People in the middle of a home remodeling project also are overwhelmed by paperwork, dust and perhaps juggling bills in temporary quarters. Google Apps, a suite of online software, accessible via the Internet can really make a difference.

Google offers SaaS in what is called "Google Apps." If you use Google Apps, you don't have to buy copies of software to run on your computer. They also eliminate the IT department.

Google offers a basic version free and Premier Edition, a business-oriented version with advanced management and security features, for $50 per user per year. Most small business and home remodelers can get by with the free version. Start off with that first. You can always upgrade if you need too. This includes:

• Free email, electronic calendars and
• Free Google Docs for creating and sharing documents. This is just like Microsoft Word and Excel that many of us are used to

A half a million small businesses use Google Apps and another couple thousand or so sign up every day. Thousands of universities have deployed it for their students. State and local governments, which are budget constrained, are looking it over.

How it can benefit you
Google Apps allows people to work together much more productively and quickly. It does not matter whether they are in the same building or going between their home and office.

Think about this way. If you need to send an email, prepare a memo or letter or work with a spreadsheet, it gets to be a real pain to work from different computers at work and home. Your diskette or flash drive can get lost or damaged.

If you use Googe Apps, things are entirely different as follows:

1. Your documents, spreadsheets, email or calendar are stored in what is called an "Internet Cloud," which is accessible via the web no matter where you are. you can be at home, the office, in an airport, at an Internet cafe.
2. The cost about a tenth of what it costs for the traditional software licensing model. There's no cost if you use the free version of Google Apps.
3. There's no software to install, no patches to install, no data center to worry about, no software on your computer to manage.

• Will my Internet connection being fast enough to support Google Apps? Broadband connections are widely available and affordable to most and are fast and reliable enough.
• What happens when I'm off line? That's a very good question even though we are more connected to the Internet these days.
  
  Google plans to offer a solution to that problem with a product called "Google Gears." This product will allow you to bring your document. spreadsheet, etc off-line where you can work on it. It should be available sometime in 2008.
• Is my data secure and can I really trust Google with it? In reality, your data will be in Google's data center as opposed to your computer's hard drive.
  
  The issue of trust is similar to what happened with electricity 100 years ago. Back then most companies produced their own electricity. It was a radical thought to shut down your own generators and plug into a grid that was provided by some utility. You don't really think about that anymore.