How to Measure Site usage statistics for Google Sites

Google Sites now provides a simple way to track site usage, by integrating with Google Analytics. This is available to Standard, Premier, Education and Team Editions using Language US English (New features are first released to US English)

Here is how to access this new feature:

• Sign in to Google Sites
• Open the site which you want to track
• Click 'Site Settings'
• Navigate to the settings page for 'Other stuff'
• Check the box for 'Statistics' and paste your Google Analytics account ID in the box, and click 'Save changes'.
  

To get a Google Analytics account ID you'll need to sign in to your Google Analytics account with the site details.

Gmail adds support for 8 new languages

Keeping up with its continuous development approach Google Apps mail has now added 8 new languages. This is available to Standard, Premier, Education and Partner Editions

New Languages
Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu

Gmail now supports following languages

Arabic, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Malayalam, Marathi, Norwegian, Oriya, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, UK English, US English, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.

To access what's new - Sign in to Gmail, click 'Settings', and select the interface language you prefer.

For more information:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/gmail.html

Google Apps Tip: Google Docs Color-coded comments

When reviewing your co-workers online documents, you can insert color-coded comments to differentiate from the rest of the text.

How to insert color coded comments in a Google Document?

Place your cursor where you'd like your comment to appear, and click the 'Insert' tab along the top of the page. Select the 'Comment' icon from the displayed toolbar and let the ideas flow.

Using menu takes a lot of time. Is there are shortcut for inserting color-coded comments in a Google Document?

You can also use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-M, to insert a comment.

Google Apps Small Business Customer Success: Boshak

Boshak is a a unique tourist destination one and a half hours drive from Perth, Western Australia. Boshack has been featured on Getaway, and is a popular destination for travellers wanting to experience the Australian outback, see a working wheat/sheep farm, eat bush tucker, see native Australian wildlife and learn about the Aboriginal dreamtime.

Boshak has recently switched to Google Apps for their email, documents, calendering needs and are very happy with the experience. Following are excerpts from their experience published in http://om4.com.au a leading online marketing portal for business.

Link: http://om4.com.au/moving-email-google-apps/

Challenge

• Multiple email ids - difficult to manage
• Wanted to collrobate while working on mails, documents
• Maintain corporate identity
• Wanted an easy to use solution as users were not very conversant in using technology

Solution

• Switched to Google Apps Standard Edition
  
• Low cost to switch - Free Google Apps / Low cost service provider
• Extensive user support by vendor to overcome any initial hiccups
  

Business benefits

• Access from anywhere
  
• Spam controlled
• Consolidations - time saver
• Collarobation on documents

"We moved to Google Docs about 6 months ago and this is also an amazing program as we run our business from 4 different locations with 3 different people needing to access emails and spreadsheets. We now have one log in each for all of this with our email included."

Deryck Brockhurst is the Managing Director of Boshak,

• Easy to us

"The way to go for simplicity, accessibility and especially if you need to share docs emails"

Deryck Brockhurst is the Managing Director of Boshak,

Note: These excerpts are from http://om4.com.au/moving-email-google-apps/ and all rights are with om4.com.au

More features in Google Docs

Looks like adding new features is a way of life at Google. Just seen a flashing message on one of help pages now again they have released some new features. It is really amazing the ease by which they are able to add new features. Just compare this to a PC based application like outlook - you will keep installing packs and not everyone will do. With Google apps everyone is upgraded and they (users) need not make a single click.

Here are new features:

• Help menu in document toolbar
  Help is really closer now. Google has added a Help menu just to the right of the document Tools menu. Check out especially the "Learn from other Google users" option, which takes you straight to the Google Docs Help Group.
  

• Choosing the size for embedded presentations
  Google has added an option to choose a size for your embedded presentations to the websites. While publishing you can select the size. Learn more.
  

• Select multiple objects on a slide
  Now you can select multiple items by holdding the shift key. You can now select multiple objects at once -- then move them around, resize them, copy and paste them and more. Learn more.
  

Google has recently launched its first version of an Google.com for iPhone. Now they have launched some new features:

• Customization of tabs: Now you can customize the tabs you want on Google.com. Go to the More tab and press "Custom tabs" to select your favorite three Google mobile products.
• New and improved Gmail: Now you need not to refresh to get your email messages - the latest version of Gmail delivers messages to your inbox without the need for you to refresh it. Also, when writing an email, auto-complete of email address is now available.
  
• New and improved Calendar: A calendar can be one of the most important things on a phone. Now Google Calendar is faster and also has a month view.
• iGoogle for the iPhone: A new iPhone-optimized version of iGoogle that mobilizes all of the modules you know and love. Simply click on the iGoogle link from the Google.com home page or go to www.igoogle.com.

It's also pretty cool that the iPhone has an unlimited data plan so you never have to worry about cost when you're browsing the web. At present this is only available in U.S. To get to the latest Google on your iPhone, just go to Google.com on your iPhone or iPod Touch web browser.

Google Apps Hacks

Yesterday we have introduced you to the book Google Apps Hacks! Here is summary again for those who missed and also at the end web address of a site offering download link.

Can Google applications really become an alternative to the venerable Microsoft Office suite? Conventional wisdom may say no, but practical wisdom says otherwise. Right now, 100,000 small businesses are currently running trials of Google office applications. So are large corporations such as General Electric and Proctor & Gamble. Google Apps Hacks gets you in on the action with several ingenious ways to push Google's web, mobile, and desktop apps to the limit.

The scores of clever hacks and workarounds in this book help you get more than the obvious out of a whole host of Google's web-based applications for word processing, spreadsheets, PowerPoint-style presentations, email, calendar, and more by giving you ways to exploit the suite's unique network functionality.

The following site gives link to a downloaded version:

http://knowfree.net/2008/05/04/google-apps-hacks.kf

Download Google's Help Files for Offline Access

Most of the critics of Google Apps argue about the off line access. Google has recently added off line access to a variety of its services — Google Reader and some of Google Apps (e.g. docs) are available offline using Google Gears. Many ask - "But what about Help files?"

Google’s documentation is one of the best documentation available. Most of the company’s services have help centers with feature overviews, tutorials and problem solving guides. But of course you need to be online to access that wealth of information. You can now download the help files and read them offline. As it turns out it's pretty easy to grab Google's documentation and keep a local copy.

It is easy to append an extra word to the help center URLs and get a download of all the help files. It won’t work for every service, but if you append ?fulldump=1 to the address of a Google help center you should get a massive HTML file with all the info you need.

From there you can just convert the HTML to a PDF file and save it on your local disk for offline access. Check out following links for help file of each of Google service:

Gmail Help: http://mail.google.com/support/?fulldump=1

Google Calendar Help: http://www.google.com/support/calendar/?fulldump=1

Google Docs Help: http://docs.google.com/support/?fulldump=1

Google Spreadsheets: http://docs.google.com/support/spreadsheets/?fulldump=1

Google Presentations: http://docs.google.com/support/presentations/?fulldump=1

Google Reader Help: http://www.google.com/support/reader/?fulldump=1

Google Video Help: http://video.google.com/support/?fulldump=1

YouTube Help: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/?fulldump=1

AdSense Help: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/?fulldump=1

Analytics Help: http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics?fulldump=1

Google Desktop Help: http://desktop.google.com/support/?fulldump=1

Picasa Help: http://picasa.google.com/support/?fulldump=1

Google Toolbar for IE: http://www.google.com/support/toolbar/?fulldump=1

Google Toolbar for Firefox: http://www.google.com/support/firefox/?fulldump=1

Clever ways to use Google Apps - New book Google Apps Hacks

TITLE : Google Apps Hacks
AUTHOR : Philipp Lenssen
PUBLISHER : Make Books
ISBN : 059651588X
PUB DATE : 2008-04-16

Can Google applications really become an alternative to the venerable Microsoft Office suite? Conventional wisdom may say no, but practical wisdom says otherwise. Right now, 100,000 small businesses are currently running trials of Google office applications. So are large corporations such as General Electric and Proctor & Gamble. Google Apps Hacks gets you in on the action with several ingenious ways to push Google's web, mobile, and desktop apps to the limit.

