One year has passed and I think that it is the right time to give back to the community. Last year I started to work with the Plesk

Parallels Logo

control panel on a daily basis  and now it is the time to give you some feedback. I have to tell you right at the start of this review that I have used many different web hosting control panels over the years [Cpanel, DirectAdmin, Webmin, 1and1 CP etc.] and thus I really know what I need, what I like and dislike about them and how a perfect control panel should look like according to me

If you are like the majority of web hosting customers from USA or Canada than I bet you have been using Cpanel control panel all the time. The only exception would be if you are coming from 1and1 or GoDaddy or a similar company as they are using their own control panels you will not find anywhere else

What I wanted to say with the previous paragraph? Yeah, now I know. The Parallels Plesk control panel will be a relatively big move – both logical and in terms of user experience and work as well – for anyone coming from a Cpanel environment. The organization is a lot different than you know from Cpanel. The design and work space differs in every aspect from what you can see and are used to at Cpanel, 1and1 or GoDaddy…But I have to say that it is a change for the better in many areas.

Key things I liked about Parallels Plesk CP after my first months:

• Real domain names [not like "Addon domain names" in Cpanel]
• No need to scroll for ages to find Softaculous or AWstats in the right “rectangle” [I do not use them, but the point is the scrolling thing ]
• Instant image of what is going on – how much bandwidth, disk space etc. you are consuming without any extra and not needed data distracting my view
• The majority of tools and buttons you would be looking for is right where you would expect them to be [no need to move sections like in Cpanel although this is a nice thing in Cpanel as you are able to customize the view according to you, but sometimes it is really annoying then helpful]
• No “Spam” buttons –  and by spam I mean buttons I’ve never clicked in my life and are present on the default Cpanel CP page [I really doubt anyone really uses them/clicks on them]  :(

Ninjalion hosting review

it very much at all.

This has been the case with me this time too. I have been trying to use it a couple of times with different domain names, but so far my projects were not at the stage where I could say – “Well, let’s put them online and promote them to get traffic” as I really did not have so much time in the first half of this year. Hopefully this will change in the second part of the year and I will see how the hosting looks when trying to server visitors to my sites

For now here is at least the break down of what I have found so far:

The control panel

NinjaLion is using the industry standard Cpanel control panel. I am really not a huge fan of this control panel due to the fact how it handles addon domain, but it is a very good panel and you really will not miss anything when working with it.

The usage is the same as with any other web host using this specific control panel and thus there is really not much to say. It is easy for beginners, but people who use other control panels like Plesk or 1and1 will be a little bit confused as some things work differently in this CP.

The Support

They do offer a knowledgebase [with basic articles and how-to's], a Live Chat option for those who want to talk to someone and get things done very quickly or a Support system where you have to send your problem description and after a period of time you do get a response with a solution or a message asking you for more detail. Their response times are pretty good [Support system] and polite as long as I have seen.

Maybe a couple of how-to’s and most common problems articles would make Ninjalion hosting forum much more friendly/useful and popular as right now there is only Spam in there

Up until now I had to use their support only on one occasion when I was not able to get to my webpage. Their reaction has been pretty fast and we resolved the issue in no time. The [likely] problem was that their firewall blocked my IP [at least it went back to normal operation after I submitted my IP address]. One more thing to add is that I am hosted at their Amsterdam DC.

The Softaculous problem…

A small problem has occurred yesterday when I was trying to install WP trough Softaculous. It did not work and only gave me an error message complaining about the license Hopefully Ninjalion hosting will be able to clear it ASAP. Most of the time I am not using automatic installers thus it does not matter to me as long as the server uptime and accessibility is OK, but less technically capable customers could see it as a huge problem despite their prices.

The conclusion so far

I do not think that I can say I am the happiest customer on Earth, but at the same time I can not say that I am unhappy. they are a budget web hosting company and it’s pretty clear that you can’t expect much for 15USD/year, but a Softaculous license and Log Out button are really not such a big problem.

