Virginia tech on Google Apps

It seems another educational institution is moving to Google Apps - Virginia tech

http://david.carter-tod.com/wp/2008/09/21/moving-to-google-apps-for-education/

Google's Project 10 to the 100th

This is off topic. Google has completed 10 years and have put a webpage for celebrating 10th birthday which is worth having a look:

http://www.google.com/tenthbirthday/

They have also lauched a new project called Project 10¹⁰⁰ (pronounced "Project 10 to the 100th")

This is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. You can submit your idea and if shortlisted you can be among five chosen to implement your dream project. read more by clicking the link below:

http://www.project10tothe100.com/?hl=en

Why are you crying over 'beta' in Google products?

A lot of noice is being made on internet about most of Google products being in "beta". It all started with an article by Web Monitoring company Pingdon in their article where they questioned why out of 49 of Google products 49 are in beta?

They indicated that some of notable products which are stim in beta are Google Docs, Google Gmail and Google Finance. They have even raised objection to Google charging its clients on Beta products.

Google has responded to this by indicating that -  "We have very high internal metrics our consumer products have to meet before coming out of beta. Our teams continue to work to improve these products and provide users with an even better experience.  We believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web, where people expect continual improvements in a product.  On the Web, you don’t have to wait for the next version to be on the shelf or an update to become available.  Improvements are rolled out as they’re developed. Rather than the packaged, stagnant software of decades past, we’re moving to a world of regular updates and constant feature refinement where applications live in the cloud."

Frankly as a user of Google Apps and other Google products it does not matter to me whether there is a "Beta" tag or not. And why it should? I am looking for some level of performance and if I am getting it - whether "Beta" or No beta - it does not bothers me.

And to the question of paying for a "beta" product - is there a regulation which prohibits companies for charing beta products. Let the market decide if they want to pay for something. In a free market where competitive offerings are available in market let the users decide what they want to buy or not. If I am getting a superior offering - I am ready to buy it and whether it is "beta" or not doen not matter to me.

I am sure most of my readers agree!

Real Life examples of Google Sites

Dr. Helen Barrett of Washington, United States is an educationist and have recently retired from the faculty of the College of Education at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She has this very impressive Site created using Google Sites.

http://sites.helenbarrett.net/portfolio/Home

Within this Google Site she has a section on "Creating an Interactive Portfolio with Google Sites" which may be helpful to readers.

http://sites.helenbarrett.net/portfolio/how-to

She also conducts professional programs on usage of Google Apps in Education.

Google Apps Primer for Small Business

What is Google Apps?

Google Apps are a set of online applications (also know as Software as a Service - SaaS applications) which enable collaboration among your your enterprise users.


What services are included in Google Apps?

Google Apps services include - Google Mail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites, Google Start Page (additional in Premier Edition - Google Video). The Google services are customized for a business domain name i.e. your email are like - john@yourdomain.com (and not john@gmail.com).


Do I need to install, download any software or purchase any hardware?

Google Apps does not requires any software or hardware installation and maintenance so no more extra cost for your company. You only required to have a domain name and you can start getting benefit from Google services for free (standard edition).


Who is using Google Apps?

Many small business firms, educational institutions and nonprofit organizations have already adopted and benefited greatly from Google Apps services. Google Apps are well positions to help small businesses and non profits in their endeavor.


Why should I use Google Apps?

Here are few reasons

1. The small to medium size business (SMBs) and Startup Business take hard route to save company cost which also includes the software cost. Google Apps Standard edition (which is free) is a great way to save money.
2. Google Apps gives you fast and secure communication software - custom email address, calendar, spreadsheet, document tools, presentations, and more.
3. Google Apps GMail allows user to send and receiving mails and offers large storage capacity. Large number or mails archived, attachments or mail address can safely kept without worry that you are going to run out of space. Gmail’s also has a very strong virus and spam protection.
4. Google Talk is instant messaging facility integrated to Gmail. Text message as well as voice message can be sent worldwide instantly.
5. Google calendar can be used to share events, fix up meetings and organize schedules. You can even publish your company events on the web.
6. Google docs allows your employees to collaborate online over spread sheets, documents and presentations. Now one can create, edit and share their documents and presentations. And you can publish your document so that anyone can access your contents. They allow you to have option to restrict access only to your team or to some individuals.
7. Email can be delivered to your mail clients, hand held devices like blackberry, iphone etc without any additional charges
   

How Google Apps Mail is different from Gmail

Google Apps mail is for your domain - i.e. your email are like - john@yourdomain.com (and not john@gmail.com).


