Google Apps finally outgrew the “beta” moniker today. Today is the first day of the rest of its life.
Also official today is the Delegated Mailbox Administration (”mailbox proxy”) feature. Up to ten accounts can now access a Google Apps Gmail account mailbox without having to open a browser and log directly in to that account; thus, up to 10 of your staff can configure their Gmail settings to “proxy” in to an email account to view and send email.
To access this new feature, someone with current access to the account you wish to “proxy” to should log in to that account, and then go to Settings > Accounts. Click the “Add another account” link for “Grant access to your account: (Allow others to read and send mail on your behalf)”.
After the grantee is added and has logged out / logged in to Google Apps, he/she should notice a link to the granter’s account at the top of their page after about 20 minutes – look for a little drop down arrow next to their email address at top-center-right of the Gmail window (similar to image below).
Clicking the arrow will present you with a list of one or more accounts you now have access to. Click the desired account to open the proxied email account in another web browser tab or window.
Keep in mind you won’t be able to access a shared account’s Contacts or Labs using this feature.
Accessing Google Apps on the iPhone recently became much easier with the new iPhone 3GS and the corresponding iPhone 3.0 software for earlier devices. The addition of Exchange push account setup allows iPhone Calendar synchronization with your Google Calendar, and Google’s mobile web client features are better than ever for accessing Gmail, Calendar and Docs through the iPhone’s Safari web browser.
There are a couple of different ways to access your Google Apps email on the iPhone. You can set up an IMAP account to view your email via the Mail application on the device, or you can use the Safari web browser to log in to Google Apps just like you would if you were on laptop or desktop computer. You can also download and install the free “Google Mobile App” from the Apps Store to provide a quick link to Google Apps via Safari.
Personally, I prefer to use both methods. Setting up an IMAP account allows me to see at a glance if I have any new email, and using the web browser gives me access to Gmail-specific features like Stars and searching my entire email account, plus gives me access to all of my Calendars and Google Docs.
Your Google Calendar can be synchronized to the Calendar application on the iPhone by using the new Exchange push feature, but you can only synchronize your personal Calendar. You’ll have to use Safari to view other Calendars. Another nice feature of the Exchange push configuration is the ability to send Google Calendar invites from the iPhone Calendar app.
Complete info on configuring your iPhone for Google Apps is available on the OIT Help Desk’s website.
For those of you lamenting the loss of being able to drag an email from your inbox to a folder as you did in GroupWise, Google has thrown you a bone. You can now drag message items from your mailbox to any Label on the left-side of your screen. Just highlight one or more messages and click the vertical dots on the left-side of the mailbox, then drag the message(s) to an appropriate Label.
Google giveth, yet also taketh; the Right-Side Labels Lab is no longer available. A reminder of the text at the top of the Gmail Labs page:
“Boise State University – Apps for Employees Mail Labs is a testing ground for experimental features that aren’t quite ready for primetime. They may change,break or disappear at any time.”
See the Official Gmail Blog for more info.
Google has upped the maximum file attachment size to 25 megabytes (that’s a heapin’ 5 mb more than before) for Gmail. Keep in mind that even if you send a file that pushes the 25 megabyte size limit to an off-campus email address, many external email systems don’t allow attachment sizes of that size, so be sure to check with your recipient before sending large files.
More information on Gmail’s file attachment limits can be found on Google’s website.
Finally starting to feel comfortable with Gmail and Google Calendar? Ready to start exploring other Google Apps features? Try Google Docs!
Google Docs has four main features:
- Documents
- Spreadsheets
- Presentations
- Forms
On the surface, each of the four features of Google Docs looks like a scaled-down version of a Microsoft Office component. But they’re actually quite different. Let me explain why Google Docs is nice addition to your software tool belt by sharing how we use each of the functions within our office.
Documents
We publish a lot of content on our websites (including BroncoBytes). We also send out a fair amount of emails to campus. We try to ensure we have decent grammar, concise content and a targeted message. To do this often requires several people working in tandem, and results in a number of revisions. This collaboration is the strength of Documents. Before, we would type up a document in Word and send it out to key members of the team. Once they made their comments, they would send the document back. An individual would then be tasked to combine all of the changes and produce the final version.
