Today's update also stores attachments for offline use, enables Gmail keyboard shortcuts offline, improves performance and fixes bugs. The Gmail offline app is available in the Chrome Web Store, and existing users will be updated automatically.

Offline Gmail first became a standard feature in 2009, but it used Google's in-house (but open-source) plug in technology called Google Gears.

In April 2010, Google shut down Gears, disabling offline storage for Google services as the company transitioned to HTML5, a more standard solution. That transition took until August 2011, when Google released the offline storage apps for Chrome.

Do you use any Google services offline?

Google has one of the largest and most secure clouds in the entire industry. You do not often hear of a successful distributed denial of service attack against Google and rarely are Google applications hacked (unless, of course, it reportedly comes from the Chinese government). How does Google keep the data centers that comprise its cloud so safe and are they the gold standard in data protection?

Adam Swidler, senior manager for Google Enterprise, laid out how the company keeps its cloud safe at the Cloud Control Conference in Boston this week. The measures that Google goes through are quite thorough. For instance, no Google clients or federal regulators are allowed inside of Google's data centers. When it comes to tough nuts to crack on the Internet, Google's cloud is about as tough as it gets.

Not all Internet security is tied up in firewalls and honey pots and SQL barriers and the whatnot. In fact, believe it or not, there was a time before the Internet that when people mentioned security, images of large men with guns patrolling walls would come to mind.

Every Google data center has 24/7 guard support. They may not be manning watchtowers with Kalashnikovs, but they are present at all times doing internal and external patrols. There are alarms linked to the guard stations, closed circuit televisions, electronic key access and access logs. You would probably feel safer at a Google data center than in the floor of the Senate.

As we have seen before, the biggest threats to data security are people. Bradley Manning is the poster child for this with WikiLeaks, but IT departments have known for years that users are the biggest vulnerability.

So, every Google employee that works at a data center goes through an extensive background check and access is controlled with VP oversight. Google Apps are certified by FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act) officials, but, beyond what it takes to obtain and maintain that accreditation, government employees are not allowed in.

Redundancy, Obfuscation and Structure

Google does not keep all of your files in one place but splits them up and stores them on multiple files on several machines. The file names are randomized so as to not match content-type to owner and each server disc contains hundreds of thousands of files. Even if you knew what you were looking for, it would be hard to find.

Google also obfuscates its data. This is not a simple encryption nor is it easily renderable back to clear text. Encryption can be hacked and readable language can be copied. Think of it like this: The data is made confusing and opaque so that it cannot be discerned, except by the server itself; it is like one of those pixilated pictures that you have to mess up your eyes to see that it, indeed, a sailboat.

The actual hardware - the servers - are custom-built on a Linux software stack. The discs themselves are organized and labeled efficiently. If a disc goes bad it is warped with a piston-like device called "the crusher" and then put through a disc shredder.

Privacy and Certification

Google invites third-party white hat hackers to try to penetrate the data centers from outside on a quarterly basis. Google products are hard to hack, as white hat hackers have seen in the Pwned conference in recent years where the Chrome browser could not be hacked. The Pwn2Own conference did not even invite it back (Google entered it anyway with a bounty). Chrome has indeed since been hacked, claims Vupen Security.

The third-party attacks are in addition to probes that come at pretty much every hour of the day, every week. Large corporations like Google, Apple, Amazon, the U.S. federal government, banks and financial institutions etc. are always under attack.

Google has the aforementioned FISMA certification (which both Windows Azure and Amazon Web Services have as well) along with SAS 70 Type II certification and U.S./E.U. Safe Harbor certification. Basically, if there is an important business or government security certification, Google Apps and data centers have it.

On the privacy front, Google takes pains to assure users that Google does not own the data stored in their cloud. On one hand, this is supposed to reassure the client that Google is not using its data for anything nefarious. On the other hand, Google is protecting itself from whatever harmful data could be stored in its stacks. Officially, Google is known as a "data processor." Deny ownership, deny liability, more or less. Google promises that data can be taken out of the cloud at any time and promises that it will be completely eradicated within 60 days (though usually much sooner).

When data is taken out of the cloud, the disc is not wiped to erase it. That would be a painful process for Google. Essentially the data is "broken" so that it no longer functions and its place on the disc is gradually rewritten (over a time span no longer than 60 days).

Most of this information is available at the Google Apps security page which includes videos, FAQs and white papers on security. If you are a Google client curious about where and how your data is stored, it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with Google's practices.

Google says that such as desktop Gmail notifications and drag-and-drop file upload in Google Docs "require advanced browsers that support HTML5." The move fits within Google's plan to bring all computer-based functionality to the Web, with its Chrome browser and operating system the tip of the spear.

