all for-pay and end up costing more than buying a locally-run application, and I could just go back to Outlook for free…

Hmm. The more I think about it, the more I suspect that what I’m really looking for is Outlook. And some way to sync it to a web-based service, which means Plaxo.

Gah.

In other news, after nearly two years of inactivity I recreated my mush email address at goblinbox.com and within two minutes the box started getting spam. Fucking spammers! A pox on you all!