google apps setup

[bnicolas]

Thinking of going to Google Apps, should I pay this company www.viruswoman.com $190 to setup setup a Google Apps standard account for me? $75 for account setup, $40x2 for additional 2 domains, & $35 for migrating over my existing e-mails, they want me to give them my password for my existing gmail account to do this and sign a disclaimer that basically says if they screw up or lose any of my data even if its completely due to their negligence they are responsible in no way for anything...

I'm going to make the move, just had a nasty hard drive blow up and can't risk continuing to use outlook (or anything desktop based). I'd like to have someone else do it because of time and to make sure it gets done right, but I don't like the idea of giving up my password and their unwillingness to take any responsibility for their mistakes during the process. But at the same time I thought working with an experienced google apps provider may help to speed up my learning curve.

Any thoughts or advice from forum members already running apps would be nice?

Thanks

[Aaron]

"Virus Woman" seems like a strange name for a company that deals with computer related stuff. I don't know if it's something I'd hire a company to do - I know some of the other members here have set up Google Apps and might be able to offer some advice ....

[stevetrang]

I second that motion. She needs to change her company name in order to do computer business.

[Scott.Hack]

Ben, I've moved 3 or 4 domains over to Google Apps. It really isn't hard to do. The hardest part would be getting all the data together, but if you've already lost everything...

If you lost all of your data from Outlook already, switching things over is pretty easy.

1. Create a Google Hosted Apps account.
2. Verify the domain and all that jazz.
3. Create the email address that you are currently using (important to do this first)
4. Change your MX record to point to Google's servers. Be sure you don't just ADD Google's MX record info. It needs to be replaced.

The thing I like about Google Hosted Apps, is the IMAP feature. I can use the web based gmail interface while at my regular office. Use Thunderbird (get rid of Outlook) at my home office, and still sync everything to my cell phone as well (Palm Pre) ... If I send an email via the web it gets synced at home as well as on my cell phone, etc.

The last domain I switched, it took me all of about 20 minutes to switch it over.

[bnicolas]

Hey Scott,

Thanks for the info, yeah it doesn't look that complicated. I may try doing it myself but for the nominal fee and to have some support in case something goes wrong I thought might be worth it, guess its kind of like buying the warranty at bestbuy (which I never do)

anyways re: the name, true kinda weird for a computer company but they have the 2nd most # of positive reviews in Google Solutions marketplace (189) and upon additional investigation seems like they've been around for awhile

http://www.google.com/enterprise/mar...orderBy=rating

I was actually able to recover my outlook file from a 2nd backup I had done 7/19/09, so I actually have a 2.5GB outlook file that I need to get integrated in to my new apps account too

[bnicolas]

Hey Scott, out of curiosity, do you use Google sync with a blackberry. I've got it setup with my personal gmail accounts now and I've been having problems with duplicate entries, researched the topic in the Google help forums but nobody seems to have a handle on the problem.