A set of communication and productivity apps that is offered can come quite in handy for startups and established businesses and organizations, as well as for individuals. It is especially becoming popular among smaller teams and startups, allowing them for smooth communication and project management.

Managing the Google Workspace subscription of your organization won’t be easy if you don’t have good administrative and organizational skills. Put simply, without a great Google Workspace administrator, you probably won’t use the platform to the fullest.

And, instead of things being easy, they may get complicated. Responsible for managing all the Workspace services and to offer support to the end users, these administrators have a pivotal role in the successful and efficient usage of this platform and the set of important apps and programs in an organization.

If planning on being the admin yourself after you get the subscription, you will have to understand not only the importance of effective administration, but also the key responsibilities of you as the admin, as well as the privileges you may have in terms of access. Basically, you have to know why this is important, as well as what it is that a Google Workspace administrator actually does. So, let’s start answering those questions for you.

Importance of Effective Administration

The importance of effective and successful administration should be clear to everyone already. Without doing great admin work, you could jeopardize the success of the project and basically damage the entire workflow. If, thus, you want everything to run smoothly, and you surely do, you’ll have to do proper admin work.

From auditing the accounts regularly, to granting permissions, as well as enforcing security protocols… All those and much more practices are necessary for the Workspace environment to function smoothly. Read more on what this Google-owned service entails: (https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/what-is-google-workspace/)

Key Responsibilities of a Google Workspace Administrator

So as for the entire team to collaborate successfully, which will lead to increased overall productivity, you’ll have to understand your key responsibilities as an administrator. You are the one that has to ensure successful communication and collaboration among the team members. And, you’re the one that has to ensure they are all getting the most out of the tools provided by Google Workspace.

One of your key responsibilities will include managing user accounts properly. Creating accounts for new employees, disabling those for terminated employees, resetting passwords… All of that will be on your plate when you become an admin.

Apart from creating the accounts and managing them, you’ll also have to deal with user access management. Meaning, you’ll be in charge of granting and revoking access to specific tools and services provided by Workspace. Not everyone has to have access to everything, and you are responsible for limiting as well as extending it.

Furthermore, you’ll also have to train and support users, especially new ones upon them entering the team. If people don’t know how to efficiently use the tools and the services, it can result to quite some problems during the projects, including project delays and lack of quality communication, which can jeopardize the entire company.

So, you’ll have to answer questions for the users, guide them toward adopting the best Google Workspace practices, as well as troubleshoot any issues that may arise in the process.

Apart from all of that, a Google Workspace administrator will also be responsible for creating and enforcing policies that will be related to security, compliance, as well as any other organizational requirements.

Data retention policies, mobile device management, and two-factor authentication are only some of the important security policies you’ll need to set in place so as for everything to function perfectly. Of course, what you’ll specifically have to do here will depend on the actual needs of your organization. Data security is of utmost importance in today’s world. Luckily, we made a guide that will navigate you through possible ways for your business to solve data security problems.

Access and Privileges

While you’ll have a lot of responsibilities as the admin, you’ll also have quite some privileges in terms of access. Put simply, this Google-created service has a lot of tools that help admins effectively and successfully manage the access and privileges of other users. Therefore, the admin will need to have access to the entire Google Workspace environment of an organization.

To be even more precise, the administrator will have access to all the user data and the settings. Including all the files and other things stored in the Google Workspace apps, and potentially all the emails. Since you’ll have all the important responsibilities that will lead to successful team collaboration, it is no wonder you will have access to all the data and all the features. Basically, the access will help you do your job much better.

The post What Does a Google Workspace Administrator Actually Do? appeared first on Techie Buzz.

In a post to the ext4 developer’s mailing list, Senior Engineer Michael Rubin explains that Google had been deciding upon a filesystem upgrade to their existing filesystem, and after a lot of performance testing of the available filesystems, including   xfs, ext4 and jfs, they came to a conclusion that ext4 was best suited to their needs. Although xfs performed close to ext4, the deciding factor on ext4 was that it provided an easy upgrade path from their existing ext2 filesystem to ext4.

Ext4 has become the default filesystem for several of the popular Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE and had become an official part of Linux kernel since Linux 2.6.28 kernel. ext4 features several improvements over its predecessor, amongst which include support for files upto 16 tebibytes ( 1 tebibytes equals 1,024 gibibyes , with 1gibibyte equal to 1.074 gigabytes) and a maximum volume size of upto 1 Exbibyte. Other features of the ext4 are backwards compatibility with ext2/ext3 filesystems, and a subdirectory limitation of upto 64,000 subdirectories, and an online defragmentation tool which is still under development stages, however.

Interestingly, one of ext4’s lead developer, Theodore Ts’o is also a Google employee, notes SJVN indicating that Google would most likely use his expertise in further getting even more performance out of an already fast filesystem.

The post Google Implements Ext4 Filesystem on Their Servers appeared first on Techie Buzz.

According to TechCrunch this happened when you were logged in to your Gmail or Google account. However, only your email address was harvested so this is not only a big security hole but also a big privacy breach.

Once you visited the said site, you would receive an email to your logged in address as shown above. Scary right. Google is already fixing it as we speak, we will update this post once we receive an update from Google.

Update: Google Spokesperson Lily Lin sent us the following statement:

We quickly fixed the issue in the Google Apps Script API that could have allowed for emails to be sent to Gmail users without their permission if they visited a specially designed website while signed into their account. We immediately removed the site that demonstrated this issue, and disabled the functionality soon after. We encourage responsible disclosure of potential application security issues to security@google.com.

The post Google Friend Connect Exploit Allows Users To Harvest Emails appeared first on Techie Buzz.

First, let’s get a couple of questions out of the way.

What is a DNS server?

DNS stuff can get pretty complicated, and I don’t want to go into details, so I’ll just give you a general idea. A DNS server is like a phone book. If you want to call someone using your phone, you may need to look up their phone number. Every website on the net has a 12 digit number (IP Address) that your PC needs to know in order to contact it. When you type a website name into a browser, your PC queries it’s assigned DNS server (the phone book), the DNS server reports the IP address (the phone number) back to your PC, and the PC initiates a connection with the site you requested. This all happens automatically and you really don’t need to know about DNS to use it. Most people are using a private DNS server that’s assigned by their Internet Service Provider, however, there are many open (public) DNS servers out there that anyone can use. Google’s new DNS server is only one among thousands.

Why would you want to use Google’s Public DNS?

I’m not sure that I completely agree with the reasons given at the Google Public DNS home page, but they state that their DNS service is faster, more secure and fairly private. Personally, I prefer OpenDNS, but that’s a topic for another time.

The post How to use Google Public DNS on Windows 7 and Windows XP appeared first on Techie Buzz.

In many cases, there is not much you can do. You might have to wait between 1-24 hours to get your account working again. Thanks to Technospot.net, we came across an URL which could possibly unlock locked Google/Gmail accounts.

The unlock page contains a email and password field and a captcha, however, there is not indication whether this will actually unlock locked accounts. Nevertheless, if your account has been locked, you might want to try out this page to see if it actually unlocks your account. If you are interested in finding out the reasons on why Google blocks accounts, you might want to visit this Google help page.

P.S. If you are able to unlock your locked Gmail/Google accounts using the URL, please leave a comment on this page so that others can benefit from it.

The post Unlock Locked Google/Gmail Accounts appeared first on Techie Buzz.

Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice-President of Social for Google, apologized on his Google+ account to those Google+ users who were affected because of the glitch.

Please accept our apologies for the spam we caused this afternoon.

For about 80 minutes we ran out of disk space on the service that keeps track of notifications. Hence our system continued to try sending notifications. Over, and over again. Yikes.

We didn’t expect to hit these high thresholds so quickly, but we should have.

Thank you for helping us during this field trial, and once again, we are very sorry for the spam.

Google+ is currently under field test and such bugs and errors are expected to follow. Google+ has currently closed down it’s sign up process and invite feature. There are over millions of users already on Google+, revealed Eric Schmidt on Thursday. When Google+ was announced, the invite process was open for quite a few time until it was closed due to insane demand of “invites“. Google then re-opened the social network to public for a shot period of time (Just for couple of hours).

Sophos reported that high profiles sufferers like Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC’s News’s Technology Correspondent, was bombarded with emails. Jones  tweeted “Getting zillions of Google+ emails, including duplicates which is apparently a bug. Already dubious about its usefulness…”

However, the glitch did not cause much inconvenience to users as Gmail’s threaded view feature got all emails under a single thread. But for those who used third-party email clients definitely faced a lot of problems with multiple barrage of notifications. Google states that the Google+ team is working hard to fix/kill bugs and ensure that its infrastructure is fast and reliable when it is publicly open.

There have been spammy Google Plus invitations that are spreading viral all over the Internet. There are people who are selling Google+ invites which are fake. Please be aware that Google+ is free and there is no need to buy invites. Please be patient until Google+ is  opened  to public again.

By the way, we have been using Google+ for weeks and you might want to read through our series of articles which will be helpful to you when it comes to using and understanding Google+.

The post Google+ Spams Users, Runs Out of Disk Space appeared first on Techie Buzz.

Google+ is the newest of Google’s projects to go into invitation beta. While its not Google’s first run at building a social network, Google+ is probably the most extensive. That doesn’t mean that Google is making a big deal of it yet, however. They are trying to keep it quiet, lest it get the build up to a fail that Wave had. You can take a look at the introductory video here.

From the official blog post, Google+ is really designed around Google itself. Their hope is to redesign the way we share online. They will group people into “Circles”, which you get to organize as you see fit. As of now, it pulls contacts from Gmail or Google Contacts.

Once you have circles set up, you get the ability to interact with those people. You can share images, links, or articles. You can even take advantage of “Sparks”, which will allow you to strike up conversations with people in your Circles. Google + also has a video chat service built in that is called “Hangouts” and a mobile application available for Android devices.

This mobile aspect of Google+ seems vital to the service. Google  promises  the easiest media  uploading  of any social media service. They are also  advertising  the “Huddle” feature, which is similar to texting. unlike traditional text messaging, you use data, similar to BlackBerry Messenger or Beluga.

From what I can tell, the potential for Google+ to be big is there.  What  remains to be seen is whether or not Google+ will actually be successful. As of now, it is in an invitation only beta. In order to check out any of these features, you need to be invited to that beta. I know i have signed up for it and hope to get in soon. If you want to check it out, you can sign up here.

The post Google Launches Their New Social Service, Google+ appeared first on Techie Buzz.

However, a really cool Google Chrome extension called HashPlug allows Chrome users to get real-time results on the latest topics that they search on Google. The extension adds a search results widget on the right hand side of Google’s search results page, displaying the latest tweets of that particular search term.

The results are updated automatically along with which you can retweet, favorite or even reply right from the widget box itself.

HashPlug integrates Twitter search results into Google in an unobtrusive manner – so that you get real-time results on latest topics like Election, Storms, etc. It also allows you to favorite, reply or retweet any result.

The Chrome extension is developed by a Indian start-up called Fenopix, which is based out of Bangalore, who claims to love building apps on HTML5, JavaScript and Windows 8. According to the developers, “while you are searching on Google it picks up the search term and displays real time results in an unobtrusive manner. It also allows you to favorite a tweet, reply to a tweet, or retweet any result. ”

The team have also stated that they have plans to extend the tool and integrate Facebook results as well – “As of now it only supports twitter results. But we have plans to integrate Facebook results too in future.”

This tool can also be helpful if you’re finding reviews about movies, books, or any products. Check it out and tell us what you think – HashPlug Chrome extension

Translate Google+ into More Than 50 Languages

A good number of friends in my Google Plus circle share links or add posts that are in regional languages. The posts become useless, at least for me, since I do not understand the language. This becomes an issue, and generally people get annoyed, especially when a post looks interesting and worth a read.

When it comes to translation of text or a website to English or  any other  language, Google Translate serves the best. However, it’s more like a pain to copy-paste text from Plus to Google Translate, to understand what exactly the content is all about. Well, now that isn’t an issue anymore.

Leading frontend and mobile development for Google Translate Josh Estelle  , announced in a post that the Google Translate team have developed and come up with a Chrome extension called “Google Translate for Google+”, which uses the power of Google Translate, to automatically translate any post into more than 50 languages.

The extension basically saves Plus users from having to open the Google Translate page and translate the post into another language. The Chrome extension is available at the Chrome Web Store. Click here to install it.

After having the extension installed and refreshing your Google Plus page, you should notice a Translatelink button next to the Commentand Sharelink buttons.

The extension works incredibly well, just like the Google Translate feature. When you click on the Translatelink button, the post gets translated instantly, without reloading the page. By default, the extension sets yellow as the background color for the translated text. However, you can change the color to any of the 12  available  colors  in the extension options.

You can also change the default language that you want to translate a post. Also make sure you have checked the Always Add to Google+option. This will always add the translate feature (translate link button) to all the posts in your stream.

However,  Josh also  mentioned  that – “the extension is currently  experimental, as we figure out the best way to integrate translation into the Google+ community.” So if you have any suggestions or idea to  improve  the extension, you can add a comment here, or send feedback by clicking the Send Feedbackbutton.

Instant Weather Reports with ForecastFox

A few months ago, I told you about the fresh looking Google Chrome extension called Aniweather. It gives you a quick weather report and five day forecast, simply by clicking an icon in your web browser.

After reading a post from the Madras Geek, I decided to try out another instant weather tool called ForecastFox. It gives me the same types of weather info, but it offers just a little bit more. You can use ForecastFox in both the Firefox and Chrome web browsers.

In Firefox, you’ll get a new toolbar in the status section at the bottom of the browser. When you hover over each icon, you’ll get different reports.

In the Chrome browser, the ForecastFox icon is at top right of the browser.

Here’s what the weather reports look like in Chrome:

When you click on the map, you will be directed to the AccuWeather website to see the maps there.

To see the details of each day’s forecast, you can click on the day in the left sidebar.

ForecastFox offers the forecast for more days than Aniweather (shown below), however the Aniweather pop-up is much nicer looking, and it’s information comes from weather.com.

Internet Explorer? Here’s an Accuweather Toolbar.

Techie Buzz Verdict:

The ForecastFox addon/extension is excellent for keeping me up to date on weather. It stays out of the way and does it’s job with no visible hit to my system performance. It deserves a thumbs up.

What are Chrome Web Apps?

We recently told you that the developers of Google’s Chrome web browser have released version 7 of Chrome. In order to use it, you have to be running the dev channel version of Chrome or the new Canary build of Chrome. One of the interesting new features in Chrome 7, is support for Chrome web apps, which will be available in the Chrome Web Store in October.

The question I’m raising today is What are these Chrome web apps?. An answer at Wikipedia was useful, but as I expected, it’s full of techno-jargon that immediately makes me skip through most of the article. I’ll save you the trouble of trying to sift through the jargon. In most cases, a web app isn’t any different than many existing pages on the internet. Any time you visit Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Google Docs, or even Youtube, you are using a web app. A web app is a web page that performs a specific job or set of jobs using your web browser. Usually web apps require that you download files and data that they need to function. Chrome extensions also have the same requirement and they offer you the ability to change the way pages look or add tools and services to existing pages.

So what’s the big deal? Why are they even called web apps instead of extensions? My best guess is that they are doing this to make it easier to market (sell) these downloads. However, even though web apps aren’t much different from Chrome extensions, there are a couple of differences.

One big difference is that you’ll only find most of them in the Chrome Web Store. Some of those web apps will be free, but most of them will likely cost you a few dollars. Google will make money on them and so will the people who create them.

Another difference is that the tab for a running web app looks different from a normal tab. Here’s a screen shot to show that. The tab on far left is a Gmail web app. It’s a single icon with no text. Next to it is a normal tab showing Gmail.

You’ll also be able to see all of your installed web apps on the Chrome New tabpage.

I love the fact that only the icon is showing on web app tabs. That’s great for those of us who have lots of tabs open in the browser. Other than that, what is there to like about web apps rather than extensions? At this point, I don’t think that there’s much to like unless you like paying out money. It’s a great deal for Google and the web app developers. It’s not a great deal for the average surfer.

If you’d like to play around with Chrome’s new web apps, DownloadSquad has a page telling you how to install web apps. I’m not going to be using them much unless they are free.

If you have tips or opinions about Chrome web apps, be sure to comment below or email me.

Schedule Emails in Gmail and De-Clutter Your Inbox With Boomerang

One feature which I miss in Gmail is the ability to schedule emails so that they go out at a certain time. Scheduling emails is similar to scheduling tweets in Twitter but scheduling emails have a lot more advantages. One of them is that you get an opportunity to review and correct mistakes in your messages before they go out (which do happen at times).

Gmail does not allow you to schedule emails as of now, and they might not do that in near futue. However, Gmail does offer users with an option to undo send a message for up to 20 seconds. Nevertheless, it would always be nice to have a feature which would allow you to schedule your email messages too.

In comes Boomerang, a Google Chrome and Firefox add-on which allows you to schedule email messages to go out after a certain period. As you can see from the screenshot above, Boomerang allows you to schedule messages to go out after a set time and even allows you to schedule an exact time for the message to go out.

Once you schedule the message, Boomerang will store the email headers on their servers and send it out at the specified time. Pretty neat solution for an online email service.

Boomerang’s usability does not just end with scheduling email messages in Gmail, it also allows you to de-clutter your Inbox by hiding certain emails and only displaying it after a certain time. For example, if you get an email from someone about something you have to do tomorrow, you might star that email or add it to your TODO list. However, Boomerang will allow you to hide the email message for now and show it in your Inbox at a specified time.

This can come in very handy when you receive a bill and have to pay it after few days, you can have Boomerang show that message in your Inbox after few days so that you remember to pay the bill on time.

Techie Buzz Verdict

Boomerang would cause several users to freak out about privacy since it has full access to your emails. However, the company makes it clear that they only store the email headers of a message on their servers so that they can identify it, and do not store the email body.

Other than that, Boomerang adds a very impressive feature to the already impressive Gmail and also helps you to de-clutter your Inbox and view important messages when you want to. Overall we would highly suggest our readers to try this out.

Though Boomerang is invite only, the link below might allow you to download the extension for Google Chrome and Firefox.

Rating: 4.5/5 (Excellent)

Update: Download link no longer works, just head over to http://www.baydin.com/boomerang4gmail/ and use the invite code “techiebuzz” without the quotes to download the extension.

Instant Website Safety and Traffic Rank – Ultimate Chrome Flag Extension

I recently reinstalled a copy of the regular Google Chrome browser after getting rid of my dev channel version. I also had to re-install my favorite Chrome Extensions once again. I decided to check out the most recent WOT (Web of Trust) extension, just so I wouldn’t accidently advise anyone to go to a bad website. While looking around, I found a new extension that you may like.

The Ultimate Chrome Flag extension gives you instant safety and web site information on the pages in your browser. The types of information that are displayed:

Website country location
Google Page Rank
Alexa Page Rank
Google Trends
McAfee Site Advisor ratings
WOT safety ratings

After installing this extension, you’ll see a new icon at the very end of the address bar in your browser. By default, the icon displays a country flag and a WOT rating (red, yellow, green) for safety. All you have to do to get information on a site is to click on the icon. Here’s what you’ll see at a bad website:

Always keep your eyes open for the red dot on the country flag. As shown here, this site can’t be trusted. You can find out a great deal more in each category by clicking on the blue text in the pop-up.

Just for contrast, I’ll show you the information for a good website. Do you see how the dot on the flag is green instead of red?

There are a some very nice options that let you change the information displayed and the icon displayed. Here’s a screenshot of the settings page:

Get the Ultimate Chrome Flag extension

Note: For those using Firefox, a similar addon called FlagFox is available.

Techie Buzz Verdict:

If you are using the Chrome web browser, and you’d like more information about sites you aren’t familiar with, this is an awesome tool. The Ultimate Chrome Flag extension is definitely going to be one of my favorite extensions. Maybe it will be one of yours now.

Perform Inline Google Searches in Chrome’s Address bar with Inline Google Extension

Google Chrome is probably the only browser which supports searching from the address bar by default. It works simple – you specify a default search engine in the browser settings and type the keywords or phrase in the address bar. The search results show up in a new browser tab which is useful, because you don’t have to open the home page of your favorite search engine again and again.

But if you have the habit of working with multiple tabs,   this feature can get a bit tiring. Whenever you search, the results are shown in a new tab and you have to close or navigate away from the page you were reading.

This is where Inline Google comes in. It’s a nifty little chrome extension which adds pop up functionality for performed searches. The search results are shown in separate pop up windows and you can see the results without leaving the current page you are reading.

