With advancement in mobile email technology in iPhones, Blackberries, and of course, laptops, the world of emails is evolving too. And Google is definitely on top of things, once again. Nearly a year ago my company, Synchronous Design & Marketing, switched to the Google Apps platform for our email and collaboration. We have not looked back since, and the productivity and accessibility is simply amazing.

Most hosting companies do not provide an IMAP platform, and the most common email method is POP3. Even worse, a lot of small businesses opt to simply forward their corporate emails to their hotmail or gmail accounts and reply from those addresses. The downside of using POP3 on your hosting server is that webmail access is often cumbersome and awkward (using CUBE mail or Squirrel Mail etc.) and if you have several computers, you have to delete emails or mark them as read emails on multiple platforms, and that includes your handhelds. With an IMAP platform, however if you read the email on your computer, it will be marked as read on your iPhone as well as your webmail platform.

Putting all this together is the Google Apps solution. This is how you activate Google Apps.

1. Visit https://www.google.com/a/.
2. Sign up for either the free or the Premium edition, as it fits you. You need to have a domain, or sign up for a domain on the spot.
3. Verify domain ownership.
4. Configure your MX record on your domain (this is through your web hosting company).
5. Configure your computer, iPhone, Blackberry, etc.

Using the Google Apps platform, your Mail Exchange record (MX Record) is updated so that all emails are routed go ghs.google.com, or a similar address. The emails are hosted on the Gmail platform, BUT using your domain natively. So even though you are on the gmail platform, you are still natively sending emails from your own company domain.

Using this set-up, you can have IMAP access to your emails from all devices, as well as advanced gmail access if you need webmail access while you’re on the road. As a matter of fact, I find myself often using the gmail platform on my portal at http://portal.synchronous.ca (you won’t be able to log in - you must be an employee) rather than Mail on my Macbook Pro. It’s fast, easy to use, well organized, and clean.

Other benefits of using Google Apps as your email and collaboration solutions are these:

• You get a calendar on the Google Apps platform which can be shared (or not shared) between employees, and synchronized to your desktop calendar (such as Outlook, or iCal)
• You get the Google Docs platform, on which you can do word processing, spreadsheets, and more. No more confusion on who has the most recent file of that proposal document. You work on it together online. And the functions are so robust, you won’t miss Microsoft Word or Pages.
• SalesForce is the most popular CRM solution on the market, and Google and Salesforce are partners. They offer an integrated CRM/Google Apps solution that integrate seamlessly with each other. Visit http://www.salesforce.com/googleapps/ for more details.

Using the Google Apps platform, we have achieved ease of use, time saving, easy collaboration and data sharing, better synchronization, and most of all, relaxation. It just works.

Over 2 years ago I was working for Bell Mobility, at a fixed hourly rate of $17.21, with a comfortable benefit program as well as 37.5 hours a week guaranteed unless I wanted less. For those of you who know me well, you can obviously picture the lack of balance - currently I own and operate a design & marketing company out of Vancouver, BC (Synchronous Design & Marketing), and I take my own fate into my own hands. No benefits, no guarantees. I love this environment however because it constantly challenges me and I have no complaints.

That being said, the corporate world does give you some valuable insights into business, finance, and human relations, and I would still go through it again if I had to do it over again (although just after a year, I hated it so much I quit without a back-up job). For young people who want to become independent business owners and entrepreneurs, yet do not have the funds or the ideas to start upon, I would actually recommend going through a corporate job for the experience of it. Learn what you can get, and then leave.

My specific job function was a call centre agent, and for the most part I worked in the business/corporate account department. I was the asshole on the other side when you call 611 and then press 0 on your cell phones. And then I would go onto explain why that extra charge IS a valid charge and you still have to pay it, or give you some lame excuse to why we’ve raised the System Access/911 Fee on your cell phone bills. Now out of my defense, I was one of the best agents for troubleshooting phone problems, billing errors, and also troubleshooting our own customer management systems that we used to handle inquiries.

This job obviously involved plenty of conversation with customers, as well as interaction with colleagues as well as obliging to corporate standards and guidelines. It was interesting and educational while it lasted.

