Google Apps Questions

Please note that all blog posts before 8 April 2007 were automatically imported from LiveJournal.  To see the comments and any LiveJournal-specific extras such as polls and user icons, please find the source posting at http://brianenigma.livejournal.com/2007/04/

I am thinking of taking the plunge and hooking up netninja.com to Google Apps, but am a little hesitant because it seems like a big change and was wondering if anyone else on my LJ friend-list has gone through such a migration.

Given:
Right now, I use Apple’s Mail application to talk to my regular netninja POP account as well as fetching mail from my Gmail mailbox (I rarely go to the Gmail website directly.) I have the latest greatest build of SpamAssassin with the latest greatest rulesets running on Dreamhost to flag spam. This is my own build, as opposed to Dreamhost’s built-in SpamAssassin, which is a bit dated. Apple Mail, in turn, has its own spam filtering that catches things that SpamAssassin misses.

Questions:
* Presumably, the actual migration is pretty simple, consisting of tweaking an MX record. Right?
* Like my regular Gmail account, I can presumably access mail through the web interface as well as an offline “shadow” in my Apple Mail application just like I’m doing with Gmail, right? What about sending? Can I also compose and send from Apple Mail if I need to?
* I’m not totally hip on the Gmail label mechanism. Is there a way to set up a “view” (if that’s the right word) to show only messages with no label? With Apple Mail, I let messages come in to the general inbox, I read them, then I delete or drag them to a folder once I’m done (with done meaning “understood” or “taken action.”) 99% of the time my actual inbox is empty. With labels roughly equaling folders, I’d like a way to look at the “inbox” folder (i.e. stuff with no label in Gmail’s paradigm) and instantly know that I have no actionable (buzzword!) items because the list is empty.
* Other than no ads and bigger storage, is there a compelling reason for an individual to upgrade to Premier Edition? (feature matrix)
* How well does the spam filter work?
* How well does the Gmail interface handle super-chatty mailing lists? For instance, I am on a couple of developer mailing lists that I rarely read, but like to have around for searching/reference or to ask the occasional question. I’d really rather NOT see those by default.
* Can I put more than one domain under the same “account?” Let’s say that I move netninja.com to Google now and later we decide to move the email for Kim’s domain to Google Apps, too. It’d be great to have a single administrator and crossover for docs, spreadsheets, etc. across the two domains. I believe that this FAQ answer implies that, yes, this is probably possible.

Have there been any other “gotchas,” quirks, or tricks that you’ve run across that I have not addressed in the above questions?

Posted in: Questions

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *