Google

Benefits of Using Own Domain Email on Google Apps Gmail

Your Email ID is a valuable marketing tool for you, and Email ID of your own domain tells that you have an online presence, where people can find you, etc. Its also a tool to promote your company, as you are promoting your domain by that. Your Email ID will promote your domain rather than Gmail or Yahoo. You can even see here why to go for own domain Email ID. ;-) You can have own domain Email ID using your hosting company’s web mail or buy Email space at some hosting company. But according to me, Google Apps Gmail is provides the best own domain email solutions, and above all, its free(Standard package). Below are few of the many reasons why you should use Google Apps Gmail for your Email purposes.

Reliability/Uptime

Our web servers keep experiencing downs and crashes, and it is a pain when you are on a shared server or low-memory VPS. Imagine you were using your hosting company’s web mail, and had to receive an important email that time when your website/server was down. It will simply bounce. By using Google Apps Gmail you overcome this, as when you use Google Apps all the associated data will be stored on Google Data centers which runs your Email services effortlessly and gives 99.9% uptime.

Collaboration

Domain users can share their calendar from any computer, see when people are available, send invitations, manage RSVPs, do real time editing on documents, spreadsheets & presentations. Also access Instant Messaging (IM)(Using Gtalk) from any computer.

Space

If you have a small dedicated or VPS Hosting, then you probably get small amount of hard drive space, and Email particularly takes a lot of space especially if you have many users. Going with Google Apps Email helps here again, as it provides at least 7 GB of storage on Email accounts and this also increases your server’s efficiency as the load is not on your server for the Email services.

Security

Your SMTP server might get flooded with Spam or SQL hacks might steal credentials of your users. You overcome these also because of Google Apps. You can even disable the email server that came with your hosting account, that is the IMAP/POP3 server and the SMTP. This saves memory too.

Conclusion

There are many more reasons for you to go with Google Apps Gmail, but if you need customized Email service for your company, like custom layout and branding on your users mailboxes then Google Apps Gmail might not be a great option as it isn’t really very flexible. If you need to use for personal purposes or branding doesnt matters, then Google Apps it is! Even if you have a huge organization you can still go with Google Apps as they have multiple editions to suit your needs, plus you get all the Google Apps benefits.

Get the new Google in your system

Google1

How to get it

  • Go to http://www.google.com (The international version). If you are unable to change to the international version try out http://www.google.com/ncr
  • Now go to the status bar(Hit F6) remove everything and paste the code written in bottom of the article.
  • Hit enter, You are redirected to your local google once again,  Select the “Go to Google.com” there.
  • Now enjoy the new Google search.

How to remove it

  • For removing it look for the cookie named PREF in google.com starting with “ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb” and delete it.

The code

javascript:void(document.cookie="PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com");

Blogger.com vs WordPress.com

So you must be having a Blog(If NO, Go get one today). Where do you host  it Blogger.com OR WordPress.com. Or if you have your own Hosting space with php and Mysql then for sure WordPress.org. This post will compare Blogger.com with WordPress.com. Also don’t get confused with WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.org is a CMS which you need to host and is the best Blog System currently. I will not be including features which are in both of them OR neither of them.

Feature

Blogger.com

WordPress.com
Customization with themes Yes, You can edit the HTML and CSS No
Import No, Only from another Blogspot Blog Yes, From most of the Blog programs
Static Page No Yes, As much as you want
Analytics/Stats No, But you may install a third party Analytics program Yes, In built and is great
Image Storage 1 GB, Can be browsed through Picasa 3 GB, Can be upgraded
Classification Through applying Labels Through applying Categories and Tags
Contact Forms No, But Third Party contact forms can be installed Yes, Using [contact-form]
Comments Simple, But you can install powerful comments system like Disqus Nice comment system but you can’t install Disqus
Embed Object (Like: Flash) Yes No
RSS Yes, And can be optimized with Feedburner Yes, But No Feedburner optimization
Spam Fighting No Akismet
Change blog URL Yes No
Javascript Yes, You can Add it here No
Google Webmaster Tools Yes, Verify using <meta> tag and Add blog/atom. No

Please See:

  • If you wish to upgrade to WordPress.org soon then go for WordPress.com. As it supports Categories as well as Tags(Which is common in WordPress.com and WordPress.org).
  • If you don’t wish to upgrade to WordPress.org and don’t want to host things then go for Blogger.com
  • Most of people start from platforms like WordPress.com or Blogger.com and move to WordPress.org(It includes me).
  • Also if you are newbie in Blogging go for Blogger.
  • Blogger is also owned by Google which is a 800 pound gorilla in Internet.
  • There is also a http://draft.blogger.com where you can see features if blogger about to come.

