Google Apps for Domains Problems for the Enterprise and Business

In 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.

Backups on a different level

With the cost of computer hardware today and the availability of file and folder sync solutions, it makes great sense to always have a second backup laptop available to you at all times such you can alternate or switch between them based on the emergency (machine is dead) to the having a larger presentation laptop and a smaller travel laptop. The sync solutions that work well for me are Microsoft Live Mesh and the Insync solution with Google Docs. Both of these solutions allow you to setup sub folders of your Documents folder as a complete file store that is synchronised to the other machine(s). In the past I have used the sync solutions to provide full files/folder backup and recovery for moving to a new laptop, but with the large amount of data I now sync that has sometimes taken me up to a week to get back and in operation. I see it now as a much better solution to always have two machines on the go simultaneously.

Live Mesh is more flexible in allowing you to have multiple folders all over your machine that you set to sync across all machines, but it does not offer much cloud storage (5GB but you can peer to peer sync without going to this storage) and there are mild rumours that with the coming Windows 8 that it will be ceased. This has proven very reliable for my situation where I have been syncing 80-120GB across three machines but I am not sure I will be sticking with it.

Insync is a much more interesting tool that allows you to use the universal storage nature of Google Docs to sync all your machines to Google Docs, and due to the low cost of Google’s storage ( free for 1GB, $5 for 20GB, $20 for 80GB, $4,096 for 16TB! per annum) you have ultimately unlimited storage. This service also allows you to share individual files and folders using the sharing functionality of Google Docs, and your remote and mobile access is via standard Google Docs on whatever device. I can see me transitioning to Insync only in the coming months.

Email is just a matter of using a webmail solution or one that offers full sync or IMAP to a PC client such as hosted Exchange solutions (Office365) or ,my favourite at the moment, Google Mail for Apps. Both of those solutions offer a complete storage solution for all your email, contacts and calendaring needs. Google offers more capabilities in being able to share calendars with people outside of your organisation and having access to some very interesting Google Apps platforms solutions such as CRM. Microsoft is definitely more behind in that side of things, and way more costly.

On top of that, using Google Chrome with full browser sync also makes sure that every bookmark and extension is synchronised to every machine I use. The final piece of the puzzle is the use of Lastpass to ensure that I have secure access to every password that I need.

So you have no excuse but to have access to a laptop with all of your data, all of the time, and even have access to your data in the cloud.

Google Chromebooks–nowhere…

There has been some focus on Google’s failures of last year and they included the Google Chromebook in that. I am not going to argue that they are wrong – they are very right. The Chromebooks are not capturing the public imagination and are making their way into the niche arenas of people who have the most important requirements as being complete security and cloud storage. – in other words almost no one.

The key problem is that when customers are looking for a general purpose computing solution, they are very happy with a full featured laptop and spending £200 to £400 is ok with them as long as it does have flexibility. Chromebooks do not have that flexibility and were being sold at the upper end of the price range that the vast majority of ordinary people want to spend. In other words, they are stupidly expensive and do too little.

The niche below the general purpose computing solution is being happily filled by most people by either smartphone or low cost tablet and ultimately Chromebooks will need to gain features that normal laptops have or they will disappear via a slow death in my view.

Full Featured Laptops or Cloudbook

There are a lot of different and new machines out there for the Chromebook to compete with in the portable/ultralight arena. Considering the high price of these machines though, they are certainly priced out of the market in which they would be ideal – the below £200 market. In the £350 to £400 market, they are too limited and extremely expensive, particularly with the lack of ubiquitous network connectivity that will never exist sufficiently unless they can change ChromeOS to work more effectively off-line. The had so much promise. However if you are in the market for a new machine, then take a look at TechRadar’s look at £350 laptops. Considering I have just purchased No.1, the HP Pavilion dm1, on the list as my new primary Ultralight you should certainly find something useful in this article.

While Samsungs Google Chromebook is an interesting piece of tech, its not for everyone.

via 10 laptops you can buy for the price of a Chromebook | News | TechRadar UK.

Most Useless 25GB Online Storage Gets Useful

Cloud is the key word on the Internet these days. Everyone gets excited about Google, Amazon and Apple for what they give you for quite small amounts of money. However there is something smaller – free. Who gives Cloud for free? Well Microsoft does, as they offer 25GB of storage with SkyDrive. So why are we not raving about it? Well because it is stuck behind the most appalling UI you have ever seen and only has limited integration with Live Mesh to allow only up to 5GB to be used by that service, leavin 20GB completely unused.

However news come about an update…

Microsoft tells me that the June 2011 update for SkyDrive will go live on Monday, June 20, so it should be available by the time you read this or soon will be. Reviewers were not given early access to the service, so I was only able to watch a live remote demo at the time of this writing. But as one of the few people who actually uses SkyDrive pretty extensively, Im excited by what Ive seen and by whats been implied for future improvements. SkyDrive has always been more promise than reality, but this update is going to go a long ways towards fixing that. I cant wait to see whats next.

via SkyDrive June 2011 Update.