Whether I should use Standard Edition (Free) or Premier Edition of Google Apps?

Google Apps provide their service with some limitation. For most small companies, the free version will be adequate. You can consider to use upgraded version when your organization become bigger and more complex. You can see Google Apps comparison table for free edition versus paid edition on their website.

The key additions in Premier Edition are - higher mailbox size (25GB in premier edition v/s 7GB in Standard Edition), Ad free online email interface, Additional features in Calender, Additional Service - Google Video, and Additional administration features to integrate Google applications in your IT systems.

If you use free edition, you probably need to find good support. While using free edition you can still go for a trial of premier edition (which is 50$ per user) if you need. Google gives an option to Standard Edition users to try Premier Edition for one month free of cost.


What benefits organizations have derived from Google Apps?

There are many benefits but the prime benefits are

• Lower costs
  
• Reduced strain on IT departments due to streamlined operations and low maintenance
  
• Higher business scalability through easily-deployed services
• Availability of up to date version of software
  
• More productive and efficient employees with best of class communication tools

I am setting Up Google Apps for the first time. What I should keep in mind?

Setting Google Apps is relatively simple. There is ample help available on Google's website. If you do not have a domain you can buy the domain through while registering with Google Apps. This will save you from additional setup work. If you already have a domain and you are not IT saavy - you can take help of a host of service providers available in Google Solutions Marketplace.

More Admin Tools for Google Apps Administrators in Gmail

Official Google Enterprise Blog: More administrative controls for Gmail with Google Apps

Google has recently launched some more administrative features in Google Apps which will help administrators of large companies in managing users easily.

In a small businesses who use Google Apps, it is easy for administrators to help employees configure user settings account-by-account. But this approach was not appropriate for larger companies having users in excess of hundres. I have seen difficulty my clients are facing - when they have close to thousand users.

Google is now offering a streamlined way for admins to configure account settings is essential for its users. For this Google has launched Google Email Settings API, for Premier and Education Edition.

Using Google Email Settings APIs administrators can programmatically update Gmail settings for their users in bulk by making requests to a GData feed. The imporatnt modifiable settings are:

• labels
• filters
• signatures
• vacation responders
• "send mail as" aliases
• interface language
• email forwarding
• POP
• IMAP

For more details Premier and Education Edition customers can, check out the Google Email Settings API documentation.

What is Android: Here is definition straight from Wikipedia - "Android is a software platform and operating system for mobile devices, based on the Linux operating system, developed by Google and later the Open Handset Alliance. It allows developers to write managed code in a Java-like language that utilizes Google-developed Java libraries,[2] but does not support programs developed in native code.

The unveiling of the Android platform on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. Google has pledged to make most of the Android platform available under the Apache free-software and open-source license.

First commercially launched phone based on Android: T Mobile is the first company to commercially launch a phone based on Android on September 23. In an announcement on their website T Mobile have announced "The T-Mobile G1 with Google is the first commercially available phone to run on the 'Android' operating system, which empowers developers with tools to create and offer consumers applications that add value to their lives. This is one of many initiatives T-Mobile is working on to lead the industry in bringing real innovation to wireless customers." Expected to go on sale in October 22nd it will be priced at 199$ in USA - which is similar to iPhone.

How will I benefit from Android?: Some of the key benefits which have been highlighted are:

• It will be very easy to use - Single Sign in to your Google Account, Easy to set (may not be required to touch settings), and login never expires are few usability features.
• Push based: The email, calendar and contacts are fully synchronized as they are push based - New events are pushed in real-time to your phone and any changes you make on-the-go are immediately available on the web.
• Preloaded with Google applications like - Search, Maps, Gmail with Contacts, Calendar, Google Talk, and YouTube.
• Android will also allow users to run multiple applications at once and more easily share contacts and data among them.
• It is unconfirmed but some reports say that users may be able to cut and paste text in e-mails.
  