Now, with Google Docs, we make changes in real time. The benefit to me is I get several revisions from people rather than just one. Ideas from Marlene may spark additional comments from Travis, which may then involve a draft from Heather, with additions from Peter, and a final polish by Shad. I feel we are now publishing better content in a faster amount of time. We are also reusing more content than we did in the past, which I attribute to the search functions within Google Docs. Because Documents are shared out with the team (instead of individuals being gatekeepers), all of us have access to content in previous Documents.
Spreadsheets
I find myself using Spreadsheets far differently than I use Excel. I use Excel for heavy number crunching. Google may be able to heavily crunch numbers as well, but I have not invested myself in learning all of the ins and outs. Instead, I find myself using Google Spreadsheets for presenting data, collaborative workflow and sharing large lists. When I say ‘presenting data,’ I am referring to a series of gadgets Google provides with Spreadsheets — things like a Motion Chart that allows you to show changes over time, or displaying results on a map. Spreadsheets has helped me bring information alive and better understand what it is I am looking at.
Within the Office of Information Technology we have shared several spreadsheets that help us work together better. The management of migrating 4,000 people to Google Apps earlier this year was done with Spreadsheets. As one person would make a change, all collaborators involved would receive a notification. The same can be said with sharing large lists of information; having a single location that people can concurrently reference saves us time and effort, and helps us be more accurate in our troubleshooting.
Presentations
Similar to Documents and Spreadsheets, the strengths of Google Presentations lie in additional features not offered by competitors. The first feature I would point out is the ability to deliver a Presentation via the web. As the presenter, I can share the Presentation with you the viewer; by going to a webpage you can then watch me progress through the slides just as if you were watching a webinar. Being that this is a collaborative tool, I also do not have to worry about version mismatches. Too often with group presentations, everybody is working on their slides at the last minute. When you go to combine them, something is always left out. When you work with just one shared Presentation, this worry goes away.
Because the Presentation is web-based, it also makes it easier to transport. As I have sat through class presentations, it has been fascinating to watch students spending untold amounts of time messing around with a laptop or a thumb drive to bring up their presentation. With Presentations, I just go to a website and start the show. I don’t have to worry about file corruption, loosing my USB key, version inconsistencies between versions of Microsoft PowerPoint or operating systems, etc. I also appreciate how seamless it is to combine other content from the web. For example, YouTube videos easily embed in a Presentation; this beats having to leave a presentation, open a web browser, find what you are looking for and then return the presentation.
Forms
Forms is one of the most useful features in the Google Docs suite. Using Forms, I can quickly put together a survey or response sheet and embed these into a web page, email or Google Site. Within the office we use Forms to keep track of cell phone usage, brainstorming new ideas, and RSVP to classes. I also have seen demonstrations where professors use Forms for quizzes, class assessments and quick polls.
I could go far more into detail with Google Docs, but you should try out new Google Docs features and experiment with what they can do. Remember, there are two takeaways with Google Docs: collaboration and presentation. Focus on these benefits and you will find you have a collection of wonderful new tools at your disposal!
Take a tour of Google Docs online to learn more, or visit the Help Desk’s Google Apps How-To page for more information on using Google Docs (along with other Google Apps applications).
Google recently released a handful of great tips for using Gmail, printable in handy pdf format. Many of the tips, though, are best suited for personal Gmail accounts, not for Gmail within Google Apps at the University.
Building on our recent posting of 40 Quick Tips for Using Google Calendar, here are 40 tips for Gmail we’ve found helpful for Google Apps at Boise State University:
- Was this sent only to me? At a glance in your Inbox, quickly determine which messages were sent directly to you, and which were sent to you as part of a group. Turn on ‘Personal Level Indicators’ via Settings > General > Show Indicators.
- Stars are great to categorize certain types of messages; Superstars are better! Turn on the ‘Superstars’ Lab under Settings > Labs > Superstars. Then, customize your Superstars under Settings > General > Superstars.
- Search efficiently using Advanced Search Operators. Looking for a message from Jane? Don’t just type ‘Jane’ in the Search Box. Type ‘from:jane’ What if you know the message you’re looking for from Jane has the ‘HR’ label? Narrow your search further by typing ‘from:jane in:hr’ View all of Gmail’s Advanced Search Operators (print it out as a handy reference), and take a few minutes to watch our “Working with Lables, Filters and Advanced Search Operators” video.
