How is Google+ different from Facebook?

How do I get a Google+ invitation?

Google+ is shaping up to be the most powerful and user friendly Social Networking Service on Earth. While currently available by invitation only, Google+ will be the Social Network we’ve all been waiting for. Unlike Facebook, Goolge+ allow you to create Circles (Google Circles). For example, a Circle for friends, another for Business and another for Family. Only those within a particular circle can view posts designed for that circle. Let’s assume Joe is a family member and Bob is a business client, if I post that I’m having a family picnic for my family circle, Bob will not see that post, unless of course I have Bob in both circles. Unlike Facebook which is a “free for all” and a very poor move for most businesses to use, Google+ provides you with the control needed to maintain your Social Network contacts based on their particular circle. While there are lots of other features available, Google+, in our opinion is going to put Facebook to bed and do it quickly.

Another great feature is the ability to create Hangouts. By choosing to start a Hangout you can have up to 10 people within your circles seamlessly video chat with one another. Also available is the ability to manage Google+ from most phones via their app. As with any Google service, things get better and better with more features continually being added.

One of the most common questions we’ve been getting is “How can I get a Google+ invitation?”. The answer is to ask friends if already have a Google+ account and if they wouldn’t mind sending you one. Whatever you do don’t rush out to buy one from some bonehead selling invites from eBay or Craigslist. Be patient and ask around.

As with any new application or service, there a couple things you should note about Google+.  In order to have a Google+ account, you must first have a Google Profiles account, unfortunately however Google Profiles accounts are not yet available to those who have a Google Apps account – at least not yet and of course you must be invited to use the new Google+ service. So if you’re like many who have a Google Apps account, we encourage you to watch this video from a Google+ product manager. In it he asks Google Apps business customers to refrain from establishing a new Google Account by signing up for a standard or consumer Gmail account to establish a Google Profiles account. For those Google Apps users not willing to wait, creating standard Gmail account will allow you to create a new Google Account, then allow you to create a new Google Profiles account then use Google+.

Google has put a lot of forethought into Google+ and that’s evident by the interface and features. The only thing holding Google+ back is the number of users currently using Google+. Because of their lead, Facebook currently is more popular simply due to the number of people already using their service. The same could be said for MySpace when Facebook entered the Social Network space. Once the Google+ service is open to everyone, it will undoubtedly remain the Social Network of choice for a very long time to come.

If you’re fortunate enough to already have a Google+ account, let us know what you think.

The answer to sorting your email using Gmail or Google Apps is pretty simple if you know a few tricks. For example to display emails which have not yet been read, simply click into your search field and type: is:unread

(Click on image for full size)

This will display all unread emails. Let’s assume that you’ve created a Label called New Customers and you want to display all unread emails which have that label assigned. If that were the case you simply search for: label:new-customers is:unread

Get the idea? In fact Google gives Gmail and Google Apps users a variety of ways to sort and to find emails. Below is a graph of some of the Advanced Search Options available to you. Try them and let us know which ones you find most valuable to you.

You can also use some of the advanced search operators by clicking on “Show search options” next you your “Search The Web” button.

Now would be a great time to Bookmark or Add this page to your favorites within your browser!

Have fun and let us know which of these operators or commands you like best!

For those of you who need more than 10 separate email or user accounts, then the only option would be to upgrade to a Google Apps Business Solution (formally known as Google Apps Premiere Accounts). Note that you cannot “upgrade” just one email account, this is because Google Apps is tied to the domain name and not individual email or user accounts. Let’s assume you switched to Google Apps after May 10th or 2011. You currently have 10 separate email accounts using your domain name and you wish to add an 11th email account. To do so you would have to upgrade to a Google Apps Business Solution which means the cost would jump from free to 11 X $50.00 per year or $550.00 per year.

Google has also introduced a monthly payment plan a well. Here is a link to get the full details on Google Apps Business Solution Pricing.

So for those of you who got setup with Google Apps email prior to May 10th – Congratulations!

For those of who who didn’t, Google Apps is still by far the best email solution on Earth.

Enter labels… Google basically did away with the antiquated folder concept and came up with the brilliant idea of labels. Think of labels not as folders but rather sticky notes that you can add and remove to any email.

Let me give you an example. Let’s assume your company is taking advantage of the fact that multiple people can be logged into the same Gmail account at the same time. There are five people who access the same email account each day. These five people are John, Mike, Peter, Paul and Mary. Let’s also assume that each of these people have created their own label (John Pending, Mike Pending, Peter Pending etc.)

One morning John gets an email from a customer thanking him for his assistance the previous day. John however is not logged into the email account but Mary is. Mary sees that the email is of a personal nature for John and simply applies the label called John Pending to the email. When John logs in later in the day, he simply clicks on his own label called John Pending and there are all the emails he needs to get back to. He replies to the customer and they go back and forth for a few days. Then the customer emails John and asks a question that Paul is better suited to answer. At that point John simply adds another label called Paul Pending. Now that email has two labels, John Pending and Paul Pending. When Paul logs into to the email account, he clicks on his own label, reads the email that’s been going back and forth between John and the customer. Paul sees what he has to fix, then when he’s done, he simply removes his own label.

