GoogleAppsForYourDomain
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Google Play adds Private channel hosting for internal enterprise apps
It's not just IT departments the world over that've adjusted to the burgeoning BYOD (bring your own device) movement, it's Google, too. Responding to the increase in Android handsets now used in the enterprise space, Mountain View's announced the availability of a private Play store channel meant solely for internal apps. To take advantage of this, your corporate overlords will first have to be registered as an Apps for Business, Education or Government administrator, after which they can create a separate channel to host and manage any proprietary applications. On the employee end, a linked corporate email account is all that's required to gain access to this secured area, making the entire affair a breeze to use. And with that, RIM's biz-focused BlackBerry platform takes yet another hit. Click on to the source below for the finer details.
Google Hosted Mail Notifier
I found a widget back in January that did a ho-hum job of checking your Google hosted email (via Google's Apps for Your Domain service), but it doesn't always behave, and for RAM-conscious users a widget simply isn't the way to go. Fortunately, the Google Hosted Mail Notifier has risen to the challenge of providing a simple menubar item for checking your Google Hosted email, complete with customizable Growl alerts, choices in time intervals for checking mail, sounds, HTTPS connections and more. It works really well, though I wish it used a different icon than the official Google Notifier to help differentiate it from the pack. Still, for a donationware app from Troels Bay, the same crew who brought us the Google Reader Notifier (and please, show the dev some donation love), this is a great piece of work.
Widget Watch: g4me checks Gmail for your Domain
Google Apps for Your Domain is a service from the world's largest search company that allows just about anyone to run the major Google web apps on their own domain. Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar and Google Page Creator can all work for you or your business with a minimal amount of setup (which, by the way, just got easier). The problem with GAfYD (Google Apps for Your Domain) is that a lot of the available add-ons, such as the Google Notifier and various Greasemonkey scripts, don't work with the Google apps that are hosted on your domain. Fortunately, however, this hangup is changing. A new widget called g4me is adding to a slowly growing pile of 3rd party add-ons (such as the private beta Spanning Sync) that are compatible with GAfYD. This widget can check Gmail on your domain, complete with Growl integration for new message alerts. With Google's recent commitment to the Mac OS X platform, it will be nice to see more solutions like this coming from the big G and 3rd parties alike.
The official .Mac blog wants you
Here's your chance, folks. The official .Mac Blog has put a call out to its readers. Specifically, they want to know what you want covered on the blog. Are you interested in learning about cool and little-known iWeb tricks? iDisk basics? Why .Mac doesn't offer what Google Apps for Your Domain does? Ok, so that last suggestion probably won't fly, but if your suggestion is selected your name will appear with the accompanying post on the blog. Good luck.
