The new research pane opens Google Search directly from your Google document, so whether you want to add a link to a relevant website, find the perfect quote to add that finishing touch to your document, or embed an image from the web you can do so without leaving your document.

The new pane can be found under the Tools menu, by right clicking on a selected word that you want to learn more about, or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+R on Windows or Cmd+Alt+R on Mac. You can choose to search for: Everything; Images; or Quotes, and get instant search results to enhance your document. Hover over the results and you'll see a choice of: Preview; Research or Cite - and if you find an image you can simply drag it into your document.

Try out the new research pane today, and let us know what you think in the comments. 

Take a behind the scenes journey through Google's data centres by following an email along it's route from your inbox to it's destination. The video and website explain how the information in your email makes its journey through the real world, including spam filtering, virus scanning and details of how Google uses clean energy to minimise the impact on our environment.

the Story of Send website

I pointed out that they endure stressful IT maintenance, complex backup regimes, and continual risk of calamity. But at Refractiv we have zero servers, almost no installed software, and no IT stress.

Half of us are using Chromebooks now (lightweight, low-power, low-cost, browser-only netbooks) which are truly disposable - if one breaks we fire up another. Within 10 seconds of purchase we’ll be logged in exactly where we left off.

We haven’t been troubled for years by things like:

• Office software upgrades
• server hardware upgrades
• lost work when a PC crashes between saves
• macro viruses
• network outages (we can work anywhere).

So I asked him to review the balance between:

• ultra-powerful (ie feature-swollen) Office software that’s designed for nuclear physicists and publishing houses
• “IT” that runs itself remotely, with reduced stress, cost and risk

...he’s gone off to think about it!

If you have yet to see Google Apps in action, watching this 1 minute video may just change your life. ]]> Tue, 08 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.refractiv.co.uk/news/211

D-Link is headquartered in Taiwan, but has more than 90 global offices serving North America, Asia, and Europe, each of which operates almost like an independent business unit. Before switching to Google Apps for Business, D-Link were using multiple email systems and had no collaboration platform to allow the business units to work together.

Michael Walsh, CIO, D-Link: "As we looked at our options, it was clear that we wanted to be in the cloud. We had been using an old version of Lotus Notes and I was already familiar with Microsoft® Exchange so I figured we’d just migrate over to Microsoft’s BPOS (currently Microsoft Office 365). In the spirit of democracy, I threw the discussion wide open to the technology team at our North American headquarters and had a bake-off to evaluate Microsoft versus Google Apps. We looked at cost, usability, feature set and the global reach of each platform’s infrastructure. In the end the affordability, infrastructure and features made Google the clear winner."

D-Link sucessfully moved 550 North American employees to Google Apps a year ago and the company is in the process of rolling out Google Apps to 350 more users in Europe.

Mr Walsh said: "The move to Google Apps has fundamentally changed how we communicate. Once people collaborate online to edit a document at the same time, they never want to go back to the old way of edit and email changes around. We use Google Talk and Google Video, both of which are total game-changers. To look your staff in the eye on a daily basis, no matter where they live, creates a real sense of belonging for those remote employees. People want to be social even at work and video interaction enables that."

"Since Google Apps is web-based, we no longer have issues with storage and I know that wherever I roam, I can access my data and connect with people with the push of a button. I’m constantly blown away by Google’s rate of feature development. I don’t even have to spend more money; Google just keeps on giving us great new features at no extra cost!"

Story courtesy of Google Enterprise Blog post. 

Johnston Press has placed Google Apps for Business at the centre of an ambitious new plan to transform it's advertising sales operation. Johnston Press own 230 local newspapers and local internet sites. The switch to Google Apps for Business is part of a plan to introduce more effective ways of working to its workforce.