My Suggestion: Go for Blogger.com. As it has the biggest advantage that is Flexibility.

Web Analytics

Web analytics is the measurement of the visits to a website to track website performance. Its also the process of collection, measurement and analysis of user activity on a website to understand and help achieve the intended objective of the website. So it is a tool that collects data on web site users behavior.

How can we use it ?

For Web Analytics you just need to Sign Up for a Web Analytics program and then add the essential code given by the Program to your site. Or Install a couple of plugin’s if you are on WordPress.

What programs are available ?

There are many of the programs available for analytics for Websites. I have included few which I like.

Google Analytics

For me its the best as it is owned by 800 pound gorilla of the internet market and the features it provides are very useful. All though it’s not highly advanced or high on features still it has everything which is required for analytics. One can add multiple sites here and most importantly its 100% Free. You just need to add the code to your website for its functioning(Or a plugin if you are on WordPress). Google Analytics can track visitors from all referrers, including search engines, display advertising, pay-per-click networks, email marketing and digital collateral such as links within PDF documents. You may integrate it with Your Adwords account too.

Clicky Web Analytics

Logo

It has all the features of Google Analytics plus many more like giving a Mobile version of your dashboard, Viewing the history for an individual page, Visitor segmentation, Twitter Analytics etc. It’s hugely accpeted. But the drawback is its not Free. Though it has a Free version too but using GA will be the better option then.

Analytics for WordPress using a simple Plugin(WordPress.com Stats)

Its like Google Analytics providing an incredible depth of information. Installing this stats plugin is easy, all you need is to put in your API Key. When running it’ll begin collecting information about your pageviews, popular posts and pages, traffic source, etc. It’ll also add a link to your dashboard. And because all of the processing and collection runs on there servers. it doesn’t cause any additional load on our hosting account.

Google Search Tips

Remember these:

  • Google default is to search for pages that include all of your search keywords .
  • Google excludes common words (a.k.a stop words) like “the” , “He” etc.
  • Google isn’t case sensitive, That is searching for wordpress is the same as WordPress.
  • But Search operators are case sensitive, That is searching for wordpress OR joomla uses OR as the Google search operator, while wordpress or joomla doesn’t.
  • Some operators may be combined, and some must be used alone.

Basic Operators

+

forces words to be included in search results. Useful with stop words that otherwise will be discarded

–

prevents a search term to show in results, for example searching for doughnut -cream can help you to avoid creamy doughnuts

OR

returns documents with one of the given terms, like doughnut OR donut. You can also use | instead of OR: doughnut | donut

” “

using quotes forces google to search for the exact phrase (including stop words), try “doughnut at midnight” and doughnut at midnight (actually, using quotes is similar, but not equals, to doughnut-at-midnight … it would be interesting to know what is the exact difference in SERP)

~

allow to search also for synonyms of the given word. searching for doughnut ~tips finds also pages with the word help or guide etc.

*

means every word. try “doughnuts with *”

..

Used to search in a range of numbers, “2..20 doughnuts” will find pages containing “I eat 3 doughnuts a day” and “I’ll never eat more than 15 doughnuts in a month”

This operators can be combined to create advanced queries, for example “I eat 1..100 doughnut OR doughnuts OR donut OR donuts each *”

Basic Search Operators

The basic Search operators which can be combine with your keywords easily are:

+

Forces words to be included in search results. Convenient with stop words that otherwise will be dumped

–

Prevents a search term to be included in the results, Like: searching for Automobile -cars won’t show the result for Cars in the Automobile search result page

OR

Returns with with one of the given terms, like Joomla OR Drupal. You might also use | instead of OR

” “

It is used to include all of the words given by you in search results, Remember to put the query within the “ ” . I use it to check copy and paste content.

~

Allows to search also for synonyms of the given keyword. like searching for wordpress ~tips finds also pages with the word help or guide etc.

*

Means every word to include(It’s a wildcard character) .

..

Used to search in a range of numbers

The above operators may be combined like, “Is WordPress better than Joomla OR Drupal”

Some more useful operators

define:

Used to return the definition of the given word like “define: guide”

filetype:

Restricts the results returned of a specific File Type. Like “Photoshop Guide filetype:pdf”

site:

Restricts the search results for a given web site only like “Google site:priteshgupta.com”

related:

Returns page that are related to the given page

info:

Gives information about a given site

Google’s Calculator

I use Google as a calculator too, by using standard symbols (+ – * / % ^)

Like: “2+10-5%2” = 11, Google calculates in the manner which is done in programming languages.

