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Cumulus Global Launches Google Sites Design Services With Kirksville Web Design

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Cumulus Global (www.cumulusglobal.com) announced today a new partnership with Kirksville Web Design (www.kirksvillewebdesign.com) and the immediate launch of new Google Sites design and development services.

These services will provide businesses, schools, non-profits, and governments with access to affordable site design and development services for intranet sites, project management sites, secure customer portals, and public web sites.  In addition to offering site design, Cumulus Global and Kirksville Web Design will create Google Site and Page Templates that allow organizations to build and grow their sites themselves.

“We are excited to be helping organizations take advantage of the full range of collaboration tools within Google Apps,”  noted Allen Falcon, CEO of Cumulus Global. “The team at Kirksville Web Design brings creative, design, and development expertise to the process of building effective Google Sites.”

Google Apps provides organizations with much more than a hosted email solution. Features such as Talk, Sites, Forms, Docs, Video, and Drive, give individuals and organizations better tools for communicating and collaborating.  Whether improving work flow among co-workers or delivering better customer service, Google Apps makes it easier to securely share information while improving accessibility.

About Cumulus Global
Cumulus Global (https://www.cumulusglobal.com) is Cloud Solutions Provider and a Google Apps Premier SMB Reseller helping small and mid-size businesses, non-profits, governments, and educational institutions move from in-house systems to cloud computing solutions.  Serving clients from 1 to more than 1,000 employees across numerous industries, we align technology with our clients’ goals, objectives, and bottom lines. We leverage our expertise, vendor relationships, and a diversified range of best-of-breed cloud services to create custom solutions with tangible value. In addition to Google Apps, Cumulus Global offers a range of cloud-based security, storage, and server solutions.

About Kirksville Web Design
Kirksville Web Design (http://www.kirksvillewebdesign.com) is on the cusp of innovation and web design by incorporating Google Sites and subsidiary applications to meet customers’ communication and marketing needs.  We create clean, modern sites with high visibility at affordable fees.  We teach, train, and consult to bring companies success in their online marketing and website management.  In just three years, Kirksville Web Design has completed more than 300 Google Sites design and development projects.

 

Freshen Up Your Existing Google Sites

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Google Sites now supports the ability to apply a site template’s theme to any existing site. This does not apply the entire template to your existing site, just the template’s theme.

Using this capability, you can spruce up the theme of existing Google Sites without changing the structure or layout.

Click here to learn more.

Is Cloud Connect Enough?

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Let’s face it.  While Google Docs offers decent web-based office productivity tools, you and some of your users need or want to keep the interface and features of MS Office.  The good news is that you can integrate MS Office and Google Docs to create a collaborative file service.  Google Cloud Connect, a free utility with Google Apps, is one such integration tool.  But, is it enough?

In our assessment, Cloud Connect provides basic integration, but lacks features that will give your users the full power of Google Docs as a collaboration platform.  Here is what we find lacking:

  • Automation Overdrive:  On installation, all MS Office documents will be added to Google Docs with automatic synchronization.  It is too easy to end up synchronizing files that you do not want or need to be in the cloud.
  • No Format Options:  Cloud Connect always uploads files in native MS Office formats, utilizing valuable space.  Users do not have the option to convert to Google Docs’ formats to take advantage of the unlimited storage.
  • No Collections:  All files are synchronized to your Home folder; you don’t have the option of selecting other locations.
  • Limited Permissions:   Documents inherit the rights of the Home collection, and you can add/change collaborators individually to files.  Since you cannot save files to other collections, you cannot take advantage of the permissions capabilities of Google Docs.
  • Site-Less:  You cannot synchronize files to Google Sites, so you do not have the ability to use all available storage and you cannot take advantage of the version control features in Sites.

Fortunately, you have some options.   Our favorite is OffiSync Premium.  In addition to providing all of the features lacking on Cloud Connect, OffiSync Premium lets you add/remove Google Docs collections and Google Site pages, email collaborators, and embed image and web search results … all from within a toolbar/ribbon in MS Word, Excel, or Powerpoint.  Also, OffiSync Premium gives you co-authoring collaboration across versions of MS Office, including 2003, 2007, and 2010.