Ashley Highfield, CEO, Johnston Press said: "Johnston Press is embarking on a new plan to transform the advertising sales operation - introducing new solutions and ways of working. One of the major pillars of this plan is Google Apps for Business - which will be adopted by our employees as their core email system, allowing them to work together in new ways. Google Apps will allow our employees to access their information at any time, from anywhere and will enable them to work more efficiently as a team, no matter where they are."

Johnston Press also plan to equip their 1,500-strong sales team with the Salesforce.com customer relationship management system (CRM), which will be integrated with Google Apps for Business, simplifying the way sales executives communicate, collaborate, and share business information. iPads will be issued to more than 800 non-office-based sales staff to allow them to work remotely and stay in touch when on the road - significantly improving sales effectiveness at customers’ premises. 

Story courtesy of Google Enterprise Blog post.

Google Drive is a brand new file synchronization product that allows users to centrally store all of their files in Google Docs. Files can be accessed via a web browser, the Google Drive client, and the Google Drive mobile app.

The system is similar to current cloud storage solutions such as Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Drive and Apple's iCloud. Unlike other services however, Google Drive is integrated into Google Apps. Google Drive replaces what was previously known as the Google Documents List with existing Google Docs automatically appearing in the new Google Drive.

All users will have 5GB worth of free storage space to upload and access all of their files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond. Additional storage can be purchased on a monthly basis.

Google Drive brings numerous changes in Google Docs:

What’s completely new

• Sync files between all of your devices with Google Drive for your Mac/PC
• Download the Drive mobile app for Android (coming soon for iPhone and iPad)
• View and search Google Drive on the web in a visual way with grid view
• Add a file to a folder by clicking the folder icon within a file or Google document, spreadsheet, or presentation
• Work with more file types by installing Google Drive apps from the Chrome Web Store

What's changed

• Collections are now called folders
• More things have been added to the Settings menu, including upload settings
• The left navigation has new views: "My Drive", "Shared with me", and "Activity"
• The Home view is gone. Instead, use My Drive to organize all of your files, folders and Google Docs.

Google Drive access will be rolling out to all domains over the next 4-8 weeks and can be accessed from drive.google.com - if you are a Google Apps for Business user you will need to wait for your administrator to switch Google Drive on for your domain. Google has also launched an Android App, with the promise of an iOS one to follow shortly.

If you haven't yet tried the Gmail offline app, there are now more reasons to do so due to a recent update. The new version of the app, now available in the Google Chrome Webstore, introduces the ability to choose how much email is synchronised. The new Settings button (look for a cog in the top right of your offline app) opens up the ability to tell Gmail to download 1 week, 2 weeks or a month of email whilst it is online. From here you can also set up your vacation responder.

Further improvements include the ability to download attachments for use offline, support for keyboard shortcuts and a number of performance enhancements.

The app is an essential tool for business users on the road, download it today from the Chrome Webstore.

Ascentis decided on the switch to Google Apps for Business to replace an outdated document management system which required an expensive upgrade. The company was also looking to improve employee communication and business processes.

Ascentis is using Google Apps for Business to provide email, contacts and calendars; replacing Microsoft BPOS/Office 365 and Microsoft Outlook with Gmail and Google Calendar.

Refractiv migrated all existing documents and metadata from Invu (a document management system) to Google Docs, where they're now easier to find and view from the office, home or on the road.

Refractiv also integrated Iris (practice management system) with Google Docs, so documents are automatically synchronised to Google Docs.

Ascentis - Leeds Chartered Accountants

21/22 March - Yorkshire Mafia Conference 2012, Leeds

Refractiv is looking forward to exhibiting for the first time at this year’s Yorkshire Mafia Conference. Discover the benefits of moving to the cloud with Google Apps for Business and check out some of our latest website development projects. Find us on Stand 1 in the Royal Armouries.

23 March- Bite-Size Directors Forum, York

At this month's Bite-Size Directors Forum, our CTO, Ian Weatherhogg, will be discussing how cloud computing is transforming UK business and showcasing ways to better manage information and collaboration in the workplace through Google Apps for Business. The Bite-Size Director Forum is open exclusively to Directors, LLP Partners and Business Owners and this month will be held at the Middlethorpe Hall Hotel & Spa in York.

