Update: After I published this post, Google added very strong language to that form insisting that transfers to GApps accounts are NOT SUPPORTED (caps theirs). I'm not sure why it worked for Dustin and myself. Your mileage may vary.

Even though this request form says it doesn't work for Google Apps accounts, I can confirm that Google is transferring Google Voice from regular Google accounts to Google Apps accounts right now. Thanks to a comment by reader Dustin Boston, I gave it a try this afternoon and within the hour, my Google Voice number, texts, and voicemail was ported to my Google Apps account. If you try this, a couple of things to know:

• You'll have to enter your 4-digit PIN into the request form. I forgot mine, had to reset it, got it wrong the first time, got a message saying so, reset it again, and then all worked. Write down your PIN. It's only 4 digits.
• You'll have to re-record your Google Voice name and greeting(s). They don't get ported.
• I maintain an Apps contact list, so this didn't really affect me, but Dustin recommends exporting your Google account contacts before the transfer so you can import them into your Voice account.

Here's the form to request the transfer [removed]. Even though it does say it doesn't work for Google Apps accounts, it did work for Dustin and myself.

The electronic version of the book is now available as both a PDF and an ePub file; you'll get both when you buy the paperback. We're also happy to announce that The Complete Guide to Google Wave is now officially available in the Kindle store, no awkward PDF-to-Kindle conversions required.

Best of all, thanks to a partnership with a local charity, when you buy a copy of the paperback book, you're helping to employ developmentally disabled adults here in San Diego. Meet the folks who will fulfill your order when you buy the book, thanks to NBC San Diego:

PWI is a fantastic organization and we're so happy to partner with them in this indie publishing venture. Thanks so much for supporting me, Adam, and the great folks at PWI when you buy a copy of the book.

The Complete Guide to Google Wave

On this week's episode of TWiG, Leo, Jeff, and I were hoping aloud that there would be some way to merge existing Google/Apps accounts into one. It doesn't look like that will be possible. However, if you have a Google account that "conflicts" with your Apps account because you've assigned the same email address to both, GOOG will resolve the conflict by adding a +personal to your regular account's sign-in address. Stay with me here.

Here's what that means. If you have a Google account for sue@example.com as well as a Google Apps account for sue@example.com, after the transition you'll still be able to sign into your Google account using sue+personal@example.com. It's a bit confusing, and a little more work than the one-click account merge we'd hoped for. However, thanks in large part to Google's internal Data Liberation Front, many of Google's tools offer data export features. So, while it'll take some time, it shouldn't be difficult to export your data from your Google account and import it into your Google Apps account after this transition is done.

The only product I'm worried about? Google Voice. Since it's got my primary phone number associated with it, transitioning it from my Google account to my Google Apps account won't be a simple data export/import operation. I hope I'll be able to port my Voice number from my original account to my Google Apps account when all this goes down. No word on when exactly that will be, but the fact that it's in Trusted Tester phase means "pretty dang soon."

Update: Hooray!! You can currently request to port your Google Voice account to another Google account (though not a Google Apps account--yet?) Thanks, programzeta!

About the conversion: A visualization on what's changing [Google Accounts Help]

This wave will also appear on Lifehacker and at Fast Company, which means we're a simultaneously live-writing on (at least) three web sites at the same time--a first in my web-writing career. If that idea doesn't blow your blogger brain to bits just a little bit, you're dead inside. Enjoy the keynote!

To restrict access to a wave to a particular group, you'll need a Google Group. The ThinkTank developer community mailing list is already a Google Group, so we were all set. Grab the group's email address, and add it to your contacts in Wave. Then, add the group as a participant to a new wave to give all mailing list members edit access to the wave. To make the group wave available for anyone to read, you've got to have your Google Group set up correctly. In your group's settings area, in the Access tab, make sure "Anyone can view group content" is checked, as shown here.

Next, schedule your office hours. I hold ours at 9AM Pacific time on Wednesday mornings, for about 90 minutes. When it's time for office hours--or you just want to find all the group waves--search for group:yourgroupsemailaddress@googlegroups.com. (To see all the ThinkTank office hours transcripts, search for group:thinktankapp@googlegroups.com in Wave.)

While your chat is happening, or after the fact, you can give the whole world access by embedding it on a web page, using the new Wave web element. Here's last Wednesday's ThinkTank office hours wave.

The advantage of using Wave over straight group chat or IRC is that several conversational branches can happen simultaneously in the same workspace. While Chris and Mark discussed the transition to PDO in one thread, Bill and I discussed MVC frameworks in another--and it was easy to hop back and forth between them, because Wave supports inline threads.

In my experience, a wave that's limited to a small group with a specific purpose--like developers discussing a project--is WAY more productive and useful than a public wave that anyone can add to. Those, inevitably, always lead to all-out anarchy, unless the moderator is willing to do aggressive, long-term gardening. To me, Wave's best use is small groups working on specific projects, and weekly office hours is one really good way for remote teams to touch base about any number of topics in a single place.

Google Wave isn't dead; in fact, tons of minor-but-important features have rolled out even since Adam and I published the first edition of The Complete Guide to Google Wave two months ago. (Here's the changelog.) The fact that Google I/O sessions next week will be waved indicates a strong commitment to Wave from Google in general. For more on what's been going on with Wave, check out my post about it at Fast Company, How Google Wave Got Its Groove Back.

My Spokeo search results were mixed in the accuracy department. It listed a few old home addresses of mine, but not my current one; it also missed the mark on a few other details, like saying my occupation is "retired" and misidentifying my spouse's ethnicity.

Creepy people search engines aren't new. Back in 2005, ZabaSearch was the tool of choice for stalkers. There's also Pipl, Wink, ZoomInfo, and hell, Facebook and Google. But if you don't like the idea of people finding out how much your house is worth on Spokeo, just click on the Privacy link at the bottom of a page of Spokeo search results to request that the engine remove your listing. You will have to enter an email address to do so. How accurate are Spokeo results for your name?