Google Apps Migration

I added a new Page - to my blog - Google Apps Migration Checklist - a checklist of all the Google services that I had been using / or that one could use... and how I manage to transfer data from the standard accounts to the Apps account.

I did have a google Profile... but I can't access it anymore... it links to my Picasaweb which I also can't access...  It's said that there are no Profiles or Buzz yet in Apps - so my only task would be to delete that profile and free the profile name?

The trouble was that I had a Google Apps domain - oliverslay.com.  I already had a standard account @gmail.com ... When I tried to use Picasa or Profiles or other.. using my main email address, which was now in my Apps account, Google created a standard account with my oliverslay.com email - a third account! - through which I could access services not in Apps at the time.

When they expanded the services for Apps users this month, I had to give the account tied to my main Apps user, a different email address... and I gave it another address within my oliverslay.com domain..... I think... but now I cannot access that account.  The Profile has in the URL, oliverslay ... and Picasa has my name on it... I would like to use them...

I used Profile to send myself an email... the address on the profile sent a message to me.. and I received an email saying the message was sent... aha... it was sent to a different domain attached to my oliverslay.com Apps account... that means I can log in and transfer data across... phew!...

An AdWords account can have any user attached to it... and any number of users to administrate it... but a single email address cannot be attached to more than one AdWords account.  That needs to be understood when switching accounts around.  If you log into AdWords it will open a new account... so now, no-one can make you an administrator of their account.  I had to create a new user... give them administrator access to my new account, grant them access... then log in as them and terminate my own access to that AdWords account... just so my email address was now free to be attached to my client's account.

Trouble is, I discovered there's something called My Client Center - where you should be able to add various accounts in order to manage them...  http://www.google.com/intl/en/adwords/myclientcenter/  - So now I will have to terminate my access to my clients account and try again...

I was lucky with YouTube... YouTube had their own accounts before Google took them over.  I had a YouTube account and one day I associated that account with my standard GMail login... I found that I could disassociate it from my account, log in using the old YouTube account (the username and password of which you have to be able to remember) and then associate with my Apps account.  My brother was not so lucky... he never had an original YouTube account - and would be forced to re-upload his videos to his new Apps address and he'd lose his YouTube nickname...

Google Apps must be causing a lot of people a lot of headaches... it's not straightforward what can be done and what can't .. and nowhere is it made easy...

Google is so slow...

I appear to be waiting too long for Google to return results .. or for the page to complete...

In the late evenings when searching for general images, all I see is a grid of grey boxes... Sometimes the page doesn't change... I have to hit Enter on the URL 1-4 times before the browser even appears to react... and after a few minutes of working with Google Maps tiles stop loading and the whole thing comes to a halt...

Switch to Bing / Yahoo / Multimap / Streetmap.co.uk and there's no problem...

Why is Google slowing down? It's not just me... I did have Chrome Dev installed.. so i removed it from my system completely and reinstalled... and I still have problems... It happens on my spare laptop... so it's not my computer... I no longer have any plugins because I clean-installed Chrome...

DNS? - On my router, I'm using Google DNS - 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
Everything we do on the internet requires some DNS lookup... I just ran Ping on a few DNS servers... checking the average of 20 pings... (all 0% loss)

For 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 Google DNS
Minimum = 31ms, Maximum = 33ms, Average = 31ms
Minimum = 30ms, Maximum = 32ms, Average = 30ms

For 208.67.222.222 OpenDNS
Minimum = 23ms, Maximum = 26ms, Average = 24ms

For 212.159.13.49 and 212.159.13.50: My ISP
Minimum = 24ms, Maximum = 31ms, Average = 24ms
Minimum = 25ms, Maximum = 34ms, Average = 26ms

Google DNS promises speed and other functionality... by comparison .. I don't see it.. and I reckon by other functionality - they mean they can track where I go and what I do... and improve Analytics for websites and which AdWords are targeted at me throughout the day...

Only 4 hours ago I also ran the DNS test.. but deleted the results... the average was 70ms with minimum ~50ms and max ~180ms... This was the same for Open DNS... and I didn't test my ISP in time. I was distracted by trying to work out whether I should move myself off the antique Broadband Package I am on and onto a new one... the up-to-date candidate package looks very similar - there's a very complicated hour versus service rate limiting chart to confuse me even further...

http://portal.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/download_speeds.shtml#extraSpeeds
http://portal.plus.net/support/broadband/products/archive/bbyw/speed.shtml#Option2speeds

Looks like I'm on the better deal by a small margin...

I switched my DNS back to my ISP's name servers.... I don't think Google DNS is beneficial at all in the UK yet...  Has it helped?

Things appear faster... but it's early morning .. and one of those things with IT that it's the experience over the full 24 hours that counts... whether there's an impact at the times at which I work throughout the day... and on the work I am doing (VPN, VNC, RDP, HTTP, HTTPS, etc...)

If it makes no difference then I'm going to try switching off Web History and other tracking components... and clearing my Google History out... if we can...

Show Traffic on SourceForge: Internet Connection Monitor

I found Show Traffic on Sourceforge and think it's quite a useful program for monitoring where you are connecting to and who is connecting to your PC...

After switching on Resolve Addresses and Resolve Port Names there are some interesting connections going on...

Source IP: 209.85.229.191 - resolves to a computer on a network - 1e100.net ... connecting to my computer on HTTP and HTTPS ... for what reason?

1e100 ... for anyone who doesn't know what a 'Googol' is:

• 10^100 (ten to the power of 100 - a one with a hundred zeroes) is a 'Googol' or in terms of millions and billions .. ten thousand sexdecillion...  and 'one in a googol' are your odds if you throw 333 coins in the air and expect them to all land heads up... :) 
• 10^google (ten to the power of a google) is a 'Googolplex' - Carl Sagan said that you couldn't write this number down because there is not enough space in the universe... never say never... :) - there's got to be some person out there with autistic tendencies working his/her way through the first few million or so...

1e100.net is a Google-owned domain.  It appears to show up when using GMail, GTalk and Blogger.