In theory, supporting just the last two releases of the four major browsers should make it easier to earn Google Apps Certification, a program Google announced in February. Google gave administrators the ability to opt out of automatically receiving the newest updates in March, a move that is beneficial for enterprises that often are not able to move fast enough to maintain security and cross-business functionality.

Also in March, Google launched a "What's New" page for Google Apps to let users stay up to date on the latest releases. New releases are added to the schedule one week before they go live.

Among other Google Apps updates this year is the ability to delegate administrative tasks to users. That helps company IT departments share the responsibility of performing certain tasks across the enterprise. Google also made changes to its service level agreements in January to eliminate planned downtime for apps.

The update for Honeycomb adds support for fully textured 3D buildings and an action bar on top of the app for easier search. It will also allow users to "fly to your location" and adds Google Maps layer-like functionality to integrate Google Places, Panoramio photos and Wikipedia notations.

The update is intended for Android tablets but is also available for any Android 2.1 (Éclair) devices and above. We tested it on a Samsung Galaxy S Captivate and found that the "fly to" function is quite amusing. The layers of Wikipedia entries, Panoramio and Places could make for an interesting tour guide wandering around a city. Imagine a very sophisticated version of the application "It Happened Here" that is integrated with Google Earth instead of Google Maps (the way it is now). It does not provide quite the deep historical context that It Happened Here does but Wikipedia entries often provide useful facts about a location's history.

On the smartphone, the layers show up in a different window away from the 3D picture you are looking at. On the tablet version the pictures, Wikipedia and Places pop up in the main window without losing the view of the location you are looking at.

It is a solid update to Google Earth. As Google attempts to flesh out the world of Honeycomb-specific applications, it needs to be able to take the lead and release its own build of applications. Google apps optimized by the company itself can make a big difference in whether consumers want to buy and Android tablet.

Microsoft has also launched the Office 365 Marketplace today, giving customers a way to find third-party apps and services that can be integrated with Office 365. The marketplace opens its doors with 100 apps and 400 services available, and Microsoft says that number will increase over time.

If this offering sounds a lot like Google Apps and Google Apps Marketplace, that's no surprise, as Google has encroached on Microsoft's Office suite of tools with its cloud-based offerings. Office 365 is Microsoft's response - an alternative to desktop software that doesn't necessitate businesses leaving the Microsoft brand and licensing behind.

Microsoft is targeting the small business world, as well as the educational market with Office 365 - two sectors in which Google Apps has found great success. But unlike Google's tools, Microsoft's are not free. Once the service officially launches, pricing will be tiered, depending on company size: businesses with fewer than 25 employees will pay $6 per month. Larger companies will have four enterprise pricing options to choose from.

CRN's Edward Moltzen has strong words for Office 365 this morning: "Office 365, frankly, is to Google Apps as XBOX 360 Live is to Pong. It's in a different league entirely and represents a leap into the next generation of computing." That's a big claim for an office productivity suite.

Want to take it for a test-drive? While Office 365 will have its official worldwide launch later this year, you can sign up now for an early look at the beta.

Google is announcing a new feature today to help address that, enhancing the verification for logging into your Google account for the one step now - username and password - to a new 2-step process.

Google warns that it may take up to 15 minutes to go through the setup process for this, but honestly kids, it's worth it.

The process requires two indepedent factors to authenticate your identity. In other words, when you log into your Google account, you'll need the usual username and password, but then you'll also need a second code in order to move forward - a process similar to the one that's available on most banking websites.

This second code isn't one that you'll write down (and potentially lose) on scraps of papers or one that you'll use again and again on multiple sites (decreasing its security). Rather, it is generated by Google, then sent as an SMS message to your phone or via an authentication app (available for Android, Blackberry or iPhone). This code will be generated for each log-in. And, in Google's words, "when you enter this code after correctly submitting your password we'll have a pretty good idea that the person signing in is actually you."

You'll have the option to have your computer remember this second verification step for 30 days, so you won't need to re-enter that code every time you boot up your machine.

It may sound a tad cumbersome, but ask anyone who's had their Gmail account hacked how annoying and awful that process was, and you'll find Google's new feature to be a positive not a pain.

The option will roll out to all users over the coming weeks.

One of the concerns that I heard most often expressed centered around students' access to and usage of email - concerns about safety, privacy, and acceptable use. Will students mis-use email? Do parents approve of giving students accounts? At what age should a child get an email account?

Locking Down Gmail

As Gmail is arguably the cornerstone of Google Apps, some of the fears about students and email have likely hampered some schools' adoption of Apps for Education. And for its part, Google says that having a better control over email is one of the most requested features from its K-12 users. So Google has made a change to Google Apps (not just for Education but for Business and Government customers too) that will let administrators establish policies specifying who their users can communicate with via email.

These new controls can be be adjusted based on different user groups so, for example, school faculty and staff can have unrestricted email access while students can only email those within the school community.