The scores of clever hacks and workarounds in this book help you get more than the obvious out of a whole host of Google’s web-based applications for word processing, spreadsheets, PowerPoint-style presentations, email, calendar, and more by giving you ways to exploit the suite’s unique network functionality. You get plenty of ways to tinker with:

• Google Documents — Share and edit documents with others in real time, view them on the run with Google Docs mobile service, and use Google Notebook for web research
• Google Spreadsheets — Add real-time data to spreadsheets, and generate charts and tables you can embed in web pages
• Google Presentations — View them on a mobile phone and save them as video
• Gmail — Send email to and from a mobile phone, adjust Gmail’s layout with a style sheet, and a lot more
• iGoogle — Create your own gadgets, program a screenscraper, add Flash games, and more
• Google Calendar — Add web content events, public calendars, and your Outlook Calendar to this application
• Google Reader, Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google SketchUp: the new 3D modeling software tool
• Picasa, YouTube, and Google Video — discover new ways to customize and use these media management apps

In addition, Google Apps Hacks outlines ways you can create a simple web site with nothing but Google tools, including Page Creator, Blogger, Google Analytics, and content from other Google apps. This amazing collection just might convince you that Microsoft Office is not the last word in business applications. The price is certainly right.

How to Setup Google Apps on BlackBerry smartphones

Gmail – The fastest way to use Gmail on your BlackBerry is with the installable Gmail application. To download and install Gmail for free, visit m.google.com/a from your BlackBerry web browser. Then, launch the application with the blue "M" icon () from your BlackBerry home screen or from the applications folder. If you also have a personal @gmail.com account, there's a separate free application (with a red "M" icon) so you can be signed in to both accounts at the same time.

Google Talk – There's a handy Google Talk application that lets you see who's online and instant message with contacts from your BlackBerry. To download and install Google Talk for free, visit www.blackberry.com/GoogleTalk from your BlackBerry web browser. Then, launch the application with the Google Talk icon () from your BlackBerry home screen or from the applications folder.

Google Calendar – You can sync information in Google Calendar with your BlackBerry calendar, so whether you add new appointments from your phone or from your computer, you always have access to your up-to-date schedule. To download and install Google Sync for free, visit m.google.com/sync from your BlackBerry web browser.

Google Docs – To access your documents and spreadsheets when you're not at a computer, you can sign in to Google Docs from your BlackBerry web browser. Just visit docs.google.com/a/your-domain.com, but remember to replace "your-domain.com" in this address with your actual domain name.

Add two-factor authentication to Google Apps for your Domain using open source software

Sometime back while surfing net I came across this posting giving step by step instructions to Add two-factor authentication to Google Apps for your Domain using open source software. The two factor authentication is important as most of us travel these days and increasingly use public Wifi networks - exposing ourselves to middle of work attack.

Google has provided paid options for two factor authentication. To ead my earlier post on this topic - click here

Now you can use open source software Gheimdall and two-factor authentication from WiKID. The step by step instructions are provided at howtoforge website - click here to go to howtoforge

Google Mobile Updater

Now you can keep your BlackBerry up to date with Google's ever increasing mobile product suite. It is very easy and simple! Just go to mobile.google.com in your BlackBerry browser, click "Download all" to get Google Mobile Updater and then select the products you want on the menu of your BlackBerry...

You can also get the applications stack (the bunch of applications - as Google wants to call it) through your PC by surfing to the mobile site:

http://www.google.com/mobile/updater/stp-js.html

now enter your phone number. An SMS text with download instructions will then be sent to your device.

Once you've downloaded the Mobile Updater, you will have the option to install all or some of Google's available mobile services. These include

Faster Web Search: In under a second, you can start entering your query without waiting to load the Google home page. This saves you valuable time when you are trying to find the address of a nearby restaurant or the latest price of your favorite stock. Some of the key BlackBerry applications from Google are:

Gmail
Google Sync, which lets you sync your Google Calendar with your BlackBerry
Google Reader, a mobile RSS reader
Google Docs, a Web-based documents application
Google Maps mapping application;
Google News

Icons for each service that you select will download to your BlackBerry home screen for easy access. Click the Update icon to check for new versions of your software at any time.