- Save your searches. Want to quickly search for something but don’t want to have to type in a series of Advanced Search Operators? Save your searches by turning on the ‘QuickLinks’ Lab under Settings > Labs.
- Here’s Another Way to Find Frequent Search Terms: Turn on ‘Search Autocomplete’ in Settings > Labs. Now a list of frequent search terms (as well as email addresses of frequent contacts) will appear once you start typing in the Search Box.
- Quickly email someone with one-click. Hover your mouse over the name of a sender in your Inbox (or any other folder) and click “EMail” from the pop-up menu that appears.
- Work quickly. Turn on ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ under Settings > General. A list of Gmail keyboard shortcuts can be found on Google’s website.
- Give yourself time to reconsider. To give yourself a few seconds to retract a message you shouldn’t have sent, turn on the ‘Undo Send’ Lab under Settings > Labs.
- Double your time to reconsider. Once the ‘Undo Send’ Lab is enabled, double the allowed time to 10 seconds under Settings > General > Undo Send.
- Spruce up an email with pictures. Turn on the ‘Inserting Images’ Lab under Settings > Labs.
- Sort on unread messages in your Inbox. Type ‘is:unread’ in the Search Box.
- Rename a Label. Maybe you created a Label last month and have since realized you could’ve done a better job with the name? Rename a Label with ease under Settings > Labels; all email tagged with the old Label name automatically updates with the new Label name.
- Make Gmail apply Labels for you. Most of us receive the same types of emails from the same people each day. Make Gmail do the categorizing for you by creating Filters for common senders and subjects; watch our video on “Working with Lables, Filters and Advanced Search Operators,” or read our post on the subject.
- Turn an email message into a Google Doc. Enable the ‘Create a Document’ Lab under Settings > Labs. Now you can turn any email message into a Google Doc by clicking “Create a Document” to the right of an open message.
- View your Google Docs within Gmail. Turn on the ‘Google Docs gadget’ Lab under Settings > Labs. You’ll be able to search and access your Docs without having to leave your Gmail screen.
- View your Google Calendar within Gmail. Turn on the ‘Google Calendar gadget’ Lab under Settings > Labs. You’ll be able to see upcoming events and details at a glance without having to switch to Google Calendar.
- Pop-out your messages. When working on a new email message, or viewing or replying to an existing message, pop the message out into its own window by clicking the pop-out button at upper-right (sometimes called the “New window” link). You can pop-out as many messages as you want into their own separate window.
- Don’t want to save your Google Chats? Click Settings > Chat and customize your Chat preferences.
- Don’t want to use Chat at all? Click “turn off chat” at the bottom of the Gmail window.
- View Tasks in both Gmail and Google Calendar. Google Calendar now display Tasks by default; any changes you make to Tasks in the Calendar will be reflected in Tasks in Gmail (and vice-versa), but you have to turn on the ‘Google Tasks’ Lab under Settings > Labs.
- Customize the subject line. When replying to a message, you can change the message subject by clicking “Edit Subject” just above the message toolbar.
- Search the web from within Gmail and send search results via email with one-click. Enable the ‘Google Search’ Lab under Settings > Labs.
- Send a quick note by only typing in the Subject line. Type “EOM” at the end of a Subject in a new email message to send only that text, rather than having to type text in the body of the message. “EOM” stands for end-of-message.
- Leverage Canned Responses. Instead of typing/copying/pasting the same messages over and over, enable the ‘Canned Responses’ Lab via Settings > Labs to let you choose from one or more pre-written messages when sending or replying to a message.
- Workaround for using multiple signatures. Gmail only allows one default signature (under Settings > General). A novel use for Canned Responses is to set up multiple signatures; pick and choose for any email message.
- Don’t delete unless you have to! Too often I see people deleting email they actually want to file and organize. Google gives you over 7 gigabytes of disk space (that means “lots”); use it. Don’t delete anything unless you’re sure you’ll never, ever need it again. Instead, archive it, or better yet, attach one or more Labels to the message to help you easily find it again (especially when making use of Advanced Search Operators). Email messages will always stay in your account unless you delete them (Trash and Spam excepted, of course).
