I am making some changes to this website, which means that I have to finally come to grips with Google Apps, something I have been putting off for quite a while. The reason I’ve been postponing the day of reckoning is mainly because I hate dealing with tech people’s impossible-to-understand definitions, like the following:
How is a Google Account different from a Google Apps account?
Although Google Apps and Google Accounts allow you to access several of the same Google products, they’re different types of accounts. A Google Account is a unified sign-in system that provides access to a variety of free Google consumer products — such as Gmail, Google Groups, Google Shopping List, Picasa, Web History, iGoogle, and Google Checkout — administered by Google. Google Apps provides access to products powered (ed: italics by Google) by Google but administered by a (sic) your organization.
At first glance, this seems to make sense, but when you break it down a bit, it actually doesn’t make any sense at all. The idea that Google Apps products are “powered” by Google and that Google Accounts products aren’t is just silly. And what the hell’s the difference between what I do to my supposedly Google-administered gmail and a self-administered Google document.
Someone’s just strung together a bunch of words in a failed attempt to come up with a meaningful definition.
AnnBrocklehurst.com 