In April, we launched a new version of Google documents. One feature that makes collaboration easier is improved commenting.

Connecting text to note

Comments let you make suggestions about the text in your document without modifying the document itself. When you click on a comment, the text it’s referring to is highlighted. And vice-versa — when you select highlighted text in your document, we identify the associated comment.

A detailed view of the comment box

Finally, we think the comment feature will give you flexibility to work with your notes in an intuitive and user-friendly way.

You can delete a comment by pressing the trash can icon above a comment. Or, you can respond to a comment by pressing the reply arrow, and it will show up just below the comment you’re responding to. You can hide a comment by marking the “X” button at the top of the comment.

Collaboration at the next level

The new version of Google documents is a built around collaboration, allowing you to work in real-time and to see what others are typing character by character. The new comment features makes it much easier to keep track of your ideas and notes while you work closely with others.

To try out improved commenting and other features, you’ll need to take the new preview version of Google documents for a test drive. You can opt-in by visiting the Editing tab in the Google Docs settings.

Posted by: Edgard Lindner, Software Engineer on the Google Apps Blog

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Use comments in Google Docs when working together is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

I’ve talked to a lot of small businesses that don’t have the budget or the resources to invest in and maintain technology. That’s why I love telling them about Google Apps — a suite of web-based office tools — and how it can help move their businesses forward.

I always find that it’s easier for small businesses to understand the benefits of Google Apps when one of our customers tells the story for us. So I’ve asked Stephen Culp, Founder and Chairman of Chattanooga, TN-based Smart Furniture and CEO of Delegator, to share his experiences with Google Apps, and how he took a company that started out in a Stanford professor’s garage and made it a success. (Sound familiar?) We’ll continue the conversation with Stephen and other Google Apps customers at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce America’s Small Business Summit next week in Washington, D.C.

As the founder of three companies, an attorney, Naval Reserve Officer and former Peace Corps volunteer, I’m a believer in an entrepreneurial approach to virtually everything. Smart Furniture, for example, started back in 1998 in a Stanford professor’s garage, with a new business model called “Design on Demand®” that allows furniture and interiors for homes and offices to be customized for you, and more importantly, by you, all on the web.

Smart Furniture began as a small and growing company with phenomenal people, but limited budget (and time) for technology, especially the wrong kind. We tried for years to scale efficiently without pouring money into the “standard” infrastructure to run our business. We considered the idea of Microsoft® Exchange, and while the idea was great, in practice it got a lot more complicated — and expensive.

Then, in 2008, we discovered Google Apps. We liked the general virtues of SaaS applications that were inherent in Google Apps, and the fact that the applications improved over time without any effort from our team. Plus, the collaborative benefits were game-changing. Google Apps took that idea of efficient, company-wide collaboration and — unlike the alternatives — made it real.

In other words, for us, Google Apps does just what technology should. It frees up resources to focus on our actual business. It offers tools we didn’t have — or hadn’t integrated — before, including third-party apps from the Google Apps Marketplace. It replaces unnecessary layers of tech silliness with a simple, intuitive, integrated platform that actually serves us — our team and our goals.

Google Calendar alone increases our efficiency exponentially. Everyone can look at the same calendars, create new ones for events, projects or work groups, and share them, without having to master a byzantine instruction manual. Then there are the collaboration benefits. Before Google Apps, we’d constantly lose information as people changed roles or moved on to new projects. With Google Sites, we’ve eliminated the need for shared servers and their little air-conditioned server rooms, and replaced our entire intranet with one comfortably situated in the cloud. We use Google Sites to store company files and team members’ bios, and support our project groups. Meanwhile, Google Docs allows everyone to contribute to projects and idea creation — a key part of our company culture. We create documents to solicit feedback, track ideas, keep common agendas, take notes, prepare for meetings, manage inventory and even organize our company’s softball league. It’s part of almost everything we do.

Yes, our IT guys freaked out at first. Some thought that eliminating the maintenance of our previous system, a.k.a. Frankenstein, would make them no longer necessary. What they didn’t realize was how much better their jobs would get. Now they have the time to work on interesting projects — building, creating and innovating, rather than constantly rebuilding, patching and defragmenting. Our team is amazing, and we’re glad to have them back out of that air-conditioned server room.

