(And, if you also use a BlackBerry, there are a couple of options for accessing those tasks on your mobile device.)

If so, you should check out WordCamp Gold Coast 2011. It’s a two-day conference on the weekend of 5 and 6 November focused on all things WordPress.

I’ll be doing a presentation for newcomers called How to Build Your First Website Using WordPress.

I look forward to seeing you there.

I’m no security expert. So, I rely on the opinions of people who need to know about this stuff. Accordingly, I recommend this New York Times article by Vivek Kundra. Until last month, Kundra was the Chief Information Officer of the US government, a role in which security considerations are absolutely critical. Kundra states that:

“cloud computing is often far more secure than traditional computing, because companies like Google and Amazon can attract and retain cyber-security personnel of a higher quality than many governmental agencies.”

The good news is that – as Kundra mentions – there are also cost and productivity benefits of moving to the Cloud. He concludes:

“Public and private organizations that preserve the status quo of wasteful spending will be punished, while those that embrace the cloud will be rewarded with substantial savings and 21st-century jobs.”

So ask yourself: if cloud security is good enough for the United States government, is it good enough for your business? Read the full article.

Image credit: spaceodissey.

What is WordPress?

In essence, WordPress is a tool for building websites. It’s what’s known as a Web content management system or a CMS.

There are two “flavours” of WordPress. So it helps to understand the difference.

• Self-hosted WordPress – the open source WordPress software that can be downloaded from WordPress.org and installed on any web server. (Setting it up requires some technical expertise.)
• WordPress.com – a fully hosted and maintained version of the software that you access at WordPress.com. (Anyone can be up and running quickly and easily on WordPress.com without any technical knowledge.) It’s more limited in what it allows you to do, but it’s a great place to start.

You can read a more detailed explanation.

So why use WordPress?

Here are a few reasons.

It’s easy to use

The WordPress Philosophy is heavily focused on usability – making sure the system “just works” (kind of like Apple). A key tenet is Striving for Simplicity:

We love to challenge ourselves and simplify tasks in ways that are positive for the overall WordPress user experience.

That means it’s much easier to maintain and update a WordPress website than one built on pretty much any other platform.

It’s flexible

By design, WordPress includes less functionality out-of-the-box than other CMSs. Rather than providing a whole lot of overwhelming and unnecessary bloatware, WordPress aims to include ”features that 80% or more of end users will actually appreciate and use.” WordPress’s extensible theme and plugin system then handles any sort of customisation you need. That means your WordPress site can evolve to meet your changing needs.

It’s the most popular CMS platform

By some measures, WordPress has over 50% of the CMS market. Wonderful, but why should I care? Well, a platform that has a large user base creates a flourishing ecosystem of service providers keen to help you develop, maintain and support your website. In turn, the base platform itself is far more likely to evolve and improve over time – reducing the chances of you ending up stranded on an unsupported system.

It’s cheap

WordPress is very cost-effective.

1. There are no license fees. WordPress is free open source software that anyone can download and use. Even WordPress.com – the hosted service I mentioned earlier – is free to use (although it also has paid upgrades).
2. Because of its focus on usability, end users become productive on WordPress more quickly than on the other CMSs.
3. WordPress’s extensible design means it’s possible somebody’s already developed custom functionality that you might need – and you can probably use it for a small fee (or maybe even for free).
4. The HUGE WordPress community is probably the biggest benefit of all. There are endless free online resources. And if you need more assistance, there are thousands of experienced WordPress professionals available to help you out. What’s more, if you’re not happy with the service of one provider, it’s easy to move your website to someone else.

So, now that you know why WordPress is a great choice for your website, it’s time for you to go and build one. (If you’re not technical, you should start with WordPress.com.)

What do you like best about WordPress?

Setting up Google Cloud Connect

1. Download and install the new version of Google Cloud Connect.
   When you open Microsoft Word (or Excel or PowerPoint), the Google Cloud Connect bar should be visible below the standard toolbar.
   
2. Click the Login button next to the message Welcome to Google Cloud Connect. To get started, login using your Google credentials.
   This will display the Approve Access to your Google Account window.
3. Sign in using your full Gmail or Google Apps email address and password.
   This will display the message The Google Cloud Connect application on your computer is requesting access to your Google Account for the product(s) listed below.
    