• Add on applications will be most likely free or at low cost (open source advantage). Google is planning to create an Android Market where - application, content providers can display their stuff and sell. The initial handsets will be enabled with beta version of this Android market.
  
• It is tipped to have covered all featured of iPhone
• Developers and Mobile providers are free to join and deliver applications - which means lower cost and more applications for mobile users

This (Android) is going to bring down costs and sweep the market. Soon the Android Market will have applications and content running in to hundreds and early adopters will start rating them - and the best will be highlighted soon. As a Google Apps user this is going to be a good news for you whether you already use Google Apps on a mobile or not. If you are already using - your existing providers will be forced to offer you better service at lower cost due to competition. If you are not a mobile user yet - well go ahead and try with the new offering. Or may be you can wait till early next year when there will be many more launches on Android platform.

Google Sites in Use

I am regularly looking for examples of uses of Google Sites and in next few days I will be sharing some of the interesting examples of uses of Google Sites by users world-wide. Here are two interesting Google Sites:

Mr. Trombley - Download Center: A Math teacher for Chateaugay Central School, Mr. Trombley has putt up this site for students to access class worksheets

http://sites.google.com/site/ccstrombley/Home

He has even written a note on his blog

Indian Institute or Management Kozhikode (IIMK) students have used Google Sites to create a quick site related to Start-up Fair they are organizing.

http://sites.google.com/site/iimkstartupfair/

These examples (both from education) show an increasing acceptability of Google Sites. Education sector seems to be pioneer in adpting Google Apps and Google Sites as most of the examples I come across are from Education. OR may be they are the one who have made their sites public?

I request readors to share their views and their sites by writing comments to this post.

Show Iframe on Google sites

Google Sites blocks IFRAME tags, JavaScript scripts, some DIV tags, and other essential XHTML elements that Google considers "unsafe." This post shows a way to get around it.

To show an IFRAME, thus bypassing security restrictions in Google Sites, simply add this magical line to your IFRAME tag:

igsrc = 'http://www.google.com/ig/images/no_image/no_image_gadget_thm.png'
class='igm'

This will fool Google into thinking that you are inserting a Gadget, even though you are actually inserting your IFRAME. ;)

Try Google Apps before switching

Dhruvsoft (www.dhruvsoft.com) is offering a free trial of Google Apps. This will be a great opportunity to all those who want to evaluate Google Apps before they switch. You can know more about this at:

http://www.dhruvsoft.com/googleapps/29-google-apps/74-try-google-apps

They have create a trial domain trialmadeeasy.com where the user can login and check the features of Google Apps. If you contact them - they will even give you an online demo of Google Apps Admin Accounts to show how easy it will be to use Google Apps for your business.

Why Google Chrome

Google has launched new browser Chrome. Why Google Apps users should use Google Chrome?

Google Chrome like many other free products (Google Apps, Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft's Windows Media Player, Apple's iTunes etc) is another attempt to gain control over a critical aspect of your day to day computing. Google is obviously not doing charity to to give away free products like Google Apps and Google Chrome. Leave aside the great reasons the comic like strip Google has provided while launching the Chrome - there is an inherent reason why they have launched Google Chrome.

Considering that future is more in the cloud and most of the applications (including Google Apps) will be accessed through a web browser. If Google owns your browser, and it's the search engine you already use, and, perhaps, it's the online calendar and e-mail system you use, its docs (Google Docs), wiki (Google Sites) you use - then all the dots start to be connected. Suppose - using Google services become as comparable as Microsoft Office then you will have no reason to leave your browser (read Google Chrome) at any time in your day-to-day computing. Making Google Apps services faster and easy to access is very crucial for Google and depending on other browsers may not help them. That is the reason they have to come up with their own browser. Making the search integrated to url address bar has ensured that once you have selected Google as search engine - the others search engines will never get a chance. Google Chrome is part of a well laid out plan to remove supremacy of competitors.