You can also make it a scientific calculator using the below terms

sqrt,nth root ofx, sin, cos, arctan, tan…, ln, log, !

Numbers can be entered in hexadecimal, octal and binary base.

PS: There are many more things which you can do it Google but I have included which are useful.

Also see: http://www.google.com/landing/searchtips/

Gmail Facts: Part 1

1. Using Plus sign[+] for Email aliases OR filtering mails in Gmail

Yeah !, We can create infinite number of  Email Aliases in Gmail by adding a plus sign in front of our Gmail address like [email protected] is same as [email protected]. Gmail doesn’t considers the characters after the PLUS sign[+] in an email address but the gmail search filter can distinguish between the different address and we can therefore apply different labels.

2. Gmail doesn’t considers Dot’s(.) in an Email address.

Gmail doesn’t recognizes dots or periods in an email addresses or user names. That is an address like [email protected] is same as [email protected] or [email protected]. Also an email sent to [email protected](Mistaken Address) will be received by [email protected](Real Address).

3. Two separate addresses

When we create a account in Gmail we actually get two Email addresses, One is regular @gmail.com one and another is @googlemail.com one. That means [email protected] is same as [email protected]. We can use these addresses separately with filter’s. Also a mail sent to [email protected] will be received by [email protected]

This post will have it’s sequel when I will find more about Gmail.

Gmail cannot recognize dots or periods in email addresses or the user names – that means an address like [email protected] is the same as [email protected] or paris…[email protected].

Flickr vs Picasa Web Albums

What if your digital camera is full of Pictures and you want to share with friends and relatives, Of course you wont mail them. You will probably like upload it somewhere and share.
There are 2 major 800 pound gorillas for photos sharing in Web. Yahoo’s Flickr and Picasa Web Albums by Google.

Flickr

Flickr is a well known in the photo sharing market and is owned by Yahoo. It has a good interface, it’s polished, works well, and is indeed addictive. But Flickr has some limitations Flickr offers 100 MB of free storage each calendar month but the storage counter is reset every month so you get virtually unlimited space on Flickr without spending a penny. (100 MB is good for storing upto 120 picture of average size). New pictures can be uploaded to Flickr via mobile phones, desktop software, email attachments or through the web-based interface available on Flickr website. Pictures can then be grouped in sets (like “Conference in New York”) as well as tags (like “conference”). You can upgrade to Pro for making the number of photos unlimited for each month but even after you upgrade to Pro, you’ll bump up against more limitations if your JPG files are over 10MB each, which happens quite often when you shoot with a late-model DSLR and upload at full resolution with the intention of printing that photo in a large size. Use Flickr if you want to engage actively within the big and friendly Flickr user community, get comments on your photos, join groups and submit photos to them — in short, partake fully of the social community of photo sharing.

Picasa Web Albums


This is the photo sharing client owned by Web Giant Google, This was made to enable Google Image Organization Software Picasa user’s to share there photos online. One can create private and public albums there and order prints. This is the best option for Photo sharing for a regular person but the storage is limited(Disadvantage over Flickr) it has a 1 GB storage and then Paid storage of 7Gb for $25 a year, You can come over this just by resizing the images rather than uploading the full High Resolution Pics. The default option is to resize only, so that’ll get done automatically. Once you’ve done tell your friends and its done.

Extra Features
For describing the photo, both services let you edit tags and a caption for the image, with Flickr also letting you give each photo a title. Both have a mapping feature letting you set a location for the photo on an interactive map. For the technical data relating to the photo, both services will read and display the EXIF data from a digital camera such as shutter speed, date/time etc. And for viewing a bunch of images, both have a slideshow feature built in. Finally, both services let you specify a name to make a more user friendly URL to give to your friends or family.

Flickr Vs Picasa

Transferring Photos: In Flickr the picture upload thing is very easy but downloading photos from there is difficult, for this you may need to have a 3rd part Flickr App where as in Google’s Picasa Web Albums it comes with an application Picasa. Through Picasa, you can do basic image editing (like crop, rotate, color adjustments, etc) and then upload the edited pictures online. The software can also download photos from the online Picasa albums to your hard-drive without any effort.

Organization: Picasa lets you create as many “albums” as you like to sort your photos into. Flickr lets you have just 3 “sets” to group your photos in, otherwise they all get added to a single “photostream”. For unlimited sets at Flickr you’ll have to go pro.