27 March - NextGen Roadshow, York Racecourse

We’re delighted to announce that Ian Weatherhogg will be speaking about cloud computing and what it will mean for business at the NextGen Roadshow, which is set to take place at York Racecourse on March 27th. 

29 March - Google Apps for Business Executive Briefing

Our next Google Apps Seminar will be held in Leeds City Centre from 8.00-10.30 at the Round Foundry, Leeds.

In today's competitive marketplace businesses need to move fast to stay ahead of the game. Once Lyndon Nicholson, the Director of newly formed Crowdbait, had seen Google Apps for Business and CapsuleCRM, the project moved from decision to integration over just a few days.

Crowdbait is now confidently using Google Apps for Business for online email, shared calendar and document collaboration, they have imported contacts in to CapsuleCRM and have the added assurance of complete backup from Backupify. The team has full access to online Google Apps training from Boost eLearning plus support from Refractiv.

Sean Power, Business Development Manager for Refractiv said: "Venturefest has been very successful for us, on the day we connected with a number of start-ups with an interest in using Google Apps to save on IT costs and manage information effectively. We are very pleased to have met Crowdbait's expectations and will continue to work with them as their new venture grows."

Crowdbait - SEO Friendly Website Copy

Crowdbait create high-quality, bespoke website content that makes your pages engaging for human site visitors and attractive to search engines. Crowdbait content encourages visitors to interact with, share details of and talk about your business. This powerful form of marketing not only builds a social circle around your brand, it also grabs the attention of search engines and hugely improves rankings.

Audacious Church discovered the power of Google Apps after discussions with churches in Australia and New Zealand and contacted Refractiv after a search on the Google Marketplace.

Refractiv migrated email, calendar and contacts from the Audacious exchange server and the 45 strong team is now using Google Apps for Business to provide email, shared calendar and document collaboration.

Mark Steele, Executive Assistant and Operations manager said: “The impact of the switch to Google Apps is immense. Synced calenders, fail proof emails and document sharing are only the first steps in the improvement that Google Apps will bring to the productivity and effectiveness of our communication and systems. This is a product that we will continue to grow into and as Google are constantly updating, one i feel that will always be updated and on the edge of technology. The match between Google, Refractiv and ourselves was a great fit as both companies mirrored our core values of excellence, entrepreneurial, fun and relational.” 

Audacious Church Case Study

Audacious Church Website

On March 1st 2012, Google's controversial new privacy policy will come into effect. If you are using Google Apps for Business, Google will continue to maintain your data in strict compliance with the confidentiality and security obligations provided to your domain.

Amit Singh, vice-president of Google Enterprise said: "Enterprise customers using Google Apps for Government, Business or Education have individual contracts that define how we handle and store their data. As always, Google will maintain our enterprise customers’ data in compliance with the confidentiality and security obligations provided to their domain. The new Privacy Policy does not change our contractual agreements, which have always superseded Google’s Privacy Policy for enterprise customers."

So, how could the new privacy policy affect business users? Well, if you permit your Google Apps users to access additional Google services for your domain, they will separately receive notifications communicating the new policy. The services that are not included with Google Apps, such as You Tube, Google Maps and Google+, are subject to the new privacy policy.

If you'd like to find out more about how this might affect you. we'd be happy to chat .

You can view Google's new privacy policy at http://www.google.com/policies.

Google claim that over 4 million businesses are using Google Apps for Business worldwide, and more probably use the free version - which allows free access for less than 10 users - but what size of businesses are driving this figure?  Backupify did a little research to find out and wrote a very interesting blog article that is worth summarising.

Who Uses Google Apps? Are Large Companies Pushing It To A Billion Dollar Business?

Over 8,000 businesses have signed up for a trial of Backupify products. When someone signs up for a trial, one of the pieces of information Google sends over the API is the total number of seats on the domain (used for capacity planning). As a result, there is a nice sample of data to look at to see who is on Google Apps*.

Now, to be clear, this is not a random sample. This sample consists of people who want to buy backup for Google Apps. And in our experience, it skews towards domains with at least 30+ users. Why? Because that is the point where companies add an IT person, and IT pros are the ones who love to buy backup for anything and everything. Our close ratios on larger companies are much, much better than on the small ones.

But getting back to the data… what does our sample of companies on Google Apps say about the Google Apps ecosystem? Here are some inferences that can be drawn based on the data:

1. Most of the domains are small

53% of the domains are 10 seats or less, just what you would expect based on what you hear in the tech media about Google Apps. Domains with 10 or fewer seats are free, and free is a popular price point. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.

2. The number of small domains doesn’t matter because the big domains overwhelmingly drive revenue and seats on Google Apps

0.33% of domains drive 54% of seats. Even with educational institutions removed — Schools also get Google Apps for free, regardless of domain size – 0.22% of domains drive about 40% of seats. If that ratio holds true across Google’s number of 50 million total Google Apps users, then more than 20 million paying business users are on Google Apps. If that’s the case, Google Apps should be closing in on a billion dollar annual revenue run rate.

I will add that, based on our data, it also seems that the average size of a Google Apps deployment is increasing. That is, larger and larger accounts are moving to Google Apps.

3. If you remove educational institutions, the largest industry on Google Apps is the technology industry

No surprise there. But why don’t we hear more about some of the cool tech companies on Google Apps? Well, from dealing with customers in this industry, I can tell you that many of them don’t want to be reference customers and don’t want any publicity. But there are some big names on Google Apps, some that would surprise you.

That is our take on the Google Apps ecosystem, based on our own survey. If you are on Google Apps and need a backup, try Backupify.

*Note: All data shared about our Google Apps install base is derived from aggregated user data. We don’t share any customer- or account-specific user data without clearing it with the customer first. If you want to see customer-specific data, check out our testimonials and case studies. 

Extracts taken from Backupify blog, January 26th 2012

We couldn't find one, so we built our own!

Google Apps Tips is packed full of the things that make you more effective, more productive and might even make you smile! They are the time saving, smart thinking, eye opening nuggets of buried treasure that you didn’t know existed in Google Apps and that all the time you were standing right on top of.

http://gappstips.com/

Available to install to your domain from the Google Apps Marketplace

Since the new version of Presentations was launched back in October last year, with the ability to animate slides, collaborate and choose from a range of themes, the main feature missing was the ability to add Google Doc-like comments. Now that functionality has arrived.

With discussions in Presentations, you’ll be able to:

• Comment on an area or an entire slide - so your discussion has context.
• Send an email notification by adding someone to a comment.
• Resolve comments once they are dealt with.

As with Google Docs, you can now keep control of a presentation by setting the access rights you grant individuals, or your whole organisation, to "Can comment" - so collaborators can view the presentation, post comments but not edit it.

If you’d like to convert existing presentations to the new version of the editor, create a new presentation and import your slides by selecting Import slides from the File menu.

Finally, here's a nifty video from Google showing off the new features.

After a rigorous vetting process, Refractiv is amongst the first group of suppliers to achieve this important milestone. As a Google Apps Authorised Reseller and cloud solutions provider, Refractiv will be represented in the G-Cloud buying catalogue in three lots - Specialist Cloud services, Cloud Infrastructure and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

Sean Power, Business Development Manager for Refractiv said: "We are delighted to have been successful in this application process. The number lots we applied for illustrates the breadth of services offered by Refractiv for cloud initiatives to both public and private organisations."

About G-Cloud

G-Cloud is all about making it easier for suppliers and government to work together. The aim of the first phase of G-Cloud is to create a government marketplace of cloud services - which is called the Government Application Store.

