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Gmail and Drive: Finally Together

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The wait is over!  With the next release cycle of Google Apps, you will be able to insert/attach any file up to 10GB in size from Google Drive.   Rather than sending files which may exceed size limits on many email services, recipients receive a link and the ability to open or download the file via Google Drive (no account needed).

And, if you are sending a file to somebody without access permissions, the smart assistant will let you know.

For more info, visit the Official Gmail Blog.

 

 

New Compose Window Adds Sophistication to Gmail

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Google’s new compose window makes it easier to reference and manage multiple emails at once, with a new overlay window and simplified user screen.

Check out this helpful video.

TrueSwitch and Other Email Migration Options

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If you are moving from a hosted email service (other than gmail.com) to Google Apps, Google is releasing a new migration tool.  Partnering with TrueSwitch, Google is giving users the ability to migrate email from more than 50 different hosted email providers, automatically notify contacts of the new address, and forward email from the current provider to Google Apps.   As a third party tool, Google is only providing “best effort” support.

While has proven effective for users of the free Gmail service, businesses may elect to follow other migration paths for the following reasons: (1) TrueSwitch requires end user action or access to every end user account through the interface; (2) while the tool runs in the background, you need to be logged into the user account to check status; and (3) the tool is designed around personal email accounts.

Businesses may prefer to use other methods and services designed to migrate domains, rather than personal accounts.

 

Guest Post: What is my Gmail account really worth?

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Originally posted on the by Jay Garmon, here is a way to assess the value of your Google Apps account … or at least just the email.

What, exactly, is your Gmail account worth to you?

That’s a complicated question but, at first blush, we’d guess about …roughly…$3,588.85.

That’s the value of the time invested in the average Gmail account, given how many emailsFile:Moneyenvelopeemail.png the average Gmail user has written (5,768), how long it takes to write the average email (one minute, 43 seconds), and the most recent U.S. Depart of Labor statistics on average annual salary ($45,230). In other words, if the average Gmail user were paid to recreate all the Gmail messages he or she’s ever written, it would cost $3,588.85.

How much is your Gmail account worth to you (and how do you stack up to the average Gmail user)? We built a Gmail Value Calculator to help you find out.

Just log in with your Gmail account, input your salary data, and the Gmail Value Calculator will determine:

  • How much your Gmail account is worth to you, in dollars
  • How many messages you send and receive per day
  • How much Gmail storage you use per day
  • Your average Gmail message size
  • Your Gmail Personality Index, which compares your Gmail usage to the average and determines whether you’re more extroverted or verbose than the typical Gmail user

Head over to Gmail-Value.Backupify.com, click the Autofill with Google button (it’s much easier than manually filling out your data), specify your salary, and in seconds you’ll learn what your Gmail account is worth to you.

It’s important to note that this number — how much of your time have you’ve spent writing emails multiplied by how much your time is worth — determines the minimum value of your Gmail account. In truth, your Gmail account is probably worth a lot more.

The $3,588.85 average figure doesn’t include the value of all the email you’ve received, the value of the time spent reading email, the value of any attachments included in your emails, or the simple fact that some emails are simply irreplaceable — especially if you lose them at the worst possible moment. (We’ve got a whole whitepaper devoted to parsing out the math on this issue.)

The average Gmail account is worth at least $3,588.85, but very likely a great deal more. Still, even that minimum figure is pretty impressive — as our Gmail Value Infographic explains. The text-friendly highlights are:

  • Your Gmail is worth $3,588.85, and increases by about $1,196 per year
  • You “spend” as much in Gmail every year as you do on your car
  • Your Gmail is worth five times as much as your laptop
  • Your Gmail represents over four weeks of wages
  • You store one old-school floppy disk (1.44 MB) of Gmail data every day

The complete Gmail Value Infographic is below. Click the image to view it all full size.

 

Inbox Size versus Email Relevance

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Now that many email services are matching Google Apps’ 25GB inbox, the IT folks areA Clean Inbox wondering if users really need that much space and if mailbox limits are still a good practice.  For most companies, the answer lies in how users use email.

Most emails lose value over time.  Like most conversations, the value of the discussion itself fades once the conclusion or result is reached.  Granted, emails dealing with legal, contract, or financial issues have historical value and should be kept around.  But think about the back-and-forth emails for scheduling a lunch meeting and picking a location.  The conversation is fine; the end result is what really matters.

Use and content are more important than size. For users that do not have mobile access to documents, saving emails with attachments may be the only way to access important information in a timely manner.  For these users, large mailboxes seem useful.

For users addressing customer service issues, emails from past cases create unnecessary clutter in the inbox and folders that can lead to disorganization and inefficiencies.  For these users, limiting inbox sizes forces organization.  Combined with an archive, customer related information is not lost while users have a cleaner environment.

And while some users believe that they need to keep everything and that they will need access to any past email at any point in the future, reality dictates that the need to go back to old emails is very limited.  For these users, the discussion is philosophical more than pragmatic.

The challenge for the IT team, is that nearly every organization has all types of users.

