Fireforx + Google Apps = FoxGLove Standalone Google Apps Portal

Crafty Firefox user Alex customized his own Firefox Portable installation to tightly integrate with Google Apps. He calls his creation "FoxGLove," and uses it as his own Google-powered productivity portal instead of Microsoft Outlook. Along with his pick of add-ons that enhance and integrate Google Apps in Firefox, Alex tricked out this portable Firefox version with a Chrome-like theme, custom homepages (that auto-load in tabs), web site favicons...

Read full article at lifehacker

How to do voice and video chat from your Gmail window

Always wanted to do voice and video chat from your Gmail window rather than loggin in to Google Talk every time? Your wait is over! 

Here is a new Killer feature from Google! You can now have both voice and video chats with your contacts for free within your browser's Gmail window. 

To do this click on the 'Video & more' menu at the bottom of the chat window, then select 'Start video chat' or 'Start voice chat'. 

The first time you use this feature, you'll be prompted to download and install a small plugin. Do not hesitate and download the plugin.

This feature is available to all users of Standard, Premier, Education and Partner Editions. However this feature is at present released only in US English.

For more information click below:

Google Apps updates

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Gmail voice and video chat

CalDAV support enables Google Calendar access from Apple iCal or Mozilla Sunbird

Google Calendar now has CalDAV support. Which means, you'll be able to view and edit your Google Calendar events directly in calendar applications, such as Apple iCal or Mozilla Sunbird. Any changes you make in other calendar applications will automatically appear in Google Calendar the next time you sign in (and vice versa). If you use other calendar applications while offline, changes you make will be saved and updated in Google Calendar when you get back online.

What is CalDAV?

CalDAV is an open protocol that allows calendar access via WebDAV. CalDAV models calendar events as HTTP resources in iCalendar format, and models calendars containing events as WebDAV collections. This allows you to publish and subscribe to calendars, share them collaboratively, sync between multiple users and sync between multiple


Google Calendar at the time of writing this post only supports CalDAV using Apple iCal or Mozilla Sunbird.

To enable Google Calendar in Apple's iCal and Mozilla Sunbird follow the instructions at:

http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=99358#

There are however few open issues need to be resolved by Google

http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=99360

I am sure in near future the Google calendar access through other popular client applications will be available.

Use Google Sites as your Free Web Host

Many times it makes sense to go for a free hosting account rather than spend everything on a paid hosting solution. For example, if you are requirement is that of a simple but professional website on which you do not want to spend much. Or when you just want a temporary site. Or what you are looking is just a plain site to show pictures of your pets.

In all these cases the sites do not require a thousands of MBs as space. For most of your needs 10-12 MB is good enough unless you have lot of PDFs and Videos. As for the bandwidth (there is no problem if you do not understand these terms) also they do not require more than 2 or 3 GBs.

You search on internet and you will find many of the web hosting guys (read sharks) who want to sell the hosting plans. (This may sometime include me also). They will always lead you to buy the most expensive plan they have on some pretext or other. Some will say - "hey you need that bandwidth - go for premium plan" or "Our assisment shows that you need a virtual private server". But remember for a small requirement like this you don’t have to go for them. If you have Google Apps just stick to making a professional website using Google Sites. Contrary to popular belief that Google sites does not have good look and feel or thay have very "templated" look -well if you customize it well and use the images smartly - the site can be very professional. You can try suing the Google Sites. And then if you need - you can always upgrade later on. If you feel Google sites is not good enough, then move on. Anyway here are some advantages and disadvantages who want to evaluate Google Sites.

Advantages:

• Google sites has the WYSWIG editors (even year computer savvy child can use it to create a site). Can be used easily by even someone who doesn’t know a thing about HTML. In fact many schools in USA have students using Google sites very regularly.
  
• No software need to be installed - this is one factor that separates, Google Sites from other free web designing sites. There is absolutely no need of web page development software like dreamweaver or front page. There is no need to learn any software, no struggles with FTP and you got nothing to do with complex scripting.
• Making a website in Google Pages is as easy as blogging. If you have ever blogged using Blogger or Wordpress then you know enough.
• Things like creating a table is easy - all you need to do is to cut and paste from a word document.Or you can just create a new page of that type.
  
• Adding photos and attachments is as easy as uploading files is easy. By uploading files, you can easily help the reader to download, simply by clicking a link.
• Google Sites can be easily integrated to documents in Google Docs to present data.
• You can create site for your business domain. So your site appears when you typr your business domain name. If you use masked forwarding then the site visitor may not know that the site is created using Google Apps.
  

Disadvantage:

• It has links to Google Sites (so people will know that you have crated it using Google sites (what is they know?)
• Limitations like fixed templates, fixed site structure and no scripting are allowed
• You don’t have many choices when building the site. There are only a 15-20 of templates provided. You cannot use other templates from other free template sites, or make one using frontage.
• The only way to increase page size is to go vertical. It is also difficult to place links horizontally.
• Google Pages does not allow you to edit HTML of a whole Page, you can edit just sections of it.

I recommend readers of this blog to share their Google sites.

Use Google GrandCentral to aggregate your voice mail messages

Some time back Google has acquired a company called GrandCentral. This is a useful service for small business as it gives them ability to get aggregated messages left for your multiple phones.

Google GrandCentral offers a unique phone number which is linked to you for life. GrandCentral doesn't replace your phones; it just link them together and help them do more. How do they achieve that? Well they people One Number for Life - a number that's not tied to a phone or a location - but tied to you. This means one place where you can check your voice messages and have them kept for life.

Here are some of the features provided

• Check your messages by phone, email, or online (online like skype voice messages)
• Keep all your messages online for eternity
• Record and store your phone calls (just like voicemail)
• Quickly (and secretly) block an annoying caller
• Click-to-dial from your address book - Google GrandCentral will connect your phone and call the target person
• Surprise your callers with a custom voice mail greeting - you can have separate voicemenl for each phone
• Forward, download, and add notes to your messages

Google GrandCentral is currently available to select few by invitation only. That too its present reach is limited to USA. To know more about Google GrandCentral and its features click here

Google now offers service level agreement for Premier edition customers

Google now offers service level agreement for 99.99 percent up time to Premier Edition customers. The Service Level Agreement (SLA) will ensure that customers get extra Service credit if they do not meet the desired criteria.

More about the SLA for Google Apps can be read on their website at

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/sla.html

This is sure a good news for customers and is another step to reassure enterprise clients.