Awesome Apps for FREE*

The rumour mills online are rife with talk of Facebook Email. Its seems the social networking giant plans to release an email service to its 500 million user base in the coming days. Project Titan has been a “top secret” Facebook operation, with the sole aim of competing with Google’s Gmail and Yahoo! Mail, dubbed a ‘Gmail Killer’. Its likely they have been assisted by Microsoft, as Techcrunch highlighted a couple days ago, Facebook seems to be using Exchange for its email service – See http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/12/facebook-mail-outlook/

Users need to start considering their privacy as Facebook weaves their way into another aspect of your personal lives. Are we truly ready to turn our inboxes over to Facebook? Would Facebook developers get access to your messages? There is no harm in keeping your email communications outside of the social network using Gmail to do so.

The secret email project could help explain the recent dispute between Facebook and Google over Facebook’s unwillingness to allow its users to export their friends lists and their contact info into Gmail.

Google Apps provides a robust, industry tested, messaging platform. We can assist you to setup your organisation on Google Apps, which includes GMail Premier Edition. You could be a large, medium or small business, a family, community or scout troop, all looking for a email system under your organisation domain name (eg. family.com). You should look at Google Apps from Google before you consider Facebook Email, Gmail has been around and tested for a lot longer.

Could they have developed a “full-fledged” email client that would truly compete with Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and other advanced Web-based email services that give you desktop-style features in a browser? We’ll have to wait and see.

Filed under: Cloud Assist, Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Innovative Innovation, Managed Migration, Maximising Mobility, regular, Tech News, Technology by Neil Rutherfoord

Another week, another update. On the Cloud Assist front we are very busy with Google Apps still being a very hot little item. We are currently assisting a number of company’s transition away from their existing Exchange/Outlook and Domino/Notes environments onto the platform. Anyways, on with the weekly update.

Watch the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7 burn!- intomobile

I thought I would start the week off with something a little on the lighter side. The mob over at intomobile created a very painful video that has now gone viral that shows them grilling some of the latest and greatest smart phones on the market. I recommend not doing this one with a company smartphone.

Google Apps Marketplace

 Just as a friendly reminder to all of you who are on the Google Apps platform, don’t forget about the Google Apps Market Place! The Google Apps Marketplace is becoming the one stop shop for extending the functionality of Google Apps. If you have ever wondered if Google Apps ‘could do that’ to solve one of your business problems, check the Marketplace and the solution may already exist!

Gartner: Android has overtaken iPhone worldwide – electronista

 Just a quick update in the whole Android vs iOS (iPhone/iPad) war going on in the smart phone/tablet space. It looks like Android has taken the lead and is continuing to grow at a very healthy rate. I read an article during the week that was a little updated than the one above but this one references the information from Gartner and gives a good break down. Should be interesting how things stack up after christmas. While I think the iPhones/iPads still offer an experience you won’t get on the Android devices, but as Android matures that gap should close.

Tutorials

 In the up coming weeks I plan to put sometime into writing up some tutorials on a range of different topics. They will be targeted mainly at more advanced areas like Google Scripts so that you can extend the functionality within Google Apps. But if there are any areas that you would like me to look up don’t hesitate to let us know. contact@cloudassist.com.au.

Filed under: Cloud Assist, Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Innovative Innovation, regular, Tech News, Technology by Neil Rutherfoord

The last week has seen some interesting developments, Google made a major search appliance release with support for cloud systems. Microsoft released Windows 7 Mobile, and we knuckled down to some large apps migrations.  

Cloud Connect for the Google Search Appliance Google Search Appliance Update [Neil Rutherfoord]

Google released version 6.8 of the GSA firmware, which has brought in some beta features to the search appliance’ capability. It includes several new Google Search Appliance features in early stages of development, including people search, cloud connect, and dynamic navigation. Dynamic navigation has to be one feature that really has me excited. Having worked on a project which required a parametric search type functionality, this new feature will assist greatly in categorising search results based on the document metadata. While we are not recommending using this update just yet, in a produciton environment, we will be testing it out ourselves to get an idea of the quirks around this release.

Cloud Connect displays relevant, personalized results from Google Docs and Google Sites alongside results from more traditional repositories, like file shares and content management systems. Easier access to collaborative documents, spreadsheets, presentations and sites with Cloud Connect speeds up how quickly coworkers can complete projects. Cloud Connect also lets users search content from Twitter, as well as blogs and industry websites via Google Site Search.