- Break out a threaded message into a new conversation. If you want to start a new conversation using a message in an existing conversation, click “Edit Subject” on your reply/forward message and give the message a new subject. Any further replies to that new message will be placed within their own threaded conversation.
- Customize your Web Clips. Web Clips (those revolving news headlines appearing above your mailbox) distracting you? You can turn them off completely by clicking Settings > Web Clips. Better yet, customize them to only display information you want to see. Add http://www.boisestate.edu/rss/boisestate.xml for Boise State news, or even clips from the stellar site you’re currently reading, BroncoBytes (http://broncobytes.boisestate.edu/feed/).
- Add multiple attachments simultaneously. Hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard (if you have a Mac, hold down the Command key) while clicking multiple files to select and attach them all at once.
- Don’t care to read an ongoing conversation? Sometimes you’ll be participating in a threaded conversation, only to reach a point where you feel you no longer have any input to give, but other participants continue to chime in and copy you on replies because you were part of the initial emails in the thread. Don’t want these additional messages to keep showing up in your Inbox? Mute the conversation! Highlight the conversation, then click More actions > Mute.
- Send a Calendar event along with an email. Click “Add Event Invitation” just above the message toolbar to send a Calendar appointment/invite along with your email message.
- What time was that email sent? Email messages received before the current day are listed with only the date visible in the mailbox, not the time the email was sent. To see the time without opening the message, hover your mouse over the date, and the message timestamp will appear.
- Quickly view how many new messages you have in your Inbox. The ‘Title Tweaks’ Lab under Settings > Labs will display the number of new messages you have on your Gmail web browser tab or window, so if you’re working in another browser tab using PeopleSoft or Blackboard, you can always see at a glance if new email has arrived.
- Don’t forget that attachment! It doesn’t always work consistently (at least when using Firefox), but when it does, Forgotten Attachment Detector can be a lifesaver. When you send an email message that is supposed to have one or more files attached, but forget to actually, you know, attach the file, Forgotten Attachment Detector will key off certain words in your email message (e.g., “attached” or “attachment”) and question if you really want to send the message without any attachment(s). Turn on Forgotten Attachment Detector under Settings > Labs.
- Share a Filter. Filters are equivalent to what “Rules” did in GroupWise; you can create Filters and share them with colleagues. Enable the ‘Filter import/export’ Lab under Settings > Labs. To share a Filter, go to Settings > Filters and check the Filter(s) you want to share, then scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click Export. This will export a file; save it to your computer, then attach the file to an email message to share it with others.
- Assign your own photos for contacts. Annoyed by certain people’s photos when chatting or hovering your mouse over a contact in your mailbox? Replace selected photos with your own choices; here’s how.
- Reply by Chat. Just because you receive an email message doesn’t mean sending a reply email is the best method of communication. At the bottom of the message is a link to ‘Reply by chat.’ If the individual is signed in to Google Chat and available, perhaps it might be best to reply via Chat instead?
- Chat isn’t just for typing. If you have microphone (external or built-in), put it to use. Better yet, if you have a web camera, put the two together. Here’s how.
- Get rid of the clutter. By default, Gmail displays the first words of a message in the mailbox next to the email subject. If you don’t want to see this extra text, go to Settings > General > Snippets and select “No snippets.”
- Ninjas! Few things cheer us up in our office more than watching the romance unfold between the ninja and the geisha in the dojo via the Ninja Theme for Gmail. Check out all the Themes available for Gmail via Settings > Themes. Don’t like ninjas (really, who doesn’t like ninjas?) and want something a bit more business-orientated? There are more than two dozen other themes to choose from. And, coming soon, a custom Boise State theme will be available for you to decorate Gmail with beloved blue and orange!
Our new orientation video for new students and parents at Boise State University:
One of the surprising results of our recent survey sent to employees to solicit views on Google Apps was a relatively high number of responses from people who have difficulty with the search feature in Gmail.
Search is Google’s bread and butter, but in order to get effective results you have to search differently in Gmail than you would surfing the web at google.com. We’ve discussed searching in Gmail before on our Help Desk website via a link to Google’s search info, here in BroncoBytes, in UPDATE, in our Google Apps training videos, in our post-implementation Google Apps meetings with departments, etc., but there are still many people who have no idea how to search and sort email in Google Apps.
