Synchronised Bliss? Web Development Tools and More

It just struck me recently, when I updated my iPhone to iOS 5 and started using iCloud, that I’ve now reached a pretty good place in terms of the software that I’m using allowing synchronisation across lots of different devices. I subsequently found that every iCloud doesn’t necessarily have a metallic lining, but more of that later!

Email: IMAP and Google Apps

Google Apps
Google Apps

When I first got the iPhone I was using POP for all my e-mail, both my private and work e-mail, across desktops, laptop and the iPhone. Clearly this doesn’t work in terms of trying to keep everything synchronised.

When I looked at switching to IMAP, I found that I’d need to pay for an upgraded e-mail account with my server hosting provider (Go Daddy) if I wanted to start using IMAP. However, just when I was about to hit the ‘Pay’ button I found that you can sign up to Google Apps and and Host your e-mail on GMail. This does require you to make changes to your MX records through your server admin panel, but Google provide really good instructions for this. The only problem I found was that I tried to use the same email address when setting up Google Apps that I was already using for my personal Google account. This can end up getting a bit messy! Incidentally I am pretty happy with Go Daddy in general.

Now that I’m on IMAP I’ve got everything synchronised across all devices. One thing to note though is that when I was using POP I was doing a send/receive every minute. Since switching to IMAP I’ve reduced the frequency a little (10 minutes), otherwise one synchronisation is barely ending before the next one begins. Continue reading “Synchronised Bliss? Web Development Tools and More”