1. Memorizing your workflow or training is not always the best thing.Memorization of cell phone plans, billing details, pricing etc. was discouraged at Bell. Of course, there are some items that you memorize after a while (price of Caller ID etc.) but the truth is that the pricing for those items, the conditions etc. can differ from many different account types, and trying to memorize this all during the training course was a ridiculous goal, not to mention unnecessary. The truth about these plan details and what not is that they tend to change from time to time as well. We had an internal knowledge-base system similar to Wikipedia, with all current and past details of different products and services that we were encouraged to refer to. This may increase each call time by a small amount, but it drastically reduced training time as well as margin of error on account handling.

   The same applies to my current profession as a design & marketing guy, who constantly works with PHP code. It’s a given that I probably have tonnes of PHP commands and syntaxes memorized, but I don’t try to memorize it. All I need is to be aware of what is possible, and when the time comes to use it, I look it up on the PHP official website to verify, or look it up on Google for application examples. Some people that know how much I code may assume I memorize most of my functions but that’s far from true.

2. Rules ARE bendable depending on your people skills.In my work environment there were always disputes about pricing, contract extensions and what not. As much as there are corporate guidelines on the eligibility for perks and discounts for certain clients (based on length of business, length of contract, average monthly revenue and past promotion records etc.), there’s always a margin to it.

   Some clients would call in all ready for an argument and complaints - some people just seem to have an issue with corporations overall, and preserve that left-wing attitude that makes them view corporations as the “enemy” or something of the sort. When these guys call in and start an argument from the beginning, there was no way I would budge and give a discount, or make a one-time adjustment. I would hold my ground and did not give a shit if it escalated to one of those “supervisor” calls (and they’re not always the actual supervisors - just more experienced agents specializing in escalations).

   On the other hand, if a person calls in with a happy jolly tone, the last thing I feel like saying is “Sorry ma’am, that is a valid charge as per your service agreement.” or “That offer is no longer available on your account.” To avoid any potential arguments, and to keep the conversation civil, I would just let it go and turn a blind eye. Besides, the management is not capable of checking all the discounts and adjustments made, so small amounts could just fly. It was simply the margin of error that the corporation had in mind anyways.

3. Sales pitches, and mirroring personalitiesEven in the customer service center which is set up to wait for inbound calls, we had a fair bit of sales quotas to meet. For example, when a person calls in, and we notice they are using some text messages but does not have a text messaging bundle, we can offer it and try to get him/her to add it to the account. These are small sales in amount but sales nonetheless, and throughout my career I became better and better at naturally spotting the clients’ needs, offering the right product in the right tone of voice, and getting the sale.

   What also helps is to always mirror the personality of the person you are trying to sell. If it’s a rowdy businessman calling in with some ego, your tone of voice would match, and the choices of words as well (”You got that right sir!!!” in a up-beat tone, kind of sucking up would do the trick). If it’s an older female who is about to stick a golf club up your bum if you say one wrong thing, you want to keep things very fine-tuned (”Yes, that is correct ma’am.” in a polite tone would be suitable). There are many different archetypes of people based on personality, age, ethnicity and what not, and over time I obtained some natural feel on how to respond to different people. And this is a continuous learning process for me - to keep learning and polishing my skills for sales.

It’s a given fact that laptops bring more mobility, and it’s also a hassle to run both laptop and desktop for data integration purposes. Mobility in businesses is increasing day by day, and the efficiency of our society as a whole is increasing along with it. Laptops are becoming cheaper and much more affordable and more businesses and individuals are transitioning over to the laptop and blackberry driven world. Here are some things that are needed in order for our workforce and society as a whole to improve our efficiency.

Backup System

A solid backup system is a must if you are to enter the world of mobile computing. Most businesses will understand that data inside a laptop is much more important than the laptop itself. Laptops are more likely to be lost, stolen, or damaged during transportation. Without a solid backup system, the fate of your data goes hand-in-hand with your laptop hardware. With an automated backup that is done on a regular basis, you can be assured that even if something happens to your laptop, your data is safe.

Mandatory Wireless

Any office and meeting room should be equipped with high-speed wireless, and this needs to be a standardized culture in the business world. For the business itself, its employees, as well as other visitors and clients that may be coming to your office, providing them with wireless internet is a great thing to promote the spread of mobile computing.

Increasing Reliance on Web Based Software

Web based software is becoming more and more common as servers are becoming more powerful, and the increase of internet speed helps it too. Web based software is an amazing tool when it comes to collaboration, productivity, and data security. Let’s face it - you’re more likely to get your laptop stolen at a coffee shop than you are to have your server data hacked out. You may argue that many hackers can do it but the reality is, a lot of hacks or bombs are ones that simply paralyze the server, rather than take data out in a sophisticated manner. Having web based software also helps for frequent travelers. You can access much of your work data and communication without having to be at the office on your desktop. Corporate intranets will slowly disappear as web based, or internet based (as opposed to intranet) software becomes more and more dominant.

Security Habits, Safety Habits

Your laptop probably contains lots of private data that needs to be secured. While there is no such thing as 100% security, you can always use measures to reduce the likelihood of a data loss in the event of theft or loss of a laptop. Most laptop theives will simply re-install the software and sell it to somebody else. If the laptop itself has a secure password on its OS, it’s very difficult for anybody to get into the files and access them. Put yourself in the shoes of a petty laptop thief. Try to hack the data, or just re-install factory setting software and sell it for $300? It’s an easy one to answer.

Also try to develop the habit of keeping your laptop with you at all times. I never leave my laptop in my car unless my vehicle is in my plain view. Even when I go into restaurants, I will bring my briefcase in with me so that my laptop is secure. It is very rare that my laptop leaves my side unless I leave it at home.

As I mentioned, I had a hard drive failure which resulted in a lot of losses. It was absolutely brutal.

My last back up was October 21st, before my trip to Costa Rica. And then last Wednesday, so around the 14th of November is when my hard drive crashed. The hard drive is beyond repair - the only way to get the data out of there was by a very expensive data recovery service ($400~$500 or so for a physical extraction of the magnetic disk and so forth), and by the time I was set up on my new Macbook Pro while waiting to see if the tech support could extract the files through external mounting via USB, I had re-done a lot of my work. So it wasn’t worth it for me to pay that much money for recovery services.

A great lesson I learned is to back up my data more frequently, because you never know what may happen. My new Macbook Pro has the Time Machine feature, so the backup worries are now over. The Apple Website has more about the Time Machine.

Many of you probably remember the post I wrote about iFags after I returned my first Macbook Pro in March. This time I decided to give another shot at the Macbook Pro, and with the new OSX Leopard System in place, it proved to be a much nicer journey.

I will still state that there are a lot of things that are very frustrating or not very functional when it comes to Macs, but there are also pros in how the desktop and icons work, how stable it runs Illustrator and Photoshop, and also the Time Machine automatic backup feature, so the balance is tipping this time in favour of the Mac as my main unit.

I still miss Office 2007 dearly, and I am trying to get a hold of a version of Windows Vista so I can use Office 2007 through VM Ware Fusion, which is the software that allows me to run a separate instance of Windows (or any other OS) embedded within the OSX system as I work. So that means I can switch between Mac Apps and Windows Apps instantly, or even have a window of a Window (play on words!!) running at the same time, as if it were a whole program on its own.

I still run my Windows XP computer at my home office which I adore dearly.

My laptop is not booting up properly and after trying everything I could imagine - attempt to boot it under safe mode, attempt to use ERD Commander for recovery, etc., I gave up and it’s now in the London Drugs computer department to have its data extracted. Once the data is extracted I will be restoring the laptop to factory condition and start over again. But this is a major pain in the ass, honestly.

I am currently able to use only my Windows XP machine which sits at my desk and never leaves (despite the fact that it is a laptop, it has a dead screen, so it’s hooked up to an external monitor). This is the machine that I use for programming of John Chow’s TTZ Media Adserver/Catalog project, so at least I will be getting some work done. Hopefully by tomorrow they will have my laptop data restored, and by tomorrow night I will have full access of my regular machine again.