At Smart Furniture, Google Apps helps build and support our culture, an important part of the secret sauce that has helped us succeed. Our culture keeps all of us working together, enjoying our days, not peering out the window wondering when we can clock out. As any company grows, it’s hard to maintain the sense of close collaboration that a small business has. Google Apps keeps us chatting (we all use chat in Gmail), collaborating, learning and growing together, as if we were still in the one-room office where we began — which was, incidentally, about the same size as the server room we were planning to build for Exchange.

In our experience, as a small business, the wrong technology can distract your team and drain resources, while the right technology can seamlessly support your goals. Both Smart Furniture and Delegator are on pace for greater than 100 percent growth in 2010. Customer satisfaction rates are at record levels, and we love where we work. For us, Google Apps is the right technology.

Stephen in the flagship Smart Furniture Studio

Hello Google Apps, hello real collaboration is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

Since we founded this company it has been vital to our success and we meet people every day who say the same thing. In Indianapolis there is a rich community of active business networker’s, you must be selective and effective at how you use these. In our area we are launching the Indy Networking Events calendar.

Make a bigger splash at these events, more effectively use open networking periods to get to who we are looking for, and help new people get into networking who may have never tried it before.

Here is an example of what we’ve sent out to a few very active networker’s we already know and team up with:

We have shared a calendar with you to make finding networking events in the Indy area easier.  These will be primarily B2B/B2E events.

New shared calendar – we’ve seen a lot of success by going to events in numbers as we can help one another get to the people we are looking for by way of introductions in open networking.
Zach and I want to continue this effort and are sharing events with you to attend.  If you have someone at your organization that networks on your behalf please have them attend.

http://link.computersystemworks.com/indynetworking

Please use the +Calendar button in the lower right to subscribe to the calendar or add it to your Google Calendar App!
(if the +calendar link doesn’t work check out the bottom of this email)

We also want to look at this as a way to support people newer to networking.
We can make arrangements to meet prior to the event to give you a run-down or do some advance open networking.
If you are not familiar with these events or what to expect but are interested in attending contact us at:

sales+networking@computersystemworks.com
(317) 572-7371

If you have other networking events that you would like to make available to the group we can get those added for you!

How we did it:

From Google Calendar we simply created a new calendar and started coordinating our networking events in one spot.

We then publically shared the calendar to maximize its effect.

Finally we used Google Apps Premier’s ShortLinks tool to create a short link for what is commonly a very messy looking address for a public calendar to give it a polished feel.

This entire process took ~20 minutes to set up, there are probably many ways you can use this to effect within your own networking circles or organizations!

Enhance your networking with Google Calendar is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

• http://twinkler.in/ (should feel somewhat organic, you can move around and see relationships between twitter folk)
• http://9elements.com/io/projects/html5/canvas/ (should seem like a interactive screen saver with each dot representing a tweet)
• http://html5gallery.com/2009/06/karrun/ (should be able to drag elements around)
• http://informationhighwayman.com/ (more mainstream site using html5)
• http://www.energycell.co.uk/ (again more mainstream)

If you need to update your browser and don’t know where to find one:

• To get Mozilla Firefox (recommended)
• To get Google Chrome (very good but some older IE only sites have issues)
• To get Opera
• To get Apple Safari (also recommended)

You may be wondering where Microsoft Internet Explorer is on this list? It’s not, while every browser and every computer has numerous security vulnerabilities, oddities, and is probably missing a bit of something – Internet Explorer is very much behind the rest.  We do not recommend using it unless it is necessary for the particular page you are trying to view (which is rare).

Recently, at Black Hat DC conference, a security consultant (Jorge Luis Alvarez Medina) demoed how it’s possible to exploit a flaw in Internet Explorer browser that turns your personal computer into a public file server. In other words, attacker can remotely read files on the victim’s local drive.

From: http://www.taranfx.com/ie-flaw-public-files

As always, when updating your browser its a great time to get great extensions to make your life easier. Here is a small sample of some we’ve found helpful for our clients:

Addon’s for Mozilla Firefox

Update your browser! is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

If your using Firefox, Google Chrome™ or Safari you shouldn’t have any issues. If your using Internet Explorer it may ask you to update to the latest version with more security features and capabilities for handling the best and newest web apps out there!

Here is the communication I received:

Dear Google Apps™ admin,?

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs™ suite and the Google Sites™ editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail™ and Google Calendar™.