More: here

Windows Mobile 7 [Neil Rutherfoord]

Hot on the heels of the latest Android release, Froyo, Microsoft have released Windows Mobile 7. A number of providers, like Telstra, are expected to provide the HTC 7 Mozart, which will use this OS. “The Start Screen on Windows® Phone 7 brings everything together. One glance tells you what’s going on, what’s happening next and what you’ve missed. The live tiles keep you updated and it’s easy to customise by adding apps, pictures and other favourites to the Start screen so they’re always at your fingertips.” While the live tiles may be slightly different, I personally think this is a last ditch attempt by Microsoft to get into the Mobile game. Good luck to them I say! While Android is creeping on Apple, the iPhone definitly has a stranglehold on the market.

• Automate repetitive business processes

• (e.g. expense approvals, time-sheet tracking, ticket management, order fulfillment, and much more)
• Link Google products with third party services (e.g. send custom emails and a calendar invitation to a list from a MySQL database)
• Create custom spreadsheet functions
• New! Build and collect user inputs through rich graphics interfaces and menus

• (e.g. a company could power an internal application for purchasing office supplies where users could shop via a customized menu interface)

 Google Apps Scripts

I think the biggest announcements for a while from Google, would have to be the inclusion of scripting within and accross the Google Apps suite. Google Apps Script is a JavaScript cloud scripting language that provides easy ways to automate tasks across Google products and third party services. With Google Apps Script you can:

More: here

Drag and drop images in Google Docs

 When writing a document, it often helps to augment text with images and diagrams. Google documents already has three ways to add images: you can choose them from your hard-drive, add them by URL, and you can find them using Google Image Search.

But sometimes the exact image you need is on your desktop and you just want to add it to your document quickly. Starting today, you can drag images from your desktop directly into your documents.

More: here

New Charts and Visualizations in Google Docs

Spreadsheet data can tell compelling stories when placed into charts and other visualizations. Today we’re excited to announce a new editor for charts, redesigned from the ground up as well as a set of new chart types. We’ve added annotated time-lines, organizational charts, gauges, our popular motion chart (which makes it easy to visualize data changing over time) and more to our chart types. 

Filed under: Cloud Assist, Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Innovative Innovation, Managed Migration, Maximising Mobility, regular, Tech News, Technology by Neil Rutherfoord

We don’t like to keep having to come up with excuses for the delays in our weekly news update, but time is so short, and we are ever so busy these days. While we would like to open with some news from last week, some developments on Saturday, and today have meant we’re having a special edition.

Google Announces Self Driving Cars! [Neil Rutherfoord]
I think Minority Report vehicles will soon become a reality. Imagine being able to tell your car, through a simple Google command, to go to Coles to fetch your groceries, or even go to your childs school to fetch them. While this technology has been attempted by many organisations, and many competitions exist for budding science buffs, it takes a huge company to really make a difference. With the financial backing of Google Inc and the information they have at their disposal, Google Maps and Earth, its no wonder its something they are trying to tackle. We are thoroughly impressed and definately opens up a world of possibilities.

New File Migration Tool [Mark Wyman]
Even though it’s still in beta, we would like to announce that we have developed our own File Migration tool after quite a lot of demand. The tool will assist in moving your existing files to the Cloud with support for Google Docs, Google Sites and soon Amazon S3. If you have engaged Cloud Assist to handle your migration, it’s all apart of the service, but if you have the need for such a tool don’t hesitate to contact us. contact@cloudassist.com.au.

It’s that time again, Barcamp Brisbane [Mark Wyman]
It’s on once again and it looks like both Neil and myself will be attending this again. If you have never heard of Barcamp, it’s whats called an un-conference, much like a conference but without the structure. The great thing about this is that it’s up to the attendees on how it runs and who presents, therefore you get a wide range of presentations. There is also an emphasis on participation, you don’t need to present but there are always other ways to participate. Hope to see you there!

There you go a short a sweet version this week. We should have another one out on Friday. So until then have a good end of the week!

Filed under: Cloud Assist, Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Innovative Innovation, Managed Migration, Maximising Mobility, regular, Tech News, Technology by Neil Rutherfoord

A far off reality only a few years ago, today cloud computing has become mainstream. However, many small business owners we meet are still unclear about what cloud computing is and, more importantly, how it can benefit their business. If you’re in this camp, you’re not alone. A recent survey of European IT Heads by Portio Research found that 56% were not familiar with cloud computing.

