Posts

Google Docs’ “Upload Any File” Has Limitations

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In January, Google announced that users can upload files of any time and save them in Google Docs.  With 1GB of space per user, the feature provides limited ability to begin using Google Docs as a file server.

The API implementation — the interface used by programmers — has limitations beyond those in the end user web interface.

  • Only Google Apps Premier Edition allows uploading files of any type, without conversion, to Google Docs.  Somewhat surprisingly, this feature is not available for the Education Edition users.
  • File sizes are limited to 250 MB

What this means is that programs built for the commercial sector will not work for educational institutions and non-profits using Google Apps Education Edition.

W e suspect there are many factors in this decision.  One such issue may be that the Education Edition is free and Google has not yet announced if/how Education Edition users will be able to purchase more space.   Time will tell if this limitation is temporary or part of a larger plan.

Horizon Joins Google in Push to Bring Cloud Computing to SMBs

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Horizon Info Services is partnering with Google to offer webinars for small and mid-size businesses.  The webinars, scheduled at multiple times on May 6, 2010 and May 12, 2010, will focus on how businesses can save 30% or more on IT costs while improving productivity and reducing their ecological footprints.

More information and registration links are available by clicking here.

OffiSync 2.0 Preview

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OffiSync 2.0 offers greatly expanded collaboration features for MS Office users connected to Google Apps.

Join us for a discussion of the OffiSync Reseller Program and a demonstration of many of the new features.

Support for native MS Office files in Google Docs:

  • Open native MS Office files in Google Docs
  • Save MS Office files in native formats to Google Docs (Google Apps Premier and Education Edition Only)

Expanded Collaboration Features:

  • Auto-discovery of Google Sites in use
  • Create new Google Sites and folders from within MS Office applications
  • Dashboard showing other documents related to the context of your work

Co-Authoring Beta For Word and Excel files stored in Google Docs and Sites:

  • Multiple users can edit files simultaneously
  • Updated view of each others’ work with each save or auto save

MS Office Compatibility

  • Full Compatibility with Office 2003 and 2007 Editions
  • Beta support for MS Office 2010 Beta
  • Full support for Office 2010 will be available after Microsoft officially releases Office 2010

Space is Limited; Click here for webinar times and registration!

Do Governments Get Google?

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Friday was the deadline for municipalities to submit entries for Google’s Fiber Network Project.  Working with several municipalities on their applications, it seems that the local governments were going to gain from universal Gbps access to homes and businesses.  As I see it, they were missing the mark.

Whether or not you think Google wants or will enter the local fiber market as a business, I think we can all agree that a better understanding the impact of Gbps access will help Google identify other market and service opportunities.

I expect municipalities that focused on how their community could assist Google is tracking the impact would be the likely winners.  For the local towns we helped, a few of our suggestions included:

  • Surveying commuters and tracking changes in telecommuting patterns
  • Intra- and inter-district online learning pilot programs, to leverage teaching resources and lower costs
  • Medical information projects with local doctor’s practices, providers, and software vendors (my town is home to one the larger vendors of medical practice management software for small practices)
  • Business development programs … does Gbps access attract businesses?

None of the towns we spoke with initially thought of helping gather and track information about the impact of the fiber network.  Additionally, none of the towns had a business relationship with Google beyond use of public search.  Many of these towns are now looking at Google Apps Education Edition as a starting point for the latter.

I’ll post updates if/when we learn how the town we helped are doing.

Quick Tip: PDF files on Sites

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To make using Google Sites easier, PDF files attached to pages and file cabinets can now be previewed with the Google Docs viewer so no need to download the file.

Quick Tip: Translate Google Sites

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Not multi-lingual?  No worries when using Google Sites.

If you visit a site that’s not in your chosen language for Sites, there is now a ‘Translate’ link at the bottom right of the page which will translate the site for you using Google Translate.

Recurring Meetings Get Sophisticated

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Being able to schedule recurring meetings is a convenience, but managing them can be problematic when changes are needed to one or more of the sessions.  Google Calendar has gained new capabilities to deal with this dilemma.

Here are the details.

  • In Calendar when modifying an event, when you change the time, title, description, location, or attendees of an individual meeting in a series, that meeting now remains part of the series.
  • If you change the title, description, location, or attendees of a series of events, these changes will be applied to all events in the series, including those that have overridden fields. However, Calendar will intelligently keep track of what fields you override, and not change those fields e.g. if you change the location of one particular event instance in the series, then later modify the location for the entire series and give it a new title, the one particular event will be updated with the new title but the location will remain at what you had overridden.
  • Changing the time or frequency of any series still resets all information in the series, even those that have been manually overridden.
  • If you make any changes to a series and apply to “All Following”, it will reset all information in all future meetings, and the future meetings will be become a new distinct series.  This will override any fields that you may have manually overridden.

These features make it easier to manage recurring meetings.

Managing Contacts: Eliminate Duplicates

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One of the biggest contact management challenges is removing duplicates.  In Google Apps, the process just got easier with the “Find Duplicates” button.  One click, and you can review and merge duplicate contacts.

Real-Time Collaboration: Presentations

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Need to create a presentation with other members of your team?  Presentations, one of the Google Docs applications, lets multiple users edit presentations at the same time.  When collaborating in real-time, you can now see on which slide others are working.  If working on the same slide, co-editor presence lets you see which element (text box, title, graphic, etc) the other editor is modifying.

Want a demo?  Want to learn more about collaborating?  Join us for one of our upcoming webinars.

Improved Email Formats for Document Sharing

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To help clarify communications when sharing documents, Google Apps now generates emails with color coding and new formats.  The messages are designed to give more visual clues to the recipient as to the type, number, and name of the documents.

Shared documents, spreadsheets, and presentations are defined by blue, green, and red coloring.

When sharing multiple documents, users new receive a clear list of document titles as links to open each document.

You can see snapshots of the new mail formats here.