ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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Dear Eric,
I wanted to ask how you are enjoying the holiday, but I see that instead
of turning spinning tops with the girls you are writing Google on-line
service reviews...
After reading your mail, I talked with Sharon Yanai, our IT manager.
Now, I have a clearer balanced picture.
The bottom line is (as Sharon defines it) that the next time we will
need to upgrade or replace our servers we will surely switch to one of
those on-line services, most probably Google.
As for now, we have some experience working with Google online services
and not all is working smoothly:
1. They have on-line support services nut none off-line- this
leaves you in the hands if a technician that receives thousands of angry
e-Mails to begin the day...here at the Levant we like to have the
possibility to call someone and yell or turn over a table to get things
moving...
2. you don't backup your own data, do you trust google`s backups
100%!?
3. you lose your Ethernet capabilities which is comfortable within
the museum.
4. local problem- all the system is written and constructed for
English and English users and still has many bugs with the Hebrew.
Keep on enjoying holiday,
Tal
Tal Berman; Ph.D.
Head of the Exhibits Wing
The Israel National Museum of Science, Technology & Space;
Daniel and Matilde Recanati Center
25 Shmaryahu Levin St.; Haifa, 31448; ISRAEL.
Tel: +972-4-861-4452 Fax: +972-4-861-4352; Cell': +972-54-6115577
Email: [log in to unmask]; Site: http://www.madatech.org.il
Skype: tal_berman
LONGITUDE 320 48.587' N LATITUDE 0340 59.790' E
-----Original Message-----
From: Informal Science Education Network
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eric Siegel
Sent: Friday, December 26, 2008 5:48 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Google Apps/ collaborative tools
ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology
Centers Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
institutions.
************************************************************************
*****
Hello, all:
The NY Hall of Science has gone through several iterations of email
hosting solutions from large plain IMAP/POP hosts like Verizon to
smaller Lotus Notes hosting services. When Google premiered their
Google Apps enterprise service last year, we gave it a good long look
and decided to take the plunge.
Unlike the regular public gmail and calendar apps, you keep your own
domain name (ie, your email is [log in to unmask]), and there are
no ads as in public gmail. Under Google Apps you also get
administrative tools and live-person tech support for appointed admins.
For the full blown Google Apps enterprise system, you pay $5/
user/month, which is about 1/10th the cost of a plain vanilla IMAP/POP
provider, and much less than the cost of Notes/Exchange hosting. Even
more amazing, there is a version for education/nfp users that is free,
though we chose to go with the full blown enterprise system. There are
two principal differences between the education users and the full
enterprise system. The first is that the enterprise user gets 25 gigs/
person vs 7 gigs/person for the education. The second and more
compelling is that the enterprise user gets full blown state of the art
top rated spam filtering from Postini for no extra cost. The education
user has to pay extra for that, or maybe it is not available. And of
course your data is backed up six ways from Sunday, with a distributed
backup system that goes to several google data centers around the
country. Finally, there is comprehensive online video training for
users on virtually every aspect of using the system
The suite of google apps includes the familiar gmail (which can be used
either on the web interface or through an imap/pop reader like
outlook/os x mail) and google calendar. It also integrates google docs,
which is a web based document creation tool that can make M'soft
compatible spreadsheets and documents that can be shared and
collaboratively edited online or worked on offline. Google Sites is a
dead simple way of making collaborative work spaces/web sites. There is
chat/video chat which works perfectly and turns out to be a great way to
work quickly and efficiently with people both in and outside the museum.
There are several other collaborative tools included in the suite of
apps that are either in development or in various stages of beta that I
have not yet tried.
The transition from our current email system to Google went very
smoothly, without a hitch. And configuring our local mail readers was
also problem-free.
One area of concern for some of our users is Google's reputation for
data mining. They have a comprehensive statement about this on their
site.
All in all, it is an amazing deal, and has the potential to transform
the kinds of tools available to small enterprises that can't afford a
significant IT infrastructure. There are other free or near free tools
like Ning that we use for collaborative work, but I think that this
integrated suite represents a new opportunity for museums to collaborate
efficiently. This approach to applications and hosting services is
called "cloud computing," and it is growing rapidly as connectivity
becomes more universal in workplaces and homes.
You can get a ton of information about this here
<http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html
>. Their web site is extremely informative, and their sales/tech
support has been very responsive. We have been using it for about a
month, and it has been glitch-free, but your mileage may vary.
Glad to answer more specific questions on or off line, and many thanks
to our VP for Technology, Steve Uzzo, for all the work he put into
making this happen. And of course, we have no affiliation with google in
any way.
Happy holidays, and smooth computing!
Eric Siegel
Director and Chief Content Officer
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street
Queens, NY 11368
(718) 699 - 0005 x 317
www.nyscience.org
esiegel at nyscience dot org
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Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at
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For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.
Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org.
The ISEN-ASTC-L email list is powered by LISTSERVR software from L-Soft. To learn more, visit
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