Stepping Up to Google Apps

Review

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I moved my personal website (husted.com) to Google Apps. The GA move will save me website hosting fees (the Standard Edition is free), while providing me new services my plain old HTML site didn’t have. Since we also use GA at VanDamme, I’ll also have a familiar, seamless environment, whether at work or at home. The trade-off is that my website’s look and feel is harder to customize, but, after ten years without an overhaul, I’m ready for a change.

Google Apps refers to a set of Google “point” applications, which, when used together, can create a virtual workplace. In practice, Google Apps is the equivalent of Microsoft Office and Outlook. Google Apps is free and delivered over the web. There is nothing to install, and you can access your assets from a web browser anywhere on the Internet.

The applications in the Google Apps suite are

  • Mail
  • Talk
  • Calendar
  • Docs (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations)
  • Start Page
  • Sites
    Mail (aka GMail) is a popular email client, that many people may already use. Mail is the core of Google Apps and shares resources with Talk and Calendar.

Chat (aka GTalk, aka Talk) is featureful instant messaging application, and includes handy voice mail and file transfer utilities. Talk is exposed through Mail, and stores chat transcripts as Mail messages.

Calendar shares its contact list with Mail, making it easy to schedule appointments with other people in your organization. It’s also easy to overlay any other Google Calendars that might be part of your busy modern life. Mail will also scan messages, looking for items that you might want to add to Calendar. I can display my personal Husted dot Com calendar alongside my VanDamme calendar, without commingling appointments.

Docs provides online editing of word processing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. While not as powerful as offline equivalents, Google Docs offers powerful collaborative features that you won’t find elsewhere.

Start Page (aka iGoogle) is an personalized portal lending instant access to other applications in the Google Apps suite.

Sites is a web page builder that can be used to create special-purpose project portals. You can create a basic web page with a WYSIWYG editor, or add special page types, like a filing cabinet or message center.

But, wait, there’s more: Apps can also integrate with applications hosted by the Google Apps Engine, among others.

Finally, the services are a la carte, and you can disable any you don’t want to use with your domain (including mail).

Moving a site over is relatively painless. To use Google Apps, you do need a domain – either one you already own or a new one (that Google will help you purchase at a discount). To move an existing domain to GA, you need access to the CNAME and MX records. (The Help center has articles with specific instructions for most domain registrars.) The CNAME record will route request for addresses like “www.your-domain.com" to the Google servers. The MX record will route your domain email

If you’re looking for a way to use a web site as a collaborative tool, either for home or a small office, give Google Apps a gander. As a suite, it’s far from perfect, but Google Apps is still solid and useful platform.

Ready to get started? See these quick-start videos: