The winners are

• Annkur
• Divya Chakravarthy
• Sharon Dev

You can click on their names to see the sites they recommended…

Some of the entries which came close to win were

• Kenroy Rodricks
• vikranth
• paresh
• Narayan
• Satish

Congratulations! I will be sending you emails shortly. You can also contact me incase you dont get my mail in a day [kunals75@gmail.com] or leave a comment.

For all the other people who did comment can use this code “ink20” and get Rs 100 off!

Cheers!

Manan writes the first Guest Post on my blog.  Manan is an engineering student who enjoys blogging. Spends majority of his time on the internet following tech blogs & tweeting. A fan of Microsoft & someone who hates Linux. He blogs at http://beingmanan.com

Many blogs, many feeds. It becomes difficult to filter & follow. So was the idea behind me setting up website dedicated to Microsoft, the idea was simple – an aggregator & self posted content. Searched on the net for plugins for WordPress failing to find anything that would suit me I came across Drupal which had the “module” for feed aggregation. Having heard about Drupal in the past I decided to set it up & the rest is a painful history.

The pinch was felt quick, the admin mode is a maze. It requires a good amount of time to be spent in order to remember what is where. The jargon doesn’t make sense. For example tags, the world knows what they mean & their function but in Drupal they have “taxonomy” that’s used for categorization & tags. Upon realizing what “taxonomy” actually is begins the next challenge, that being of setting it up. Good luck with that. Make sure to do it right ‘coz you will have to push the limits of ease-of-use to edit them.

In between of setting up my site, figuring my way through taxonomy & pulling my hair off, Drupal released an update. Now being a WordPress user I thought there would be an easy way to do it considering this is a CMS where the amount of information can be enormous. But, to my surprise updating Drupal is something that will make you take the risk on not updating it at all! There is no easy way of upgrading Drupal it’s the highway or the highway. Yes, you got that right.

Let’s talk about the community around Drupal. One word, unhelpful. The plugin community of Drupal does not respond to queries, they don’t release updates to plugins. The plugins will be alpha for months with the final release no where in sight. Updating plugins too is again like updating Drupal. Avoid as long as possible.

Let’s talk about adding content. Initially when I saw that Drupal has classifications like Book, Page, Blog etc. I liked it only to realize that when I go into actually writing an article there is no Rich Text Editor! It’s all HTML. How friggin’ stupid is that?! Insult to injury none of the plugins to add RTE work properly. None. Zero. Nil.

The amazing Windows Live Writer also can’t be used post to Drupal. A module that exists only allows you to create blog posts & not any other type of content that Drupa supports.

Lack of a RTE, weird Taxonomy, adding content requires me to go to the site every time & the fact that updating it is a complete PITA Drupal makes for a horrible choice. Simply put the problem with Drupal is that it’s too rigid for pro-web-devs & too un-usable for enthusiasts/casual users.

If you have a grudge against someone or want to see someone suffer hire them to manage your Drupal site. Personally, I’d say please forgive them. They are human too.

For those who don’t know which country these domains belong to…

.ly is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Libya. Wiki link

.li is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Liechtenstein. Wiki Link

My hunt for a registrar started. I usually register domains with Indialinks or GoDaddy but none of these registered a .li domain. I asked aalaap and also did a google search and found a couple of sites like

• Netim
• Webnic
• 101domain
• EuropeRegistry
• Marcaria
• Domainr
• AfricanRegistry

Switch - Official Registrar for .li and .ch Domains

The prices on all these sites varied from 16 USD at Netim to 100USD at 101domains. Luckily on the wiki page for .li Switch was mentioned as the official registrar… I was surprised that the price was not as high i had expected.

They had two options Switch Basic for 17CHF [15USD] and Switch Guard for 34CHF [30USD]. In 10 minutes i was able to register the domain and pay for it.

One thing which i would have liked was registering for multiple years. At the moment i noticed that max you could register was for 2 years on some sites.

Anyways it took me a couple of days but i think i got a good domain at a fantastic price!

Some previous related articles

Domain name Woes & some Fantastic prefix/suffix!

How-To Kick Start your own website

To calculate price in your currency head here Price Converter

Cheers!

