[INFO] Google+ is slowly rolling out

Over the course of the last year or so Google has been quietly implementing the framework for their social networking takeover.  Some users may notice the new Google black bar (still experimental I think) located at the the top of the browser when signed into their Google Apps accounts.

Here is a post from http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/06/google-bar.html with more details:

When you're signed in and look at the Google+ bar, you'll see your full name or email address displayed with a photo or avatar next to it. This helps you identify which account you're currently signed in to. You can sign in to multiple accounts at once and switch between them using the Google+ bar.When you're signed in and look at the Google+ bar, you'll see your full name or email address displayed with a photo or avatar next to it. This helps you identify which account you're currently signed in to. You can sign in to multiple accounts at once and switch between them using the Google+ bar.

The navigation bar has been morphed into the Google+ bar and it should be more useful. Maybe at some point the bar will include notifications for Gmail, Calendar, Google Docs and other Google services.

A page from the Google+ help center explains the purpose of the new Google navigation bar: 

One of the most interesting feature of the bar is notifications:

The Google+ bar, which appears at the top of Google products, is your connection to Google+. You can share what's on your mind, view your Google+ notifications, access your profile, or jump to a variety of other Google products. For instance, to get to Google+, all you have to do is click +[your first name].

When you receive a notification, the notification area in the Google+ bar will turn red and show the number of new notifications. If you click the notification area in the Google+ bar, you’ll see a summary of your recent notifications. When you click a notification, a preview of the event that generated the notification will appear in the drop-down menu. You can take action on each notification right from the notifications menu, like commenting on a post or adding someone to a circle.]

[PROJECT] Email migration started last night

Student and faculty Google Apps accounts went live last night.

Email from your old accounts is currently being migrated into your new accounts.

It may take up to 14 days for your email to appear in your account because I can only migrate 25 users at a time.

[INFO] AIM support temporarily removed from GChat

We are temporarily suspending AIM functionality for our Chat product while we wait for needed system updates on the part of of AIM's creator, AOL. During this period, you won't be able to invite your AIM buddies to join your Chat list, nor will you be able to chat with the AIM buddies that you had on your Chat list. We apologize for any inconveniences caused by the temporary suspension of this feature.
We are in direct communication with AOL and they have informed as that they are actively working on these needed updates. Once AOL has finished updating their system, we will reinstate AIM functionality for our Chat product. We appreciate your patience in the interim.

 Google Apps Official Blog

[BREAKING] Google Apps gets bigger for Education

Google's Official Blog announced last night that the Google Apps for Education suite is increasing the mailbox size from 7GB to 25GB.   The increase in storage will roll-out over the course of the next couple weeks.  Nothing but good news here.

Read the original announcement here

[LEGAL] What does Google consider "Confidential Information"?

"Confidential Information" includes any proprietary data and any other information disclosed by one party to the other in writing and marked "confidential" or disclosed orally and, within five business days, reduced to writing and marked "confidential". Notwithstanding the foregoing, Confidential Information will not include any information that is or becomes known to the general public, which is already in the receiving party's possession prior to disclosure by a party or which is independently developed by the receiving party without the use of Confidential Information. Neither party will use or disclose the other party's Confidential Information without the other's prior written consent except for the purpose of performing its obligations under this Agreement or if required by law, regulation or court order. In which case, the party being compelled to disclose Confidential Information will give the other party as much notice as is reasonably practicable prior to disclosing such information. Upon termination of this Agreement, the parties will promptly either return or destroy all Confidential Information and, upon request, provide written certification of such. You are responsible for safeguarding the confidentiality of Your password(s) and user name(s) issued to You by Google, and for any use or misuse of Your account resulting from any third party using a password or user name issued to You. You agree to immediately notify Google of any unauthorized use of Your account or any other breach of security known to You.

yep, i read terms and agreements, this was from a Google Analytics Terms and Conditions agreement page today...

[OPINION] Google Labs, get more bang for your buck

Google Labs are experimental features in GMail that often make it to the big leagues (become permanent features and/or settings).  I've tried out most of these and use some of them everyday.  

I've put the labs that I currently use in gmail into the following four categories:

Must have:

• Signature tweaks   --  "Places your signature before the quoted text in a reply, and removes the "--" line that appears before signatures."  Everyone should enable this one.