I know that what you read may take a little to sink in, but when you truly understand the power of using labels, you’ll ask yourself how you could have lived without them.

Again, don’t think of labels as folders. If you do then you’ll miss the concept. Instead think of labels as individual sticky notes that you can and remove from any email.

In combination with filters, labels are the best way  to stay organized without cluttering up your inbox.

Google Mail
Google Calendar
Google Talk
Google Docs List
Google Documents
Google Spreadsheets
Google Presentations
Google Sites
Google Video for business
Admin control panel

Here is a link to check the status of these Google services

1. They don’t hire tiered level tech support. Only owners of the company answer the phones
2. They have an outstanding relationship with Google
3. Their domain name or DNS control panel is by far the most sophisticated yet easy to use control panel in the industry
4. Changes within their domain name control panel propagate instantly!
5. They take the time to explain how things work and offer incredible advice
6. They offer free Google Apps setup to all of their domain name registration customers
7. They don’t nickle and dime their customers
8. They don’t Spam or sell their customer information to anyone
9. They have become a giant without ever spending a penny in advertising. All word of mouth!
10. They allow for the creation of host names enabling you to gain extreme relevancy with your web site in search engines

I could go on an on but I think you get the point. While other companies spend small fortunes on advertising, regiSTAR.com has never needed to. That speaks volumes. Simply put, they are one impressive company. If you are thinking of registering a new domain name or tired of the poor support at your current registrar, then give them a call. Fanatical support with this company is an understatement. Mention GmailHelp.com when you call or email them.

In a nut shell CAPTCHAs are those weird looking characters that we’re forced to type in when trying to get to the next step of a form. It’s a clever way of ensuring that the person filling out the form is an actual human and not a computer or “bot”. Google as do many other companies, rely on CAPTCHAs to add an added measure of security.

A not so common problem can occur when trying to access your Google Apps email account with Outlook or similar email client using POP or IMAP. When a user makes too many unsuccessful attempts to access an email account using POP or IMAP, Google may consider the account as being attacked or about to be compromised.

When this happens, Google Apps users may not be able to send mail using their email client. To fix the problem, Google suggests “Unlocking the CAPTCHA.”

http://www.google.com/a/your_domain.com/UnlockCaptcha

Obviously you need to replace “your_domain.com” with your actual domain name.

The page you see should look like this:

To unlock the CAPTCHA you’ll need to type the username and password of the email account giving you problems, then ironically enough, type in the CAPTCHA shown, then the Unlock button.

It usually takes Google several minutes for the email account to start working as normal. It’s important to note that just because you’ve unlocked the CAPTCHA once for a particular email account, that’s not to say that the same problem may not occur again.

To avoid issues which may cause Google to be concerned about an account, try not to connect using Outlook or other email client from too many IP addresses within a short period of time. Jumping from one Hotspot to another or cruising the neighborhood to find an open wireless connection to check your email, are just some of the reasons which can cause a problem. Increasing the “timeout” setting within your Outlook advanced settings for a particular email account may help as well.

The best solution however is to stop using Outlook completely and use your web browser instead. We suggest reading the article entitled:

“Still using MS Outlook?”

Remember to bookmark this page or Google’s Unlock CAPTCHA page in the event you need to ever Unlock your Google CAPTCHA.

To begin with NEVER elect to “Stay Signed In” when logging into your Gmail or Google Apps account. The few seconds it takes to type in your password is great insurance in the event someone gains access to your computer.

The next recommendation is to create a password scheme. For example, use 4 numbers, perhaps your month and the year you were born. Then perhaps your first name alternating between upper and lower case letters, then 01, 02, 03, 04.

If John was born February 2, 1964 then a good password would be 0264JoHn followed by 01, 02, 03, 04 (0264JoHn01). The last two digits would represent the time of the year, in this case, which quarter of the year. If it’s March, then the last 2 digits would be 02. If the current month is November, then 04. This password scheme works well because it also forces you to change your passwords at least 4 times a year based on the time of year or quarter.

This same scheme could also be used for passwords on certain web sites. For example, if you visit CNN.com often and you need to create a password for their web site, then consider using the first 3 letters of their domain name in conjunction with the scheme you just learned (cnn0264JoHn) and possibly forgo the last two digits. If the web site was Walmart, then wal0264JoHn. This ensures that every password for almost every web site you visit is unique and easy for you to remember.

Feel free to create your own password scheme to help you easily recall your password but make it difficult enough that it would be impossible to guess. Never use the same password for everything! Never use the same password for everything! Never use the same password for everything! Do I need to repeat that again? Good.

Any web site which has access to personal information such as banks or email accounts, should use a scheme forcing you to change your password each quarter.

