Goodbye MS Office | Hello Gmail

I have been set FREE by Google and Gmail! So Can You!

Everyday real estate agents ask me questions like:

• What is the best phone for Realtors to use?
• What is the best contact mgmt system?
• What is the best email to use?

So I thought I would share a quick story with you …

For the past year I have been anxiously waiting to get my iPhone; and of course transition to all MAC computers.  (but that is for another time.) 

Last week my cell phone just stopped working the way it should, programs were freezing and the real problem was that my phone was no longer sending emails

Rather than call Sprint for tech support I just assumed this was my chance to make the switch to the iPhone so I headed out to the store to pick one up. 

On my way to the store I found myself with an internal struggle going on in my mind, I kept replaying all of the conversations with iPhone owners telling me how badly their ATT coverage sucked. 

Then I looked at the ATT cell phone rates and compared to what I currently have with Sprint and I just couldn't justify doubling my cell bill for the same benefits.

What to do to fix the delema?

I decided to take a look at the Google phones and immediately fell in love!  

But when I got home and excitedly began setting up my phone I couldn't get my email to send with this phone either …. so I called Sprint and still don't believe what they told me.

"Sprint no longer allows outgoing SMTP"! 

What does this mean?

Sprint wants you to use your own domain servers to send email, but my experience is that most domains don't work when trying to send over the cell carriers network! 

So I turned to Google and realized they have made it super easy to add your POP3 domain to your gmail which allows you to use gmail for your email client while sending/receiving email from your personal domain. 

So I figured what the heck … I imported my real estate and personal contacts from Outlook into Gmail and to my surprise Google automatically syncs my contacts, tasks, calendar, etc… to my phone without every having to "officially sync my phone & pc with a cable".

The only thing I don't like about this solution is that Gmail doesn't seem to allow you to use html in your emails  

So no more pasting screen shots or using links to my Social Media / Blog sites in my email signature file.  Can this be? Do you know anything different?

Are any other Realtors using Gmail like this? 

If so what are your thoughts and/or experiences?

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Tagged as: android, att cell phones, cell phones, cloud clients, computing, cross-platform software, gmail, google, Google apps, google gmail, Google phones, iphone, iPhone for Realtors, mobile phone, mobile phones, phone, real estate, smartphones, Sprint, sprint nextel, technology, web 2.0