Their uptime and website accessibility are OK and thus I can not say anything else than: They are a budget web host and that’s what you get. Their support is pretty good and they really offer many features. As a new business [branch] they do have some areas to improve, but if the only thing you need is website uptime and you are not willing to spend hundreds of $$ than this might be an option, but definitely talk to their Live chat and look to webhostingtalk.com for more opinions

Would I go with them for a small project once again? YES.

Have a nice day and see you next time!

The first review series will be about Ninjalion hosting which can be found at www.ninjalion.com and as they state on heir website’s About page they are a subsidiary of DowntownHost 

We are based in Florida, and we offer over 10 years of experience in the hosting industry, which bodes well for you as our customer. We have a proven track record of satisfied customers, and given that we’ve been around for over a decade, we aren’t going anywhere. Some hosts are here today, and gone tomorrow. You will not find that to be the case here at Ninjalion.

I think I have been among their first customers when they launched in October and signed up in November. A whole year cost me really not a lot of money [around 15USD/year for the basic package] and thus it was a pretty nice way to check out their support and level of hosting without having to spend money for a Downtownhost hosting account.

I have to state that I knew at that time NinjaLion is not Downtownhost, but somehow I hoped the knowledge and level of support and experience from Downtownhost will get trough to this new webhosting company [their subsidiary].

Sign up, Design, Control panel

I do not think I will surprise anyone when I say, that the sign up process has been pretty straightforward and without any problems. The payment and creation of the hosting account went trough smoothly. They are using the standard customers back-end you will find with most webhosts located in North America.

One major problem I have found right after logging into their customer section at https://secure.ninjalion.com/?cmd=clientarea is the lack of the LOG OUT button!!! This leaves customers without the option to log out and the only way you can do it is by closng the browser window That’s not very professional and so I wrote to Tweet about this issue which got responded, bu nothing really changed as far as I know. the log out button is still not there [or I am too blind to spot it]

It would be interesting to hear from NinjaLion about this small issue and it made me wonder if there is a similar “button” problem at DowntownHost customer panel as well [maybe I'll a sign up and look into it ]

So much for my first Ninjalion hosting post. More to come in the next articles! Don’t hesitate to leave your responses in the comments are. Have a nice day

MDDHosting.com

I am talking here about mddhosting.com and their offer which I have decided to take advantage of at the end of 2010. Giving a huge 70% off their normal price has been too good to refuse to sign up. Taking into account the fact I have communicated with them trough WHT a couple of days earlier about some things and that there are so many great reviews about this hosting company I really knew I will get a very good level of service.

One more thing to add to my last paragraph is the pure fact that they are pretty active on the WHT forum. They answer to questions not directly related to their company, they are trying to help people out and this without directly promoting their products. This is pretty nice and seeing their responses I knew I can rest assured as they know what they are doing.

Things so far…

With one month behind me I do not have my web site, I bought this package for, ready for public, but their communication with customers is really beyond what I have seen so far. In fact I have not got so many emails from any of my previous hosting companies in a year as I have got from them in a month time… .

The emails are about standard things like a server reboot, OS upgrade or last time it has been about Spam being delivered trough a “recommendation form”. Considering the fact that Spam should be fought by web admins and not hosting companies in the first place, this is a pretty and nice pro active approach.

Conclusion

So far I would recommend them to my friends as they really look very good. I will cover them in more detail as usual after 6 months of service. Have a nice day and see you next time!

Parallels logo

panel you use to manage everything around your web hosting account. You do not need to install it [at least at the shared hosting level], because the web host does this for you.

What a shared webhosting control panel  can offer to you?

• Domain and DNS management – a control panel offers you an interface to interact with the system in a very easy and clear way. With a few clicks of a button you can add a new domain name, set DNS entries for it or change DNS entries of a domain name already include on your account.
• Mail management – you can set up or delete mail accounts for one of your domain names. You can also control MX DNS records [they are used to tell the sender of messages to your domain name what Mail server is responsible for your domain name's mail]
• File upload/management – you can easily manage files in your web space trough the majority of  control panels out there. This way control panels provide you with a clear user interface for uploads and downloads of files.
• Installation / Uninstallation – many times a control panel include some kind of  ”one click” installation script which can help you to install a WordPress blog [or any other CMS, forum etc. out there], by just clicking one link and filing in the required information.
• Database management – without the need to know anything about SQL you can easily create or drop whole databases just by pressing the right buttons. And this is brought to you by your control panel
• + a whole bunch more…

Are there more then one or two control panels out there?