Cloud computing, or software as a service (SaaS), is when IT software and services are delivered over the web and through a browser. This transfers the responsibility for IT maintenance, software upgrades and any system issues onto the service provider, allowing enterprises like yours to focus on your core business instead of your infrastructure. That’s why the cloud is especially appealing to small-to-medium sized businesses, which often have a smaller workforce and less capacity for time-consuming and expensive IT maintenance.

To help you get more familiar with this concept that can streamline and improve your business operations, we’ve put together the following 10 things to consider when getting started in the cloud:

• Moving to the cloud is easy: The transfer of business information into the cloud is very straightforward. There is no need to install new hardware or software as everything is run by the cloud provider.

• Cost savings could be higher than you anticipate: Businesses that move to the cloud can make savings on many different levels – IT hardware and software expenditure is cut dramatically and fewer staff or support resources are needed for IT maintenance. Last September, analyst group IDC estimated that business can instantly reduce their IT spend by approx. 54% by moving to a cloud based solution.*

• Improved productivity: One of the key benefits of cloud computing is that employees can access documents and emails whilst away from the office. If your business demands mobility and flexibility or you have staff keen to extend their use of home or remote working, the cloud could be a straightforward and affordable way of addressing these needs.

• Greater level of security: Cloud computing can be more secure than traditional IT. It’s all about economies of scale – many established cloud suppliers employ leading security experts, invest vast amounts of money into securing their applications and develop technology beyond the means of any small business. In addition, the risk of losing confidential data on a laptop or a USB stick is also diminished, as everything is stored in the cloud and not on your devices. (Last year a survey from CREDANT Technologies found that 55,843 mobile phones and 6,193 other devices, such as laptops, had been left in the back of London black cabs over the previous six months.** In November 2009, it found that New Yorkers forget on average around 5,000 mobile phones and more than 500 other handheld devices, including iPods, laptops and memory sticks, in the back of taxis, every month.***)

• Manage the cultural adjustment: Today’s employees expect to have the same technology at work that they enjoy at home. Google designs its applications with users in mind and many staff will already be familiar with Google Mail and Google Docs. However, internal communication about the change of service and in-house training sessions will help staff to feel more comfortable using the new technology.

• A more collaborative way of working: Using cloud computing applications, people can work more closely together, accessing and working in the same documents in real time – without the need for hundreds of emails with attachments. Improved knowledge sharing and communication encourages creativity amongst your employees which can help drive the business forward.

• Flexibility to scale up or scale down your business: Cloud based “pay as you go” style services allow you to easily increase your use of cloud services as your business grows, or decrease your spend if you need to temporarily scale down.

• Employees of tomorrow: Look at how teenagers interact – on Facebook, Bebo or MySpace – all cloud environments. These teenagers will soon become employees, accustomed to collaborating online and accessing their data from any mobile device at hand, not expecting to work in one location and from 9 to 5.

• Your business resiliency can be improved: Cloud computing providers should not only offer 24/7 support but also the increased resiliency and redundancy afforded by multiple data centres to ensure your information is always available. This means that you experience less downtime than when managing IT in-house, and any problems can be solved far quicker by being fixed centrally. IDC estimates that businesses operating in the cloud achieve 97% greater IT reliability.*

• More choice: In contrast to traditional IT models which can involve expensive software licenses and long lock-in contracts, the cloud model offers far more flexibility. You can switch provider far more easily and regularly in order to get the best experience and value for money. However, it is important to check with your cloud provider as to how you retrieve data from their cloud should you choose to switch in the future.

*IDC White Paper sponsored by salesforce.com, Force.com Cloud Platform Drives Huge Time To Market and Cost Savings, Doc # 219965, September 2009
** CREDANT Technologies London taxi survey 2008
*** CREDANT Technologies New York taxi survey 2009

Filed under: Cloud Assist, Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Innovative Innovation, Managed Migration, Maximising Mobility, regular, Tech News, Technology by Neil Rutherfoord

Sorry we are a little late on this week with the update, but as I say every week we have been absolutly flat out. A couple more Google Apps roll outs and some custom developments, using different aspects of the Google offering, have kept us on our toes making it a really productive week. In terms of news, we have seen some cool announcements from Google, so on with the show.

Threaded email or not, now it’s your users’ choice in Gmail – Google Enterpise Blog
BIG NEWS! I feel this has to be one of the biggest announcements in regards to GMail in a very long time. Gmail’s conversation view has been one of most contested features for a very long time and it seems though Google has finally listened and realised that it’s not for everyone. You can now turn the feature off, so if you would like to turn off the conversation contact your Google Apps administrator and have the feature enabled.

More tools for viewing document revisions – Docs Blog
Google have provided another way to see the changes that have been made to a Google Document by anyone you may have shared the document with. Previously you could step back through a document’ history and see the changes were made, but the distinction between the current and previous versions were not as clear as it is now. Each user change can now appear inline in the document, and is highlighted in a different colour, so it is easy for you to distinguish who made what changes. Its a brilliant addition to the suite.

Google Promotes Replacement for JPEG Image Format – DigitalTrends
Google has just announced a new image format, called WebP, which the company claims will result in smaller file sizes for commonly shared small image files. They say we will see a massive reduction in Internet traffic, as 65% of all traffic is image related. See a comparison of these image formats here http://code.google.com/speed/webp/gallery.html

301 Redirect – How to move your web server’s files without hurting SEO – Real World Business Solutions
Turning to the website front now. At some point in time 99% of companies are going to upgrade or move their website. A very important part of this process is managing the SEO during the change. This article gives a very good overview on how to manage this, a very important read for anyone considering to update or move their website.

No monkey business at Delhi Games
The Commonwealth Games will kick off in Delhi next week, and to protect the athlete village from hoards of monkeys, authorities there have turned to rented langurs. They are a giant monkey with a black face, and are a popular antidote to the monkey threat. Apart from monkeys, rats are a major concern in the city but the Municipal Corporation of Delhi launched a drive, armed themselves with 600 rat traps and 100kg of rat-killers, to clear the venues of the rodents. Good Luck to our Aussie Athletes!

Filed under: Cloud Assist, Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Innovative Innovation, Managed Migration, Maximising Mobility, regular, Tech News, Technology by Neil Rutherfoord

After last week being a bit light on in Google news, this week there has been heaps of good news from the Google camp. On the Cloud Assist front we have been busy as always especially with the website audits. We have seen a great interest in these, so if you haven’t requested one make sure you do! Anyways on with the news.

Google Apps gets Two Factor Authentication – Cloud Assist
Big news out this week is that Google Apps now has Two Factor Authentication! This is really great news for those security conscious organisations who require the next level in security. If you’re an existing Google Apps user who thinks they need it, just contact your current administrator and they can enable it for you. Overall I think this is a really great step forward for Google Apps and for more information about it make sure you read the entry over at the Google Enterprise Blog.

Three million businesses have gone Google: celebrating growth, innovation and security – Google
This week saw the three millionth business choose to use Google Apps as their platform of choice for their mail and collaboration and I don’t see this slowing down any time soon. It is quite interesting though how many people we talk to who are hesitant to the idea, but why? Before you make the decision to go one way or the other, get educated and see why so many organisations have made the jump to Google Apps. Talk to us now!

5 Tablet Offerings Explored, An Infographic – HotHardware
With Christmas just around the corner, one item that will be hot on everyones wish list is going to be the Tablet. So you want an iPad right? Well before you go shopping this Christmas research your options as there will be a number of tablets available and there may be one that suits your needs a little better than the iPad. The HotHardware article is a great visual representation of what to expect from each device. Make sure you check it out.

Fact of the Week: It is impossible to lick your elbow.

Well that’s it for another week. As always have a great week from everyone at Cloud Assist!

Filed under: Cloud Assist, Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Innovative Innovation, Managed Migration, Maximising Mobility, regular, Tech News, Technology by Neil Rutherfoord

And there you have it, almost another week down, but before we wrap the week up we better do our Weekly Industry update. It has been a very busy week for us with staff travelling all over Australia as Google Apps and Search continues to be the hot topic! Let’s get started with the update.

The Feds Australia Goes Live – Cloud Assist
You may have seen this on the blog already, but I thought it would be worth throwing in this weeks update as well. The Feds Australia website designed by Cloud Assist went live last Friday and the feedback so far has been nothing but positive. The purpose of the project was to expand on their existing one page website and for that they chose our brochure website package. This package met all the customers requirements and has provided the business with a platform they can use to expand along side their business growth. Make sure you check out their website at thefedsaustralia.com.au.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 9: What’s the fuss all about? – Digital Trends
Just when it seems the browser war may be cooling down it looks like it’s about to heat up again. Internet Explorer 9 will soon been released by Microsoft and it seems it has some new features that will put it back in the ring swinging with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. One of the neat features that I like is that it will utilise your computers GPU to help render pages faster. For those who are interested in the browser war make sure you give the article a read.