"Using these new controls finally gives us the ability to provide email to our 40,000 high school students. We are confident that this will help protect our children from inappropriate communications and excited about new class activities and collaboration that email will bring. Not all kids are comfortable speaking up in class and this gives many of them another avenue to approach their teachers," said Laurie Tranmer, Email Services Manager at Prince George's County Public Schools.

The new feature is expected to roll out to Apps for Business, Government, and Education users within the next few days.

The Department of Interior justified its preference for Microsoft in part because of the company's "enhanced security," but it was Google's first version of Google Apps for Government that became this summer the first cloud solution to win the Federal government's Federal Information Security Management Act certification.

"It's certainly going to be interesting to see if a comparison of 'enhanced security' and 'unified email' from Google and Microsoft makes it way into the court systems," says Alex Howard, Government 2.0 Washington Correspondent at O'Reilly Media. "I can't think of the last time I saw that depth of discussion about the relative capabilities of cloud applications in the court."

The U.S. Department of the Interior, meanwhile, has long had security problems of its own. Its highest leaders have been ruled in contempt of federal court multiple times for failing to account for and reconcile hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Native American land trust documents, most recently in 2001.

Just a few weeks ago, our own Audrey Watters pointed out that the number of states and school districts that are thinking about moving to cloud-based offerings like Google Apps for Education continues to increase. Moving to the cloud can provide these colleges and school districts with significant savings.

It's worth noting that Google is not the only company that is targeting this market, although it has been very successful in its campaign to win over more schools. With Live@edu, for example, Microsoft offers a similar suite of online productivity tools for students.

Similarly, Zoho CRM customers can search for customer accounts, create new accounts and add notes and details directly from within their email inbox. All of this is made possible by Google's announcement of contextual gadgets API for Gmail from earlier this year. Third party app developers can embed their services directly within Gmail, healping to streamline business operations.

"Instead of hopping from browser tab to browser tab as they move through a workflow, everything needed to get the job done is presented in a single browser tab," said Zoho's Raju Vegesna. "The contextual integrations for Gmail are our first cross-vendor efforts and open the doors to similar integrations with other third-party applications."

It's wise for Zoho to attempt to reach customers on multiple platforms, especially with the popularity of Gmail and Google Apps. It's likely that many small businesses use a combination of Google, Zoho and other suites to satisfy their operations needs. Zoho says this is "just the beginning" for its Google offerings, so expect further integration in the future.

Trada CEO and founder Niel Robertson will join the webinar to go over Google's AdSense and AdWords programs and how small businesses can take advantage of them. Trada is a Boulder startup that helps businesses of all sizes better manage pay-per-click ad campaigns by leveraging the power of crowdsourcing.

Also joining the webinar will be Expensify co-founder David Barrett. Expensify is a service that can integrate with Google Apps to help make the process of tracking expenses within small businesses quick, painless and seamless. Expensify is part of a larger collection of tools which live in the Google Apps Marketplace, and David will explain both how the marketplace works and how it can help small businesses.

And finally, the third guest is Caige Nichols, a serial entrepreneur and lead web developer at Zion & Zion, a Phoenix-based ad agency. Caige will provide the webinar attendees with context for using Google Apps with a startup - a process he has lots of experience with from his history of entrepreneurship.

The hour long webinar is free and is hosted on Verizon Wireless' Small Business Center. Attendees will be able to follow along with our presentation via Webex and can interact with the webinar by submitting questions in real-time. If you are a small business owner and want to learn how Google's tools could impact your workflow, please register and participate in this Wednesday's webinar!

Colorado and Iowa join Oregon in Google Apps for Education, which offers Gmail, Docs, Sites, Video and Groups to elementary school, junior high and high school students across both states.

The other motivations include keeping students current and leveraging new technologies for learning. The latter was stressed by Colorado's Governor, Bill Ritter.

"By leveraging the Internet, educators are able to bring new ways of learning to the classroom and connect with students in exciting and challenging ways."

Google is also introducing a "set of training solutions" to leverage Google Apps in an educational environment.

Like its progenitor, Memeo Connect still offers drag-and-drop uploads, but in the latest release, the application's operating system integration has been dramatically improved. Most notably, your Google Docs folder now appears as a virtual drive that Memeo labels "GDrive", and, according to company representatives, the name is being used with Google's blessing.

To Internet early adopters, the name "GDrive" rings more than a few bells. It's referring to the long-rumored cloud storage service that Google has yet to launch. In its imagined state, Google's GDrive would have been a lot like Microsoft's SkyDrive: several gigabytes of free storage available on the Web for all your files. On the theoretical GDrive, however, files could be in any format, of any size and there would be easy ways to sync them or move them back and forth between your computer and the cloud. Office files would open with Google's Docs service, an online counterpart to desktop programs like Microsoft Office, and some even imagined that GDrive would further integrate with other Google properties, like Picasa for photos or YouTube for videos.

