Network Velocity

Staying Human: Google is great, until it isn’t

We blog about Google a lot and up until now it's all been positive. We've run across a problem we can't fix and it revolves around the way Google handles their products. Google is successful because so much of what they do is automated. For the most part this works great as Google excels at knowing what people need and fulfilling that need in a convenient and usable online format. The problem is that even with Google's technical capabilities some issues still require commonsense and a huma...

The cure for software upgrades?

A software upgrade can be a major disruption to a business. We've listed the revisions to Microsoft's core businesss products going back to 1995. Windows Servers Office Exchange (email) SQL (database) Windows 95 Windows NT (1993) Office 95 Exchange 5.5 SQL 7.0 Windows 98 Windows Server 2000 Office 98 Exchange 2000 SQL 2000 Windows 2000 Windows Server 2003 Office 2000 Exchange 2003 SQL 2005 Windows XP Windows Server 2008 Office XP Exchange 2007 SQL 2...

Setting up Email Filters will reign in an unruly Inbox

One of the most powerful ways to get control of your incoming email is to use filters. I'm not talking about filtering SPAM because Postini already does that for us. We're talking about automatically filtering email that you want to receive to a folder other than your Inbox. Automatically filtering your incoming mail ensures that less important email does not get in the way of messages that matter or are time sensitive. My current filters automatically divert ~20 messages per day to a folder ...

We’re a Favorite Place on Google

We're on Google's Favorite Places list.

City of Los Angeles Chooses Google Apps

The Official Google Enterprise Blog has a post about the City of Los Angeles choosing Google Apps for their new Email system that will serve 30,000 city employees. The entire post and video are available via this link. Some highlights from their post: Important decision. 15 proposals were submitted. The top four candidates gave oral presentations to city officials. The City Council unanimously chose Google Apps. Improved collaboration. Much of the city's work requires multiple people ...

The power of Google Apps: Forms

In this post we'll take a look at the power and ease of use of Google Apps Forms. We'll cover creating a form, viewing the data in a spreadsheet and using that data to create graphs. But first, a quick intro video:  Forms allow any Apps user to create a custom form for gathering information. Forms can be used for anything, from vacation requests or ordering lunch to complex business processes or client surveys . The sky is the limit. Below is a screenshot of creating a sample form: Notic...

Google Wave – Read This

In a previous blog post we stated that Google Wave was not yet ready for serious business use (after all it is still beta software). However, that does not mean you shouldn't keep your eye on it! The best article we've read regarding Wave and it's potential was written by Jason Kolb on his blog.  If the technical jargon in Jason's post throws you off at least read this excerpt from the link above: Take CRM and ERP systems for example. Instead of customers emailing you about a sale and the...

Google’s new office in Kirkland, WA

Would you like a tour of Google's new offices in Kirkland WA? Well then watch the video below! Google is quite proud of their inside nerd humor. The Sudo Cafe and Foobar Juice Station refer to Unix commands. Also, notice the 30" monitors on almost every desk. I think it's fair to say Google as a company is doing quite well! This might be urban legend, but supposedly all meals in the cafeteria are free and Google will even do their employee's laundry if they bring it in to work. I rememb...

Got Wave?

We have a few extra Google Wave invites to give away. They won't last long, respond NOW! UPDATED: Sorry, all the invites are gone! Better luck next time.

Google, Security and your Data

When speaking to clients about Google and Cloud technologies we are often asked if client data will be safe when using Google Apps. With the recent news about Microsoft and T-Mobile losing client data many people are quick to judge all Cloud services as less than trustworthy. This is not true! Don't judge all companies by the bad experiences of some that make headlines. However, always do your due diligence. We've done our due diligence regarding Google Services and we want to share it with y...