Google today announced on the Google Enterprise blog that Google+ is as of today available with Google Apps. Google Apps administrators can now turn on Google+ manually for their organization. Google has posted a page with Google+ rollout tips that list suggested steps that admins should untertake to roll out Google+ to their users.

• Review the list of considerations for enabling Google+ – It’s important to understand how Google+ works, what your users can do, and what they can share outside your organization before you enable the service.
• Review system requirements for Hangouts – Make sure users’ computers meet the browser, operating system, and other requirements for Hangouts and Hangouts with extras.
• Check firewall settings for Hangouts – You might need to adjust your firewall settings for Hangouts and Hangouts with extras to work.
• Enable Google+ – You can enable the service for your entire organization or just specific users. Consider enabling Google+ for a small group of users first as a trial, and then enable the service for the rest of your organization.
• Tell your users about their new service – Make sure you let your users know that Google+ is available for their Google Apps accounts and how they can sign up.

Google notes that Google+ requires access to Picasa Web Albums for photo sharing and Google Talk for chat. Both services need to be enabled, as Google+ would otherwise not become available.

Google Apps users can then sign up for Google+ at google.com/+. Google Apps users who join Google+ get the same set of features that other Google+ users get. They in addition get an option to share messages with everyone in the same organization, even without adding all of the members to a specific circle first.

Google is currently building a migration tool to aid Google+ users who used a personal Google Account to join the social networking site but would prefer to use their Google Apps account instead. Users will be able to use the migration tool to migrate their circles and people automatically to the new profile. Google expects the migration tool to be ready in a few weeks. (via)

Now Google are hitting out with a blog post entitled “365 reasons to consider Google Apps“.  Now this article, which contains just four points, not 365 (to reassure all those people who never finished War and Peace), is singing the praises of Google’s alternative.  They list that it’s Designed for Teams, but Office 365 has collaboration built into it big time.  In fact it can easily be argued that teams is what Office 365 is all about.

Google go on to say you can be Productive anywhere with their suite.  As it’s a cloud-based offering though I’d hope for this as the very minimum.  They then say it’s Simple and Affordable, and go on to say that pricing starts from only $5 a month, which is exactly what office 365 pricing starts at too.

Finally they talk about the Pure and Proven Cloud.  Google have a good reputation in this, but so do Microsoft and there’s the small matter that Google Docs spent, well I lost count frankly, in beta before it was finally considered finished.  In fact all Google products live like this.

Despite the chastising I’m not being anti-Google here.  I believe that not only is there more than enough space in the worldwide cloud business productivity marketplace to support two different systems, but that it’s absolutely essential that both compete with each other and do so aggressively.  After all, everybody remembers how Internet Explorer 6 languished unimproved for many years while malware took hold, simply because it didn’t have any competition.

Competition is critical but Google have got to raise their game.  They even say at the end of their blog post “Ok, we didn’t get to all 365 reasons here today, but we hope we gave you some things to think about.”  WHAT?!  I can think of a reason right here, it’s available and working 365 days a year, why didn’t they say that?

Suffice to say my argument here is that Google have tried to compete with Office 365 by telling the world that everything their competitor does, they do the same thing.  This is ridiculous!  If Google are ever going to compete here and not get completely stamped on by Microsoft, they need to tell people about all the differences, all the little things that Google Apps does which Office 365 doesn’t that, ultimately make all the difference, and they need to make a big song and dance about the fact that they were here first and, thus, will have much more experience.

Those things are true and worth shouting about.  At the moment, poor Google is trying desperately to say “we’re every bit as good as Office 365″ while putting across an underlying message of “we know we’re not really and it’s getting us down a bit.”

Online cloud services for businesses are going to be huge in the coming years, huge enough for several major players to get involved, and they’ll prove to be critically important for the world’s economy, especially in emerging markets and for small businesses that can’t currently afford to compete with the big boys in a level playing field.  It’s utterly essential then that Microsoft have at least one proper competitor who is prepared to roll its sleeves up and get stuck in with the job at hand.

I’m sorry Google but this kind of wimpy, last minute effort simply isn’t good enough.

According to the official Gmail Blog, Google will drop support for the following browsers and their predecessors: Firefox 3.5, Internet Explorer 7 and Safari 3. Dropping support does not mean that users will be blocked from using Google services, but it does mean that Google may develop and implement features that no longer work in those browsers.

To put it in plain words: When Google develops new features and services, the company will not test them using the browsers they dropped support for.

Support will be dropped on August 1, and Google notes that “may have trouble using certain features in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs and Google Sites” from that day on, and that users may notice eventually that “these apps may stop working entirely”.

From August 1 on, Google will only support modern browsers. For them, that is Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari, and only the two newest versions of each browser will be supported. When Firefox 5 comes out, support will be dropped for Firefox 3.6, with Firefox 6 support for Firefox 4 will be dropped and so on.

Most features will continue to work in dropped browser versions for a long time to come. Chance is, users will be able to use those browsers indefinitely. Only features that require new technologies like HTML5 may not work in those browsers, drag and drop file uploading or desktop notifications come to mind.

No mentioning of Opera anywhere in the announcement, it is as usual ignored by Google.

What’s your take on this? Is this the right step to force users to update their browsers more frequently?

The best protection against those kind of attacks are strong passwords, an up to date computer system with security software installed and an open educated mind that uses caution and common sense whenever passwords or other personal information are entered on the Internet.

Some security software programs can aid the user in protecting the data. Software programs like Last Pass or KeePass, a password manager that can generate secure passwords and remember them for the user, are examples of this.

But those applications do not change the system itself. All that is needed to log into a service are the username and password of a user. Yubico changes this.

Yubikey is an USB key that offers strong authentication by adding an extra layer of authentication to the login process of several popular applications and Internet services. Supported are for instance password managers like Last Pass or KeePass, content management systems like WordPress or Drupal, the popular encryption software True Crypt and other services like Google Apps or OpenID.

Features:

• Requires no driver or software installation
• Compatible with Windows, Linux, Mac OSX and Solaris
• Robust, waterproof, crush-safe, no batteries required.
• Open-source client-side SDK available.
• Yubico offers a free validation service, or you can run it on your own server.
• Customization options like labeling the keys
• RFID and OATH Yubikeys available as well

How does it work?

Yubico basically adds another layer of security to the login process in most cases. A login to the Last Pass master server for instance will still require the user’s Last Pass email address and password but will display a Yubico prompt afterwards. The user then needs to enter the Yubikey into an USB port. The Yubikey comes with a button on the device that will send a password to the computer whenever it is pressed. This password is used in the authorization process.

The Yubikey password consists of a static and dynamic part which makes this solution excellent of battling keyloggers and other eavesdropping techniques as the password is only valid for one time and void afterwards. This password can be changed to a very long static password for offline usage (for example required to make it work with True Crypt during system boot).

This means that an attacker would need access to the user’s email address and password but also access to the USB key to gain access to the service.

Take a look at this video for additional details

Yubikey adds another security layer to the authentication process. It is Open Source, does not require installation, is compatible will most popular operating systems, works with lots of popular services and can be easily carried around in a wallet or on a key chain.

This is the perfect device for web users who work with WordPress, Google Apps, password managers, OpenID or other services and applications listed at the Yubikey Wiki.

Giveaway and Discount

The Yubico guys were nice enough to give us ten of their Yubikeys that we can give away to you. If you want to win a Yubikey post a comment and let us know what you think of the device.

We were also able to get a 40% discount for a pair of Yubikeys that are usually sold for $50 at the store. If you do not trust your luck you might want to buy them with the discount code instead. Simply enter ghacks in the coupon code field during checkout to get the 40% discount.

Update: The Yubikey coupon code is no longer valid.

Since GMDesk is making use of Adobe Air it requires that the Adobe application is installed on the computer system before it can be installed as well. The Adobe Air application basically displays all included Google apps on the desktop. It usually starts with the login screen of Google Mail unless the user picks a different starting service in the program’s options.

GMDesk can remember the username and password that has been used to log into one of the Google apps. Once logged in all other Google apps require no additional login process which means that it takes only a short time to switch applications.

Applications can be selected from the top menu or by using the keyboard shortcut CTRL [1-6] to bring the desired application to the front. There is no way to display more than one at the same time but every application is active and can be activated easily which feels like switching tabs in browsers when using several Google services at once.

GMDesk is a rather resource hungry Adobe Air application, it us using more than 60 Megabytes of computer memory and more than 70 Megabytes of virtual memory after login, that’s quite a bit. It can be run on all operating systems that support Adobe Air which includes Microsoft Windows, Linux and Apple Mac.