Google Apps is a useful service by Google which allows businesses and organizations with their own domain to use google service such as google mail, calendar, and start page. I spent a couple minutes moving Gearfire’s email accounts over to google, because I much prefer the gmail interface and storage over the generic-feeling webmail that comes from my host.

I was relaxing one night, and overheard my mom complaining to my dad about how their email address from the local ISP was not receiving messages properly, and had a 4MB attachment limit. So for my dad’s birthday, I registered a domain name for our family, and opened a Google Apps account with it. The advantages of gmail over the ISP’s email were enormous.

- Web interface to check email on the go
- 10MB file attachments
- Really good spam filtering
- Ability to check filtered spam to check for accidentally flagged messages
- Archiving of emails, so you never have to worry about a local system crash
- Easy search allows you to search your emails faster than a local folder hierarchy
- Personalized @domain.com address looks much better than @ISP.com
- You can choose any name @yourdomain and be sure it isn’t taken yet!

I pondered the possibility of everyone using Google Calendar, and sharing calendars with each other, but I don’t think my family is THAT open to embracing new technology yet. My mom doesn’t understand digital calendars, and my dad wouldn’t leave outlook for his life.

Now my current challenge is to get them using Thunderbird instead of Outlook Express…

Google Apps