google apps for your domain

google apps for your domain is a web-domain management system currently undergoing beta trials. it's a web-based package containing a selection of free tools that you can use on any of your web domains.

google start page, google talk, google calendar, google page creator all look slightly interesting, but i wouldn't have usually paid much attention. but what attracted me was the email capabilities - you are able to administer all the email accounts at your domain, and give each account web-mail and pop3/smtp access. how? yup, gmail.

gmail already revolutionised the world of email when it came on the scene a few years back, with a claim that you'd never have to delete your email again. now each email address @yourdomain.com can get a 2gb gmail account @yourdomain.com! that's right, no @gmail.com needed.

there are a couple of things to configure at your domain hosting company - first you need to prove the domain is yours by adding a google-tagged CNAME to your DNS (or easier, just upload an html file containing the google-tag to your website) and second you need to [re]point your email delivery to google's servers by adding a bunch of MX records. sounds complicated? it really isn't. you simply log in to your account at your domain host and follow google's instructions. DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate, but mine reached google within a couple of hours. the mail changes seemed instant (under 5 minutes), but i believe that depends on your domain host.

consensus? it's pretty good. as long as you're happy that pop3/smtp gmail access runs on non-standard ports and requires encryption, no problem. oh and if you didn't understand that sentence, the chances are you don't care and you're unaffected.

i haven't looked at the other apps yet - but judging by this, it looks promising.

blaze

wow so where have i been for the past month? long story. well it's not (it's not even a story) but that's another story. (or not as the case may be).

guy-fawkes night was not the only celebration observed by 5 november 2006. blaze is a regular 18-30 event hosted by city church, cambridge. being cambridge it seems to attract a lot of students; an observation substantiated by an abundance of bikes and few cars in the car park. having been invited to demonstrate my percussive skills, we arrived at around 17:15 with a feeling of mixed excitement and anxiety heralding my first band experience on drums, ready for a 19:30 kick off.

our 45 minute opening set was followed by daniel goodman (previously of note for a child) speaking on 'the heart'. then it was back over to us for a final 15 minute response. what i took away was the atmosphere of honesty and reality that permeated the whole event. here was a band that wasn't there to play songs to a bunch of punters who weren't there to sing along. here was a young man who wasn't there to stand on a soap-box and preach a disconnected message to maybe 50 or 60 young adults who weren't there to 'do church'. this was your living room, where you wanted to go, wanted to stay; comfortable and inviting. only from the outside, it was a warehouse next to tescos.