Per http://crad.tumblr.com/post/73308257/gdata-python-client-mappings, I don’t know how I would have known if I hadn’t run across that post. Working with a user_entry object, you access and change the family name using user.name.family_name (even though the xml has familyName), e.g.
user_entry = service.RetrieveUser(username)
print "user entry: " + user_entry.name.family_name
Just for the record, presented at this Chronicle conference as part of a panel on Google Apps. Got a Google watch and Google netbook case out of it 
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Just had to unpublish something. My Google “juice” is evidently still enough that my (not quite neutral enough) comment on a project of ours turned up as the second result on searching Google for that project name.
Real innovation from The Guardian with a positive response all round (via OLDaily).
We are looking for an Oracle DBA.
Really enjoying reading the latest Journal of Footballing History.
It seems to me that a fairly well-hidden feature of Google Apps is that you can map a Google Site to a “regular” url, like www.example.com.
In essence this means that if you get all the features that you want with a Google site and the other integrated services (email, calendar, docs, etc), then you can use Google for all your hosting needs. Obviously if you want Wordpress or some custom component, it’s not going to meet your needs, but it will work for a lot of people, and it’s free (and obviously very reliable). It’s also got excellent documentation, ease of use and in the long-term a web site design contractor doesn’t have to worry so much about those endless requests for support or upgrades.
I’ve just more or less finished setting a friend’s business up like this and they couldn’t be happier. It’s a site for a rehabilitation service for pets.
Virginia Tech has a Learning Management System RFP that could apply to any institution in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Jus’ sayin’ that’s all 
I’ve written about Google Apps before and they have continued to expand and improve the service.
This weekend I’m in charge of moving 300,000+ users from our internal email system to Google Apps for Education. Fundamentally, I suppose, I’m in charge of the whole project. I’m excited about it because of the fantastic expansion of services it offers our students, faculty and staff. At the same time, it’s another high profile project, so the risks are magnified should something go wrong. Go Live is tomorrow morning first thing.
We’re not only creating the accounts, but have to get single sign-on (via SAML) right, account synchronization, and we are also migrating all the students’ old email via IMAP from the old system. That’s what is taking the big chunk of time right now. It’s sufficiently big enough that I’m getting some server errors on our migration history page, so although I feel pretty confident that things are going okay, I don’t actually know for sure.
Is it just me? I am really enjoying The Middle Man. Seems to me that they come up with the most preposterous conclusion, e.g. trout-crazed model zombies infected by an evil villain using Brazilian Flying Pike venom and work out the smartest, funniest way to get there.