Better gmail for Android

Gmail for Android: better Priority Inbox support and improved compose

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Google Apps Plus

Ten times more applications for Google Apps customers This is really going to open things up for Google Apps businesses. You'll be able to use extra services like Reader and Picasa from the one account.

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Tips & Tricks: Our favorite shade of beige, the ruler

Here's another sign that Google are improving their Docs product gradually and relentlessly. How long before it matches MS Office feature for feature?

Tips & Tricks: Our favorite shade of beige, the ruler: "Recently, we launched a rebuilt document editor from the ground up. Just like some colors stand out more than others, there are some features in the new editor that are particularly shiny. While features like real-time collaboration, more fonts, and an advanced revision history tool are like neon green, crimson red, and ultramarine, the ruler tends to be viewed more like a beige.

But the ruler, like beige, can certainly have its charms. You can use the ruler to position your text anywhere on the page. And that makes it a powerful tool.

There are a number of blue shapes on the ruler -- these affect the positioning of each paragraph, and are either indents or tab stops.


All paragraphs have three indents: the first line indent,the left indent, and the right indent.

Dragging the first line indent adjusts the left padding of the first line of a paragraph, while the left indent adjusts all subsequent lines of a paragraph. If you drag the left indent along the ruler, the first line indent will follow it. The right indent adjusts how far a paragraph extends toward the right side of the page.

Tab stops

Sometimes you need to control the display of your text with more granularity than what you can accomplish with just indents. That’s where tab stops come in handy.


With tab stops, you can align text relative to a specific spot on the ruler. So that means that a left tab stop will left align text to a position on the ruler, a right tab stop will right align text to a spot on the ruler, while a center tab stop will center-align the text.

To move between tab stops, you can press the tab key, and subsequent text will align with the tab stop. You can add multiple tab stops by clicking on a spot on the ruler and selecting the appropriate tab stop.

You can move the position of a tab stop by dragging it around the ruler. And to remove a tab stop, simply drag it off the ruler.

Margins

Tab stops and indents are great for adjusting individual paragraphs, but sometimes you want to change alignment for an entire document. For that, you can use margins.

You can adjust the left and right margins by dragging the gray space on either side of the ruler.

You can also adjust the left and right margins, as well as the top and bottom margins of your document from File -> Page setup.

Once you get going, like with beige, it’s a bit surprising all of the things you can do with the trusty ruler.

Posted by: Luiz Pereira, Software Engineer

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Created a new mini training video

I've just posted a new mini-training video to my companies web site. This one shows you how to setup delegated mailbox access in Google Apps email.

Check it out http://www.cloudsolutions.co.uk/training/video-granting-email-access-mail-delegation/

Drag and drop images in documents

Another handy new feature added to Google Apps. How long will it be before Google Docs has all the power of MS Office?

Drag and drop images in documents: "When writing a document, it often helps to augment text with images and diagrams. Google documents already has three ways to add images: you can choose them from your hard-drive, add them by URL, and you can find them using Google Image Search.

But sometimes the exact image you need is on your desktop and you just want to add it to your document quickly. Starting today, you can drag images from your desktop directly into your documents.

For now, you can use image drag and drop with the latest versions of Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. We’ll enable it on other browsers as soon as they support the feature.

Posted by: Philipp Weis, Software Engineering Intern

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Unthreading conversation in GMail

Well I know many people have been waiting for this update from Google for a while. Personally I don't have a problem with the threaded conversation view, perhaps because I've been using Gmail and Google Apps for years and have just got used to it. If you're coming to GMail fresh from using Outlook or something then this will certainly ease the transition. It will be interesting to see how many people try it and then switch back to conversations after finding they spend more time hunting for messages.

Gmail: Unthreaded conversation view now available to users

Released on 9/29/2010

Gmail now offers users the ability to switch between conversation view and the traditional message-based unthreaded view. When a user switches to unthreaded view, messages are no longer grouped together into a conversation, and each message is shown as a separate entry in the inbox. The inbox is still sorted in reverse chronological order.

Editions included:
Standard, Premier, Education, Partner Edition and Google Apps for Government

Languages included:
All languages supported by Gmail

How to access what's new:
This feature is only available to domains whose administrator has enabled the ‘enable pre-release features’ checkbox in the Control Panel.

In Gmail ‘Settings’, go to the new ‘Conversation View’ section, select to have that view on or off and click ‘Save changes’.

Note: The mobile web-based view of Gmail will still be threaded, as will the Gmail Mobile Client app. However, if you are using a Blackberry, Windows Mobile, iPhone, or Android device, you can access Gmail unthreaded in the native mail clients of those devices using Google’s sync tools.

For more information:
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/09/threaded-email-or-not-now-its-your.html 

More security for your users: Two-step verification now available for Google Apps

A useful addition for the security conscious (hey I used to be a CISO so I know this is important!). So why allow users to opt-out?

More security for your users: Two-step verification now available for Google Apps: "
Two-step verification is now available for Google Apps. When enabled by an administrator, it requires two means of identification to sign in to a Google Apps account. A mobile phone is the main requirement to use the second form of identification. It doesn’t require any special tokens or devices. After entering a password, a verification code is sent to the user’s mobile phone via SMS, voice calls, or generated on an application they can install on their Android, BlackBerry or iPhone device. This makes it much more likely that it is the user accessing the data: even if someone has stolen the password, they'll need more than that to access the account. Users can also indicate when they're using a computer they trust and don't want to be asked for a verification code from that machine in the future.



Editions included:

Premier, Education Edition and Google Apps for Government



Languages included:

US English Only (Next Generation Control Panel)



How to access what's new:

- Google Apps Administrators can enable this option in the control panel in the 'Advanced Tools' section by checking the box 'Allow users to turn on two-factor authentication'. Users still have to opt-in to use this feature and it is not possible to make this mandatory for all users. To see this new option, your control panel must be using the ‘Next Generation’ version.

- Once your users manually enroll in two-step verification, they may need to use access codes in addition to their verification codes. For installed applications that don’t have a two-step verification field, your users will need to enter an access code once per device or application in place of their regular password to access their Google Account. Common devices and applications that require access codes are: Gmail and Google Calendar on Android-based phones, ActiveSync for Windows Mobile and iPhone, and IMAP clients such as Thunderbird.

- At any time, administrators can un-enroll users from two factor verification in the control panel, either through the checkbox to allow it or in the user’s individual settings.

- Two-step verification can’t be used for accounts using a SAML single sign-on service (SSO).



For more information:

http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-secure-cloud-for-millions-of.html

Help Center overview: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175197



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