Whenever someone visits your website, Apache (web server) sends the html, CSS, JavaScripts to the browser uncompressed. If you are running a successful website and get a lot of traffic and have to pay for Bandwidth, gZipping your data before sending it to the browser would be a good option.

Using mod_gzip compression which is an Apache web server module, or one of the other methods of gzip, your server will only send out gzipped content All the new browsers currently in use support gzip. Incase an old browser which doesnt support gZip makes a request, uncompressed HTML will be served.

gZip will work on the following file types: HTML, JS, CSS, JSON, XML

Some advantages of Zipping your data

• gZip can reduce file sizes by roughly 60%-70%
• You can save on Bandwidth cost
• Increase in overall performance of your website
• Better User Experience as the site will load faster
• User will save on bandwidth cost too

To check if your site is sending gZipped content or not, use these links

http://whatsmyip.org/mod_gzip_test/

http://www.gidnetwork.com/tools/gzip-test.php

If your server is not sending gZipped data then you can write to your server/hosting company and ask them to enable mod_gzip on the server. You can also tell them the advantages of doing the same. Dreamhost/Mediatemple already has this module enabled. If you are running your own server please ask the system administrator to enable it for you.

More tips coming up soon.

Cheers

Thanks a ton everyone for commenting and spreading the word! I liked a couple of comments and the winners are:

• Praval Singh

• Viral Sachde

• Satish

I am going to mail you the Coupon which is valid till Nov 19th 2008.

Winners if you are not going to use the coupon do let me know I can pass it to someone else.

Good news is that everyone else gets 20% Discount at Pringoo!

You will have to use the code “PRING52KNL“. It will expire on Nov 21st 2008, starting from Nov 18th 2008.

If you guys thought that this offer was good… Wait for a couple of more days for another kickass offer coming just for you!

Thanks to Sathya for retweeting about the contest a couple of times!

Cheers!

To show my appreciation to all the readers of this blog i bring this special offer along with Pringoo!

I have with me 3 coupons from Pringoo which will entitle you 50% Discount.

To win one of these coupons all you have to do is Comment on this post and refer it to your friends too. Your friends will have to put your name as referrer in the comment.

So what are you going to comment about?

1) Best Caption for a Tshirt Or

2) I love this blog because… Or

3) Just comment on anything

The coupons are valid till Nov 19th 2008. So i will accept all entries till Nov 16th 2008.

Please put in your correct email address as thats where I will email you your Coupon.

Cheers!

ps: A special thanks to Jai Kumar – Cofounder @ Pringoo.

Once you get the domain and decided where you going to host, Its time to get your hands dirty with all the softwares you want to install for your website. It could be as simple as WordPress or a combination of softwares like a CMS+Photogallery.

Most of the hosting companies have either Fantastico or their own 1click software packages which makes life super simple for novice users to install bunch of software’s at a click on a button. Incase you don’t have that option with your hosting company and want to install open source software just download it from the respective site, upload it to your server and install (mite not be as easy at times )

A quick low down on all free opensource software available on the net to get kickstarted with your website. [All these softwares will work on a Linux Server]

Content Management System

When you have a lot of content+need for polls+forums+photo galleries all in one you go for a CMS.

Mambo
Drupal
Joomla

Blogs

When you want to express your thoughts as simple posts. But the blogging engines have become very powerful and have lot of features which a CMS has like polls+photo galleries+events+…

WordPress
b2evolution

Photo Galleries

If you need to show case your portfolio or just want to upload your wedding album on your own domain… Yes there are free services like flickr+picassa available where you can upload. But having your own Photo Gallery installed will give you more freedom to customise it what you want.

Gallery
4images
Coppermine

Ad Server

If you have a website which is popular enough for people to come to you to display their banners you would need an Ad server which will take care of serving the Ad + track the number of clicks/views, allow you to schedule the ads and many other things…

OpenX

Forums

Forums are open discussion boards where related topics are categorised. People can engage in discussion by posting messages on relevant topics and replying to messages already posted.

Phpbb
SMF

Digg Clones

They are content management systems in a unique way that encourages users to participate and control the content on the site.