Storage: Picasa gives you 1GB of storage with the option to buy more (7GB for US$25 per year – shared storage with your Gmail account). Flickr doesn’t state a storage limit, instead they have an upload limit of 100MB per month and limit your “photostream” to the 200 most recent images. The “pro” option at Flickr which will give you unlimited uploads, storage, bandwidth and more.

Cost: Both Flickr and Picasa offer a free service initially, but with limitations on the service at Flickr And a word of warning here, Flickr’s FAQ states “if your free account is inactive for 90 consecutive days, it will be deleted”. Picasa is better here. You can upgrade to Flickr Pro for $25 and upgarde you 1GB to 7GB in Picasa for $25 a year.

Using Google services for a Website/blog

Google provides number of services/products to promote your blog or website on the Internet, the good thing about these services are that most of them are free for a very low price. These services are very helpful in various things. And all of its services works great for all types of blogs and websites.

Most of the services have a main focus for improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from Google Search engine via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results(viz. SEO).

Here is the list of Google Services for a Website/Blog :
In the order of their importance

  • Google Adsense:Offers a contextual advertising solution to web publishers Delivers text-based Google AdWords ads that are relevant to site content pages. Its great for earning huge bucks and trustworthy too(Because its Google).

  • Feedburner:Allows blog owners and podcasters the ability to manage their RSS feeds and track usage of their subscribers. The best advantage is it converts a RSS feed to a Email newsletter by “Subscribe via Email” thing.
  • Google Webmaster tools:Google Webmaster Tools provides you with detailed reports about your pages’ visibility on Google. One just need to verify the site and add Sitemaps.
  • Google Analytics:Google Analytics makes it easy to improve your results online. Write better ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives.

  • Google Apps:
    Google Apps provide with Google Mail, Google Docs, Google Video and Google Sites complement traditional office software to make teamwork easier. The best thing is it provides with a Email ID of your Domain just by adding MX data into your domain (Eg: [email protected]).
  • Google Friend Connect:
    Grow traffic by easily adding social features to your website. Google Friend Connect means more people engaging more deeply with your website.
  • Google Custom Search:
    Have a website or collection of sites you’d like to search over? With Custom Search Engine, you can harness the power of Google to create a search engine for your very own site.

3 top sites which I use the most

Google

Google is the best and the most popular Search Engine at net, Even though Google.com is ranked 2nd in traffic terms but its superior Indexing provides with a Search result which is worth. Google helps everyone to find a useful resource, When Google Inc(By the name Backrub search) started in 1998 it main aim was to give all information to everyone available on the net and it was soon succeeded in it. But sometimes it may give rubbish if the thing(Site) you are looking is not a popular one as It goes on for a site depending upon its Page Rank. Google helps everyone, Google Indexing also gives and many more illegal things like hacking(This is not an advantage). It generates its income from mainly Google Adsense and its e-mail services. At the date Google Adsense is the best and highest paying Ads program. But company main focus is on Search Engine. Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University.

It helps to search me anything I need that is anything which I require to work upon with like using Google for my Holiday Homework, Things l need to learn for writing and many more stuff. Its a wholesome web directory.

Facebook

Facebook is the social networking which is currently receiving the most Traffic Rank as compared to any other social networking site. It has a Good User interface and GUI and a User Functionality. Earlier I was pro-Orkut types, But now I am a typical Facebook user. Facebook has started in 4 February 2004(Very Young), as for connecting people within Harvard University, But it grew like anything and I is now accepting people of Age over 13. Overall Facebook is the best Social Networking Site I found on the Web 2.0.

Many of my friends are there In facebook so it helps a great extent in interaction(Chatting,Pics Sharing and stuff) and the great good feature is that it has a ‘Status Message’ thing and inbuilt Chatting and a various number of applications(But some are really useful [Like Twitter]). I have added a Twitter Applications in My facebook account whic automaticly changes the Status message of Facbook to that which is in Twitter.

Twitter

Twitter is a micro blogging service started in 2006. Through Twitter people communicate to outer world and express their concerns. Twitter is a free social networking site, Thus generating no Revenue. People regularly update their twitter accounts by giving new status message which is also know as Tweets. The Updates are shown in the User Profile and displayed to those who are following that User. Twitter had by one measure over 3 million accounts and by another, well over 5 million visitors in September 2008 which was a fivefold increase in a month.

I use twitter for sharing my Status updates , Some times giving the links of my new post’s and The good thing is in facebook by adding a Twitter application we are automatically able to convert a Tweet into a Facebook status message.Like- During Exams I use it to tell my people which is the next Exam going to have and how was my last exam. Twitter Rocks ! There are also some 3rd Party Apps available for twitting.