Just like rogue employees in the 1990s forced instant messaging into corporations, the new Google Apps Team Edition being launched on Thursday offers a way for workers to slip a hosted apps service into the enterprise.

This could help Google in its efforts to lure more people off desktop applications sold by Microsoft and onto the mostly free Web-based apps Google offers.

Google Apps Team Edition is a free service that lets people within the same e-mail domain collaborate easily with Google Apps, a package that includes Docs, Calendar, Talk, and Start Page.

Unlike IM applications, which open communication to anyone on the Web using a compatible IM app, Google Apps Team Edition lets you share with people only in your same organization.

Google’s stand-alone hosted apps for consumers haven’t really made a splash in the corporate world, largely because of the security threats posed by how easy they make it to share sensitive work data with people outside the company.

So Google created Google Apps, a free Standard Edition and a Premier Edition that has a fee. These editions give an administrator control over how the apps are used, allowing for services to be disabled, new services like Gmail to be added, and integration with apps for things like single sign-on. Google offers security and government regulation compliance services for those editions 9789901 through its Postini acquisition.

“People are already using the consumer (hosted Google) apps in the workplace, like they did IM a decade ago,” said Jeremy Milo, senior marketing manager for Google Apps. “We’re trying to bring more security by introducing the notion of domain awareness.”

The Team Edition offers a compromise for workers who want to use the apps in a company that isn’t already using Google Apps or if the company lacks an IT administrator. An administrator can always step in and switch from Team Edition to Standard or Premier if they want. And a new domain can be acquired through the Standard Edition for $10 for those who need a uniform e-mail domain.

(Credit: Google)

With Team Edition anyone can open an account and start using the apps with anyone within the organization. For instance, a group working on a team project could use Google Apps Team Edition and be able to access the shared documents from any computer over the Internet.

“Google Apps Team Edition is another on ramp” to Web-hosted apps, Milo said. “They are one more way for businesses to get comfortable with computing in the cloud and anywhere, any time access to critical information.”

Today, I’ve successfully migrate to a new domain, megablox.net!

My previous blog at RS having a technical problem (not technical actually, but the name of it), so I decided to go for a new registration. At first place, I kept thinking what’s the best name is still available on the net. Me and friends have come across a few names, but most of it had been taken. After having a super with them at Pasar Kg Pandan, I drove back to my home and my mind still searching the best word to choose. Suddenly, I remembered my son’s favourite movie at this moment, Transformers. He like to be the Megatron and choosed his father (which is me) as the Optimus Prime. That’s it, how about MegaBlog? I immediately search at internet the availability of that names, but the result is not on my side. It’s already taken by some one. After a few tries, finally I end up with this domain, megablox.net and I’m happy for it.

I thought migrating from previous blog to this new domain could be easy as I can import the SQL database thru PhpMyAdmin. But when I’d imported it, the new blogs keep on referring to the old domain. I’m not going to spent a long period on this migration with a headache, so I just use the normal import/export to XML and configured my new blog one by one again.

Hope this blog could stay on a long period…

I’m in the middle of developing portal for Persatuan Orang Kota Bharu Di Perantauan (OKB) at this moment. Thinking of the way the portal should be, I decided to choose Joomla as a platform. Not saying that I am Joomlanians, but for the sake of easy maintenance, updating, monitoring, and database administration, Joomla should give a correct answer.

Joomla is just another Content Management System (CMS) which are widely used in both commercial and individual portal purposes. Known as a Mambo previously, the Joomla community is scattered around the world and you can find many modules developed and contributed by this group of people. Apart from Joomla, PostNuke is another CMS that I have used before. Drupal, Xoops, PHP-Nuke are few names that have come across my portal development before. Each of them have their own pros and cons. You will know once you get used to it.

Referring back to OKB, it is just another NGO community who served for Kota Bharu’s (Kelantan) people who live and work at Kuala Lumpur / Selangor. This newly formed organisation have an extensive target, mission and vision towards people development. Not to forget the network link that arise from the society which will benefits all their members.

For the internet-domain-minded person, this news should be better than great expectation as MYNIC, Malaysian Authority for Domain Names now offering the second level domain (2LD) registration to the public starting from 1st November 2007. But wait, what the heck is 2LD anyway?

Second Level Domain is where your domain names only consist 2 part, [Your Organisation].[Your Country Code] such as sirim.my, usm.my and upm.my. The common Malaysian domain in the net at this moment is goes by Third Level Domain, [Your Organisation].[com/net/org/edu/gov/mil/name].[Your Country Code] such as farisian.com.my, ikramers.net.my and semesta.org.my. Previously, the privileged of having 2LD in Malaysia only for selected parties and MYNIC had hold a new registration few years ago. By having 2LD, the organisation can shorten their URL and can “trick” internet users by not revealing their kind of business directly. By slashing .com, .net, or .org after their names, people will wonder what type of business this domain holder is deal about. For example, let say my own domain name at this moment is naro.org.my, people will surely know that this “naro” maybe a club, NGO, association, alumni or else because the word “.org” represent an organisation. But, later if my domain goes by name naro.my, public will wonder what is a “naro” about.

As MYNIC has release the press statement on 17th Septembers ago regarding this issues, they also table the schedule for the 2LD registration. There is a privilege for those who already has an active MYNIC Handler (people who are already have their own Third Level .my domain) as below:

Timetable for implementation:-

So, for those domain hunters, what are you waiting for, it’s only RM 120 per domain per year (still expensive compare to international .com domain which is only RM 40)!