Google Apps

I love all of the hilarious Xtranormal videos that I’ve come across so I created one dealing with Google Apps vs. Microsoft Exchange. Here is a hilarious video on someone debating whether to go to law school. Here is another debating the HTC Evo vs. iPhone 4.

Here is how the video plays out. A boss asks his employee to setup Microsoft Exchange until the employee tells his boss just how much it will cost. After informing him about Google Apps, the boss decides to go with Google it in order to save the company money and gives his brilliant employee a bonus for helping save the company money. To the video.

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Here is a great Gmail tip that I use to auto-tag or auto-label my emails. I am obsessed with email organization. I get hundreds of emails a day and need to stay on top of them. To help me stay organized, I set up tags (or labels) for certain emails. I have many different business contacts that email me and it’s easy for an email to get overlooked when you have to go through almost a hundred emails each day.

Before Using Auto-Labels

Before I began using Gmail’s filter tool, I would open up the email and manually tag it with the appropriate tag and try to remind myself to come back to it later if I was busy. I have a label for …

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One of the main reasons I suggest my clients use Google Apps instead of Microsoft Exchange for their business’s email and IT needs is because, other than the significant cost savings, Google Apps “just works.”  Google Apps can be setup by a professional rather quickly and you will already be getting email delivered to you which you can check from any computer simply by logging in at mail.yourdomain.com. Additionally, if you still like the comfort of using Microsoft Outlook, that can be setup and synced with Google Apps with ease. Therefore, you could cut out all the headaches and costs associated with having and maintaining a Microsoft server.

My Problem With Microsoft

Our criticism of Microsoft’s offerings is well documented here on this blog. …

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As we discussed on more detail on our Google Sites Support page, Google Sites is a great way to get free website hosting. Although we recommend using WordPress, Google Sites is a great option for businesses who want an easy-to-use interface and are on a low budget.

WordPress is affordable as well. We are happy to install WordPress for just $99. We offer 3 months of free hosting with our installation and hosting is just $9.99/month after that. With Google Sites, no hosting fee is required, which is a huge benefit for businesses keeping their eye out on costs.

For our Google Apps clients, we recommend the Standard Edition since it is free if your organization has 50 users or less. Google Sites …

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If you use Gmail, you probably noticed that Google cleaned up the layout about a month ago, which was a noticeable and welcomed improvement to Gmail. What Gmail added was a better emphasis on Contacts and Tasks availability.  They simply added links to Contacts and Tasks under the Mail link at the top and added a more aesthetically pleasing Compose mail button.

Additionally, the Contacts manager is much easier to use and contains more features, which makes it much easier to add and edit your contact’s information.

Many Google Apps users are wondering if and when the new Gmail look will be available to Google Apps users. Google has not announced when this change will be made available to Google Apps users, but they have …

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Whether you are a domain owner, sole proprietor, start up, small business, or enterprise, if you want email with an @yourdomain.com email address, you should use Google Apps. Here are my top 5 reasons why anyone should use Google Apps to host their email.

1. Eliminates Spam — I’ve used Gmail for 4 years now. I have not received one single spam email. How about that for reliability?
2. @YourDomain.com Email — I’m always disappointed when I see business cards with a Yahoo or Hotmail email address.  I think that sends a poor message to your clientèle.  It lacks professionalism and indicates that you are not technically savvy. With an email address with your domain name, it will convey that you a true professional who is competent.
3. Access Email Anywhere

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Google recently added a new feature to Gmail: Priority Inbox. This is probably one of the best features in Gmail that I’ve seen in a while despite all the new features that Google has released. I’ve already used lots of the plugins that available in Google Labs, but this one has to be my favorite addition to Gmail.

Essentially, over time, Google begins to learn which emails of yours are important based on which emails you read and respond to. Additionally, you can also mark emails as important or not important so Gmail becomes better at sorting out your emails for you. When you go into your priority inbox, important unread emails will be displayed at the top, followed by starred emails, followed by everything else.…

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I love storing all of my files in Google Docs because I can access them anywhere regardless of where I am or which computer I’m using. All client files for my business are stored right in Google Docs and I frequently store PDFs, which end up taking up a lot of storage space. None of your Google Docs file formats count against the 1 GB of space that Google grants to you for free, but if you’re storing PDFs and other file formats, these PDFs end up eating up a lot of storage space.

Many people have asked me whether they can expand the 1 GB of space that’s allowed in Google Docs. If you want to expand the amount of storage you have, you’re able …

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Google Docs recently rolled out three new features into Google Docs.

The first feature is auto-linking of items that are recognized as web addresses, which can also be disabled for those who do not want their documents to contain links.

Google has also added more page sizes to their print options for those are printing on paper other than standard letter size (8.5″x11″) such as legal-sized paper (8.5″x14″) or executive-sized paper (7.25″x10.5″).

Lastly, spellcheck has been added to Google Spreadsheet.…

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You have heard a lot about Google Apps for Business and Google Apps for Education, but you haven’t heard too much about Google Apps for Government. Google recently introduced Google Apps for Government, which includes all the features Google Apps, but adds policy and security features designed with the guidance of the federal government such as storing all data on government-only data centers within the United States.

With budget shortfalls a tremendous problem for state and local governments across the country, governments are searching for all the answers they can get to help solve their budget woes. Governments around the country are beginning to realize that switching to Google Apps can significantly help reduce their IT costs.

Recently, Berkeley Lab deployed Google Apps for its …

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