Just some updates:

1) I was obviously wrong about how well the iPad would sell.  Foot.  In.  Mouth.  Honestly I’m shocked at how well it has done and how much small business users have lovingly adopted it.  It has turned out to be great for web Apps and the “cloud” (SaaS) – ultimately the iPad is the best portable web browser out there (except for the lack of flash of course).  One thing they nailed is making that small screen seem huge by careful selection of the appropriate ppi.  Imagine a netbook screen that size – everything would look tiny.  Apple did a great job overcoming that.  Still, mine primarily collects dust except when we are using it for App testing and on road trips (when my daughter loves it for games and drawing).  At the end of the day it doesn’t do much more than an iPhone or iPod touch, and it is ridiculously overpriced, so it is only a matter of time before someone else makes a better mousetrap.  Kudos for Apple for re-kindling the tablet form-factor though.

2) Man did Android take off in the last year?  I saw that coming to a certain degree, but when the Nexus One flopped (I must say even I was extremely disappointed with it), I was worried.  I wasn’t sure Android could overcome Apple without a completely new business model, and I was hoping for an ad-supported phone (right in Google’s wheelhouse).  Turns out an ad-supported OS (that is basically what Android is) was enough.

3) It is only a matter of time before Android tablets take over too.  People have very short memories.  The lead Apple has in tablets is nothing compared to the lead they had with phones.  Much like last year with the Nexus One, the Xoom is disappointing – but history is sure to repeat itself.

4) I’m sure everyone thinks I’m an Apple hater (I’m not, I just don’t drink the punch) – but know that the Apps my team is working on will debut on Apple and Android (with preference still given to Apple if we are behind on a deadline), so I realize the power of the App Store.  Android’s App Store (sorry Steve, you made App Store a generic term) still attracts a more frugal consumer, so we will continue to see Apple’s store get the marquee Apps first.  Of course, the big difference from a year ago is that you will see the Android versions weeks (not months or years) after.  Also, now there are Apps that are Android only (because of iOS restrictions blocking developers from access to SMS, email, etc) – putting some much-needed pressure on Apple.

5) Windows Phone 7 bombed – shocker.  Microsoft’s reputation has finally caught up to them.  They should be worried.  Microsoft is like the “American Car” of the mobile industry.

6) I think RIM is going to make a comeback.  The PlayBook is just a glimpse of things to come.  RIM still does a lot of things right (phone calls, secure messaging, durable hardware, great battery life, the best keyboard, etc).  Most people saw Bridge as a hack or a shortcoming so they could push the PlayBook out the door – in my opinion it is fairly elegant (I have a phone already, I don’t really want to have to worry about maintaining my PIM info on yet another device).  The biggest flaw with Bridge is that it requires a Blackberry – if it were compatible with Android and iOS it would be a home run.  I’m a little bummed they are quickly scrambling to develop PIM Apps for the Playbook instead of making Bridge cross-platform.  Anyway, hopefully my RIM comeback prediction turns out to be more accurate than my iPad prediction last year.

7) We got Bin Laden!!

8- I still haven’t found a great way to replace AD with some kind of Google Apps integrated system.  Still, the cloud is alive and well, even after recent outages (most notably Amazon’s).  In my opinion JungleDisk is still the best kept secret – all of my clients use it now.  Some use it for backup, some use it as their “server”, some use it for sync’ing, and some use it for a combination of one or more of the above.  It is extremely versatile (and cheap).  JungleDisk rocks.

9)  I’ll take some time to vent here . . . Google, what is up with this change to Google Apps!!??  Now I can’t be logged into multiple Google accounts in the same browser at the same time.  Fail.  News flash – Google Apps customers don’t care that YouTube (et al) is integrated into their Google Apps accounts.  Gimme a break.  I would like to personally slap whoever thought this was a good idea.  As an IT Consultant, I typically have several Google Apps accounts open in the same browser at the same time.  Not anymore.  Argh.

Anyway, that is all for now.  I’m working on some pretty exciting projects that will change the world.  Cure for cancer.  That kind of stuff.  Ok, maybe not.

Anyway, the Apple cases are back-ordered, but as soon as I get a hold of one I’ll finalize my review and post it here.

As an aside, I think it is ridiculous that a device that starts at $499 doesn’t include the Apple case (especially when it is becoming readily apparent that a case is mandatory – and considering that most $279 netbooks at least include a sleeve).

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/04/05ipad.html

“Apple Sells Over 300,000 iPads First Day”

Now, you may say, “hey, 300k units, that is still pretty amazing” – is it?  The devil is in the details.

“These sales included deliveries of pre-ordered iPads to customers, deliveries to channel partners and sales at Apple Retail Stores. Apple also announced that iPad users downloaded over one million apps from Apple’s App Store and over 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore during the first day.”

Let me translate this for you (I took a year of Spin in college):

• This number includes DELIVERY of PRE-ORDERS.  So, this includes only iPads that were actually delivered, which means none of the 3G iPads that were pre-ordered are included in this number (that’s good for Apple).  Estimates of total pre-sales are all over the place (ranging from 150k to 500k), and Apple hasn’t released that official data, but I think a conservative estimate would be that 100K iPads were actually delivered Saturday (there were 2 weeks of pre-sales before the shipping date got pushed back to April 12th).  So, even with conservative numbers, 30% of “first day sales” were PRE-ORDERS.
• This number also includes “deliveries to channel partners”.  Note it says DELIVERIES.  It doesn’t mean they actually sold through.  So, if a channel partner (like Best Buy) ordered a bunch of units but hasn’t sold out, ALL of the iPads they ordered are included in this number.  I called my local Best Buy store (Atlanta – not a small market) – they still have “PLENTY” in stock.  If you are the CEO of Best Buy and you are thinking that the iPad is going to be a hit, how many iPads do you think you would order nationwide?  Keep in mind you have over 1000 stores.  Now take that number and subtract that from 300K.  That number isn’t sounding very impressive anymore is it?
• So now you are left with actual Retail Apple Store sales and pick-ups, the number that actually matters (because it indicates actual demand for the product after it is released and after people have actually used it – it isn’t just hype).  If you assume Best Buy ordered at least 100,000 units (roughly 100 units per store, a very conservative number), you are left with 100,000 sales for all Apple Stores on opening day.  There are 222 Apple Stores – that comes to an average of 450 sales per store.  That is hardly earth shattering for opening day sales of such a “ground-breaking” product.   That explains why the lines thinned out in just a couple hours, and why they didn’t sell out (I called the Apple Store at Lenox Mall in Atlanta, their biggest and most popular store in the city, and they are overstocked, the representative on the phone said I would have “no issues” getting one).
• Consider this, the iPhone sold 270,000 units its first day – and they didn’t have the help of pre-orders or deliveries to channel partners.  Also consider that you had to purchase a 2-year contract from AT&T to get the iPhone, which was a pretty big turn-off for a lot of people, and makes the iPhone a much more expensive product in the end.  Yet, if you read analyst reports, you’d think the iPad crushed iPhone sales.  Wow, it makes me wonder if these guys have a vested interest in Apple’s stock going up.  Oh wait, nevermind.
• I wouldn’t be bragging about a million apps and 250k ebooks downloaded.  Note it said “DOWNLOADED”, not sold.  When you consider that the iBooks app isn’t included with the device, that is 300k downloads right there.  Also keep in mind that Pages, Keynote, and Numbers all are not included with the iPad.  So basically this says that the average iPad owner didn’t even bother downloading all four of Apple’s apps used during their demos (one of which is free and is required for ebook functionality).  Apparently the average iPad owner didn’t even bother downloading an ebook either (250k < 300k) – or downloaded one and the novelty wore off – so I’d say the iPad isn’t killing the Kindle anytime soon.

I can hear you now, “Ben, why are you pulling for Apple to fail!!??”  Please understand, I LIKE Apple in general.  I admire Steve Jobs, and I appreciate what Apple has done for the industry.  What I don’t like are crappy products and Apple zealots who will buy whatever they put out, even if it is shit.  I don’t like Analysts hyping the product just to drive the stock price up.  The iPad is very pretty, but it isn’t a good product for the price, and if this is all they can deliver from years of R&D, it is a shame.  We should expect more from Apple, and buying anything they put out doesn’t do anyone any good.  Hopefully people will vote with their wallets, Apple will listen, and they will go back to the drawing board.  They could have revolutionized the tablet computer, but they didn’t.

Now, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is, go purchase an iPad today, and write a full review on it.  I will likely end up returning it, but at least I can say I gave it a fair shot, and I will approach the review process with an open mind.  Stay tuned.

Many times it is a software issue, but every so often you run into a truly dead hard-drive with either severe file system corruption or worse mechanical issues.  In those cases, you have to outsource the repair to a data recovery service.

The problem – the most well known of these services are out of California and require that you ship your hard drive across the country, wait, and then pay strangers a lot of money for sometimes less than stellar results.

A few years ago I ran across a locally (Atlanta) owned and operated data recovery service recommended by the Apple Store of all places.  I took the recommendation with a grain of salt but I figured I would give them a shot.  Since then I’ve sent countless hard drives their way for recovery, always with impressive results, for about half the price of the competition.

The company in question is Data Savers –  http://www.datasaversllc.com/ – and they are the only place I recommend for data recovery.

There are several reasons I recommend Data Savers over all others, including but not limited to:

• They are local, so I can get a diagnostic the same day in many cases.
• The diagnostic and estimate are FREE.
• They are very fast.
• They are personable – you actually get to talk to and interact with the owner in most cases, Jon Yaeger gives you his personal diagnosis and tries to explain the problem in terms almost anyone can understand.
• If they try a recovery but fail (never happened to me, but possible with an extremely physically damaged hard drive), you only get charged $100.
• They are honest about the chances of a recovery – if they think the possibility of recovery is low, they will tell you, so you don’t waste $100.
• They are typically half the price of the competition, but the results are better than the more expensive options.
• They take the operating system into account during the recovery – for example, in the case of a boot drive, when possible they will try to give you back a bootable drive.  I’ve turned in Mac laptops with damaged platters and received back a Mac laptop with a brand new hard-drive and the computer worked just like it did before it was turned in.  No other data recovery service will even attempt that.
• Bottom line – they get results.

I highly recommend Data Savers, it is the only place I trust with my data (and my clients’ data).  Check out their website – http://www.datasaversllc.com – or give them a call at 770-939-9363.

At roughly 100x the speed of even the fastest residential broadband available today, 1Gbps (1000Mbps) is obviously overkill for current Internet applications which are optimized for lower bandwidth.  As such, Google is saying the purpose of this project is to “experiment and learn” – but I can’t help but think they have a more specific goal in mind.

AdWords is the bread and butter of Google’s business, at least from a revenue perspective.  Google search, Gmail, etc. bring in the visitors, but it is AdWords that generates the cash.

Well, what most people don’t know is that Google also has something called AdWords for TV.  This allows existing AdWords advertisers to also get their Ads on TV.

However, unlike regular AdWords, Google does not control the “content network” with AdWords for TV.  AdWords for TV ads are only shown on the limited amount of Satellite and Cable providers that Google has deals with.

Thus, if you are Google, the logical next step would be to build your own TV network from the ground up, i.e., to do TV the “Google Way”, complete with Google Search for TV.  Of course all the channels would be HD.  Oh, and you could watch an unlimited number of HD movies whenever you wanted.  What would this type of service cost?  Nothing, because there would be the little AdWords ads across the bottom of the screen.  You pay a nominal fee ($30/month) for the really fat data pipe (1Gbps), and everything else rides on top of it, including your TV.

Obviously this is a total guess, but what else could Google need 1000Mbps for?

Have ideas for what you think Google will be testing with Gigabit to the home ?  Please post them here.

Anyway, Steve Jobs is the master of the product announcement – but this was one just felt disingenuous.

First off, Steve Jobs et al used the adjective “breakthrough” (along with groundbreaking and various other superlatives)  several times when referring to the iPad.  Let’s check out the definition of “breakthrough”:

“Any major progress; such as a great innovation or discovery that overcomes a significant obstacle.”

I ask you, what is groundbreaking about this device?

You could argue that the iPhone was a breakthrough device – at the time there was nothing like it.  I’m not a huge iPhone fan (I’m still a physical keyboard guy), but it definitely changed the way we look at phones, and it advanced the industry.

The iPad is really nothing more technically than an overgrown iPod touch – and really doesn’t try to hide that fact.  It’s screen isn’t breakthrough, it’s input method isn’t breakthrough, it’s storage isn’t breakthrough, it’s software isn’t breakthrough, it’s processor isn’t breakthrough . . . I could continue.  Now, I suppose you could say that the culmination of all of these things in this form factor is unique, but not breakthrough.  Especially for the price.  I’ll get back to that later.

What would you use this for?

It doesn’t make a very good e-book reader because of the lack of e-ink display.  Sure, it has pretty colors and stuff, but that doesn’t prevent eye strain or let you read it outdoors.  I’ve read several reviews calling this as Kindle killer, and those people obviously don’t get what is unique about e-book readers.

It is way too big for a portable music device.

It could make for a cool productivity device (the iWorks demo was the only thing that really impressed me) – but they’ve clearly targeted this at the home market, and with no USB you won’t exactly be able to print with it.  I’m curious how rugged it is going to be for a road warrior, that is one big glass screen to break.  Here’s my biggest problem with it from a business perspective – it is too large to justify taking it on a business trip along with your laptop – but it isn’t functional enough to completely replace a laptop.  No company is going to pay $500-$900 for a toy that a business user might use occasionally, when they can get a netbook (that is arguably much more capable than an iPad and could replace a laptop on business trips) for $299.  Also, without “jailbreaking” it, the only software you can put on it has to be attained through the AppStore.  This might be acceptable for a consumer device like the iPhone, but IT departments won’t go for it.

Thus, I see the #1 demographic for this being people who are recreational computer users and want a portable Internet and video device, and who don’t already have an iPod (or people who already have iPods and will just buy this out of Apple loyalty, and have a lot of money to burn).

I found a really funny comment on-line by an anonymous user.  This kind of sums it up for me:

“Just yesterday I was looking at my iPhone thinking ‘Hmmm, I wish this thing didn’t fit in my pocket and couldn’t make phone calls.’  Then I looked over to my netbook and couldn’t help but feel it would benefit from losing the keyboard and being made of 50% glass.”

As long as we are on the topic of what the iPad won’t have . . .

No user-replaceable battery
No USB ports
No camera (not a big deal to me)
No microphone
No removable flash memory (i.e., always have to plug it into your computer to load anything on to it, and you can’t upgrade the storage)

Having said that, they did demo a really cool looking keyboard dock.  That would be really cool to use with a USB mouse – oh wait, no USB ports, my bad.

So now we are back to the price.  This is the part that really bothered me.

Jobs starts out with the most disingenuous statement I’ve heard by a CEO in a while – I’m not quoting verbatim, but it pretty much went like this:

“All the pundits have been saying this will cost $999 – well shocker, it will only be $499, how cheap is that??”

It was right out of an infomercial.  First of all Steve-O, the “pundits” got their information from Apple “leaks” which you guys put out intentionally to increase the hype factor.  Saying it is half off an imaginary price (that you spread the rumor of) and acting like that is some kind of great deal is a joke and quite frankly insulting.

The fact of the matter it that it should be substantially cheaper than an iPhone.  Aside from the larger screen and a faster processor, it is technically less capable than an iPhone (the iPhone can do everything the iPad can do, and the iPhone can make phone calls too), and it is in a larger, less expensive to engineer and produce form factor.  With no expansion options, nobody will want the base model (16GB and no 3G).  The only model that I would consider adequate is the 32GB model with 3G, and that is $729.  Not exactly cheap, especially since it can’t replace my computer or my phone; oh, and by the way, that’s twice as expensive as a similarly configured netbook — which Steve Jobs made fun off more than once during his announcement as “underpowered” – really?

There was one aspect of the pricing that was pretty impressive – $29.99 for unlimited 3G data with no contract.  So basically they are giving you the “phone” rate for 3G data, with the bonus of no contract.  Bravo!  However, they couldn’t resist being misleading even with this part of the announcement – they said 3G data started at $14.99 with a 250MB per month cap, with Jobs insinuating that 250MB would be more than enough for many people.  That is BS.  250MB is a joke, especially for a device that can play HD video.  On my laptop using CLEAR wireless I used 28GB of data last month, and I’m not a heavy video user.  That is roughly 11,000% more than 250MB.  I don’t see the 250MB plan lasting very long.

Anyway, only time will tell how the iPad will do.  I’m sure there is a group of people who will buy this no matter what – and who knows, maybe once I get my hands on one I’ll fall in love with it and come back here and retract my “pre-review”.  As a previous user of several tablet computers (all of which I hated), I had high hopes for the iPad, so I’m crossing my fingers that I’m way off base here.  However, from where I sit, I think we are looking at Apple’s first big flop in a long time.

Oh, and one more thing – iPad?  Seriously?  Marketing department fail.  I guess all the good names were taken.  What happened to iSlate!!??  Sorry, rant over

Also, as someone who firmly believes in SaaS and cloud computing, it just makes logical sense that we push authentication to the cloud as well.

99% of my clients just need a central point of windows logon authentication for their company that isn’t location dependent.

So, I started my quest for such a solution.

Surprisingly, there isn’t much information out there about this topic, especially for the client side.  The server side was fairly obvious – it was going to have to be some flavor of LDAP.  However, the software to handle the Windows logon authentication was severely lacking.  I kept finding references to a now defunct “pGINA” which replaces the standard Windows GINA (Graphical Identification and Authentication), but I wasn’t about to go with a solution that was no longer supported.

Finally I found a company called Comtarsia that specializes in just this sort of thing.  They provide a full configurable logon function for Windows (XP through 7) that authenticates against pretty much any LDAP server you can think of.  It also allows you to fall back to the local Windows logon and can use cached credentials if you can’t reach the server, so you’ll never get stuck in a situation where you can’t login.

Armed with Comtarsia, now I just needed a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to get my LDAP server up.  I found a company called eApps that does Linux VPS hosting for $11/month, and that included one-click installs of OpenLDAP server and phpLDAPAdmin (to edit the directory).  I signed up and went to work.

Things were definitely quirky at first.  phpLDAPAdmin wasn’t behaving, I even had to edit some code to be able to add users properly (in retrospect it would have been easier to use a windows LDAP tool as you will see below).  Even finding and setting the admin userid/password wasn’t trivial.  In any case, it was a bumpy road, but after a couple hours I had OpenLDAP running and one test user in the directory.

I installed Comtarsia Logon Client 2006 (the version for XP) and the setup for it was much more simple.  The exercise of dealing with OpenLDAP server reduced the learning curve for Comtarsia, because I already knew the LDAP naming conventions.  One really nice thing about Comtarsia – it has an advanced mode where you can actually tweak the settings for the client from the Windows login prompt (port number, prefixes and postfixes for the directory names, etc), which is great when you are getting your feet wet with LDAP.

However, I had a problem – it was only letting me authenticate to the user’s CN (common name, which is basically the full name of the user), not the userid.  Thus, I was having to enter “Ben Buie” as the userid instead of bcbuie.  I was stuck on this issue for hours and almost gave in, after all, it wasn’t a deal-breaker, just cumbersome and annoying.

Finally I downloaded a small LDAP browser/editor called JXplorer – this was something I wish I had earlier in the process.  Dealing with this tool was much easier than dealing with phpLDAPAdmin.  While playing with this program I noticed it had the ability to change the “naming value” of the LDAP record.  I set the uid field as the naming value, and voila, I could now login with the userid instead of the full name.

At the end of the day I had a Windows machine logging on with authentication against an OpenLDAP server hosted on the Internet.  Authentication was lightning fast (of course I had one record in the directory) and the experience was unobstrusive to the end user.  I was a happy camper.

What’s next?

• I need to set this up in a test environment with several PC’s and see if it allows for “domain-like” capabilities (such as domain admin login to any computer).
• I didn’t get pricing on Comtarsia Logon Client yet (I was using the free trial, and no pricing is available on the website that I could see).  Pricing has to be fairly inexpensive or it is a deal-breaker.
• I need to test on more platforms as well as do some stability and reliability testing.

In any case, it is a little early to claim this as the perfect alternative to AD, but if nothing else it is a good start.

Unfortunately, as I soon discovered, Google Apps Premier has a pretty major Achilles’ heel – NO SUPPORT FOR TASKS!

Now, this probably doesn’t come as news to some, but I guess it is just one of those features I never noticed was missing until now.  I mean, I don’t use Outlook at all, and even when I was I never used Outlook tasks, but apparently a lot of people do.

The really odd thing is that Google Calendar does have the concept of tasks, but for some reason they just don’t sync with Outlook.  It is a real head-scratcher.

However, there is a silver lining (sticking with the whole cloud metaphor) – there is a product called “Companion Link for Google”, and it actually has quite a nifty workaround.  It syncs Outlook Tasks and Notes with Google’s Calendar and Contacts respectively.  Basically it creates a Google calendar item for each Outlook Task, and then adds the prefix “Task:” to it.  Likewise it creates a Google contact item for each Outlook Note, and then adds the characters “|M|” before and after the contact name (as such they always show up at the top of your contact list).  The reason this workaround is so clever – it ensures that Google Sync for Mobile (on my Blackberry for example) will catch contacts and notes as well (since they are nothing more than Calendar and Contact items to Google).

Now, creating/editing tasks and notes in Google Apps can be tricky — because you have to adhere strictly to the above syntax — and there is no way to mark a task as complete on the Google side short of deleting it.  However, all and all, it is a fairly elegant solution.

Companion Link has some other benefits to, namely:

• You can specify which calendars you want to sync (and it integrates with Outlook categories), and whether or not you want to sync items marked “personal”
• Each Companion Link for Google license is only $39.99 one-time, and since you can use it with Google Apps Standard, you actually come out cheaper that way ($39.99 one-time vs $50/year, you do the math)

The biggest downside of Companion Link for Google – it doesn’t do mail.  Thus, you are dependent on IMAP for getting your mail into Outlook.  Don’t get me wrong, IMAP works well, but it just isn’t as transparent and clean of an implementation as Google Apps Sync for Outlook (which uses MAPI on the Outlook side).

The bottom line, if you use tasks and notes (in addition to contacts and calendar), then Companion Link for Google is really the only way to go, at least for the time being.

However, sometimes the uses of Twitter aren’t inherently obvious.  The system is just so darn simple that it takes a while for people to “get” it (I’m the first person to admit I laughed at twitter and only started using it about  a month ago – 177 tweets later I’m hooked).  That’s just it though – the simplicity is why it works.

So anyway, I decided to put my Tweets to work.  The epiphany came while I was trying to put together a client management system.  My needs were fairly minimal.  My clients who are under “contract” buy 24-hour blocks of time from me.  My main need was I wanted a simple way to track of how much time left they had in their block.  Also, I wanted to keep the details of the work  I performed on their account.  I didn’t really need a ticketing system – when my clients need help they call or email me.

Another thing – I wanted to keep my clients up to date on the latest in IT and tech, especially security warnings, and following me on Twitter is the best way to do that.  However, most of them don’t use twitter at all.

After installing a couple of different ticketing/CRM systems (even one integrated with this WordPress site) and kicking the tires, each one was cumbersome and quite frankly just overkill.

Back to the epiphany – why couldn’t I just use Twitter for this?

The biggest stumbling block initially was how to keep up with a Twitter account for each user.  I really didn’t want to have to create fake gmail accounts for every Twitter account.  So I googled and discovered a handy gmail trick (this only works with gmail.com accounts) – gmail IGNORES anything after a + sign in an email address.  So, for example, email sent to example+work@gmail.com will end up going to example@gmail.com.

Thus, all I had to do was create twitter accounts using myemailaddress+clientname@gmail.com.  Of course I set the accounts to be protected.  Also, I set each account to follow my twitter account (http://www.twitter.com/gosutotech).  Best of all, I could use Seesmic to manage all of these twitter accounts at once.

Only one piece was missing – Twitter is limited to 140 chars.  Thus, details of client work couldn’t go there.  So, I used my Google Docs and created a Google Doc for each new job.  Then, I shared them publicly and created short links which I post with each corresponding tweet.  So, for example, a tweet might be:

“01/16/10 – 4 Hours Billed, 16 Hours Remaining – http://bit.ly/stuff” (that’s a fake URL, don’t click on it)

The end result was perfect.  Each client gets a twitter account which I send them the login for.  When they go to their twitter account, they see their account updates along with my @gosutotech tweets.  If they only want to see their account updates (their tweets) they click “Profile”.  They are free to use that account to follow others if they want to get into twitter, and since the email assigned to the account goes to me I don’t have to worry about them accidentally allowing someone to follow them (their accounts are protected).

It is insanely simple – just like twitter.

• sync’ing of read-status and deleted items only happens in one direction
• you can’t access your other gmail labels (folders), most importantly Sent Items
• you have no access to the company directory (aka “GAL”)

Calendar and contacts sync worked just fine with Google Sync for Blackberry (which basically just uses the ActiveSync protocol), but gmail sync is not included, apparently due to some limitation with the built-in Blackberry messaging app (I only assume this because Google Sync syncs gmail just fine on the iPhone and Windows Mobile).

So, I decided to try out NotifySync for Blackberry (they have a 14-day free trial).  It basically does the same thing as Google Sync, but it installs a special messaging application that is intended to mimic the look of the integrated Blackberry messaging app.

Installation and Initial Sync

Installation was a tad cumbersome.  It forces you to install an “installer app” first – overkill for a Blackberry in my opinion – from which you can download and install Notify apps, update them, and uninstall them if needed.

It also didn’t do a very good job of helping you with some of the settings, specifically server address.  Now, I know in a typical ActiveSync environment the server address would be unique, but given they now advertise Google Apps compatability, they could have easily taken 5 minutes to tell the user Google’s Active Sync server address (m.google.com in case you are wondering).

Finally, once it is done installing and registering, it asks you what and how you want to sync – it doesn’t mention these are only the first sync settings (not the ongoing sync settings).  I mistakenly picked “merge” the first time, and then got duplicates of everything in both places (it does warn you of this in the manual, but it should give you some warning in the program).  Anyway, I deleted the account, cleaned up my Google address book and calendar (took a while), and then registered NotifySync on the Blackberry again, this time telling it to replace everything on my Blackberry.  This completely wiped out my Blackberry contacts, calendar, and tasks and then sync’d them with their Google Apps counterparts.  I was surprised how long it took, not only to download and install the app, but for the initial sync itself.  I set up a very small test account (250 contacts, 20 calendar entries, maybe 20 emails), and it took about 30 minutes to complete the first sync (I’m on Sprint’s 3G network).

In any case, once everything was done, I tested out the Gmail sync’ing, and it worked flawlessly (albeit slowly).  Read status and deleted items sync’d properly in both directions.  I could choose to sync whatever folders I wanted just like I was using BES.   When I did a “directory lookup”, it retrieved my domain shared contacts (GAL).

The bottom line is the functionality is all there, and basically gives you a BES equivalent.  However, like I said, speed is a factor.  Calendar and contacts updates seemed to take around 15 minutes to happen.  Email was definitely not push (apparently you can setup push if your Blackberry and network supports TCP, but I was using BIS).  Thus, in order to get functionality close to push I had to set a very low scheduled sync interval, which caused me to go through an entire battery charge in half a day.

Also, the app itself just seemed slow and I got the hourglass a lot, even when not in the application.  Finally, it had little quirks – one of my contacts only showed a single phone number on the Blackberry (but it showed both numbers online), and an error popped up at one point telling me that I needed to completely resync the calendar (which required wiping out the calendar on the Blackberry yet again).

I guess I wouldn’t nitpick if not for the price, which is really off-the-charts high.  ”Volume” pricing is $100 per user for the first year, then $25 per user each year after that (individual pricing is even higher).  Unfortunately, that puts it out of the price range of Google Apps Premier users.

In any case, I only kept the free trial installed for about 24 hours, and I’m back to Google Sync for Blackberry and IMAP for email.  Even for free, the app really wasn’t worth all the hassle.  Besides, it is just a matter of time before Google (or an open source developer) gets Blackberry email properly sync’ing with Gmail, and if not, hopefully I’ll have an Android device by then.

First off – the Outlook integration seems to be rock solid.  You install a tiny Outlook Add-in (Google Apps Sync for Outlook) on each computer, and it basically tricks Outlook into thinking you are on Exchange server.  No lie, if you go and check the account settings for Outlook, it shows it as a MAPI account.  Your email, calendar, and contacts sync with their Google Apps counterparts automatically.  Thus, anyone who is committed (no pun intended) to Outlook can stay on Outlook, and hopefully over time migrate to using gmail exclusively.  One nice thing – since it is an Outlook Add-in, it isn’t running when Outlook is closed.

Google Apps Premier covers most of the features Exchange users are used to.  Calendar sharing, delegating email to an admin, scheduling appointments between users, booking resources, etc.   They have also implemented a Global Address List (a directory of employee email addresses), although it doesn’t show up in your regular contacts view (it shows up via auto-complete and also when you click the “To” line on an email).  However, the GAL only contains names and email addresses for now,  and you can’t really customize it yet.  Also missing are “shared” or “public” contacts – although apparently you can do that through a script.  All in all though, most of the features are there, and anything missing can likely be added through scripting or will eventually show up in updates (keep in mind that, unlike Exchange, the system is getting updates and new features all the time at no extra charge).

Of course, there are also a lot of features that Exchange just doesn’t have.  Google Docs, for on-line document storage and collaboration (can theoretically replace Microsoft Office, depending on how complex your documents are).  Google Video, for sharing video within your organization.  Google Sites for building team websites.  Google Groups for creating and managing “groups”, which are basically message boards / distribution lists.  Don’t forget Gmail and Google Talk (Gmail is still my favorite all-time email client).  Best of all, each of these “apps” is enabled with SEARCH – what Google does best.

Now for the Blackberry integration.  Google Sync for Blackberry handles most of this – once installed on the blackberry, contacts and calendar are sync’d automatically over the air.  That only leaves email.  Email synchronization is not quite up to the level of a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) just yet.  However, for people who aren’t on Exchange, it still is far better than what they have now.  Here is how it works:

• Turn on IMAP on your Google Apps gmail account (turn OFF Pop3)
• Create a label called “Sent Items” (exact spelling and capitalization)
• Setup the account on your blackberry (using yourname@yourdomain.com)

The Blackberry will auto-detect it is an IMAP account and figure the rest out for you.  If not, the gmail IMAP server can be input manually.  In any case, here is what you end up with:

• new mail shows up on your blackberry quickly (seems to be push, I would say within seconds of showing up online or in Outlook)
• mail SENT from your blackberry shows up in Outlook Sent Items and under the gmail Sent Items label we created above
• however, mail sent through gmail or in Outlook does not show up on the blackberry (no way to access the “Sent Items” on the Blackberry)
• messages read on your blackberry are marked as read in Outlook and in gmail – however, this only happens in that direction, not vice-versa
• messages deleted on your blackberry are deleted from gmail and Outlook (you can turn this off if you want) – however, again, not vice versa

Thus, the only real features missing are 1) sync’ing read status/deleted messages from the server back to the Blackberry (the sync’ing is only one way as described above), and 2) there is no way to access the “GAL” on the Blackberry.

So what’s the verdict?  I firmly believe any company on Exchange or looking to move to Exchange would be more than happy with Google Apps Premier, especially at the cost ($50/user/YEAR).  Not to mention there are no servers to manage, no backups to worry about, etc.  Blackberry users who are used to the tight Exchange integration of BES might be a little dissapointed, but I suspect that will improved over time.  Besides, who doesn’t want a shiny new Android phone anyway (it goes without saying that Android integration is much tighter, since it is developed by Google and all)!!??  Of course, every situation has to be evaluated on a case by case basis, but that’s what I’m here for right?

Google Apps Premier – I use Google Apps for email and to collaborate with my colleagues.  For $50/year you get all the benefits of an Exchange server and honestly a lot more.  I use the Premier version primarily so I can help clients migrate from Exchange to Google Apps Premier (I like to use the services I recommend).

Toodledo - an amazing to do list manager (I prefer to call it a life organizer).  It also integrates with Google Calendar and has a Blackberry App.

Freshbooks – as the name implies, an on-line alternative to Quickbooks.  Designed for time and billing applications.  Generates very professional on-line invoices, and allows my customers to pay on-line.

WordPress and Twitter – to keep my clients in the know (this site is a WordPress site, in case you couldn’t figure that out), and Twitter also helps me stay on top of the latest and greatest.

JungleDisk – an amazing service that gives me a online virtual hard-drive of unlimited size.   I only pay for usage, and I can use it as a virtual external hard-drive and also as a backup device.  It is powered by RackSpace so it is extremely reliable and the upload/download speeds are off the charts.  Best of all, it is pay as you go, and the price is hard to beat ($3/month for the 1st 5GB, then 15 cents per GB after).  I’ve researched this area greatly and this is the best service of its kind.

Jott – Jott is basically a voice to text transcription service, but it can be used for many purposes.  I use it to record voice notes with my phone (helpful when in the car) and also to get “snapshots” of my voicemail (transcribes the first part of the voicemail and then it sends me the audio file of the entire voicemail, helpful when I’m out of cellphone range).

LogMeIn Rescue – not the cheapest, but still the best on-demand remote support system.

Blackberry – to be honest, I covet a Google Nexus One, but I’m not sure I could get by without my blackberry keyboard.  I don’t go anywhere without it.

This is definitely not a complete list, but that’s it for now.  I’d like to hear what everyone else is using, so feel free to comment.