Yes! In fact there are a lot more then 10 of them. Many web hosting companies do have their own control panels and this is great for competition, but really bad for customers of those companies who really do not offer a good control panel.

But there are of course some standard hosting control panels used in the web hosting industry. The most widely known are the Cpanel control panel and the Parallels Plesk control panel. You can find more info about them here:

• www.cpanel.net
• www.parallels.com/eu/products/plesk

What to do before choosing one over the other?

I would recommend you go out and check them out. Each of them do have an own web site and there is also a “DEMO” available where you are able to log in as a “user” or an “admin” and see how to environment looks like. You can play with it for  a little time and then decide what you like and understand more. I do like the Plesk from Parallels much more then the Cpanel, but in fact the Cpanel is very often seen in the shared hosting industry in North America [USA] + every hosting company I have been with so far offered the Cpanel.

Have a nice day and see you next time here at Icethunder.net!

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Google Apps is a good way to go, but there are some drawbacks as well. I think the word “drawback” is not really the one I should use in here because these are not drawbacks, but just limitations of the “free” Google Apps Standard package.

Limited number of email accounts with Google Apps

I consider this to be the first limitation which might be frightening people from using Google Apps, but you really do not need to be afraid as there is always the option to use the paid version if you really feel like you need it.

Another option how to bypass the limit is by really thinking about the whole “user email creation” and to:

• create only user accounts for people you need
• use aliases for people who need more then one address [like e.g Jerry is an accountant and he has one email address jerry@domain.com and 5 aliases accountant@domain.com, jery@domain.com etc. This way you will save a lot of addresses ]
• use groups for people who should share one email account and you can add even people who are not in your domain to the group and they will get the email as well

The limit Google Apps has stands at 50 accounts per domain name and thus you can always use subdomains or another domain for a branch of yours with Google Apps to get more then 50 email accounts.

Limited migration support

The paid version of Google Apps is really like a Ferrari. there is everything you could dream about – no limitations in user accounts, no migration limits etc. On the other hand the “Standard” version of Apps is really a somewhat limited preview of what you could get if you would really feel like spending 50USD per year is nothing for you. It is like a BMW – you have a pretty fast car, but it really does not feel like the Ferrari. You do have the option to use  a very secure system, but if you want to migrate old email messages or users in bulk then it is a pain.

You can use the Google API and build an own tool, but this is pretty tricky. You can buy a third party tool, but it costs money. And there is still the “painful” way of using IMAP and uploading all the messages trough e.g. Thunderbird or Outlook – but it takes time

More next time here at Icethunder.net

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Initial user’s Google Apps access trouble and their solutions

Google Apps – IMAP/POP3 not working for users

One problem you could encounter or here about from your users is, that they are not able to access their accounts by using their favorite email client. It does not matter what email client they are using as long as it has been set up properly.

The problem is in the fact, that both IMAP and POP3 access has to be allowed from the online interface for each account. The user complaining about not being able to access their account from Thunderbird/Outlook etc. has to log in trough a web browser to his account and choose/enable what protocol he wishes to use [the one he has configured in his client] and than all the problems will go away

The Google Apps Captcha problem…

This one is a very hard to figure out one. You can spend many minutes or hours trying to figure out what has happened, but eventually you will give up the search.

This problem is pretty always the first one your users will encounter when trying to access their Google Apps email accounts trough an email client. They will only get a not very informative error message in return leaving you with no much clue where to look for a solution.

You should know you have to visit www.google.com/a/domainname/UnlockCaptcha to unlock the Captcha image for the account in Google Apps. This way the error should go away and only the IMAP/POP3 problem could be possible blocking them from using their email client.

Users are not able to send email trough Thunderbird/Outlook

If a user on your domain name comes to you and tells you he is not able to send email from his mail client then the most probable issue could be that the SMTP is not configured right. Do not forget that the SMTP field has to have the smtp.gmail.com or smtp.googlemail.com address and port 465 with SSL filled in.

