Blog of a Long Distance Worker Tech

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Tag Archives: Business

Google Apps for Domains Problems for the Enterprise and Business

Google Apps for DomainsIn my business we are a heavy Google Apps for Domains user with several domains setup, some business and some free. I moved across from hosted Exchange a few years ago and everything has been pretty great until the last few weeks which caused me to question whether Google Apps for Domains was suited to Business in general.

The start of my problem was the in my use of Google Sync for Outlook, a tool that gives almost native desktop integration for the Google mail features. This has worked great and I noticed no problems until about three weeks ago I noticed that my laptop was sucking battery and ran hot all the time that Outlook was open. A little investigation found that the Sync of Notes was always running and syncing despite the fact that I don’t use the Notes feature of Outlook or Google at all (I prefer Evernote). Further checks found that I had a significant amount of Notes that I discovered was actually all of my .txt files that I had stored in Google Docs/Drive (I use Google Drive desktop sync and Insync to sync my main files, something I had added a load of files to about three weeks previously). The penny dropped, that because Google Apps Sync for Outlook syncs all ‘notes’ found in Google Docs to Outlook, all of the many text files (many GB by the way) that I sync were between machines and the cloud using Insync were also being synchronised into my Google Mail and because there were many GBs, it was taking a very long time and killing my laptops in the meantime.

I had to stop the synchronisation of Notes and contacted Google Apps Enterprise support for help (because I could not find anything online about how to do it). Their response was sort of expected and not expected… Google Notes sync is beta and the disabling of the sync was not supported. The last point is the killer for me, and what led me to think that Google has a big problem. They activated without my control a Beta feature (Notes Sync) but don’t provide a single way for me (a Live user) to disable a Beta feature, at least they don’t support it! Not Enterprise friendly and that has to change Google.

Anyway, they did provide some ‘unsupported’ registry settings to disable it in the end, so fine I used the settings but unfortunately it did not work – in fact the modifications were supposed to allow me to disable the sync of one or all features of Google Sync for Outlook but NONE of the changes did anything. I contacted Google again but their response was that they could not provide support on the unsupported registry modifications and I was ON MY OWN! Not friendly at all, they effectively hung me out to dry to a problem caused by their enforcement of the use of a Beta feature AND providing a fix that simply did nothing. Google, you have a problem right there in the use of your services with the Enterprise and you need to fix it right now. Don’t deploy Beta features without the ability to enable/disable them, and don’t leave businesses high and dry without a resolution caused by your own ineptitude otherwise you will LOSE to everyone else. I had to consider stepping back from Google Apps for Domains, back to a traditional hosted Exchange solution before I found the fix (we also considered stepping back from Google Docs/Drive as a smaller step).

Anyway, for those who need the fix I hunted over several nights through multiple Google Groups looking for a solution and finally found it, but that was no thanks to Google. For those who are looking to be able to enable or disable individual syncs in Google Sync for Outlook you need to modify the follow the instructions:

1. Go to http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?answer=1041455 , go to Enable/Disable Import Options.

2. Follow Step 1 to Create the “SyncFlagsEnabled” value with DWORD value set to 1.

3. Skip Step 2 because it is redundant to what you want to do

4. Follow Step 3 for each of the services you wish to control (NotesSync in my instance) but add the following to the registry key for the service:
registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Apps Sync\NotesSync

Modify HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Google Apps Sync\TasksSync by adding the following DWORD Values: 
DWORD Value: UploadEnabled 
Modify the DWORD Value as follows: 
Set the Value data = 0 

DWORD Value: DownloadEnabled 
Modify the DWORD Value as follows: 
Set the Value data = 0

All I then had to do was remove the almost 3GB of notes from my Notes folder and then compact my PST to get everything back to where it needs to be, and then go an provide a registry import for these settings to provide to all of my users so that they don’t have the same problem of the laptop whizzing about synchronising a whole load of nothing, using processor and bandwidth a plenty. All I need to do now is watch Google for the next Enterprise mess up with Google Sync for Outlook.

iOS4.2, the iPad and the Laptop/Netbook

Brook Crothers of CNET seems to believe he can now make the iPad work for him…

CNET’s Brook Crothers claims that with the launch of iOS 4.2, he is pretty much ready to abandon his MacBook Air in favor of full-time use of his iPad. Even before the upgrade to the mobile OS, Crothers found that he was almost exclusively using the 3G tablet in the airport, hotel and plane for his various tasks.

via iOS 4.2 makes iPad a productivity rival for MacBook Air, says CNET.

