Cloud Assist Blog – Google Apps for Business | Google Search | GMail News

Some of the support tasks you will not miss when you move from Microsoft on premises services to Google Apps. Here are 5 to start things off – can you add any to this list?

1. Worrying if the 6 year old server will make it through the night
2. Forgetting to swap the external backup device or plugging it back in
3. Taking the other external backup home and putting it somewhere safe where the kids won’t find it and use it to build a castle
4. Dealing with users who cannot connect remotely to the company file server or VPN
5. Creating endless .pst files as users reach their Exchange storage limit

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

Google Commerce Search is a fantastic product, and one we are willing and able to help you get installed on your website. It will turbo charge your e-commerce website, and help you target a much wider audience. We have a strong background in web development and Google Search Appliances, and are exceptionally well placed to be able to help you maximise the potential of your website. Watch the video, to get an idea of what it is about, then pick up a phone and give us a call on 1300 501 890 !

Google Commerce Search (GCS) is a hosted search solution for your e-commerce store that leverages Google’s tremendous search expertise and computing infrastructure to deliver a superior online shopping experience at the most effective total cost of ownership. GCS works seamlessly on both desktop e-commerce sites as well as mobile sites and apps.

Filed under: Cloud Assist, Google, Google Commerce Search, Innovative Innovation, Maximising Mobility, Technology by Google Apps Guru

Hopefully we don’t have this in Australia, but its pretty terrible if we do!

So, this has been causing a bit of a major dungstorm – and rightly so. As it turns out, many carriers are installing a piece of non-removable privacy-invading spyware on their smartphones called CarrierIQ. It doesn’t matter whether you have a webOS, Android, BlackBerry or iOS device – carriers install it on all of them. Luckily though, it would appear it really depends on your carrier – smartphones in The Netherlands, for instance, are not infested with CarrierIQ.

So, what is CarrierIQ? It’s a rootkit carriers and some handset makers in some markets install on their devices to track just how you use these devices. They record keystrokes, usage patterns, and all manner of other information, on your device. Many versions of the rootkit even send this information to your carrier where they can pinpoint your exact device, what you’ve been up to, what you’ve been typing, and so on.

The exact purpose of the rootkit was uncovered by Trevor Eckhart – he was then served a cease & desist notice from CarrierIQ demanding he remove the information. Eckhart immediately received support from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, after which CarrierIQ did a 180 and retracted the legal threat.

So far, CarrierIQ’s rootkit has been found on devices running BlackBerryOS, Android, and webOS.It’s been found on iOS as well, but on iOS it stores less information, and it doesn’t seem to be sending anything as long as ‘Diagnostics and Usage’ (iOS 5) is turned off – which is the default (you are asked to enable it during the iOS5 setup). So far, Windows Phone 7 and Bada appear to be not infected with the rootkit. In addition, Nokia has stated none of their phones have ever had CarrierIQ installed.

This is pretty bad, but luckily, it would appear this is very much a carrier-specific thing, and not a device-specific thing (except for iOS, where it’s always installed, but as said, turned off). For instance, carriers in The Netherlands do not install it at all, so it’s very well possible that it’s mostly a US-thing. On top of that, smartphones from Google’s Nexus programme do not contain the rootkit either. In the US, Verizon has come out as well, stating their devices do not include CarrierIQ.

You can easily check whether your Android device has CarrierIQ installed. All you need to do is install TrevE’s Logging Test App, and hit the CIQ Checks button. My Dutch T-Mobile-branded Samsung Galaxy SII does not have CarrierIQ installed.

This is a pretty big deal, and a serious privacy violation by any standard, and I’m pretty sure this is going to lead to some serious lawsuits.

As a sidenote, it amuses me to no end how someone like John Gruber has mysteriously and quite suddenly adopted the “it’s the carrier’s fault!”-mantra now that iOS has also been found to include CarrierIQ. Which is ironic, since it appears that Apple is the only one including CarrierIQ (slightly butchered, but still) within the operating system itself, whereas on Android, it’s a carrier thing.

In any case, I’m going to play with my Galaxy SII some more – without my carrier peeking over my shoulder. And in case T-Mobile NL uses some other method, I just typed in “I SENSE YOUR PRESENCE” exactly 17 times, just to mess with some heads.

 

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

Speculation was running rampant that Google will announce real estate giant Ray White has implemented the search giant’s flagship Google Apps suite, after Ray White staff posted their jubilation at “going Google” online this morning.

Then this Youtube video appeared (submitted by Google Australia) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYRjZWcwA2A

“Ray White Group ‘first mover’ — ready for a significant announcement with Google in the [real estate] space. Here comes ‘G5′ cloud-based technology,” wrote Ray White New Zealand chief executive Carey Smith on Twitter this morning, in a somewhat cryptic post.

“Ray White has gone Google. A platform for a new generation of services and thinking,” added Ben White, whose LinkedIn profile lists him as a non-executive director at the real estate giant. “Ray White & Google … sounds like a match!!” added Chris Wilkins, the business owner of Ray White Drummoyne.

An individual named David Fry also posted about the issue, linking to a website called “Channel 5″, which appears to deal with internal communication at Ray White and may be the platform for the Google Apps deployment.

Nice Job Neonstingray!

Neither Ray White or Google spokespeople could immediately comment on the posts, but Google has a press conference scheduled for 11AM this morning where it plans to reveal two new Australian enterprise customers of Google Apps, the first of which is expected to be Flight Centre. If Ray White has deployed Google Apps, the rollout will be a significant one — the real estate giant has over 1000 individual offices spread across Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, China, India and the United Arab Emirates.

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

GOOGLE will this week name Flight Centre as its latest enterprise email customer in Australia, a blow to Microsoft.

It is understood that Flight Centre’s 6000-plus employees will transition from Microsoft Outlook over to Google’s web-based Gmail system.

The switch to Google from Microsoft may include other applications. Online travel giant Flight Centre is a heavy Microsoft Office and Exchange corporate user.

Google Enterprise international sales vice-president Amit Singh and a senior executive from Flight Centre will make the announcement at a media briefing in Sydney on Thursday.

The internet giant is expected to unveil another enterprise win at the event.

Flight Centre and Google Australia representatives declined to comment when contacted.

Nice Work Google!

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

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

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