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Tray.io - powerful email assistant

tray.io

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Re: Tray.io - powerful email assistant

#61

Post by bpatrianakos »

Swizec wrote: post #8

I usually check email in the evening before going to bed. It's working marvelously since I can take an hour out of my day to handle everybody - really solves the problem of forgetting to respond to people. The only problem are time-sensitive emails. For those I still need to periodically check my inbox to see if something urgent's come up. If there's a way to tell Tray "If time-sensitive email, send me a tweet", that…

Time-sensitive is so subjective that it'd be difficult to say the least if not impossible to properly implement. The only 100% guaranteed way of making sure a rule gets applied to time sensitive emails would be to train senders to add a word or code to the subject or body of the message. But again, this is based on my subjective definition of time sensitive. To me, time sensitive means someone I know sends me an email and they need a reply or at least my attention right away. That leaves out things like leads coming in from NetSuite or Salesforce (as mentioned in other replies) or automated emails that cannot be trained. It also means that I'd have to train a lot of people to do this and I may leave out some people by accident and then I'd have to train every new contact to do it on top of deciding whether or not the contact is important enough for me to allow them to send me emails that'll alert me instantly.

There's just so much to it that it seems like something only a human could do. That said, the guy from tray.io who replied with a potential solution seems to be on the right track. Its not a perfect solution but it's good enough and sometimes good enough is all you can do.

Re: Tray.io - powerful email assistant

#62

Post by EvanAnderson »

ihavebeenseen wrote: post #47

Please figure how to do this for exchange. Then proceed to take over world.

Using ActiveSync to access Exchange would probably be the best way to pull it off (though there are probably patent-related concerns). A lot of Exchange admins aren't going to like opening up IMAP, but nearly every Exchange installation today has ActiveSync enabled and exposed to the Internet.

Re: Tray.io - powerful email assistant

#63

Post by davidhollander »

moe wrote: post #53
davidhollander wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see an architectural alternative for such services yet. You'd need a client side app sandbox which allows servers to schedule routines to run locally on secret data, without leaking back data which the server can decrypt. It would also need to be cross-platform and have the same user accessibility as the web browser.

You'd need a client side app sandbox [...] Or you could use, you know, a native client. It may increasingly become a foreign concept to the "facebook generation" but your computer is still fully capable of running a mail client on its own. Of course you don't get to sell SaaS-subscriptions when you implement tray.io as a procmail GUI...

A native client without a user data sandbox doesn't solve the problem of networked applications leaking private data and spying on the user at all. The code needs to be open source, versioned, vetted, and only obtained via a trusted repository for every application the user wants to run each time it is updated. The user is no longer instantly able to access the latest version of the application by simply typing in a URI.

Re: Tray.io - powerful email assistant

#64

Post by moe »

davidhollander wrote: post #63
moe wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need a client side app sandbox [...] Or you could use, you know, a native client. It may increasingly become a foreign concept to the "facebook generation" but your computer is still fully capable of running a mail client on its own. Of course you don't get to sell SaaS-subscriptions when you implement tray.io as a procmail GUI...

A native client without a user data sandbox doesn't solve the problem of networked applications leaking private data and spying on the user at all. The code needs to be open source, versioned, vetted, and only obtained via a trusted repository for every application the user wants to run each time it is updated. The user is no longer instantly able to access the latest version of the application by simply typing in a…

I meant it tongue-in-cheek when I said "facebook generation", but it seems we really have a generational gap here.

The code needs to be open source, versioned, vetted, and only obtained via a trusted repository

http://www.procmail.org http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ http://www.mutt.org/

The user is no longer instantly able to access the latest version of the application by simply typing in a URI.

Yes, that actually bothers me a lot. Can you imagine the crazy effort that I go through every time I update my mail-client?

It takes the better part of 5 minutes every time (I'm not exaggerating here) and last year I had to do it twice!

Re: Tray.io - powerful email assistant

#65

Post by davidhollander »

moe wrote: post #64
davidhollander wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A native client without a user data sandbox doesn't solve the problem of networked applications leaking private data and spying on the user at all. The code needs to be open source, versioned, vetted, and only obtained via a trusted repository for every application the user wants to run each time it is updated. The user is no longer instantly able to access the latest version of the application by simply typing in a…

I meant it tongue-in-cheek when I said "facebook generation", but it seems we really have a generational gap here. The code needs to be open source, versioned, vetted, and only obtained via a trusted repository http://www.procmail.org http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ http://www.mutt.org/ The user is no longer instantly able to access the latest version of the application by simply typing in a URI. Yes, that…

Would you be comfortable explaining to relatives, aquantainces, and the elderly in a casual conversation:

How to install, use, and maintain linux. How to install, use, and maintain their own mail server and spam filters. How PGP works. How to setup and use thunderbird+enigimail or mutt.

Compared to visiting a URI, would doing so be more technically demanding or less technically demanding for users who have not specialized in computing? Is the proportion of society which inevitably chooses not to specialize in a computing inherently more deserving or inherently less deserving of the benefits of encryption and privacy?

I think the gap in our perspective is most likely attributable to A) how widespread we wish to see encryption used by the general public in the future, or B) our expectations of the of the technical stamina of the general public when confronted with unfamiliar tasks, rather than generational effects.

Re: Tray.io - powerful email assistant

#66

Post by adparadox »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #58
adparadox wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some later versions of Exchange have a SOAP API ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/exchange/dd877045(v=... ). I wrote this npm module to grab a user's current emails: https://npmjs.org/package/exchanger .

Would probably be better to use IMAP for this. Then it will work for Exchange systems, GMail, and nearly every other mail system out there.

Unfortunately, I don't think IMAP isn't enabled by default in Exchange. And, at least at my work, enabling it isn't an option.

Re: Tray.io - powerful email assistant

#67

Post by moe »

davidhollander wrote: post #65
moe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant it tongue-in-cheek when I said "facebook generation", but it seems we really have a generational gap here. The code needs to be open source, versioned, vetted, and only obtained via a trusted repository http://www.procmail.org http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ http://www.mutt.org/ The user is no longer instantly able to access the latest version of the application by simply typing in a URI. Yes, that…

Would you be comfortable explaining to relatives, aquantainces, and the elderly in a casual conversation: How to install, use, and maintain linux. How to install, use, and maintain their own mail server and spam filters. How PGP works. How to setup and use thunderbird+enigimail or mutt. Compared to visiting a URI, would doing so be more technically demanding or less technically demanding for users who have not specia…

Nobody talked about encryption. Nobody talked about "elderly acquaintances".

The conversation was about a product aimed squarely at GMail "Power-Users" who willfully run all their e-mail through one or more third partys.

And besides, you don't need to linux to run a mail program.

Re: Tray.io - powerful email assistant

#68

Post by mike-cardwell »

adparadox wrote: post #66
mike-cardwell wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would probably be better to use IMAP for this. Then it will work for Exchange systems, GMail, and nearly every other mail system out there.

Unfortunately, I don't think IMAP isn't enabled by default in Exchange. And, at least at my work, enabling it isn't an option.

Why isn't it an option? If you work in the sort of environment that wont enable IMAP, you probably also work in the sort of environment that doesn't want you giving up access to your mailbox to a random third party.
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