As the name suggests G-Cloud is focused on cloud-based services – this includes public and private cloud. In the first phase invitations were sought from leading suppliers of: IaaS / PaaS and SaaS and services that relate to them such as data-migration, service integration. It is estimated that £60m worth of cloud solutions will be purchased through G-Cloud in the first six months of operation. 

Connect Yorkshire, and its major new initiative Connect Gazelles, is using Google Apps for Business to provide email, shared calendar and document collaboration. Documents such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PDF's have been stored in their native format in Google Docs to replace an offsite file server. Documents that need editing on a regular basis have been converted to Google Docs format so that the team can collaborate over them, any new documents will be created in Google Docs.

To replace Microsoft Business Contact Manager, Connect Yorkshire has switched to CapsuleCRM, which has seamless integration with Google Apps. Automated daily back-ups are handled by Backupify for an additional layer of protection.

Connect Yorkshire - The fast track for technology business

Connect Gazelles - by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs

The aptly named Google Analytics Real Time was launched last year, but many users are still unaware of the feature, either due to religiously sticking to the old version of Google Analytics or by not checking out the Home tab. If you haven't checked out the Real Time feature yet, I recommend you drop everything (after reading this article obviously) and have a look. It's a wonderful tool that will show you exactly what is happening on your website - from which pages are being viewed right now to how many users are on your site and which countries they hail from.

Whilst definitely having an initial "wow" factor, it's also a highly useful marketing tool - I'm using it to see if my tweets have any impact on traffic. Once this article is posted, I'll tweet about it and watch my Real Time stats to see if the tweet generates traffic. I'll also be able to see how quickly the article is visited and when the tweet stops being effective - all highly useful information to a social marketer.

You’ll find the Real-Time reports only in the new version of Google Analytics. If you’re not already using the new version, you can start by clicking the “New Version” link in the top right of Google Analytics. Real-Time reports are in the Home tab.

The Styles feature in Google Docs is not new, but it has been significantly improved this week. Users can now customise their own Styles list, setting font, size, colour and more for Headings 1 to 6 - plus Title and normal text.

To customise a heading, format some font in your Google Doc, then select it and go to the Styles menu on your toolbar. With the menu open, hover over the Style you wish to change and click on the right hand arrow, then select Update Heading X to match selection.

The seminar, held on the 2nd February at Weetwood Hall, gave delegates an overview of Google Apps for Business and Refractiv cloud services.  Attendees, including executives from a wide range of companies in Yorkshire, enjoyed a joint presentation from Sean Power, Refractiv Business Development Manager, and Ian Weatherhogg, our Chief Technical Officer. In the final session attendees had the opportunity of putting questions to our panel of Google Apps experts.

Our team demonstrated how GMail and Google Calendar can work as a corporate solution to replace Microsoft Exchange - with users keeping Outlook or switching to web mail; how the collaborative power of Google Docs can increase staff productivity; and how Google Apps can simplify information management. Using practical examples, Ian Weatherhogg also showed the power that add ons, such as Backupify, CapsuleCRM and Smartsheet, can offer for a relatively small monthly fee.

Thank you to everyone who attended. If you missed this one, we'll be running seminars throughout 2012, to book your place visit our Google Apps Events page.

Yorkshire is bursting with science and technology entrepreneurs who are busy creating ideas that will change the world. Venturefest Yorkshire 2012 is a one day event, held at York Race Course, that showcases and supports these entrepreneurs.

Refractiv have secured a stand as part of the Innovation Showcase. On the day our team will be showcasing our advanced website design and development services. We'll also be demonstrating how Google Apps for Business offers UK companies and start up ventures the opportunity to transform the way their businesses work.

This week Refractiv has migrated the email, calendar and contacts for users. Each user now has the choice of continuing to use Outlook through Google Apps Sync or switch to Gmail.