You can provide a common solution. Instead of focusing on “how much” space to provide users, focus on “information value”.  Users should have immediate access to information contained in emails that they need to perform efficiently and effectively.

Taking this point of view, email services can meet all user needs when:

  • Users have local, remote, and mobile access to collaboration tools and shared file services, eliminating the need for sending documents as attachments.
  • The system automatically archives email messages, potentially indefinitely, for future viewing by the end user.
  • Users can automatically groom they size of their inbox and email folders based on age, rather than volume, letting users keep and focus on information with the greatest value.

Creating an email service with these attributes eliminates concerns about remote/mobile access, sending/receiving messages with large attachments, and user efficiency.

The good news: The integrated tools within Google Apps — Gmail, Docs, Drive, and remote services — along with Google Apps Vault (or Message Archive & Discovery) deliver this ecosystem without complex configuration and expensive infrastructure.

MAC Users: Hold Off on Mountain Lion

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It seems that Apple may be taking lessons from Microsoft and releasing Operating Systems before they are ready.  A few quick searches show that Mountain Lion, the most recent version of OS X, has many weird issues.

More importantly, both Lion and Mountain Lion are having trouble with connecting to IMAP email services, including Google Apps.  Again, looking around the web, upgrading to Mountain Lion may break your Gmail/Google Apps connection.

If you have upgraded and are having trouble, feel free to contact us under your support contract.  We also welcome inquiries from companies interested in Google Apps support services.

 

Office 2013 – Much Ado About Nothing New

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Microsoft recently announced and started providing demonstrations of Office 2013.  And as discussed in this Vanity Fair article, it is clear that Microsoft continues to suffer from lack of innovation.  The number of new features is limited, many of the new features are playing “catch up”, and Office 2013 will lock you into a closed ecosystem.

Here is some of what is “new” in Office 2013:

  • Office 2013 will work with touch and stylus devices like tablets and smart-phones.  You will be able to navigate and annotate documents using touch, much like you can today with a mouse in Powerpoint.  (Not really a new feature, but you can use a touch screen instead of a mouse)
  • Excel 2013 has a few new advanced analytic features that will be useful to hedge fund managers and the like.

Here is some of what is in Office 2013 that is new to Office, but catching up with the competition:

  • In Outlook, you can reply in-line (just like Gmail’s conversation view)
  • In Outlook calendar, you can put an address in the location of a meeting and have a link to pull up a map on Bing (just like Google Calendar)
  • You can save a file on your PC and access it on other devices nearly immediately via cloud storage (just like Google Drive and Docs has allowed for years, as have Box, Dropbox, and others)
  • You can have real-time video chat (just like Google Talk), but only if you install a thick client

Here is what you will NOT see with Office 2013:

  • Real-Time Collaboration:  Users are limited to co-authoring — serial editing by one user at a time
  • Office 2013 running on much of your existing equipment:  Office 2013 will only run on Windows 8.  Get ready to pay to upgrade your operating system and your desktops and laptops in order to install Windows 8 and Office 2013
  • Good Support for Macs.  Macs are second class when it comes to MS Office in general, and with the “Windows 8” only message from Microsoft, it is unclear if a full version of Office 2013 will even make it to the Mac platform
  • Smartphone / Tablet Integration:  Granted, you will be able to run Office 2013 (and connect via Office 365) from MS Surface tables and Windows 8 phones — but who is buying those?  Microsoft is hedging on support for iOS (iPhone/iPad) support and has said nothing about Android-based devices.  If you want to run Office 2013 anywhere, be prepared to change your mobile device strategy.

As noted in this analysis of Microsoft’s 2012 10-K filing on ZDnet. Microsoft is clearly using Office 2013 and Windows 8 to create a vertically integrated ecosystem designed to block out other technologies.  The question is, do you want to lock your business into an ecosystem and a company that has failed, and continues to struggle, to innovate?

Tuesday Take-Away: Advanced Searching in Gmail

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As more people migrate to Google Apps and begin using the Gmail interface, they are often impressed with the scope and speed of the Gmail search bar.    Not surprising, since Google is sort of known for search.

But, did you know that just like on google.com, you can use advanced search operators in your Gmail search bar?  These operators let you focus your search with greater precision, without sacrificing speed.

Some of the advanced search operators we find most useful are:

Operator Definition Example(s)
from: Used to specify the sender Example: from:amy
Meaning: Messages from Amy
to: Used to specify a recipient Example: to:david
Meaning: All messages that were sent to David (by you or someone else)
label: Search for messages by label*
*There isn’t a search operator for unlabeled messages		 Example: from:amy label:friends
Meaning: Messages from Amy that have the label “friends” 

Example: from:david label:my-family
Meaning: Messages from David that have the label “My Family”
has:attachment Search for messages with an attachment Example: from:david has:attachment
Meaning: Messages from David that have an attachment
is:starred
is:unread
is:read		 Search for messages that are starred, unread or read Example: is:read is:starred from:David
Meaning: Messages from David that have been read and are marked with a star
after:
before:		 Search for messages sent during a certain period of time*
*Dates must be in yyyy/mm/dd format.		 Example: after:2004/04/16 before:2004/04/18
Meaning: Messages sent between April 16, 2004 and April 18, 2004.*
*More precisely: Messages sent after 12:00 AM (or 00:00) April 16, 2004 and before April 18, 2004.

 

You can review a full list of advanced search operators here.  You can also use these operators to create filters and manage email as message arrive.

Tuesday Take Away: 8 Ways that Clouds Beat Blizzards

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Once again, the team and I at Cumulus Global found ourselves working from our homes, pizza shops, libraries, and coffee shops.  An unusual and record-breaking October Nor’easter dumped about a foot of very heavy and wet snow on us, snapping power poles and trees like, well, twigs.  In our area of the state, most towns reported between 60% and 100% of residences and businesses without power.  Starting on Saturday evening, many will be without power until late Thursday or Friday.

Businesses tied to their physical offices, again, are learning the hard way how Cloud Computing can help keep things running when life throws the unexpected your way.

1) Message Continuity

If you run MS Exchange, Google Message Continuity not only provides you with bullet-proof spooling if your server or Internet link are down, you get Gmail’s web interface and the ability to send and receive emails.  And while most email contingency services dump all activity in your spool to your inbox (including sent message), GMC actually syncs your sent and saved messages, preserving your folders and your sanity.

2) Cloud Storage Mirror

Different than backing up for restores or recovery, synchronizing or mirroring local and network data to a cloud service gives you the ability to access and use your documents, usually through a web interface, from anywhere at anytime.  Matching the cloud service and the sync tool to your needs ensures your critical data is available even if your office is not.

3) Google Talk

With a laptop or smartphone, the Google Talk app, and an Internet connection anywhere, you can communicate with your team and your associates securely via instant messaging, voice conferencing, or video conferencing.  Don’t worry of phone lines or in-house PBXs are down, with Google Talk you can see who is available and converse at will.

4) Google Voice

Get your laptop to an Internet connection with a headset and microphone and you can send and receive calls without a fuss.

5) Hosted VoIP Phone Services

It may seem like the throw-back to the days of Centrex, but hosted VoIP (aka Hosted iPBX) services keep your phone lines working regardless of what is happening with your building.  And, you can access and use your lines, extensions, and voice mail from pretty much anyplace with either a VoIP phone, softphone software on your laptop, or your smartphone.

6) Cloud-Based Email

If you are thinking of using the cloud as a contingency service because cloud-based email is going to be available when your in-house system goes off-line, why not make the more reliable service the one you use every day?  Do you need or want to keep your in-house server when a cloud-based service will be more reliable and more available?  Ok, it’s a loaded question … but still worth some thought.

7) Cloud File Services

Just as with cloud-based email, Cloud File Services will prove more reliable and available over time, and especially during emergencies.  Granted, you may have applications, and work flow issues that make using cloud file services as your primary file service impractical.  But, you will never know if you don’t take a look. And, many of these requirements work with the right local sync technology in place.

8) Google Apps for Business / Government / Education

There, I finally said it.  Google Apps gives you the reliability and availability of the cloud-based Gmail, cloud storage you can mirror or sync, Google Talk, Google Voice integration, and a cloud file service.  Better yet, Google Apps rolls these services into an integrated, affordable package with access from most any computer and smartphone.  Some of the solutions may require third party components.  But, when disaster strikes (and disasters will strike), why not have an IT Ecosystem that is resilient to available rather than you you need to recover.

Friday Thought: Maybe the Backup Should Be The Primary

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When Hurricane Irene seemed like a bigger threat to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, I started receiving emails with emergency contact information.  From non-profits I work with, organizations to which I belong, businesses I use, and event customers of Cumulus Global.  While some noted likely or planned closing, most were providing alternate means of communication “just in case” power outages caused their email server and phones to go down or be unreachable.

Every single one of these alternate emails ended in @gmail.com. Go figure!  When businesses and non-profits need an email service that will be available during the storm and that can be accessed from phones and tablets as easily as from computers, they turn to Gmail.

In-house email servers are susceptible to power outages, Internet downtime, and other local or regional crises.  Gmail is not.  Gmail runs redundantly across many geographically dispersed data centers.  And while it is easy to seamlessly connect your iPhone, Android, or Blackberry, all you really need is an Internet connection and a browser.

For all of the organizations that went out of their way to tell me about their backup email service, the backup service is more reliable and effective than their in-house system.   Why then wouldn’t they switch?

I’m not talking about Gmail, either.  I’m talking about businesses and non-profits moving to Google Apps for Business and Google Apps for Education, respectively.

For 501c3 non-profits and schools, Google Apps of Education is free.  You get better service and save money.  And, we can help you migrate your data and your team.  Other non-profits are eligible for discounts, contact me and find out more.

For businesses, our Google Apps for Business packages, with end user support, start at less than the equivalent of $10 per user per month.

Think of the benefits of having your email on the most reliable, most accessible communication and collaboration platform available.  Think of your piece of mind know that your organization, its employees, its customers, and its constituents will be able to communicate without jumping through hoops.

Migration is quick and painless.  Email or call us toll free (866-356-1202).  Let’s discuss how we can help you.