* Fun With Gmail

Conversion from Eudora makes finding email easier.

In January 2008, I converted to Gmail after using Eudora for 15 years. Learning a new user interface was one challenge. A bigger challenge was importing all of my email. Since there is no direct “import” feature in Gmail, I had import my Eudora email into Thunderbird and then indirectly import the email from Thunderbird to Gmail via IMAP. I say “indirectly” because it’s not exactly a “set it and forget it” kind of process. You have to babysit it to make it work. Thunderbird fails a lot. Gmail complains a lot. If you’ve ever imported messages from multiple other email programs, then your messages may not be uniformly formatted, which makes importing even more difficult.

I had 17 years worth of email, 200,000 messages, using 1 GB of disk space. Transferring via IMAP (when it worked) happened at the rate of about one message per second. It took about one month to transfer my email.

In any event, it is now a lot easier to search my email. (Searching 1 GB of email in Eudora was nearly impossible.)

Just for fun, I searched for various topics to see when they were first mentioned in my email archives. Btw, you can quickly find the earliest reference to a particular topic by using a (Google Apps Gmail) URL of this format:

http://mail.google.com/a/example.com/#search/iPod/p9999

The “p9999” part takes you to the last page (assuming you have fewer than 9999 pages of results).

Here are when various topics were first mentioned in my email archives:

1990-12-20 – hack
1990-12-20 – the net

1991-01-21 – Internet
1991-03-04 – Microsoft
1991-04-10 – geek

1992-08-09 – UUCP
1992-08-17 – The Legal List

1993-07-19 – Eudora
1993-09-01 – Linux
1993-11-29 – AOL
1993-11-29 – Rick Klau

1994-01-11 – Bill Clinton
1994-01-11 – WWW
1994-03-23 – the web
1994-03-29 – Mosaic
1994-07-26 – cyberspace

1995-03-14 – ISDN
1995-03-14 – MSN
1995-03-25 – Netscape
1995-04-06 – Perl
1995-06-26 – Yahoo
1995-07-16 – fair use
1995-08-03 – Heels.com
1995-08-21 – MS Office
1995-08-21 – wireless
1995-09-15 – FileMaker
1995-11-17 – Dell

1996-01-08 – software patents
1996-01-13 – Adobe Acrobat
1996-01-23 – Apache
1996-02-11 – virus
1996-02-23 – DSL
1996-02-25 – Windows95
1996-02-27 – Internet Explorer
1996-03-03 – Dilbert
1996-03-12 – nerd
1996-03-16 – QuickTime
1996-04-18 – spam
1996-04-24 – outsource
1996-04-26 – IPO
1996-08-21 – The Simpsons
1996-08-23 – Lawyers.com
1996-09-22 – Amazon.com
1996-09-28 – piracy
1996-09-30 – ecommerce
1996-10-29 – PHP
1996-12-11 – BSA

1997-01-22 – Hillary Clinton
1997-03-12 – Verio
1997-03-20 – MPAA
1997-04-17 – RedStreet
1997-04-24 – Seinfeld
1997-05-27 – GPS
1997-11-03 – Y2K

1998-05-04 – MySQL
1998-05-13 – Mozilla
1998-06-23 – Windows98
1998-06-30 – eBay
1998-07-07 – Slashdot
1998-08-31 – iMac
1998-10-04 – EULA
1998-10-19 – DMCA
1998-11-04 – irrational exuberance
1998-11-04 – MP3
1998-12-16 – RIAA

1999-01-06 – Google
1999-06-17 – Al Gore invented the Internet
1999-07-18 – GameBoy
1999-07-18 – open source
1999-08-18 – Cybersquatting

2000-02-24 – OS X
2000-02-25 – George W. Bush
2000-03-01 – ACPA
2000-03-23 – identity theft
2000-04-17 – Napster
2000-07-10 – P2P
2000-09-08 – VNC
2000-09-20 – Windows2000
2000-09-29 – DRM
2000-12-14 – TiVo
2000-12-19 – spyware

2001-01-04 – HDTV
2001-02-06 – Windows XP
2001-03-15 – WiFi
2001-05-11 – UDRP
2001-05-24 – patent reform
2001-09-11 – 9/11
2001-12-04 – iPod

2002-02-02 – Patriots win Super Bowl
2002-06-26 – blogging
2002-08-01 – iDisk
2002-08-05 – OpenOffice
2002-09-02 – Overture
2002-11-11 – GameCube
2002-11-19 – war on terror

2003-01-07 – Google AdWords
2003-01-15 – RSS
2003-01-19 – Cygwin
2003-03-23 – MySpace
2003-04-28 – iTunes
2003-05-05 – MythTV
2003-05-30 – logo trademarks
2003-07-01 – American Idol
2007-07-01 – Ruby
2003-07-18 – user-generated content
2003-08-28 – social networking
2003-10-14 – LinkedIn
2003-10-15 – typosquatting
2003-12-23 – Clock Tower Law Group

2004-01-06 – Audacity
2004-01-29 – Wikipedia
2004-01-30 – Thunderbird
2004-01-30 – BoingBoing
2004-03-08 – VLC
2004-03-16 – Skype
2004-04-01 – Gmail
2004-04-13 – copyfighter
2004-04-19 – BitTorrent
2004-05-26 – WordPress
2004-06-24 – Barack Obama
2004-08-04 – FiOS
2004-10-06 – podcast
2004-10-27 – Red Sox win World Series
2004-11-19 – LogMeIn

2005-04-18 – FeedBurner
2005-07-28 – Windows Vista
2005-08-24 – AJAX
2005-08-24 – Web 2.0
2005-10-17 – LifeHacker
2005-11-21 – YouTube

2006-02-16 – Google Reader
2006-03-15 – Facebook
2006-04-05 – MacBook
2006-05-23 – Parallels
2006-07-28 – Wii
2006-08-01 – Big Papi
2006-08-01 – shoe club

2007-01-09 – AppleTV
2007-01-10 – iPhone
2007-01-11 – Zappos
2007-01-17 – Dice-K
2007-04-01 – interwebs
2007-04-07 – Heels.com shoe store
2007-05-28 – favicon trademarks
2007-07-25 – copyjacking

Did I forget anything?