• Mark as read button  -- "Tired of spending all that effort to click on the more actions menu every time you want to mark messages as read without reading them? Now just enable this lab and that is just a button click away!"

• Canned Responses  -- "Email for the truly lazy. Save and then send your common messages using a button next to the compose form. Also automatically send emails using filters."  This one might be the biggest time saver for me.

• Inserting images  -- put images into the message body

• Background Send  -- "let google send your mail while you move on to more important things. Just be sure to stay logged in until it's all sent!"
  

Why not?:

• Green Robot  -- more for fun, shows which users are currently on Android mobile
• Create a document 
• Google Calendar gadget
• Google Docs gadget
• Google Docs previews in mail
• Google Maps previews in mail
• Smart Labels  -- automatically categorize bulk, notifications, or forum mail
• Undo Send  -- more like delayed send, a few seconds can be helpful though
• Video chat enhancements  -- higher resolution, bigger windows, and enhancements keep coming
• Sender Time Zone
• Navbar drag and drop
• Yelp previews in mail

Enabled, but still testing functionality:

• Message Sneak Peek
• Move icon column
• Smart Mute
• Quote selected text
• Right-side chat  
• Message translation

Disabled after testing, or just not for me:

• Send and Archive  -- love the idea, but doesn't play nice with conversation view off
• Quick Links -- I get it, but its just not for me
• Refresh POP accounts -- this was great when I still used POP

I'll be writing about some of these labs in upcoming posts.

[TIPS and TRICKS] EOM?

How often have you sent an quick one-liner email without a message in the actual body of the email? Probably countless times.  Sometimes subject line only emails are the way to go because they provide the user with a quick message.

Subject:  The website will be down at 5pm for 5 minutes EOM

Putting EOM at the end of the message in the subject line indicates that it is the END OF MESSAGE.

This is useful because it provides the recipient with quick and relevant information without the need to open the email because the entire message is contained in the subject.

Additionally, the person sending the email will avoid the 'Send this message without text in the body?' prompt because most programs recognize the EOM command.

[TIPS and TRICKS] TO: and FROM: search operators in GMail

You've just logged into GMail because you need to pull up that email from your buddy Donald.  Your goal is to find this specific email because it has directions to the BBQ which starts in less than an hour.

The average user would simply type Donald in the search bar, but this search isn't really narrow enough because it will return results for all emails with keyword Donald.  

You see the results from this search and you're immediately irritated because you obviously don't want to have to sort through any emails you've sent to Donald. All emails with keyword Donald are being displayed because you didn't use a search operator.

Using the from: operator:

If instead you had searched from:Donald it would provide you only with emails Donald has sent to you, displaying them from most recent to oldest.


Follow the link for a quick list of search operators and a short video tutorial.

[BRIEF] First Google Apps Staff Training Session

A small group of users participated in an interactive Google Documents training session today at Montserrat College of Art.  This was the first Google Apps training session offered by Montserrat IT.

The training session focused on several of the basics such as creating, uploading, and sharing documents. User's were able to watch the presenter and follow along on their own computers.

The session also briefly touched on some of the collaborative capabilities of Google Documents with features such as page revisions and document level chat functionality.

"Email for Life" at Montserrat College of Art

I recently sent out an email to our 2011 graduates which provided them with the option to keep their Montserrat email account for life.

Those who decide to keep their account will be migrated from Mailsite Express to Google Apps for Education at Montserrat.

We're excited to leverage the tools provided in the Google Apps for Education suite to enhance communication and collaboration between students, faculty, and staff at the College.

The switch to Google Apps for Education has allowed Montserrat to offer "Email for Life" to our students.

Note:
Accounts will be converted to a first name dot last name format.
Example;  jsnyder@montserrat.edu account will be converted to jake.snyder@montserrat.edu account.  
An alias of your original email account will be associated with your new account so you will continue to receive email sent to your old account.

The launch site for Google Apps at MCA is almost complete.

You can check out the progress here:
Google Apps Learning Center at MCA

This site was built with Google Sites to not only provide a demonstration of the capabilities that the user has to create and publish functioning websites without programming knowledge, but also to provide users with a learning place for Google Apps, specifically at Montserrat College of Art.