This update seems to be giving us a way better UI, that looks like it will make it useful to actually sign up for the service. So remember one thing… you can use any email address as a Passport (such an old word) for accessing SkyDrive. Whatever you do, I do not recommend that Cross scripting hack hell that is Hotmail particularly as a logon for SkyDrive.

Can’t wait to try the new SkyDrive Out.

Perfect Traveller Mobile

After a poor discussion with mobile phone operator regarding upgrades to iPhone4 (no I will not pay £290 AND a 2 year contract for an upgrade), I decided to go elsewhere for a new mobile phone. I had to get a new one primarily because my iPhone3′s battery life was degrading at such a rate that I could not get through half the day before it had to be charged. Of course Apple had made that design decision early on that the battery was not a user changeable aspect of the phone.

This got me thinking about what makes the ideal mobile for the traveller, and I came up with the following list:

1. Smartphone, not ordinary phone – because you need to carry your entire address book with you and have email/web access at all times, because you never know when your itinerary changes and everything has to be at your fingertips
2. Unlocked – for switching in local Sims
3. Good all day battery life – because it has to work all day under normal usage
4. Standard charger – because you will forget or lose yours
5. USB charging – because your laptop is a great battery recharger
6. WiFi connectivity – because 3G data roaming costs a fortune
7. GPS – because you need a mapping application to figure out where you are and where you are going to

I used some of these ideas in finding my new phone (an Android 2.1 based middle of the range/budget device), but what makes your ideal phone?

Modern Times in Email

Virgin Media is drawing attention to an anachronism of today’s world – the restrictions in files sizes in emails.

UK ISP Virgin Media Business has revealed that 69% of office workers cannot send or receive emails larger than 10MB MegaBytes in size, which rises to 89% for messages larger than 15MB. These restrictions mean that many people are unable to share large documents, slideshows and video content by email, with big messages often bouncing back.

via ISP Virgin Media Business UK Calls for End to Email File Attachment Bottlenecks − ISPreview UK.

It is not just the file limits though that need to change, it is also the mailbox size limits that many companies are keeping at incredibly low levels of 200MB to 400MB. All this has meant is that employees offload the email to local file storage otherwise known as the black hole. All that body of information is mostly lost to a company after that, and can even be lost by the employee because this storage can be easily lost, destroyed or stolen. In parallel with increasing file sizes, companies should take a leaf out of Google’s book and give employees almost unlimited storage so that all of the email keeps within the company managed realm, and not lost on the 4GB memory stick that was a freebie from the last conference they went to. By the way, unlimited storage is currently running at between 7GB and 25GB … just a hint there. It is also important that employees are taught email/communication management techniques as well as providing archival capabilities where it is possible.

The Answer to Secure Mobile Computing?

Well Google spilled the beans on their Google ChromeOS NOTEBOOK (interesting that they do not call them netbooks, but then at 12.1inches it is certainly more light notebook than netbook. Here is the promo video.

It certainly has some very interesting features such as full encrypted file system, full separation between customer accounts, single sign on (through Google accounts, which for those using Google Apps is pretty good), and enterprise features – particularly with the number of corporate clients and Citrix being in the main demonstration. We will have to see what this will turn out like, but I cannot wait to get my hands on one of these little devices and put it through its paces as my general usage machine. Will it be powerful enough for me? Past experience with Linux on netbooks is against it, but maybe the cloud now offers the big features that killed my experience in the past dead – Good Calendaring and the handling of Project files.

Web Workflow

A long important requirement for me has been the ability to have the perfect web working environment on whatever machine I happen to be using – the netbook, the ultralight laptop and the clunky desktop replacement at home. I have long been using Mozilla Firefox with initially Google Bookmarks, but have since moved on to a combination of Xmarks and the Delicious extension for Firefox. Fairly recently however I have been moving away from Firefox for no other reason than to have a little spice… in fact I have been using Internet Explorer because of some corporate reasons, and Google Chrome because my main hosting provider for services has become Google, and for some reason Google likes to require Google Chrome for some of the nicer features.

A big problem for me has been getting all my extensions and saved passwords securely on all of these browser instances and I have had reasonable success with both Firefox and Internet Explorer, and in the last few days with Google Chrome. Safe to say, I believe I can now use whatever browser on all of my machines with complete access to all of my bookmarks and other browser stored data.

What is a problem however is making sure that all of my extensions for these browsers is on all of my machines. This has been a manual process but now comes this news: Google Chrome Working on Extension Syncing Feature | Webmonkey | Wired.com.

Now if this sees the light of day, this could start the push for me to change my default browser to Google Chrome. After all, Google Chrome seems way faster than anything else I have…

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