Sekiur My Thoughts

In just under a minute I migrated a couple of GrandCentral account to Google Voice and I am very exited to see a transcript of a voicemail show up in my Inbox.

I will definitely miss the GrandCentral interface as its much more intuitive than the new Google Voice GUI.

A limitation currently in place on both platforms is the capability to have 2 different accounts ring one same number. I particularly like this to have a personal and a business number both ring my cell and landlines. The workaround for the moment is leaving an account with GrandCentral and on one Google Voice. Lets see how long that lasts.!

One thing that I have seen more and more recently is my GrandCentral dropping calls on me. Maybe its Google’s way of getting users migrated.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google Voice Emerges from GrandCentral, Transcribes Voicemail (lifehacker.com)
• Google Voice: Bells, Whistles, and Voicemail Transcripts (blippitt.com)
• Google Voice: A New Approach to Voice Communications (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Google Launching GrandCentral As Google Voice (searchenginewatch.com)

In my previous post here, I went into the steps needed to bring up a Microsoft Live Exchange Labs environment.

Previously we had discussed the different options available when it came to hosted E-mail here.

Setting up a Google environment can be done it one of two ways. You can choose to maintain your existing domain to which e-mail is currently being delivered to or you can setup a completely new one like gapps.your-domain.com.

Allowing to pilot their offering using your existing domain sets you up for an easier migration path, if you choose to go with Google and this is the path which will be described below.

Once again after receiving a requested invitation from Google, we proceed to re-route e-mail.

Pilot Google Apps with email routing instructions are here.

Once you have verified your domain proceed to create an additional MX record in your DNS pointing to your existing mail server. This will be needed because as you route all your mail to Google, they will need to send e-mail back your way to accounts that do not exist in Google Apps.

• DNS Record Type: MX
• Host: routing.your-domain.com
• MX server: server1.your-domain.com (your E-mail server “A” record)
• TTL: 3600 or 1 hour
• Priority: 0 (or High priority)

Setup Google to route e-mail back to your server.

• Navigate to the Email settings page in the control panel. In the Email routing section, the default destination is Google Apps Email.
• Click Add another destination to set up mail routing for your other system.
• Enter the MX record you created previously. routing.your-domain.com
• Deliver mail for: Select Unknown accounts only to route mail to email addresses that don’t exist in your Google Apps account.
• Change SMTP envelope: Uncheck the box since your other mail system is already configured to receive mail addressed to this domain.
• Save changes

Then you will need to change your MX records to route e-mail sent to your domain to Google mail servers.

Your configuration would go from something like this:

• DNS Record Type: MX
• Host: mail.your-domain.com
• MX server: server1.your-domain.com (your E-mail server “A” record)
• TTL: 3600 or 1 hour
• Priority: 0 (or High priority)

to this

You are all set. As you create accounts in Google Apps, e-mail will be routed to their servers and e-mail will be delivered to those accounts. Any accounts non-existent will be routed back to the original e-mail server.

The diagram below makes it easier to understand.

Again there are lots of customizations including adding CNAME entries to your DNS allowing you to change the URL users will use to access e-mail and all the other options.

Higher Education and K-12 institutions have always either lead in the IT field with innovative solutions or been way behind in technology to the point of not having any.

Open source has always been an option, although generally for the technically inclined but several years ago the big guys (Google and Microsoft), brought hosted E-mail offerings to the table that would out perform any locally installed solution and without a price tag associated with it.

A new player recently entered the market with their very attractive offering. ZCS from Zimbra.

Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) is a groupware product created by Zimbra Inc., located in San Mateo, California, USA. The company was purchased by Yahoo! in September 2007.[1]. The software consists of both client and server components. Two versions of Zimbra are available: an open-source version, and a commercially supported version (“Zimbra Network”) with closed-source components. These software versions are available from Zimbra for download and independent use, from Zimbra-authorized partners, and included with service from a Zimbra-authorized hosting provider.

So what are the options?

1. Outsource
   1. Google Apps for Education
   2. Microsoft’s Live@edu Service
   3. Zimbra’s Hosted Collaboration Suite
2. Maintain/deploy in-house

Even thought there are legitimate issues with outsourcing, like privacy of e-mails, loosing control over the capability to access logs in case of an incident and ads displayed to the constituents amongst others; the option to provide this same level of service in-house is not economically feasible.

Lets take a look what these services offer:

Microsoft and Google are free provided that they can display ads for alumni and Zimbra costs $2 per year per student.

Resources:

Microsoft Live@edu:

Microsoft Live@edu video
Live@edu with Exchange Labs
Web Collaboration

Google Apps for Education:

Google Apps video

Zimbra:

Compare Hosted EDU Products

As I was driving home from the Blackberry Bold Experience Event last night, I received an upgrade prompt from my Blackberry 8820 for Google Maps. On the way home I upgraded to version 2.3.2 which to my pleasant surprise provided “Street View” giving you the capability of viewing imagery while driving or walking.

Google Maps for mobile makes it easy to see Street View imagery when you’re on the go. View imagery at each turn in driving or walking directions, and study a storefront’s facade so that you don’t pass it up while you’re moving by.

Street View is currently available for BlackBerry and some Java-enabled phones.

Using the trackball you can rotate the view 360 degrees and also expand the “street view” to fit the whole screen.

Watch the video below to see a demo.

If you already have it, then upgrade. If you don’t then you can pick it up by pointing your BlackBerry browser to: www.google.com/gmm

You can click here to fill out a survey and let Google know what you think of Google Maps for BlackBerry.