Using “bosco” as your password is not advisable. Sorry Seinfeld lovers, that was just too tempting not to throw that in

Email clients like Outlook, Eudora, Macmail and others are all applications or programs designed to primarily do one thing, and that is to fetch email from an email account. The problem is that they tie you to a single computer.

Most all of these email clients are also slow, take of a lot of your computer resources and make it difficult to organize your emails. I know, you’re probably thinking that’s not true. You have folders and move emails into folders to stay organized, right? That’s not organized, at least not organized as it compares to using Labels and Filters like those found in Gmail and Google Apps. You can read more about Labels and Filters on our site.

Outlook is also particularly prone to problems in that everything, all your emails, attachments, contacts and calendar all reside in one massive file called a PST file. Should this one PST file ever become corrupt, lost or infected… you better have a very recent backup and your MS Office installation disk to do a full re-install.

These are just a few of the problems not to mention the fact that Outlook is a “porker” of a program. It hogs a lot of your computers resources when open. It’s for this reason and more that email clients like Outlook are quickly becoming a thing of the past and being replaced with web based solutions. A perfect example of these web based email solutions is Yahoo mail, Hotmail and Gmail. Where you use a web browser instead of an installed program to manage all your email.

Eventually all email clients like Outlook will be replaced by web based email. Even Microsoft agrees, think about it… The last “real” version of MS Outlook was Outlook 2003. Microsoft never released Outlook 2004, 2005, 2006 and it’s only because of Vista (I get shivers just saying it), that Microsoft was forced to put out Outlook 2007.

When it comes to these new web based solutions, nothing but nothing compares to Google email. Gmail and Google Apps run circles around Outlook or for that matter, any other web based email solution as well.

Even programs like MS Word are going to be web based. For example, in the very near future, MS Word won’t be a program you install and run on your computer. Instead it will likely be ported over to a web based application where you will pay a subscription fee to use it and with all subscriptions being run through the basement in Redmond, WA.

What has happened is that Google has beaten Microsoft to the punch. No longer do you need to have Word, Excel, Powerpoint or Outlook as programs installed on our computers. With the advent of Gmail and Google Apps you now have the ability to manage all your email from any computer connected to the Internet using your web browser. Google’s web based solutions also give you the ability to create calendars, documents, presentations, spreadsheets as well as share them with any other Gmail or Google Apps user. And just to add icing to the cake, it’s free!

Historically however Microsoft doesn’t take blows like these laying down. Their answer to Gmail and Google Apps is a product/service called Windows Live Mail. But to compare the two is like comparing “Apples to Pneumatic Shock Absorbers”. Microsoft knows full well that Google has beaten them to the punch. Why do you think Microsoft is making just a huge push to buy Yahoo? Hello…

Wake up folks. If you’re not using Google’s web based email, shared calendars and docs, then you’re simply missing the boat. If you’re still using Outlook to manage your email then you’re simply wasting time, being unproductive and prolonging the inevitable.

Take my advice and stop using Outlook or any other email client. Instead, start using Gmail or better yet Google Apps. It is the closest thing to online “true love”. If you don’t believe me, try it yourself. Then tell me if you don’t agree that Google Apps and Gmail aren’t the best thing since sliced bread.

1. Enable POP Download within your web based email account. Don’t forget to click Save Changes when you’re done.
2. Open Outlook or Outlook Express.
3. Click the Tools menu, and select Accounts…
4. Click Add, and then click Mail…

5. Click Add mail account Enter your name in the Display name: field, and click Next.
6. Enter your full Gmail email address (username@gmail.com) in the Email address: field, and click Next. Google Apps users, enter your full address in the format ‘username@your_domain.com.’

7. Enter pop.gmail.com in the Incoming mail (POP3, IMAP or HTTP) server: field.

8. Enter smtp.gmail.com in the Outgoing mail (SMTP) server: field. Do this regardless if you have a standard Gmail account of Google Apps account.
9. Enter your full email address (including ‘@gmail.com’) If you are Google Apps user then enter your full email address using your domain name instead of someone@gmail.com (Exampe..yourname@your_domain.com’). Enter your email password in the Password field, and click Next.

10. Be sure to select Remember Password and do NOT select “Log on using Secure Password Authentication (SPA)”, then click Next
11. Highlight pop.gmail.com under Account, and click Properties.

12. Highlight account Click the Advanced tab.
13. Fill in the following information:
* Enter 465 in the Outgoing mail (SMTP) field.
* Under Outgoing Mail (SMTP), check the box next to This server requires a secure connection (SSL).
* Under Incoming mail (POP3), check the box next to This server requires a secure connection (SSL). The port will change to 995.

*The order of Outgoing and Incoming mail server fields varies by version. Make sure you enter the correct information in each field.

14. Return to the Servers tab, and check the box next to My server requires authentication.

15. Click OK.

Congratulations! You’re done configuring your client to send and retrieve Gmail messages.