Why did Montserrat choose Google Apps?

We are pleased to announce that Montserrat College of Art has chosen Google Apps for its new email and calendar platform. You have recently received your new Google Apps account and can log in and begin using Gmail, Google Calendar, and the other apps, right away.

What is Google Apps?

Google Apps is a suite of web-based messaging and collaboration applications that Google hosts on their own servers. Google provides these applications as a "service," rather than as software to download and install. To access these applications, you simply use a web browser on a computer that's connected to the Internet.  

Why did you choose Google Apps?

We looked for an email and calendar solution that could provide with us the following benefits:

• Lower infrastructure costs -- All your email will be stored securely on Google's servers, so we'll no longer need to maintain email servers on-site
• Ability to consolidate our platforms -- We can eliminate redundancy by moving all of our email and calendar platforms to Google Apps
• Lower support costs -- Because Google hosts the email and calendar services, there's no more email client software to maintain on your computer
• Innovative solutions -- We can leverage the ongoing creative and technical solutions of the Google Apps platform to provide employees with powerful, easy-to-use tools for getting their work done
• Highly scalable environment -- With Google Apps, our email capacity will grow automatically as our user base grows, and we'll avoid the complexity of internal systems
• Access to services from anywhere, anytime -- A key benefit of the Google-hosted solution is that we can access email, contacts, and calendar from any computer or mobile device with an Internet connection, anywhere in the world
• More collaboration features -- With Google's next-generation applications, we can collaborate with students, faculty, and staff more easily and efficiently than ever before

What exactly does Google Apps include?

Your new Google Apps account will include the following services:

Google Mail	Google Calendar	Google Talk	Google Docs	GoogleSites	Google Video

What are the key benefits?

• Lots of storage -- You get a full 7 GB of online storage for your email, so you can archive all of your email online. You'll no longer need to worry about deleting messages or saving them in offline folders.
• Enhanced message organization and retrieval -- With Google Mail, you'll spend less time managing folders and searching for messages. For example, you can add one or more tags, or "labels," to your messages to organize and store them more efficiently. And with the Google-powered search feature, you can find any message quickly and easily, whether it's in your Inbox or stored in your message archive.
• Easier calendar sharing -- Google Calendar lets you and your team members quickly and easily share your calendars with each other and specify the details you want to show. Calendar sharing is a great way for you and your coworkers to keep each other informed about your schedules. Now it's easier than ever to find out if someone is in a meeting, on a business trip, or on vacation.
• Integrated chat -- With the Google Talk instant messaging application, you can communicate instantly with your coworkers right from the Email interface. In addition, all your chats are automatically saved in your Email application, so you can always retrieve important information.
• Real-time collaboration -- Using Google Docs, you can create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and you and your team members can view and edit them at the same time. You can still use your Microsoft Office products as needed, but now you'll have more options for storing and collaborating on your documents. 
• Easy-to-build team web sites -- With Google Sites, your team has the ability to quickly publish a robust internal web site on which to gather all sorts of shared information, such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, files, and videos. You can even embed Google calendars and other gadgets on your site!
• Powerful video sharing -- Using Google Video for business, you can easily share videos with your team or throughout the College for a whole new level of communication and collaboration.

Wireless Project Complete at Hardie Building

The Hardie building at 23 Essex Street now has enterprise wireless throughout the entire building.

Previously, some classrooms had wireless, but oftentimes it was a challenge to get a device to properly connect to the network.

The completion of this project provides the following:

• Drastically improved mobile platform support (Android, Blackberry, iOS, etc).
• Improved support for Apple, Windows, and Linux operating systems.
• The ability to seamlessly transition from one access point to another.
• 100% wireless coverage area for the Hardie building.
• Support for more users per Access Point location at any given time.
• Dual bands allow both older and newer devices to connect.
• Overall faster wireless performance.

The Student Resident Village at 26 Essex Street will be getting a similar upgrade this fall.

Google Apps for Education at MCA

Montserrat College of Art is in the middle of a campus wide migration to Google Apps for Education.

Currently, only staff members and a select group of faculty and students have been migrated over to the new platform.  Remaining students and faculty will be migrated to the new system this summer.

Check back for progress updates.