I do believe that iOS4.2 has made the iPad much more usable (although the multi-tasking is still not a great improvement), I do not agree that it replaces the ultra-light laptop. I think however that this is down to whether you are a generator of content or a viewer of content. I am a generator of content, which I though that Brook would be as well, but maybe my content generation is more feature rich than his. I do not just generate copy for others to work into something pretty, I have to do the pretty too with documents and emails.

After all, although I own an iPad, I am not carrying it with me as I have my one device that does it all – my nice ultra-light 13inch Asus UL30, currently with 10% battery used and still with over 9 hours of batter life left, which is going to come in useful to charge my less than 5 hours MiFi via USB in a moment…something I cannot do via the iPad! (In action shot below… apologies for the low light, this is on a bus crawling its way along in the snow on a cold Amsterdam evening!)

Netbooks for the enterprise

HPMini1000 There is now a steady flow of netbook class devices coming through from many suppliers (HP, Toshiba, Samsung et al), with the new HP Mini 1000 being HP’s second generation device correcting the major problems with their first generation (using the C7 processor rather than the Intel Atom, using XP instead of Vista Basic). Notebook.com (via Digital Home Thoughts) have a review of this latest unit, and a fair review it is although it makes what seems to be a throwaway comment about netbooks not being ready for business use. This is something I cannot agree with.

The main driver of this seems to be a belief about build quality being poor or ‘soft’ compared to the business market’s requirements. Now I have been using laptops since before they were even that (having made use of the Toshiba and Compaq machines since before they were even called laptops, and were called transportables), and have come across all manner of machines, but I have not noticed anything deficient in the build quality/robustness of the netbooks I have used (admittedly Asus and MSI only), and would certainly not warn the business user off of these devices. In many respects they are the ideal business machines as they focus on basic functionality, portability and not high performance games and video handling. This is pretty much what all businesses want of laptops. In fact, the performance capability that modern netbooks offers generally exceeds the capabilities of most standard build laptops in mainstream business, simply because these machines are specifications that have lasted three years or more for standardisation purposes, which generally means circa 2002-2004 hardware builds. Certainly it is also true that machines since 2004 have also only grown in capability via more RAM and Hard Disk space. Netbooks also offer business features without the gloss of high speed graphics that can be used for fanciful needs, combined with a level of standardisation we have not seen in a long while (most netbooks are the same processor, RAM, motherboard and graphics chipset configuration as each other now the C7s and so on are dropping out), and also making use of the OS of choice for the modern business – Windows XP (although upgrades to XP Professional may be needed for the more corporate business user).

On top of this netbooks offer another advantage – the basic hardware is extremely low cost. Not much of an advantage when the support costs of a user can be upwards of €600 per year, but a slight advantage in these challenging times is important.

So, when are we going to see a mass adoption by a major company of a Corporate Netbook? Or is this something that Microsoft wants to fight against, simply because that would mean underlining the Vista Failure? Certainly the software licensing agreements for ‘netbooks’ as I have seen outlined, do seem to be against the concept of a business netbook.

Online/Small Business Leave Management

Whos Off Leave

Whos Off Leave

This sounds like a diversion from the main point of this blog but it really is not. If you are a small business owner or a consultant/contractor who needs to manage a number of other people then you can be left out in the cold in terms of managing sickness and leave. What I have used in the past and do recommend is the service provided by Whosoff. Whosoff provides a basic free service that gives you a basic workflow for managing the time off that the people you work with do have/need. The major advantage of the system is that this is web and email based, available to all, with a good selection of resources for managing leave entitlement.

It does not have full Outlook or iCal integration but that just has to be a matter of time.

Obviously you do need to ensure that you handle the Dataprotection issues that apply, but this is a very effective system.

Sort of Open for Business

Hi, my name is Ian Nock. Over the last couple of decades, I have been working in the tech business in a variety of positions, most recently in the Digital TV arena. In this time, I have made use of the developing technology of the roaming knowledge worker – no matter how poor it has been, how expensive or how tricky. This has ranged from portable computers that were heavier than today’s desktops through to using GSM mobile phones for picking up email from the deepest south of Poland… boy Exchange sync was painful then.

Through this blog and its posts, I aim to post topical help and advice about the use of todays’ technology to make the roaming worker’s life easier, simpler and more effective. Sometimes it may take a diversion or two but hey that is up to me. This is, of course, when it opens fully for business… which will actually be when I have posted some content on it and opened up to the floodgates of the search crawlers…

By the way, this site is the evolution of an older site run on a much more personal basis, which can be still found on http://nocky100.wordpress.com. That site will continue but will change a bit as I focus my long distance view on this site. Its future is to be reviewed, particularly its title. We shall see.

Oh, and please feel free to comment away on the main posts when they appear… who knows, if you have a good opinion you might be asked to contribute more directly.