[K12OSN] Google apps

Timothy Legge timlegge at gmail.com
Wed Sep 5 01:23:05 UTC 2007


On 9/4/07, Paul Nelson <pnelson.k12 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hosting your own email is GREAT and is often a preferred solution but
> don't blame this on Gmail. One GOOD thing you can do with gmail is
> create a domain for your school (oregonk12.org) and then allow access
> to Google apps hosted on your domain. When filtering, you can then
> deny access to all other google doc URLs but allow access to your own
> by grey listing or white listing anything with your domain in the URL
> (oregonk12.org/*). This way your students learn how to use Google Docs
> and you have admin controls over the accounts and documents without
> shutting them off from these great web 2.0 tools.

I agree.  Gmail through Google Apps has been the greatest thing to
occur for our users since we switched to Linux.  The benefits of
having Google look after our email have been numerous:

1) We no longer use evolution (sorry but it can be painful to use and support)
2) We are able to use our own domain name
3) We did not have to setup a mail server
4) I did not have to figure out how to provide web mail access

Our management type people love being able to check email from home
and on the road.

Granted all of this is possible with any number of fine software
projects but as the volunteer administrator at a Boys and Girls Club I
was looking to reduce complexity and Google has helped me do that.  It
gave me email, interoffice chat, some great calendar options and
access to the other Google Apps (Including the soon to be announced
Google Wiki I believe).

Tim




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