Google Apps™ will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome™ 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting next week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs™ and the Google Sites™ editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps™ team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps™ team

Google Apps™ Browser Requirements is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

Here’s how:

1. Log into your Google Apps™ Mail account for your domain.
   http://mail.google.com/a/[domain name here]
2. Go to your contacts (Left side click on Contacts)
3. Choose Export (Top right of contacts Frame)
4. Under “Which Export Format?” choose Outlook CSV and save it to your desktop.
5. Log in to your LinkedIN account.  http://linkedin.com
6. Click on Add Connections (Left side, Green box at bottom of navigation menu)
7. Click on Import your desktop email contacts (at the bottom of the login box)
8. Choose Browse and select the contacts.csv file you saved to your desktop.
9. Select Upload File

Congratulations all of your contacts from your Google Apps™ mail are now imported into LinkedIN.  I’d also like to take this time to remind you to invite only people you know into your LinkedIN contact sphere as people assume your contacts are those you’d recommend to work with.

Import Contacts from Google™ to LinkedIN is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

This works by making use of an Add-On for Mozilla Firefox called WiseStamp. WiseStamp will give you the ability to add a plethora of contact options such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flicker in addition to your standard slew of messengers Yahoo!, AOL, gTalk, MSN. One of the features we like most however is the ability to add a feed to your blog – whenever you send an email it will link to the most recent blog post you may have.

There is a large text field where you can insert images, format text, add spacing and padding to create the signature look you want. The controls for this are a little limited but they give you the option of using HTML to gain more control over the look and feel.

Here is an example of mine:

Email Signature using WiseStamp

Try it out and leave some feedback here if you like it or have any questions!

GMail™ – Picture in your Signature is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

Google Local

Your website for Google Local.

Go back to: http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/tools.html#web

This time we’re going to Local Business Center – Under Location Based

Local Business Center: http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter?hl=en-US&gl=US

From here you want to choose Add new listing

• Fill out all of the fields and correct the location marker if necessary
• Click Next, fill out any remaining information.
• At this point you must validate your listing, via phone or postcard, and click finish
• Once back at the Local Business Center Dashboard click on view report for your site.
• There will be a lot of information in here and it all boils down to – how effective are you?
• On the right hand side will be a gauge showing you how close you are to having everything filled out.
• It is recommended to make a coupon, add images, perhaps video, and generally work to attract people to your business.

Congratluations you will now be listed within the local search results on google.

Yahoo! Search

Your website for Yahoo! Search

Go to the Yahoo! Submit Your Site page: http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

• Choose “Submit Your Site for Free”
• Choose Submit a Website or Webpage
• Enter the URL for your website and choose submit.
• You will then need to login with a valid Yahoo! account (or create one at this point).

Your site has now been submitted.

Bing Search

Go to Bing.com

In the upper right choose Extra’s then Webmaster Center

Click the link to submit your site to Bing:

http://www.bing.com/docs/submit.aspx

If you have a sitemap for your website go to the following:

• Replace YourWebAddress with your own address
• http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?sitemap=www.YourWebAddress.com/sitemap.xml

The Bing Webmaster Center is helpful as well:

http://www.bing.com/webmaster/WebmasterAddSitesPage.aspx

Once you fill out the forms on this page and hit submit they will ask you to download a file and place it in the root directory of your website.

• Download the file to your desktop, use your favorite ftp program and upload this file into the root of your website (where your index or home page are).

Once you have performed these steps you will have access to more tools for your website.

• Here you will want to keep an eye out for anything Blocked, the Indexed pages looking off, and the last crawl date.
• Tabs for tools such as Backlinks and Keywords are helpful as well to see how traffic finds you.

Cuil Search

Go to Cuil’s Webmaster Info area:

http://www.cuil.com/info/contact_us/feedback/crawl_me

Enter your information, hit send.

Ask.com

Go to http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//www.YourWebAdress.com/sitemap.xml

Replace YourWebAddress with your own domain name.

Organic Search Engine Optimization (part 2) is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works

If your a fan of things like this also check out the book Making it All Work by David Allen. The following link will take you to a flowchart to show you what to expect: FlowChart

Getting Things Done and Google Mail is a post from: Using Google Apps and Cloud Technology to Increase Business Effectiveness | Indianapolis Computer System Works