• 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 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!