4. Click Grant Access.
   This will display the Global Settings window.
   
5. To keep the default settings, click OK.
   Google Cloud Connect is now installed and set up.

Editing documents

1. Click the Google Cloud Connect button, and then select Open from Google Docs…
   
2. The Open window lists all the documents you have stored in Google Docs. You then simply search for the desired document and click Select.
   
   Cloud Connect also saves a copy of the document to a designated folder on your computer. So next time you can open it straight from that folder and edit it even if you’re offline.

Tips and tricks

Minimise the Google Cloud Connect bar

If you want to save space, you can minimise the Google Cloud Connect bar by clicking the little arrow at the bottom (circled in red below).

Change sync settings

By default, when you create a new document, Google Cloud Connect automatically syncs it with Google Docs. If you only want to sync selected documents you create:

• Click the Google Cloud Connect button
• Select Global Settings
• Under Global Document Options, select Manual (only when sync button is clicked)
• Click OK

Change the location of files on your computer

Copies of files you open from Google Docs get saved to your computer. To specify the folder the files get saved to:

• Click the Google Cloud Connect button
• Select Global Settings
• Under Opening Files from Google Docs, click Change next to Save Location
• Navigate to the desired folder
• Click OK twice

I’m a big Google Apps and Microsoft Office user. So I was very excited when, in February 2011, Google released Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office. The aim of Cloud Connect is to enable you to edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files using the full featured Microsoft Office tools you’re so familiar with, while storing those files in Google Docs to simplify sharing and backup.

Cool, I thought. Maybe I could use Cloud Connect in conjunction with – or possibly even instead of – Dropbox. However, the moment I started testing Cloud Connect my excitement turned to disappointment. Downloading and opening Microsoft Office files from Google Docs was a nightmare. It turns out Cloud Connect was one product Google definitely removed the “Beta” label from too early. ars technica nailed it in their March blog post:

“All in all, we’re left with the feeling that Cloud Connect is a not-even-version-1 product. Even when working at its best, its user experience was crude and unpolished—and much of the time, it didn’t even work at its best.”

New and improved

Google recently announced a new version of Cloud Connect which they claim improves the way Microsoft Office files are accessed from Google Docs. I bit the bullet and tried it out again. You can do the same by following these steps for using Cloud Connect.

The verdict?

A definite improvement. Previously you had to go to the Google Docs website in your browser, search for the file, download it to your computer, and then open it. Now it all happens within Microsoft Word (or Excel or PowerPoint). Which means Cloud Connect is finally usable. In fact, if you work on lots of Microsoft Office documents with other people, Cloud Connect is more than usable – it’s quite useful.

But is it a Dropbox replacement?

Definitely not. The continued lack of standalone/background folder and file syncing on your computer means Google Cloud Connect is still pretty clunky. Also, if you have lots of documents, a file structure gives you important context. You lose that when trying to access documents via Cloud Connect.

If you only work with a handful of Microsoft Office files, then Cloud Connect may be enough. If however, like me, you need to work with lots of files – including other file types such as images, PDFs and entire folder structures – then  Dropbox wins hands-down.

Since its launch in 2006, Google has offered a free version of Google Apps to organisations of up to 50 users. That’s about to change.

Fewer Users

From 10 May the free version will be limited to just 10 users. Google chose to deliver the news in the middle of a blog post ostensibly about making Google Apps better and easier for businesses.

I understand why they’ve chosen to reduce the limit – 50 users always seemed very generous to me. But I do find the way they’ve delivered the news rather disingenuous.

Competition

Google also announced a new pricing option of US$5 per user per month. (Previously there was only an annual option of US$50 per user.) Interestingly, the new option comes one week after pricing for Microsoft’s Office365 plan for small businesses was revealed. It will be US$6 per user per month when it launches in June.

Impact

Come the middle of the year:

• Google will have a free edition of Google Apps for up to 10 users, and will charge $5/user/year for its paid edition.
• Microsoft will charge $6/user/year for organisations with up to 50 users. (They don’t provide a free edition.)

My take: Many more businesses with 10-50 users will now be tempted to head down the Office365 route. That said, the customers Google does win in that segment will be more profitable for them.

A bit of history

When Google launched Gmail in 2004 I was smitten. I bored anyone who would listen about Gmail-this and Gmail-that. So when Google launched Google Apps for Your Domain in 2006 my ferver reached a whole new level. (In 2007 they renamed the product Google Apps which was good – much less of a mouthful – and bad because you’re average Joe doesn’t realise that he can use Google’s email infrastructure with his own domain name.)