The second solution to this problem [if you checked the SMTP and everything looks OK] is the fact they are not using “authentication” with their SMTP profile. This needs to be done and the appropriate option needs to be checked in your email client.

A third reason could be the fact, they are not using the full login name in the form name@domain.com. This is the standard in Google Apps and you will not be able to send or receive messages if you are not using this format. If it is not used Google does not know what account you are trying to use and whether you are allowed to do so or not.

Have a nice day and a happy new year!

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But sometimes it is much better to not to buy something. Mainly if the offer just sounds too good to be true. You can loose money, but you can loose much more than that. You can loose your data, your personal identification details, or credit card information and I think this is not what you would want to experience during the most beautiful holidays of the year.

This article should be about what to check to stay safe and not loose anything

What not to forget when shopping for a hosting package…

1. Make sure what you need. The first thing you should do is to make sure what you need. You should have at least a basic understanding of what your web site will be about and what you need in terms of resources. If you only want a small blog, than you really do not need 100GB of bandwidth or 50GB of hard disk storage space [you are not Techcrunch ] If you are still unsure about what you need, or how and where to start try to look at these articles:
   • How to start your search for a hosting company?
   • How to calculate bandwidth in web hosting???
   • How to calculate how much bandwidth you need…
   • How much space does my site really needs?
     Search results about:
   • Bandwidth
   • Reviews
2. Do not trust hosting review websites! [NEVER] I mean this one very seriously. This blog is not a review site, but more like an advisory board. I do not get paid for reviews. It is just the opposite – I pay for my hosting package and I review what I see – what level of support I get and what service I get in return for my money in general There are many blogs and review sites out there which just want to make money and they put whatever review online just to make money from affiliate links… Do you see any on my blog? No…just Google Adsense – and I can’t control that…
3. Check the hosting company before you buy anything [trough Google, WhoIS etc.]. Before buying anything perform a good check of the hosting company you have chosen. Do searches with words like “scam, problem, trouble, fraud, failure, downtime, etc.” to see if something unusual pop’s up.  Visit at least the webhostingtalk.com forum and ask your questions there. It is a very good place to ask questions as there are always many knowledgeable guys there ready to help you out
4. Check the browser and security of the website from which you are buying [does it use SSL?]. Never buy from a company which does not care about security of your data. If they are not willing to invest a few bucks per year for an SSL certificate on the login page, or on the order page, than run as fast as you can, because they are really not very serious about their clients…

These four tips can safe you lot of headaches and make your holidays much more fun. Maybe they look like overhead, but I think it is better to be sure that everything is OK beforehand, than crying afterwards that you have been scammed… .

Happy holidays, Marry Christmas!

Adding new user to Google Apps

First of all I have to remind you, that you are only allowed to create 50 user accounts in the basic version of Google Apps. Do not forget on this, but you can create many aliases for each of your user plus you can create Google Groups to easily shared one email address between many users. With a good strategy you can create many accounts while still staying in the limits

Adding users one by one to Apps

The trickiest way of creating user accounts in Google Apps is by adding them one by one. It is great if you are paid by the hour, but it definitely is not the way of creating like 50 accounts [or more in the paid version of Apps]. But I will cover this one as it really is the way to go if you only have under 10 accounts and need to customize them – like add aliases, add them to groups etc.

To add a new user you click on the “Organization and users”link on the blue menu in your administration control panel. You will be taken to the management screen and from then on you should have no trouble. Just click on the “Create a new user” button and table will pop up and ask you to fill the basic information about the new user : his first and last name, email address and password. You can either use your own password and type it in, or a temporary one created by Google. the user will get the option to change the generated password at his first login. Once you are happy with the configuration hit “Create new user” and you are done.

Bulk user upload to Google Apps

The other way of creating user accounts is to use a CSV file [comma separated file] and upload it. Google will do the rest for you and once your users are created your administrator will get an email with the details. I have to say that do not store the CSV anywhere and once it is uploaded delete it from your computer [SHIFT+DELETE].

To create a CSV file you need a “Spreadsheet” editor like Google Docs, OpenOffice or MS Office Excel. There you create a file with 4 columns labeled “username”,”first name”, “last name”, “password”. The rows are used to add users. Your editor should have an option to export your Excel spreadsheet in the CSV file format. If it does not ave one then use Google Docs from your administrator account [you are logged in right ], than download it to your PC and upload it trough the uploader.

The “Bulk upload users” option is located in the “More options” button right next to the “Create a new user”button. Once you clicked on it you will be taken trough the process by Google.

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Google Apps and SSL access

You might remember, that Google has decided to make the https://www.gmail.com the mandatory way to access your email when you use GMail. The HTTPS protocol is used to secure not only the login process, but also during your whole visit to your mail inbox. And that’s a great thing to have. It adds much more security to your messages and your privacy.

As Google Apps is nearly the same product, but aimed at business users and domain owners there is an option to enable the SSL by default for all users – not waiting on them to enable it on a case to case basis. You as the domain owner enable the SSL feature and your users will have to use it. It add more security to them and you do not need to worry about data leaking out of the door trough an insecure Wifi access point… . There are still ways for it to leak, but at least you have done all you could

To enable SSL by default you need to go to your Google Apps administration control panel and click on the blue bar where it reads “Domain settings”. This will take you to a new site and there you will need to scroll down a little bit to find the check box where it reads SSL – Enable SSL. Check the box and scroll further down. Hit the “Save changes” button and you are done. Now your users are a little bit more secure.

Primary administrator account in Google Apps

While on the same page where you have enabled your SSL connection you can as well change your primary administrator account, but if you closely follow this tutorial you have created one special account for administration you will not use for anything else and this account should be your “primary administrator account”

You can change this address to a different one, but I would leave it the way it is if you really follow this tutorial

Secondary email address in Google Apps

Still on the same page and just under  the “Primary administrator address” you can find the, what I call “last resort address”or “recovery address”. If anything bad happens – you forget the administrator password –  then this address is the place to go to reset it as the reset instructions will be mailed to this account.

This email address has to be outside of the domain to make it work. Use an address you know will be always accessible to you. I would recommend you to use a strong password on this address as well

The customization of Google Apps

First off we need to make some adjustments in the Google Apps administration panel. It’s because this area is the one you will most likely spend some time in when trying to customize and set up everything the way you like it the most. Click once again on the “Email icon” on the administrator panel and you will be taken to a new screen. It is the area where you can customize the way email looks like and works to a certain degree… .

The only thing we want to do now is to change the address we and our users will have to type into the browser to get to our web mail. Currently it is set to the default and thus we click on the “Change URL” link. On the next screen you choose the “custom” option and fill in whatever address you want to use. I would suggest to use something simple and descriptive like e.g email.yourdomain.com or mail.yourdomain.com.

After you fill in the desired value hit the “Continue” button and you will be taken to the “Change CNAME record” screen which will tell you to create a CNAME record called email.yourdomain.com [depends on your chosen name] which points to ghs.google.com domain.

You have to create the CNAME record at your web hosting provider, or your domain name registrar.  It depends on who is responsible for DNS management for your domain. It’s 90% your hosting company, or 9.9 % your registrar… But maybe you do have your own DNS server and than you need to make the adjustments yourself

Additional customization options

As we all know Google Apps is not only about email. It is much more and there is a way to customize the additional features as well. You can use your own customized “Google Docs”, “Google Calendar” or “Google Sites” link as you can use a “Google Mail” easy to access link. It is only up to you to choose which of these services will get it’s own easy to remember link.

If you do not choose an own link the default will be used, but do not panic as these services are all easily accessible from your web mail environment just as in your ordinary Gmail account

You can use a docs.yourdomain.com, calendar.yourdomain.com or sites.youdomain.com to make the life of your users easier, but do not forget to add the CNAME records to your DNS server! The values you point those CNAME’s is always the same ghs.google.com

The future of Google Apps and thus customization

Some things will change early in 2011 as Google has decided to make your Google Apps account more like an ordinary Google Account, but I think it is always better to access your web mail trough a personalized web address then using the Google interface. It at least shows that you do not only rely on Google,  but really do something for yourself… .

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Once all accounts are transferred under the new system, than you will be able to access your email solution by simple entering mail.google.com and than  entering your full email address and password. Then you just hit enter or “login” and you will be taken to your account

The email activation process with Google Apps

The activation is done by logging in to your administration panel with your administrators account credentials. If you are continuing the set up process you are already signed in Locate the “Email” icon on the web page and you should see a link “Activate Email” right beneath it. By clicking on this link you will activate email service for your domain name.

After clicking on the link you are taken to a new screen where you can choose a registrar/hosting company/control panel type with easy to follow instructions. You will be asked to create a bunch of MX records to make the service work. This should not be too hard for you as it is done in a similar fashion as creating TXT/CNAME records. The main difference is the fact you are creating a different DNS record type and you are given a set of MX records you need to fill in.

Go to your web hosting control panel and locate the place where you are able to alter DNS settings for your domain names. I’m using the Cpanel control and thus I will use the “MX entry” button.

After clicking on it I am taken to the screen where I will need to choose the right domain name to configure. After choosing the right domain name you are ready to fill in the Google Apps MX records you have been given at the Apps control panel. First of all change the priority of your current MX records to the lowest possible value e.g. 50.

Change the “email routing option” to “Remote mail exchanger” to make your new Google Apps MX records work and than start filling in the records one by one. You are asked to fill in the “Priority” and “Destination” columns. Each entry needs to be confirmed by hitting the “Add new record” button.

Once you have filled in all the MX records than there is the right time to back up all your current email messages e.g. by downloading them trough the POP3 protocol  and then uploading them to your new account. And once all your email messages are backed up and copied you can delete the old MX records you used before.

Once all your messages are backed up, the new Google Apps MX records filled in you can come back to the Apps control panel and hit the “I have completed these steps” button. Google will check the changes and as soon as the MX records propagate throughout the network you will be able to fully use the Mail service.

Now your new Google Apps email solution should work without any problems. For those of you who are curious of how to access your new Apps email accounts while using Outlook or any other email client I add the configuration options:

• IMAP [incoming mail server]:      imap.googlemail.com port number 993 encryption SSL or
• POP3 [incoming mail server]: pop.googlemail.com port number 995 encryption SSL
• SMTP [outgoing mail server]:        smtp.google.mail.com  port number 465 encryption SSL server requires authentication

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The domain name verification for Google Apps

If you remember from my last article, than right after we filled out everything needed we have been logged out and required to log in once again. Than we logged in and agreed to the new Privacy policy and than we have been taken to the page where we were asked to verify domain name ownership.

And this is where we will continue our discussion. I will show you the TXT record option as this is the one I have been given by Google to verify my domain name. You might be asked to create a CNAME record instead of a TXT record to make your Google Apps domain name operational. In this case you create a CNAME record where the string you are given by Google comes right before your domain name e.g. some-google-string.your_domain.com and then it points to google.com.

The way you do it is you log in to your Cpanel and choose the “Advanced DNS Zone editor” [picture 1.] option from the panel by clicking on it. Than you are taken to the next screen where the actual set up will be done. Select the domain name if you have more than one and the panel will automatically adjust to reflect your choice.

From the “Add record” column choose the TXT option and fill in the required elements. The name is your domain name, the TTL is the Time to Live and I would recommend you to choose the number you see at the bottom right next to one of your already existing DNS records.

Then the “TXT DATA” is to be filed with the actual string Google gave you at the “Verification” step. Click on “Add record” and you are done. Now go back to the window where your Google Apps account is open and click on “Verify” and the process will start. The domain name should verified right after you click on the button, but it might take a few minutes. If it does not work and still asks you to verify go trough the verification process once again, clear cookies, or use another browser e.g. Firefox, Chrome, Opera etc.  :)

Hopefully this helped you. Have nice day and see you next time!

Your whole Google Apps journey starts with registering your domain name for the product and than continues with setting everything up the right way on the side of your hosting provider and/or your domain registrar.

Google Apps the first step

As with so many online services nowedays you need to start with the registration process. No registration = no software or service for you… . And it is the same with Google Apps, but I can tell you that the whole process is pretty easy.

You start by visiting this link  www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new. From this point on you will be guided trough the registration and set-up procedure by Google’s easy to follow instructions.

