G Suite For Dummies. Paul McFedries

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      FIGURE 1-3: Contacts: G Suite's contact management app.

ANOTHER FAQ: WHAT’S ALL THIS ABOUT A “CLOUD”?

      I’ve mentioned the term cloud a couple of times now, so let me take a few minutes of your precious time to explain what I’m talking about. In many network diagrams (schematics that show the overall layout of a network's infrastructure), the designer is most interested in the devices that connect to the network, not in the network itself. After all, the details of what happens inside the network to shunt signals from source to destination are often extremely complex and convoluted, so all that minutiae would serve only to detract from the network diagram’s larger message of showing which devices can connect to the network, how they connect, and their network entry and exit points.

      When the designers of a network diagram want to show the network but not any of its details, they almost always abstract the network by displaying it as a cloud symbol. (It is, if you will, the yadda-yadda-yadda of network diagrams.) At first, the cloud symbol represented the workings of a single network, but in recent years it has come to represent the Internet (the network of networks).

      So far, so good. Earlier in this millennium, some folks had the bright idea that, rather than store files on local computers, you could store them on a server connected to the Internet, which meant that anyone with the proper credentials could access the files from anywhere in the world. Eventually, folks started storing programs on Internet servers, too, and started telling anyone who’d listen that these files and applications resided “in the cloud” (meaning on a server — or, more typically, a large collection of servers that reside in a special building called a data center — accessible via the Internet).

      All the G Suite components (Gmail, Calendar, Docs, and so on) are examples of such apps — in the rarefied world of cloud computing geeks, these apps are described as software as a service, or SaaS — and they all reside inside Google’s cloud service called, boringly, Google Cloud. So that’s why I say that G Suite apps and your data live “in the cloud.” That’s also why, as I mention a bit earlier in this chapter, you need an Internet connection to use G Suite: It requires that connection to access all its cloud stuff.

Introducing Online Collaboration

      When I talk to people about G Suite, the feature that invariably raises eyebrows is online collaboration. Just the notion that two or more people can work on a document at the same time seems, well, magical. Yep, there's some mind-bogglingly sophisticated technology behind G Suite's collaboration features, but you don't require a PhD in computer science to use them.

As an example, take a look at Figure 1-4, which shows a file open in Docs. The figure actually shows a fistful of collaboration features, but I want to bring your attention to just these four:

      FIGURE 1-4: A Docs file, with several people editing.

      

I wrote this section to give you just a taste of G Suite collaboration prowess using the Docs app. For the full scoop on Docs collaboration, head for Chapter 11.

Going Mobile

      Although I don't talk about them in this book (otherwise, the book would be twice as long as it is), most of the G Suite apps come with mobile versions that run on Android and iOS devices. See either Google Play on your Android device or the App Store on your iOS device to install any of the G Suite apps.

To give you an idea of what's available, Table 1-2 runs through the G Suite apps, shows you how to access each one on the web, and lets you know whether an Android or iOS version is available.

      

For those G Suite apps that lack a version specifically for your mobile device, you can still access those services on your phone or tablet by using your mobile web browser to surf to the app's web address.

TABLE 1-2 The G Suite Mobile Apps

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App	Web Access	iOS App	Android App
Gmail	mail.google.com	✓	✓
Calendar	calendar.google.com	✓	✓