Google Apps Hacks

266 GOOGLE APPS HACKS

HaCK 110:

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Avoid having to set up and maintain your own intranet

wiki and forum.

Google Groups can be useful for business; you can create private knowledge bases full of

development resources and use Google’s technology and servers to host and search it.

Google Groups’ access controls let you create a knowledge base with access limited to yourself,

your company, or a set of colleagues. I’ve created a private group for each technology I use

(currently one for Google code and one for C# development). I’ve invited each of my staff to

become part of the group and encourage them to post clever resources like code snippets, and to

ask (and answer) tech questions within the forums. I also make sure that everyone forwards email

chains with problems/solutions into the discussion forum. Because access is limited to the people

you invite, you can post sensitive company questions/answers/code snippets/binaries without fear

of public disclosure.

If you plan to access Google Groups from untrusted networks (such as public wireless hotspots), be sure

to access it via the SSL protocol: use the https://groups.google.com/group/yourgroupname URL instead of

http://groups.google.com/group/yourgroupname.

Also, the centralized archive means that all the members have access to the same information as

soon as they’ve been given access—no more arc