Google Apps Today

Blog for Google Apps Users - Tips, Tricks and Techniques for using Google Apps

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...
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...
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...
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...
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.
Examples of Google Sites usage
Google Sites is definitely more popular among the educational institutes than other type of organizations.

Here are key reasons why Google Sites is very popular tool:
1. No technical knowledge required like html, stylesheets or javascript
2. Faster way to develop sites
3. Can be developed in a collaborative way
4. Can access from anywhere to make changes (no software required)
Saline Area Schools (http://www.salineschools.com) is currently using Google Apps (mail, calendar, docs, sites, and videos) and have developed few good websites using Google sites. Here a few well done example sites made using Google Sites by Saline Schools:

Women’s Swim...

Google users can now

If you have a "Google Account" you now have an OpenID similar to a Yahoo account. For Gmail users your Gmail address is your OpenID.

Google has joined OpenID. By joining the OpenID movement, Google helps all of its Gmail users to the hundreds of websites that accepts OpenID, by providing them a way of accessing without creating an account with that website.

However Google has only become an issuer of OpenIDs and has not indicated that it will accept other OpenIDs for people who want to sign up for Google services....
View Calendar and Docs in you Gmail
Some new features are released in Google Labs this week. These include Gadgets to see Google Docs and Google Calendar in Gmail interface.

With the Google Calendar Gadget you can see your Google Calendar agenda and get an alert when you have a meeting.

The Google Docs gadget shows a list of your recently accessed Google Docs and lets you search across all of your documents right from within Gmail.

Another Gadget lets you add any new Gadget by URL.

To enable these features...
Boise State University has opted for Google Apps
OIT (Office of Information Technology) at Boise State University has been using Google Apps. More and more departments migrating to Google App and they are using Google Apps including Google Sites, and Calendar. Here is a post in blog sphere which also gives and example of Google Sites

http://itcboisestate.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/opting-in-to-google-apps-at-boise-state/

Readers of this blog can share their experiences on using Google Apps and their examples of Google Sites and by writing comments to this post.
New features with Gmail contacts and spreadsheets
Gmail Contacts
Gmail will now automatically adds people that you corresponded with to 'Suggested Contacts'. You can move people you correspond with regularly to 'My Contacts'. Gmail's address auto-complete feature will work for all of your contacts, whether they're in 'My Contacts' or 'Suggested Contacts'.

To ensure that only the right contacts are synced with your mobile device in the future, Gmail has moved previously auto-added contacts in 'My Contacts' back into 'Suggested Contacts'. Only contacts that you've moved to 'My Contacts', edited, imported or added to a group will remain in 'My Contacts' for syncing.

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