I have been using google apps for some time, and only recently learned I have what google calls "conflicting accounts" which is creating a problem I haven't been able to resolve.

Turns out that the apps account really only covers email, google docs, and the calendar and not other features like picasa, blogger, youtube etc. and at some point they gave me a non-apps google account with my same (proprietary non-gmail) email address for the additional apps. This is the "conflicting account."

I had noticed that I sometimes had to come in through another door when I went back and forth, between docs, picasa, and mail let's say, but never understood why since it was the same username and password and I didn't get any communication about it at the time.

Google is now in the process of giving google apps users access to the additional apps and providing instructions for consolidating the two accounts.

But if I want to move my picasa site into the new apps structure I have to download my albums and re-synch them. This would be disastrous for me as I have hundreds of photos embedded in my websites, and new web addresses would break all the connections.

The alternative seems to be to rename my "personal" (non-apps) accounts as described at http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=185186:

Users with conflicting Google Accounts can easily resolve their conflicts by renaming their personal Google Accounts, and the data in their personal accounts will remain safe and accessible to them. Here’s how a user can rename their personal Google Account: * Step 1: Visit www.google.com/accounts and sign in with your personal Google Account * Step 2: Click ‘Change email’ under ‘Personal Settings’ * Step 3: Enter a different email address where you can receive mail, enter your password, and click ‘Save email address’ * Step 4: Check your other email

If your users don’t have different email addresses where they can receive mail, they can resolve the conflict by renaming their personal Google Accounts to @gmail.com addresses instead.

Sounds easy enough, right? I gave them a gmail address. The wizard said "sorry you can't use a gmail account for this" --which contradicts the last paragraph above but ok, I switched to a new email address I just created for one of my domains. I can send email back and forth between this account and my google apps account with no problem. But when I try to use it as a replacement on the "personal" side I always get "The password you gave is incorrect."

I have tried it over and over and know the password is correct.

Since I like to get all my emails though one web interface I initially had the new email set up as an add-on to my google apps email account, but noting that the instructions said the "personal account" email could not be associated with any other gmail account I took it off and went back to accessing it via horde so there would be no conflict there, which seemed to make no difference.

I can't figure out why it won't accept the password. Does anyone have any thoughts about that? or suggestions for another way to resolve my picasa problem? any help at all is greatly appreciated.

Lee