Here Comes the New Twitter.com – Mashable
I can’t say I am big user of Twitter as I just don’t have the need, yet… In saying that, I am always looking out to see what updates are being made, and this week as the company plans to integrate multimedia into the stream, Twitter announced a new version of the web client. Further to that, I believe the long term goal here is to take the added features of the third party clients and bring them back to the web client. For more about the upcoming changes make sure you read the article.

Android Will be Number 2 Platform Before 2011, Challenge Symbian by 2014 – intomobile
We’re a little lite in Google announcements this week, so I thought I would cover off something I saw in the market during the week. When I bought my Samsung Galaxy S, I was a little worried by the Android OS but I had read sales were taking off in the US so that helped me in the decision to buy the phone. This week, Gartner released a study that shows Android will be the second largest platform by 2011 and no, iOS (iPhone’s platform) won’t be first. So what does this mean? Well, for me I see companies jumping on the iPhone/iPad application band wagon. If that’s you, you may want to stop for a second and think about where the mobile market is heading and if iPhone/iPad is correct or would an Android app be a better fit, especially with the Android iPad killers hitting the market around Christmas. If you need more information around Android Apps make sure you get in touch with us – cloudassist.com.au

Filed under: Cloud Assist, Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Innovative Innovation, Managed Migration, Maximising Mobility, regular, Tech News, Technology by Neil Rutherfoord

It keeps coming thick and fast today. The Feds Australia have just launched their new website. It was a quick refresh, moving away from their one page site to our five page brochure website where they chose to utilise their existing print as the base design. Their goal was to ensure their site design tied in very closely with their existing marketing efforts, which our team quickly achieved.

Visit thefedsaustralia.com.au now!

This was a very quick and simple project which has given The Feds Australia a good leg up. If you feel your website could do with a quick update or refresh, make sure you check out what we can do for you at www.cloudassist.com.au.

Filed under: Cloud Assist, Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Innovative Innovation, Managed Migration, Maximising Mobility, regular, Tech News, Technology by Neil Rutherfoord

Welcome to the second ever weekly round up. It’s was good to hear positive feedback after the first one. Plenty of announcements this week from around the globe and a couple by us too. So here we go for another weekly round up.

Is your website working for you? – Cloud Assist
If you subscribe to any of our social portals (see Weekly Industry News Update #1), you may already be aware that Cloud Assist are happy to announce we are offering FREE website audits. We all know website aren’t neccessarly cheap, but are you getting the return on investment that you should be? See how healthy your website is by signing up for a FREE audit now.

Google Instant – Google
Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. Google are pushing the limits of technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Their key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type. 

Earthquake-proof your business – Computerworld
The Christchurch earthquake at the weekend and the current floods in Victoria are a timely reminder for IT management to dust off its disaster management plans and ensure they are up to date and effective.

Cloud Computing: The Invisible Revolution – OSnews
While trolling the news sites this week I came across this article about Cloud Computing. Every day I still get asked what Cloud Computing is? I find this really interesting as the term now has been around for a couple of years and we all know what it can do for our/your company. But whats really behind the marketing term “Cloud Computing”? If you have a spare 5 minutes and want to get a better understanding of what Cloud Computing encompasses I highly recomend reading the article.  

Hands on: Samsung Galaxy Tabreview – TechRadar
This week saw the official release of Samsung’s answer to the iPad. Since I received my Samsung Galaxy S last week and so far been nothing less than impressed with the device I was keen to find out more about the tablet equivalent. You will always have you Apple ethuists out there which will tell you nothing comes close to the iPad, but if you can filter through that, so far the feedback has been very good! I’m pretty sure if this device came with a nice little Apple logo , people would be lining up to get one and crying if they missed out. The device has been seen in Australia so expect them to come out soon but in the mean time read the full review here. 

Microsoft BPOS down for 90 minutes; second outage in a month – ZDNet
Unfortunately Microsoft’s hosting suite of enterprise applications has seen it’s second outage inside of a month and once again relating to network issues. We all know in a connected world what an outage of 90 minutes across your whole organistation could potentially cost you! I don’t want to turn this into a Google vs Microsoft piece, but it is a worry when you compare the number. I can’t help to think, is Microsoft rushing to play catchup? 

Fact of the Week
The shortest English word that contains the letters A, B, C, D, E and F is “feedback” 

As you can see a very interesting week in our sector. As always until next time, have a great week from everyone here at Cloud Assist.

Filed under: Cloud Assist, Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Innovative Innovation, Managed Migration, Maximising Mobility, regular, Tech News, Technology by Neil Rutherfoord