Customer Reviews

Google Apps: The Missing Manual

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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This Google apps book has more of a user focus and a bit more hand-holding than other Google app books I have taken a look at lately. (Google Apps Hacks)

The 13 chapters are divided into 4 parts:
1) Setting up with Google and using the word processing, spreadsheet and presentation creation software.

2) Using Google e-mail, communication and calendar applications.

3) Customizing the Google home page and creating Web pages without HTML knowledge with the new Page Creator.

4) Using Google applications within organizations. This last section went into administering users and facilitating team collaboration. This was interesting and something I had not seen in other books.

This "Missing Manual" is pretty thorough and has a good index. If your goal is to *use* Google applications (rather than program them), this book is an excellent reference and guide.

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As a long time Google sycophant, pretty much anything this company puts out I love and the case is no different as it relates to the Google Apps suite of products. Released within the last couple of years these programs have quickly taken the world by storm and I rarely ever create a document or spreadsheet outside this environment any more. The Missing Manual line of books always does and incredible job of teaching regular joes and janes how to get around their computer and this book is no exception. Focusing on all the popular apps like Spreadsheets, Gmail, Talk, Calendar, iGoogle, Page Creator and more this book covers all the angles in 700+ pages of great writing and content.

This book WOULD have been an easy 5 stars but the lack of color really hurts this release, so much so I dropped a star off. I don't understand why some books that need color are denied this at pre-release time while other books that don't need it get the full treatment.

Great book, just could have been even THAT much better.

**** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

This is a good overview of a number of useful free web-based applications put out by Google. It is especially helpful for alerting you to some non-obvious features of the apps. Google Apps are an exciting development not only because they are a free way to perform most common computer tasks, but because they permit a high degree of collaborative work. They are also pleasing to those of us who prize simplicity in computing (I like the phrase "hyperlink carnival" used on p. 411 to describe the typical dotcom home page, contrasted to Google's simplicity).

A book about Google Apps is bound to be awkward, because they are not a single subject and are aimed at several different audiences. In general this book assumes the reader is already familiar with the type of application being discussed, and just needs to learn how to use the Google version. In particular the presentation focuses on individual features and doesn't say much about workflow. For example, although Google's spreadsheets are simple, and well-described here, I don't believe anyone who was unfamiliar with spreadsheets would be able to figure out how to use Google Doc Spreadsheets from this book.

The section on Google Docs (word processing, spreadsheet, slideshows) goes fairly quickly through the available editing functions. It goes into more detail on the collaboration functions (since documents are stored on the web, you can collaborate with anyone else who can get on Google), version history, and reconciling online and offline edits. This section of the book works well.

The section on Communications (email, talk, calendar) really does start at the beginning and assumes you've never done this before. This also works well, although it is a little overwhelming for Gmail because there are so many features.

The web design section is confusing, not least because it combines two very dissimilar apps without telling you what they are for, or what the difference is. iGoogle, which has a very complex discussion, merely creates a custom start page. Page Creator, although it does create pages, is in fact a complete web publishing system, but you don't find this out until late in the chapter (Google lets you have a limited amount of web space and bandwidth for free on googlepages.com). These two chapters are basically OK, but they need more extensive introductions to orient the reader.

The last section deals with Google Apps for organizations. Google offers an enterprise-level version of the same apps discussed earlier in the book. These are basically the same as the individual versions, but they provide a way to control the sharing and customization for the whole enterprise. This section of the book deals with the system administrator's job in managing all this. The book admits on p. 482 that the remainder of the book is "aimed at techie types". It assumes the reader is already administering the enterprise's computers, and describes all the admin steps for Google apps. These chapters look plausible to me, but I don't know enough about that kind of operation to evaluate them in depth.

Thorough, well-written book that opens up new, er, vistas in Google. Not full of techie twaddle. Works for real people.

Things like "There's something inspiring about a brand-new calendar..." aren't useful for me and yet the actual instructions are mixed in with narrative like that. for the 'missing manual' I'd hope for clear step by step instructions with the background to make it more intuitive. I'd like a book that speeds up my learning time on new software, not slows it down.

Nancy Conner's GOOGLE APPS: THE MISSING MANUAL offers a free alternative to Microsoft Office, covering all of Google Apps' downloadable files, step-by-step coverage of Gmail, Docs, and Calendar, and tips on producing in Google anything you can do with Office: spreadsheets, slideshows, and word processing. Move the files back and forth between Google Apps and Office and learn how to create a Wiki website with this outstanding guide.

Having heard a lot about Google Apps and Google Docs lately, I decided to learn more about them and how they might fit into the individual and collaborative endeavors of my life. Google Apps: The Missing Manual looked like a good place to start my research.

This book will do an excellent job of quickly bringing you up to a reasonable knowledge level on Google Docs, Google Calendar, Gmail and other Google Apps. I'm a big fan of "The Missing Manual" series, and this volume is every bit as informative and readable as the other dozen or so missing manuals I've read.

I was primarily interested in Google Docs, and this book had copious information that was more than adequate to get me up and running. There are a lot of subtleties hidden in Google Apps and how you can collaborate with them. Ms. Conner describes quite a few of these in her numerous "tips" inserts. In fact, I found the tips to be some of the most valuable parts of the book.

As a long-time desktop apps user who's worked collaboratively for huge corporations, the idea of using cloud-based apps is new and interesting to me. This book did a great job of describing where Google Apps would be appropriate and how they fit with desktop apps. For example, Ms. Conner made it clear to me that while Google Apps might be adequate for many routine uses, it may often be desirable to "polish" Google Docs with more capable desktop applications. Her clear descriptions and neutral presentation of capabilities, strengths, and limitations were very helpful here.

This book is extremely complete and should be useful to beginning and intermediate users. In addition, it includes several chapters that should help administrators set Google Apps up in a shared corporate environment.

I was a little confused by the Google Sites chapter, but I'm not really interested in web design. Overall the book is extremely informative and readable, and the information is presented concisely. I highly recommend it.

If you use any Google Applications this is the book for you. I liked it so much that I had to get another one and give it away as a gift. While Google applications are always changing this book gives you 90 % of what you need and it even covers information that I didn't know. It's well worth the price and is the only book out there that tells it all. for example, I didn't realize that if you register a domain name with google that you can switch it over to GoDaddy.com since that's who actually registers the domain name for them. It tells you that and how to transfer evertything properly. No more printing out of help text to find out how to do things.

When in the process of setting up my church with Google Apps I was in need of something easy to understand and topically indexed for ease of use. This book is a great help. Have used "Idiot Guides" before but found this a little less humorous and more to the point. Great Job

I am teaching a CLOUD COMPUTING w GOOGLE APPS course and chose this book for the students, as there are few textbooks on this topic. The writing is clear, lots of screen shots, and excellent price. The students really like it, too.