Pligg

Social Network

So you want to start your own orkut or facebook you can do so in a couple of hours using one of the freely available software…

PHP Izabi

Shopping Cart

If you have some goods to sell and need a quick online shopping cart. Most of the shopping cart come with ready to use modules which are plugged in to some of the popular Payment Gateways (Paypal)

Zen Cart
OsCommerce

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions… Simple management tool to maintain FAQ’s for a particular website

FAQMasterFlex

Polls and Surveys

Usefull when you need to conduct surveys/polls.

Advanced Poll
phpESP
PHPSurveyor

Mailing List

If you want to send the same mail to 100000 of people at the same time and on a regular basis, use a mailing list program where you can templatise your mail and have a single repository for emails

PHPlist

Guestbook

No one really uses them any more… I am wondering why i have it here

ViPER

Wiki

A wiki is a type of website that allows the visitors to add, remove, and sometimes edit the available content

PhpWiki
Tiki Wiki

Project Management

Now if you have a team working on a project and you want to keep a tab on whose doing what and how much time its taking go for one of the PM tools… There are some online services also available which do the same task…

PHProjekt
dotProject

Other Scripts

Moodle

• Moodle is a course management system designed to help educators create quality online courses

Noah’s Classifieds

• Run your own Classified ads website!

PHPauction

• Host your own auctions site!

You have Google Analytics, SiteMeter to monitor your traffic. They will tell you how many people visited the website, from where, how much time they spent and so on.

You can use Google Adsense, AdBrite which will provide you with banners which can earn you some revenue.

Each of the software mentioned above have an Admin interface to control the content flowing to the website. Also some of these software’s have tons of plugins most of them are free and can add a lot of value to the host software.

As you can see there is a hell lot one can do using these free Open Source Softwares…

If there is some Open Source Software you are using and think it will be useful to be listed here do comment about it or drop me a line.

Cheers!

• Domain Name

  Do you know what you want your website to be called? Figure it out first and then check if that name is present or not. Most of the domains are gone so it mite take a while before you finalize the domain name you want.Go for a .COM domain if not then a .IN but choice is your there are lot of exotic domain extensions available like .ME, .Asia, .CH and so on for every country in this world.

  It would cost any where between 10USD for a .COM to 15USD for a .IN to 100+USD for the exotic domain extensions.

  You can register your domains at  one of the million websites offering you the service but i prefer indialinks or godaddy or yahoo domains.

  To know about all the top level extensions available Click here or here

• Hosting

  Once you register a domain name comes the task of giving it a home or host it on one of the millions of websites which offer these services. Again every hosting company will also allow you to buy your domain and most of the times for FREE if you host it with them.

  You have two types of hosting Windows Server and Linux Server. You will have to go for Linux which is cheap (since linux servers have all open source software where as Windows servers need all licensed software)

  Hosting can cost you from 6USD/Month to NNNUSD/Month. Every hosting company has a return money back policy if you are not satisfied.

Once  you are done with buying your Domain name and hosting it you are good to go!

One piece of advice host your mail@domain with Google. Its free, gives you 6GB space, its fantastic and has the same GMail interface. [Click here]

Some companies which offer the above services

• Indialinks
• GoDaddy
• MediaTemple

Have i missed anything here? If you are using any hosting service and happy with it Please comment about it along with the link. Thanks

Click here for all the free Open Source Software for your website.

Cheers!

I been planning to get some Tshirts printed with stuff for a while now but been skeptical if the site providing the service will be able to do a good job.  So i been asking around for the indian websites which print on tshirts. Listed are a few of them…

http://www.inkfruit.com/
Price range: Flat Price Rs 349/-
Sadly you cant upload your pictures and get them printed. Have to choose from the designs which have won the competition.
Customer Service was prompt and 24/7.

http://www.itasveer.com/
Price range: Starts from Rs399 + VAT/CST
Woa if you to pay Rs 150 extra for additional black print.
Site has a page where all the pricing info are mentioned including shipping cost.
Customer service via Email only.

http://www.myntra.com
Price range: Starts from Rs99-Rs 499 + VAT/CST
Customer Service was prompt and 24/7.

http://www.pringoo.com/
Price range: Starts from Rs 399 (VAT/CST included)
Customer Service is not 24/7.
Free Shipping if ordered by registered post.

http://www.picsquare.com/
Price range: Flat Price Rs 399/- (VAT/CST included)
Site has a page where all the pricing info are mentioned. Can track your order online!
Customer Service is not 24/7.

http://www.xtees.com/
Price range: Starts from Rs 299 + VAT/CST
Extremely messy website.

http://www.zoomin.com
Price range: Starts fromRs 350
Shipping flat Rs 25.

http://www.dilsebol.com/
Price range: Starts from Rs 299 + VAT/CST
Customer Service is not 24/7.

All these sites allow you to upload pictures. Apart from tshirts the sites also allow you to print on mugs/calendars/mousepads/coasters/plates/keychains…

File upload formats: .JPG, .JPEG or .PNG

All websites accept credit cards and some also have COD (Cash on Delivery) facility.

Shipping is EXTRA! Starts from Rs 30 to Rs 50. But for COD charges are extra.

All the sites give Discount on Bulk orders. But figured that it would be still cheaper to go to one of the local guys if you have a need for a large number.

But these sites makes sense if you want one or a few tshirts to be custom printed.

What surprised me the most was the Customer Service of some of the sites was prompt! and they replied on a Sunday! impressed…

Feedback for these sites:

• Have a Pricing page upfront and mention all the Taxes + Shipping Costs. Its irritating to know about these prices when i have almost bought the item and at the last stage you tell me about it.
• Mention the Customer Service number/email Upfront too.

I am going to write to all these sites if they have anything to add… Lets see how many of them reply back

Would love to know if any of you have used any of these services and what your experience has been.

Cheers!

I have a domain www.247ithub.com hosted with XYZ Hosting company for donkey years now. I have one active pop account [kunal-old@247ithub.com] there which has close to 3000 mails!

Problem

I want to move my site from XYZ Hosting company to Dreamhost where i hold an account. Now thats simple download all files from XYZ Hosting company and upload it on Dreamhost. But What about my mails! I am planning to use the GMail hosted mail for my domain.

Solution

My first task was to find a good IMAP client. Asked around a bit and settled on Thunderbird. Why IMAP Client? Well it will allow you to drag and drop mails from one account to another and GMail supports IMAP!

I created an account to connect to my POP account [kunal-old@247ithub.com] and downloaded all mails. To be on the safer side i left a copy of all mails on the server.

I went to my control Panel in Dreamhost and added my domain there and also choose for the GMail hosted domain for the same.

I already have another domain on Dreamhost where i am using GMail. I created a temporary account there. Activated my IMAP for that account. [kunal-temp@someotherdomain.com]

I went back to Thunderbird and configured this new IMAP account [kunal-temp@someotherdomain.com]. Now i had two accounts in Thunderbird 1) POP account [kunal-old@247ithubcom] where i had downloaded my 3000 mails and another empty temporary IMAP account [kunal-temp@someotherdomain.com].

I Copied all my mails from my POP account [kunal-old@247ithubcom] to this new IMAP account [kunal-temp@someotherdomain.com]. Its simple Select all mails Right click->Copy to (or Move to) Target folder which will show you your new IMAP folders. Or you can Drag and Drop the mails also.

I went to Indialinks and changed my DNS to point to Dreamhost. Once it got changed I went and created my new email accounts on GMail [kunal-new@247ithubcom].

Now all i had to do was Create one more IMAP account [kunal-new@247ithubcom] in Thunderbird and Copy all the mails from my IMAP temporary account [kunal-temp@someotherdomain.com] to this new one [kunal-new@247ithubcom] and viola i was good to go!

Now i know that if you dont have any where to create a temporary account you can directly copy the mails [kunal-old@247ithubcom] in Thunderbird to this new IMAP [kunal-new@247ithubcom]

Synopsis

• Get Thunderbird [click to download]
• Configure and download POP mail from current server
• Change Name servers to point to New server
• Activate GMail hosted Domains [Clich to Activate GMail for your domain]
• Create your Email and Enable IMAP [settings-Forwarding and POP/IMAP]
• Configure Thunderbird for this new Email account
• Drag and Drop Mails from the POP Account in Thunderbird to the New IMAP account.
• Its Done. Login to Gmail and all your mails are there.

I hope you find this helpful. Took me a while to figure out.

Cheers!