You fill in your domain name [e.g. icethunder.net] and than click “Get started” or the equivalent in your language. On the next screen you will be asked to fill in your Administrator’s credits. I would recommend to create one special account for your administrator even if you do not have one, or you do not plan to use it. It is always very beneficial to have this account and create all the other accounts only with restricted privileges. The reason is the pure fact, that the majority of people use very weak passwords and thus ones your account is compromised and it has administrator privileges you are in big trouble!

At this place create a special administrator account, with it’s own address and forward all the email from the account to your ordinary account [this will be set up in the next article]. Give the administrator account a very strong password – anything with more then 18 characters and with a rich mix of upper case, lower case, special characters and numbers will do!!! And do not forget to write the Captcha right. From the whole process of registering for Google Apps the Captcha image is the hardest part as sometimes it is absolutely unreadable

If you completed all the steps above your account is now ready to be used. As soon as you click on the “Accept” button you will be moved to the “Log In” screen for your domain name.

Do not panic as this is a little different from the previous version of Google Apps. It’s due to the fact, that Google has decided to incorporate much more of it’s services to the Google Apps product – and even to the Basic product You are required to log in with your newly created administrator account [username+password] and accept the “Privacy notice”. Once you click on the “I accept…” button you are taken to your Administrator dashboard where you are asked to verify the domain name ownership. This is done to make sure you really are who you say you are – the owner of the domain name, or at least an administrator able to change the DNS settings and manipulate with the domain name in some way.

Choose one of the available verification options and proceed with what the guide asks you to do. If you choose the verify ownership by adding CNAME or TXT records, than you need to go to your domain name registrar, or your web hosting provider – who ever manages your DNS server and add those records. If you decide to use the “Meta-tag” option remember you will be asked to put a meta-tag string to your web site and thus you need to have access to your web site. The other option which requires you to have access to your web site is the “Upload HTML…” where you will be asked to upload a “.html” file to your server with a special name to verify your ownership. Choose what ever you like and are comfortable with

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Google Apps – What is it?

I think I really do not need to talk much about Google as a company as the majority of you already know about it a lot. It is the biggest search engine and one of the major Internet players out there. The company really has a very broad reach and offers products from Search market, trough Emails and Cloud services to Advertisement campaigns and much more.

But there is one special product I would like to discuss in this series of articles. The product is called Google Apps and it aims at a very broad audience. The free version which we will be setting up and trying to use as a replacement of our current email solution is called “Google Apps Standard“. It does not matter what edition you have as it always is much more than only an Email service. You get many more features bundled with your Edition than you could really use or get from your hosting provider. Some providers even offer Google Apps as a replacement for their own Email solution

The free Google Apps Standard Edition is build of the powerful Google Mail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Sites and Google Groups [basic], but as of late 2010 there are many more services being included with Google Apps. These new services include the majority of Google’s service like Google Reader, Bookmarks and many more which are currently offered for “early adopters” but will become a part of the product in early 2011.

Google Apps – Who is the indented audience?

You might think you really do not need Google and their Apps. And you can really have valid reason for this. It might be just your fear of new things, or your fear of change. There is a fear relating to the data you are giving away to the hands of Google and some more.

But I would like you to think for a little bit:

• If you are using your web hosting company’s email solution do you have full control of your data? You do not!
• If you are using your web hosting company’s email solution can you be sure it will not disappear tommorow? You can not!
• If you are using your web hosting company’s email solution can you be sure they have a back up strategy in place? you can not!

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Well, and with Google all these questions can be answered with YES. OK, nearly all of them, but the fact is you do have much more control about your data. You are giving your emails to one of the biggest companies with far bigger KNOW-HOW than your hosting provider has [I do not say your host does not know what he is doing, but hell it's Google and they have much more stuff than any hosting company out there...plus money ]

The intended audience for the Google Apps product is a person/business/project who:

• wants to rest assured it’s data is at one of the biggest company in the IT business…
• wants to be sure that his emails will be there for 24/7/365 and there are always real back up plans…
• understands security and wants to have his data somewhere where it is safe…
• Does not want to pay extra for a less than optimal level of service…

picture:google.com