As a timely reminder of using search efficiently in Gmail, Google has posted about search operators on their official Gmail blog today. Have a look, learn how to search in Gmail (if you don’t already know), and spread the word to those around you.
Tip: Slice and dice your mail with search operators (Official Gmail Blog)
Here’s an easy method in Gmail to figure out if an email message was sent directly to you (to your address only), or was sent to you as part of a group or list of addresses.
Under Settings > General in Gmail, find the option for “Personal Level Indicators” and choose Show Indicators:
This will display a chevron symbol next to messages sent to your address as part of a list of addresses, and a double-chevron next to those messages sent only to your address:
Have you ever wanted to know where your spam is coming from? Better yet, would you like to visit the location, or even the neighborhood, of the person or computer who sent it to you?
I find it pretty amazing how spam message origination locations are spread across the world. It would seem that spam has no international boundaries. Doing some brief research, I found messages in my Google Apps Spam Label from South Korea, Malaysia, Belgium, Brazil and Minnesota. I was particularly impressed with the Google Maps Satellite view of Seoul, South Korea.
If you would like to use Google Maps to find the approximate geographic source location of a piece of spam, there are a few steps involved. In this exercise I did the following:
- Received a spam (junk email) message.
- Identified the source IP address from whence it came.
- Looked up the source IP address and discovered information about it, like its global coordinates in latitude and longitude.
- Looked up the location on Google Maps using the provided latitude and longitude.
- Reviewed the ‘Map View’ in Google Maps
- Reviewed the ‘Satellite View’ in Google Maps
- Found pizza places nearest the approximate location I have identified as the source of my spam.
Receiving spam sure doesn’t seem to be a problem. I currently have 116 messages in my account labeled as spam (some colleagues have over one-thousand; 92% of all email received at the University is spam). The Gmail spam filter is doing a great job of catching junk email.
One can easily view the source IP address from any Gmail email by choosing “Show Original” from the Reply drop-down menu in the upper-right corner of the message:
Here you’ll see the guts of your email header. In the specific case of one of my spam messages (“Hello” from “Melba”), I copied the following information from ‘Show Original’:
Delivered-To: helperdesk@boisestate.edu
Received: by 10.100.232.5 with SMTP id e5cs32834anh;
Wed, 27 May 2009 03:16:04 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.114.192.17 with SMTP id p17mr19541801waf.196.1243419362912;
Wed, 27 May 2009 03:16:02 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path:
Received: from ?125.251.77.18? ([125.251.77.18])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 34si11221188pxi.37.2009.05.27.03.16.01;
Wed, 27 May 2009 03:16:02 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: softfail (google.com: best guess record for domain of transitioning etzemil@us.ibm.com does not designate 125.251.77.18 as permitted sender) client-ip=125.251.77.18;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=softfail (google.com: best guess record for domain of transitioning etzemil@us.ibm.com does not designate 125.251.77.18 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=etzemil@us.ibm.com
That this is most likely a spam message is indicated by the line google.com: best guess record for domain of transitioning etzemil@us.ibm.com does not designate 125.251.77.18 as permitted sender. Notice that the email address ends in us.ibm.com. Google is saying that the source IP address is not valid for that domain. This is almost always the case in spam and phishing emails.
Now, I wanted to see where the source IP address of my message actually came from, so I went to the following site: http://whatismyip.com/tools/ip-address-lookup.asp and pasted 125.251.77.18 (the source IP) into the Lookup box.
This is what I got:
Notice the latitude and longitude provided for the IP Address. This took me to the next step of using Google Maps to find out where this location really is. I visited Google Maps and added the latitude and longitude to the search bar in the following format: 37.567 , 127 and then clicked the Search Maps button.
Low and behold it took me to the map of Seoul, South Korea. Using the ‘Satellite View’ I can actually zoom in and see the approximate house from whence the spam message may have originated. Here’s what I found:
Do you suppose the spammer has ever sampled pizza from http://www.dimatteo.co.kr/ ?
Note IP addresses can be dynamic and can change. Spammers often send emails from locations that do not belong to them. It is highly possible the location discovered is not the actual location from where the email originated. This article is by no means a method that can guarantee the true source of your spam. Your mileage may vary.
