Google Sites adds layout customization options and Google Docs integration

Google Sites now supports custom layouts for header height, sidebar width, page width and text box width. You can also completely remove a site's header and/or sidebar.

To embed a document, spreadsheet or presentation from Google Docs, you can now browse your document list from within Google Sites rather than finding the file to insert in a separate browser window and pasting the link into Google Sites.

Editions impacted:
Standard, Premier, Education and Team Editions

Languages impacted:
US English

How to access what's new:
To change your site's page layout, click 'Settings', then 'Appearance', then 'Site Elements'. Click the 'Change site layout' button to make your changes.

To embed a document, spreadsheet or presentation into a page, click the 'Edit page' button, click 'Insert', choose the type of file to embed and then choose the right file from your Google Docs list.

For more information:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/sites.html

Gmail adds 'My Contacts' and 'Suggested Contacts'

Gmail now adds people you email with to your contact list after several correspondences, rather than after you email someone for the first time. Contacts you add manually or through an import are also saved in 'My Contacts'. People you haven't had many email exchanges with are auto-added to 'Suggested Contacts', and you can move those people to 'My Contacts' at any time.

Editions impacted:
Standard, Premier, Education and Partner Editions

Languages impacted:
US English

How to access what's new:
Sign in to Gmail and click 'Contacts' to browse 'My Contacts' and 'Suggested Contacts'.

For more information:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/gmail.html

Document, spreadsheet and presentation templates now available in Google Docs

Instead of starting from scratch, Google Docs now offers a wide range of document, spreadsheet and presentation templates that you can use to quickly get started on new projects.

Editions impacted:
Standard, Premier, Education, Team and Partner Editions

Languages impacted:
US English

How to access what's new:
Sign in to Google Docs, click 'New' and then click 'From template...' to access the template gallery.

For more information:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/dands.html

Google Calendar adds support for 8 new languages

Google Calendar now supports Google Calendar now supports US English, UK English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Filipino/Tagalog, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Turkish, Hungarian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Latvian, Romanian, Lithuanian, Slovenian and Polish.

Editions impacted:
Standard, Premier, Education, Team and Partner Editions

Languages impacted:
Latvian, Romanian, Filipino/Tagalog, Serbian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Hindi and Indonesian

How to access what's new:
Sign in to Google Calendar, click 'Settings', and select the interface language you prefer.

For more information:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/calendar.html

Google Sites supports custom site URLs

Update: some of you may not see this new feature yet; we are rolling it out over the next week.

Administrators can now map public sites hosted on Google Sites to their own domains. Sites can be mapped individually to a specific URL, like http://www.example.com, and as a group under a specific URL, like http://sites.example.com/[name of site].

Editions impacted:
Standard, Premier and Education Editions

Languages impacted:
US English

How to access what's new:
Sign in to the control panel and choose 'Sites' from the 'Service settings' menu. Click the 'Web address mapping' tab and configure the URL where you want your site to be available.

For more information:
http://sites.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=99448

Google Spreadsheets adds full-sheet gadgets and charts, new functions and number formats, and more

Google Spreadsheets now includes the following enhancements:
– Gadgets and charts can be displayed in full-sheet view
– Numbers can now be displayed in scientific notation format
– New functions to convert information between binary, octal, decimal and hex
– Form improvements including a new scale question type and required questions
– Ability to reassign ownership of a spreadsheet to a different user
– Keyboard shortcuts for today's date (ctrl+;) and time (ctrl+shift+;)

Editions impacted:
Standard, Premier, Education, Team and Partner Edition

Languages impacted:
US English

For more information:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/dands.html

Google Talk available for the iPhone

You can now access Google Talk from the iPhone to instant message with your contacts on the go.

Editions impacted:
Standard, Premier, Education, Team and Partner Editions

Languages impacted:
US English

How to access what's new:
From your iPhone's browser, visit http://talkgadget.google.com/a/example.com/talkgadget/m. Be sure to replace 'example.com' with your actual domain name.

For more information:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/mobile.html