In this digital age though you can never be too careful with your data storage. I always backup all of my important data to multiple locations and media. Until now I had yet to see a good easy solution to backup my Gmail and Google Apps email.

I found some old articles on Lifehacker explaining how to use Thunderbird or another mail client to POP down Gmail data. Then I saw that the featured download was maybe exactly what I was looking for Gmail Backup. Here is the original article from Lifehacker which provides a good overview of the software.

This software is now in the final stages of development. However, the software is available for download, it’s free, and for me it’s worked perfectly. There is a PC, Mac, and Linux version available. The installation is quick and painless. Use of the program is extremely easy. The only prerequisite is that you have IMAP enabled in your Gmail/Apps settings. All labels are preserved and the software will do incremental backups.

Let me know how it works for you!

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Recent History of Salesforce.com Evolution

Salesforce.com is best known for their easy to use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that runs as a service that you pay for monthly. Their application is hosted from their servers and users access the service over the Internet.

Salesforce has been expanding on it’s CRM software by building a community of developers and organizations that are focused on providing their own Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications by leveraging Salesforce’s software technology platform Force.com and the AppExchange.

How Force.com Sites May Help Your Small Business

Today’s announcement is important for several reasons as some details emerge about Force.com Sites. Most of what I’ve gathered is from Phil Wainewright who is attending Dreamforce and blogs for ZDNet (See Phil’s post on Force.com Sites). 

Here’s the important news for small businesses:

• Force.com Sites will be a free add-on to existing Salesforce.com licenses provided customers stay within fixed pageview limits — up to 50,000 pageviews per month for Group Edition customers (most SMB’s will have less than 50,000 pageviews a month)
• Use your own custom domain (web address) e.g. “yourbusiness.com” instead of “force.com/yourbusiness/”
• Integration with Salesforce.com applications such as your CRM
• Manage complex content and data without programming? (I gotta see it to believe it)

Will This Be a Landmark Change?

It will be interesting to see the type of applications that are created using this new service. If it turns out to be as it sounds, the gap between public website and backend CRM or intranet will be shortened or eliminated. While it is possible to integrate backend and frontend it is difficult to do and requires programming knowledge.

If Salesforce can make the process easy enough for end users to publish and manage complex interactive data on their websites this would be a landmark shift as Phil suggests. However, as I see it right now, this still appears to be a developer intensive initiative at this point in time.

I’ll be watching closely as more info is released following Dreamforce. While the verdict is still out on Force.com Sites. Salesforce is definitely a company you need to be familiar with as a small business owner or entrepreneur. If you are interested in Salesforce software please contact me for consultation. The Google Apps/Adwords software ingtegrated with Salesforce CRM is a great combination for small businesses.

Sign up today for a free consultation and demo!

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This site is all about helping small businesses excel through the use of web technologies. Here is a little taste of some topics we will discuss and learn about here:

• Got a Website? If you don’t have one you need one. If you do have one it can be improved.
• CRM’s Customer Relationship Management software. (e.g. salesforce.com) Many businesses are still stuck in the 90’s with Microsoft Outlook contact lists. There is a better way!
• Google Apps. It’s email, documents, shared calendars, intranet and more all in one nice package. Best of all… it’s free!
• Confused about the latest web technologies and trends? Let’s cut through the hype and find the solutions and strategies that bring real value.

These are a few of the many topics we’ll talk about. This is a two way street though. Please interact, post comments and contact me. We’re just getting started so I’m “all ears” and want to hear what problems your organization is facing and let’s figure out solutions together. Over time this site will become a portal of knowledge that you can reference or in a pinch just ask for help.

Let’s join together, grow, and have fun making your business successful on the web. Together we can make this the best blog ever!

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