Liquid Accounts decided on the switch to Google Apps for Business to improve employee communication, save internal costs and because a cloud based system would complement their cloud accounting software. 

Liquid Accounts - cloud accounting software

The Evocutis website has been designed to provide a wealth of technical and company information with a focus on easy and clear navigation. The use of a bold and corporate design, multiple images and push-through links provide an inviting and intuitive experience to users.

A key requirement of the new site was to improve communication. Visitors to the previous website left quickly and web-generated enquiries were low. An integrated news and blog area, plus embedded social networking feeds and links, have therefore been introduced to improve the "stickiness" of the website.

A Downloads area showcases white papers produced by the company and enables current and potential investors to access financial reports. The website is controlled by our powerful and flexible content management system (CMS), allowing the Evocutis team to have complete editing control of the site.

"When we finalised our new company branding in August, we were looking for a web design company who could interpret our requirements and act quickly to build our new website in time for the official launch in October. Richard, Mark and the team worked closely with us to take our design off the drawing board and onto the Web in the space of just 7 weeks. There was much burning of the midnight oil for all of us on what is quite a complex website but we got there with days to spare. Sincere thanks to the Refractiv team for their patience. We now have a fully CMS-controlled site which is already bringing in results."
Diane Brear, Office Manager

Evocutis - Evolving Skin Science

Snap Galleries required a single page on their existing website to introduce, display and sell a new range of lavish signed limited edition books. In order to convey the uniqueness of these large format rock 'n roll photo books the page needed to display a lot of information with eye catching photographs and a strong call to action. An accordion slider feature allows visitors to expand and collapse the content they wish to see - a clever solution to the need to display a lot of information on one page.

A large slideshow with thumbnail navigation beautifully illustrates the inaugural publication, Born to Run Revisited - featuring photographs of Bruce Springsteen by Eric Meola.

Finally, extracts from each photo book have been embedded on the new page using Issuu, an online service for viewing digital material. Prospective customers can use the animated page flip function to really get a feel for what they are buying.

Take a look at their new page and unique Bruce Springsteen Photo Book.

• Chromebooks become a realistic option for businesses, plus 2012 sees the introduction of cheap chrome-os powered desktop replacements like this one: Samsung Chrome OS Desktop
• Faster broadband upload speeds are introduced to support developments in cloud storage applications
• Microsoft to introduce frequent automatic updates to Internet Explorer like Chrome and Firefox
• UK rollout of "4G" wireless technologies like LTE advanced (looking like 2013 sadly)
• UK TV shakeup by things like Netflix, Lovefilm (engaged in TV rights battle) Google TV and Apple TV (Moving away from scheduled TV to streaming/on demand)
• HTML5/CSS3 drafts become recommendations, making life easier for everyone
• More mobile responsive websites and applications - websites built from scratch for tablets and smart phones
• Higher resolution laptop screens introduced as standard
• Tablets, including iPads, become much more affordable
• Enough snow for sledging! (Ed. How did that get in there?!)

Who puts in a 9-5 day anymore? Or works on their own? The demands on our time are multiplying, information is increasing exponentially, and there are still only 24 hours in a day. So when you go to work, you don’t want to step back 15 years and use outdated tools that slow you down.

With Google Apps we want to free you from the weight of technology and help you work smarter. We want to help you better manage your time, find new ways to discover and share knowledge within your business, and collaborate with others more effectively.

We’re pursuing those goals by focusing on three areas: cloud, mobile and social. As 2011 draws to a close, we thought we’d share a few thoughts on our plans for each in the year ahead.

Cloud

The movement of computing to the web is inevitable and will only accelerate in 2012 as many large businesses join Fortune 500 companies like Guardian Life, MeadWestvaco, and Sanmina-SCI in the cloud. We also expect that 2012 will be a huge year in the cloud for small businesses.