To use the extension, hit the “G” icon placed just right of the chrome address bar. This will open a pop up window where you can type your search query:

Hit the “Search” button and the results will be shown in the same window as shown below:

Clicking a search result opens the page in a new browser tab. Currently the extension supports searching web, images, videos and news results.

Techie Buzz Verdict

The Inline Google extension is very simple to use but there aren’t any options which you can tweak. I would want some options being included – loading the search results in the same frame or may be opening the clicked link in the same tab.

The post Get Real-Time Search Results on Google with HashPlug Chrome Extension appeared first on Techie Buzz.

What Is Google Plus And How it Works?

Google Plus is a new initiative from Google, which aims to simplify your social sharing experience and connect with people who matter to you in real life. But wait! Don’t we already have Facebook, Twitter and dozens of social sharing sites already?

Yes, but Google plus takes a different approach towards social sharing, and this guy has better privacy control on the features provided.

Don’t you hate it when a random friend adds you to a stupid Facebook group? Do you go mad when you receive tons of spam mentions on Twitter? They are all public and anyone can find it via a simple search [@your_Twitter-handle]. Are you fed up with people who mass tag you in photos and videos, which really gets in the way of your social privacy? You don’t want to remove those friends from your social life, it’s just that you want to prevent them from doing the same nonsense over and over again.

Enter Google Plus same social sharing and connections but no more fiddling with user privacy. In Google Plus, your friends or followers will have to take prior permission from you, if they want you to tag in a photo or video. There is no Wall so the question of spam links and malicious apps being posted on your profile is burned to death.

If you tag someone in a post, and share it only with him, none else can see it. Not even mutual friends !

How Circles In Google + Works

Everything in Google + works through Circles.

A Circle is an identifier for the network you create and it is visible to you only. You can create as many circles as you want, and add friends to one or more circles that you have created. No one except you will be able to see the name and visibility of your Google Plus circles.

The best thing regarding Google Plus is that Google will automatically scan your email contact list and Android contacts and suggest you people whom you might want to follow. You may add these people to your circles through a beautiful and intuitive drag-and-drop interface.

If you want to follow a celebrity or a famous person on Google Plus, simply search for his name on the search box and add him to a circle you have created. Again, this circle is visible only to you so you can safely name it anything you want.

Your Google Plus Life Stream

Your Google Plus life stream will contain updates from all the people whom you are following. This includes photos, status updates, videos and comments from people whom you have added to your Google + circles.

Filtering Updates From Specific Circles

On the right pane, you will notice that all the circles are listed one after another. Click the name of a circle and you should see the filtered life stream, containing updates from people who have been added to that particular circle only. This is super useful and helps you to stay in touch with family members, and friends, so you never miss out catching up the updates of quietpeople among those who are highly active on Google plus.

Your Google Plus Notifications

On the top right corner of your Google plus profile, you will notice a sleek notifications button. This little kid will continue monitoring your Google plus activity and alert you whenever someone comments in a post you commented earlier, someone replies to your status update or tags you in a photo uploaded by you.

Further, you will see a brief preview of which of your friends are participating in a discussion within your circle. This is really nice and quite similar to Facebook, the only difference here is that there would be no notification like Mr X tagged you in a photo. Anyone who wants to tag you in a photo will have to obtain your prior permission, which is very very useful and a godsend.

Chat With Plus One Buddies Or Email Them

Every social network has an option to send instant messages to their followers and friends and Google Plus is no exception. The chat widget is placed down the bottom of right pane where you can click the name of a person and send him an instant message right away.

Contrary to Facebook and Twitter, there is no way to send private messages to your Google plus friends and contacts. Instead, there is a handy option called Email’ placed right below the profile photo of your Google Plus friend, click it and you can send a private message directly to his email inbox.

Please note that your friends can choose whether he wants to allow you to send him an email or not. In some profiles, you may not find the Email Meoption, this is because the person has customized his email settings to suit his needs.

Controlling Email Notifications

For all your Google Plus activity, you will receive email notifications to the email address you used to sign up for Google Plus. Individual notification settings can be toggled from the notifications page

Google plus In Android

Android users can install the official Google plus application using this link. Here are some screenshots of Google plus application for Android

There are a lot of other tips and tricks for Google plus which you should learn. We are still digging out more features, settings and shortcuts for Google plus, come back soon!

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