Google never fully realized everyone's GDrive dreams, but its Google Docs service is functional enough for most. It allows for the upload of any file type while multiple third-party services offer decent options for keeping files in sync between your computers and cloud. These include Memeo competitors like Box.net, Dropbox, Syncplicity, SugarSync, OfficeSync, Gladinet and more.

There are few programs that actually offer the full virtual drive functionality that Memeo now does, though. The company worked closely with Google to build this latest version of its Connect software and when Google engineers found out Memeo was calling the virtual folder it creates "GDrive," they had a good laugh.

Sorry, Internet, Google isn't designing its own GDrive service anytime soon, but it's well aware of the rumors.

Google actually prefers that, when it comes to GDrive-type offerings, third parties do it for them. The closest thing we'll see to a Google-branded tool of any sort is a desktop uploader application now being built, sources tell us. But it's no GDrive, based on what we've heard.

Version 2.0: More OS Integration Blurs Line Between Desktop and Cloud

In Memeo's case, version 2.0 of its software continues to offer drag-and-drop uploads (even folders!) and automatic synchronization. But it goes further with a combination of features that make using its so-called GDrive a more viable option. For example, you can save files from your desktop-based applications like Microsoft Office directly to Google Docs via GDrive, and you can open GDrive-hosted files with its associated native desktop program. In other words, it blurs the line between the cloud and the desktop, just as Google's mythical GDrive would have supposedly done. And for that reason, we don't at all begrudge Memeo the name "theft."

Memeo Connect's other new features include the ability to select multiple files at once for deletion (from the cloud), filter files by type or category, download all Google Docs with a click, view folders shared with you via Google Docs and more.

And let's not forget one of the most exciting new features: full text search for documents, another benefit of the in-depth collaboration between Memeo and Google when building this new version of Connect. To truly transition to cloud-hosted files, this feature is considered a must-have for many users.

For Business Users Only?

Memeo Connect is more business-focused than it is a consumer tool. It's not available as a "freemium" offering, as some would expect. Surprisingly, that's not Memeo's decision, but rather Google's. Google restricts its API usage for these types of synchronization services so that they only work with those who have business-level accounts.

As far as pricing goes, for Google Premier users, it's $9 a year per user and for non-Premier users, it's $59 a year per user, which includes a new Google Apps Premier Account in addition to the sync service.

Memeo Connect 2.0 is available for free evaluation from here. Both Mac and PC versions are available.

A new "domain purchasing feature" provides a one-click on-site way to avoid what Posterous' Vincent Chu called "the geeky details" of securing and applying a personal domain to your account.

Instead of mucking about in the guts of your personal branding engine, this push-button domain machine avers to do it all for you. A big deal? Just a deal of modest proportion, in keeping with the simplicity the service emphasizes.

Tumblr, Posterous' biggest competitor, also offers custom domains but not through its own site and not integrated with Google.

Google Wave: Innovative, Confusing

The technologies at the core of Google Wave are impressive. With an HTML5-enabled interface and real-time protocols for instant interaction, Wave was highly anticipated among tech enthusiasts prior to its launch. However, once beta testers gained access to the redesigned inbox experience delivered by Wave, the results were those of confusion, feelings of being overwhelmed and apparently, eventual abandonment.

That's not to say Google Wave is a failure. The service is just a little too raw right now for everyday use by a majority of internet users. The problem with Wave stems from its overcrowded inbox of "waves" - threads of conversation updated in real-time. Within a wave, users can have IM-like chats, share and edit documents, and even "replay" a wave to see a history of the changes made. At launch time, anyone using the service could add any other user to a wave - even if that other user had no interest in participating. This led to an inbox filled with waves, only some of which may have been relevant or interesting. In addition, communicating in real-time, while nice for IM, may not be as productive when attempting to share the sort of longer thoughts and instructions typically sent out via email. 

There are ways Wave could be streamlined for better ease-of-use, though. Whitelisting and blacklisting tools could lock down waves to invited participants only and better filtering mechanisms could help high-priority waves rank higher than others. Not all of these tools are available yet in the current version of the product, though, and some may never be.

Google Apps Users to Become Beta Testers?

Google is also investigating how to integrate some of Wave's features into their other products. According to Google Enterprise President Dave Girouard, the company is "trying to learn and see what sort of use cases evolve from it and how it changes." Yet even he admitted that Wave is "not nearly at the level of understanding and readiness of the core Google Apps services."

So why is Google rushing to roll it out this year? The answer may be that Google simply wants a larger test bed to help them generate ideas for improving the service. Although we've highlighted several use cases for Wave in the past, a good many people still say they don't see the need for it. But all the effort and development that went into building a product like Wave isn't likely something Google wants to abandon so soon.