Obviously, I can see my Gmail is faster in Google Chrome and Google docs and sites open really fast when using Chrome. However that is not the case with some other sites /applications I use - where I find Firefox to be better. But if you are a Google Apps user it will be more sense to use Google Chrome.

I am for now using both Google Chrome and Firefox and IE rarely. if you need you can download Google Chrome from:

http://www.google.com/chrome

Inline Google Docs for Wordpress

Many of the Google Apps users have blogs based on Wordpress. This plugin would allow them to simply view some shared docs without having to leave their site. This plugin supports private Google Docs.

This will be a very useful plugin that I could visualize. Google has a very good ability to import Word and Excel spreadsheets. This plugin would allow you to display some work (Word and Excel) in your blog without having converting to HTML.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/inline-google-docs/

Create Templates in Google Docs

It looks like a lot of people want to create templates and share them. There is a way to do that:

1. Create your Doc
2. Go to Share and select the checkbox "Anyone can VIEW this document..."
3. Copy and paste the URL to your website, blog, email, etc., appending &newcopy to the end of the URL like the one below:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pIM_J1gg-sMPaQvhL86Q-cw&hl=en&newcopy

You also can leave off the &newcopy. If you do, then this will open the Doc in View mode, and then the person can choose to make a copy (from the File menu). But that might confuse them, so using &newcopy is probably a good idea.

Track sites in Google Docs

Mysterious hacker shows how to create a webpage monitor in Google Docs that tracks the websites of your choice:

http://www.mystichackers.com/build-a-web-page-monitor-with-google-docs-and-track-changes-automatically.html

Upload Google Docs easily with gDocsBar - sidebar extension for firefox

gDocsBar is a sidebar extension for firefox, a perfect companion for Google® Docs.

With gDocsBar, you can drag and drop multiple files into the sidebar to upload documents.

You can search and filter documents right from the sidebar. Now, gdocsbar comes with templates, webclips and smart folders.

Your Gmail credentials are sent to Google directly over SSL. Your passwords are stored in Firefox Password Manager.

http://gdocsbar.com/

Want to use Gmail for storing documents: GMail Drive 1.0.13

GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google GMail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your GMail account directly from inside Windows Explorer. GMail Drive literally adds a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy and drag'n'drop files to.

Know more

A New Security Breach in Google Docs Revealed

It will be a serious issues if documents stored by you in your Google Docs can be seen by someone else. Imaging what happened when your financial data is compromised. Google needs to tighten the security for its SaaS applications, otherwise many customers may move back to traditional systems. Read more about the security breach in Google docs in (ISC)²BLOG

HTTP://BLOG.ISC2.ORG/ISC2_BLOG/2008/09/SERIOUS-SECURIT.HTML

Google Gears now available for Safari for Mac

Google Gears, the browser plug-in that lets you access your favourite webapps when you're not online, is now out of beta and available for the Safari browser for Macs (in addition to Firefox on all platforms). Gears gives you offline access to Remember the Milk, Zoho Suite, Google Docs, and more webapps.

Google Video launched for Premier Edition (You Tube for Google Apps)

Google Video for business, the latest addition to the suite of collaboration tools in Premier Edition is available now. Video lets employees easily upload videos and securely share them with a few co-workers or their company's entire domain. 

Features of Google Video for business include: 

* Community features: adding tags, comments and ratings 

* Embed videos on web pages, including on Google Sites 

* High quality video streaming 

* 3GB of video storage per users account, which is shared by the entire domain 

If you've checked the option to "Automatically add new Google services" on the Domain Settings page of your control panel, Google Video for business is already available to your users. If this option  is currently unchecked, Google Video is not yet available to your users; you can activate the service from the US English version of the control panel at anytime. 

Once activated, users can get started with video at 

http://video.google.com/a/YOURDOMAIN.com. 

Learn more about Google Video for business: 

http://www.google.com/apps/collaboration 

Read the announcement on the Official Google Blog: 

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/video-sharing-goes-to-work.html 

Read the announcement on the Google Enterprise Blog: 

http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2008/09/introducing-google-video... 

A version for Google Apps Education Edition customers that allows faculty and staff to upload and share videos with students will be available on September 8 for free trial until March 9, 2009, at which point it will cost $10 per user, per year.