Anyway, ever since 2006 I’ve been evangelising about Google Apps. More often than not, I get blank stares in response, but that doesn’t deter me.

What’s all that got to do with Microsoft?

Ever since Google launched ‘Apps‘ as a way for businesses to save money by moving their email to the cloud, Microsoft has been trying to work out how best to respond. They generate huge revenues from selling licenses for organisations to install Exchange Server, Small Business Server and other software on clients’ premises.

At the same time, according to Microsoft, businesses see email as the low-hanging fruit of the clould. If organisations are moving from on-premises Exchange, then Microsoft needs to provide a compelling alternative to Google Apps. They’ve started doing that with Exchange Online and Business Productivity Online Suite, the latter of which is similar to Small Business Server. (Both services are currently sold by Telstra in Australia, but at some point I’d expect Microsoft to cut out Telstra and go direct.)

This creates two key problems for Microsoft.

1. Revenues – by Google’s calculations, if you have 10 users, the total cost of ownership for Google Apps Premiere Edition is 90% less than Microsoft Exchange 2007. While Google (and I) are biased, if Microsoft decides to compete with Google on price, then a lot of people will move from on-premises  Exchange. And those lucrative licensing revenues will definitely fall.
2. Updates – End users like the Google approach of releasing small updates on a continuous basis; gentler learning curve each time equals less scary. In contrast, they struggle with Microsoft’s approach of introducing infrequent larger changes. Non-techies don’t like changes to IT. I expect that as Microsoft’s cloud offerings catch Google’s they will also adopt smoother, more frequent release cycles.

What does the future hold?

It’s a tricky situation for Microsoft. They don’t want to kill their traditional Exchange cash-cow. But they don’t want to miss out on the “low-hanging fruit.” We’ll have to wait and see how true Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s claim is that “when it comes to the cloud, we are all in.”

For now, as far as I’m concerned, it’s time to ‘Go Google‘.

What if the vendor goes out of business? What if their servers get hacked? What if they steal my data?

These are important questions. (They are also ironic questions if you are a Facebook user and share all your personal information with the world.)

It’s true that different systems offer different levels of security. But it’s a bit rich for this PC World article about Google Apps for Government to claim this:

“…just because Google Apps has been declared secure enough for government data does not mean that SMBs [small and medium businesses] should jump on the Google bandwagon without some due diligence.”

Yes, the author puts in his ‘without some due diligence’ caveat. And yes, for some industries (such as law firms), electronic data is subject to specific legal and regulatory requirements.

But to present this as an across-the-board issue for small and medium businesses is not helpful. Can your business really justify the time and resources needed for an in-depth due diligence on the security risks posed by Google Apps? Is it a real issue that’s worth that kind of investment?

Google provides detailed security and privacy information for interested parties. But for your average small business owner, the fact that Google Apps is used at Motorola and in government agencies like the City of Los Angeles is far more important than its SAS70 Type II and FISMA certifications.

Who would you trust to keep your data secure? Google with its information security team, external security audits, and continuously updated technology. Or the suburban IT guy who tries to patch the server in your office every month or so?

Much of the content reads as a Microsoft and/or Telstra press release. (Byline anyone?) But in a nutshell we’re presented with this case study: Car crashes through front window of suburban real estate agency and damages agency’s server. This causes agency to realise the risks of relying on its server to run its core business systems. Agency implements hosted solutions from Telstra and Microsoft and lives happily ever after.

So why do I mention the article?

Firstly, it explains the risks of onsite IT management clearly and in non-techie terms (references to “cloud services” notwithstanding).

“FOR small and mid-sized businesses, IT infrastructure management can be challenging and expensive.

Even with a relatively low number of users, keeping servers patched and secure and desktops up to date takes valuable time and resources.”

Secondly, it encapsulates why I’ve set up Boxless. My aim is to simplify IT for SMEs by helping them adopt web-based systems; ones that don’t need servers to be installed and maintained onsite. The idea is to give SMEs access to useful systems without the associated costs and risk.

One difference for me  – as compared with the Microsoft/TelstraAustralian article – relates to systems vendors. I tend to implement systems from companies that were born in the web era – systems like Google Apps, Salesforce, and WordPress.

What’s your experience with “cloud computing”?