Our computing experience is designed for today’s world and built with entirely modern technologies far more powerful than the PC -- from apps to browser to OS to device -- to benefit businesses of all sizes. Our 100% web focus lets us innovate faster while delivering best-in-class reliability, security and support. In 2011 alone, we added more than 175 new features to Google Apps, while still delivering 99.99% reliability in Gmail.

Going forward, we’ll further integrate the products in the Apps suite to make the experience more seamless, and we’ll accelerate our efforts to make them even faster and more responsive. Our cloud services are another important area of investment, and they will make it easier for you to build scalable web apps and draw trends from huge amounts of data to make better informed decisions. More than 400,000 active applications already run on App Engine, an increase of more than 70% in the last year alone.

Mobile

Increasing numbers of employees are bringing personal devices to work, and there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all enterprise mobile plan. Forrester Research predicts that in 2012 more than 77% of organizations will support Android and iOS devices.* Looking at our own customers, more than 90% of Google Apps for Business users have deployed or are interested in using Android devices in their organization, and for good reason; Android version 4.0, called Ice Cream Sandwich, includes powerful enterprise features such as on-device encryption, VPN and Global Address List (GAL) support.

Managing all of these new devices can be very costly. But the cloud democratises expensive enterprise software, making it affordable and easy to use for businesses of all sizes. We’ve integrated web-based mobile device management capabilities into Google Apps and recently introduced new features to help you grapple with growing mobile demands.

The best thing about mobile devices is fast and intuitive applications. Our ‘mobile-first’ strategy means our apps will work first and best across different mobile platforms and allow you to be productive from anywhere. Last year we improved our Gmail mobile web app, brought a Gmail app to iOS, introduced a Docs app for Android phones and tablets, and there’s more to come. We’ll continue to invest heavily in mobile and soon you’ll see the products you love work even better on your smartphones and tablets. Beyond our own apps, we foresee many developers increasing their focus on building mobile apps for businesses.

Social

We’ve made strong progress in bringing some of the best consumer technology to business in areas like email, documents, video and mobile devices. But there’s been a glaring exception: social. This despite the fact that businesses are inherently about people and relationships, and the web is ideally suited to groups collaborating together.

That’s changing in a big way. Over the last year we added features like rich discussions in Docs, and made Google+ available to Apps customers. Google+ is our effort to center our products around the hundreds of millions of people who use them every day. It promises to reshape all of the services we offer. It’s already changing the way people share knowledge in companies like Journal Communications, which is using Hangouts to train employees on new software.

Our efforts will focus on two areas in the year ahead. First, on continuing the blistering pace of innovation that is bringing multiple improvements to Google+ every week, while also wrapping Google+ with the controls needed for broader use in large enterprises. Just last week we rolled out a number of improvements that make it even easier to connect to your colleagues, customers and business partners face-to-face-to-face via Hangouts and there’s much more to come. Second, on bringing Google+ to the rest of our products: incorporating features that make it easier to connect, share, and integrate with the wider world. The Google+ integrations with Gmail and contacts are one small example of our work to create a seamless and intuitive experience across Google.

Amit Singh, Vice President, Google Enterprise

To improve the way your company manages information and collabaration in 2012 add these 2 resolutions to your list:

• Call Refractiv for a chat about cloud solutions
• Book a place on a Refractiv Google Apps for Business Executive Briefing

Have a Merry Christmas, from all at Refractiv!

It's not very often that you have a meeting scheduled for 7am or an event that kicks off at midnight, so a new lab in Google Calendar that allows you to hide groups of hours you don't use is well worth switching on.  

Go to Calendar Settings, choose Labs and enable the Hide morning and night lab. Once enabled, the lab allows you to set which times show on your calendar, with a simple drag of a slider you can fold hours you don't need to see into a single row. The folded rows still show all your events, just in a more compact form.

As with all labs, it's an experiment that Google want feedback on. We're impressed so far, let us know what you think in the comments below.