How to use Google Docs to convert files in old office format

Now you can download Google Docs in new office format like docx. For some reason Google has discontinued support of old MS Office doc format in “download as” menu. However, if you want to convert Google docs to old office format like .doc, you can use “email as an attachment”. You would have to choose “attach as” for proper application.

If it is doc you should choose “attach as”, “Microsoft Word”. In mail the file that will arrive would be in old doc format.

Post Facebook update on Twitter

There are plenty of Apps which can post your twitter update to Facebook. I am avid Facebook user and I don’t want that, instead I want my Facebook message to be posted on twitter. Facebook new feature has made it easy.

 

1. Go to your “account setting” on Facebook.

2. Now go to “subscribers”

 

3.  At the bottom you would find Twitter – Connect a twitter account. Click “Edit”

A button will appear “Link profile to twitter”. Click on that

4. A twitter page will appear “ Authorize Facebook to use your twitter account”

5. You would be redirected to a page with message your Facebook Profile is now linked with twitter.Additionally you may choose what you want to appear on Twitter and save it.

 

Happy twitting via Facebook.

What is a Domain Name ?

[Disclaimer : The article doesn't deal into technical part of domain name, but an overview for people who wants to know more about domain names. It will be also an introduction, if you are looking to invest in domain names.]

You are reading this on internet, you visit different websites everyday. Almost, all the time you use domain names. Surprised? So, what you do when you want to search something on internet? Most likely you visit some search engine like Google, by typing http://www.google.com in your internet browser’s address bar. right?

Now, let’s analyze what you did just did to search on Google.  You typed http://www.google.com . This is a web address, also known as URL (Uniform Resource Locator).

Let’s analyze this URL from right to left, com is Top Level Domain Name, google is Second Level Domain Name, www is Third Level Domain Name, in this context also a hostname.Each level of domain name is separated by dot (.).Each level of domain can have theoretically, infinite number of sub-domains and infinite level of subdomains.These top level domains (TLDs) are categorized as gTLD (Global TLD) or ccTLD (Country Code TLD). Global TLD are those which is directly contracted by ICANN and anyone in world can register a domain name under most of gTLD.ccTLD rights are delegated to respective countries. It’s possible the country in turn can put restriction or about availability for it , to be registered by someone from other geographical area.

Global Top Level Domains(gTLD) - .com,.net,.org,.info,.biz etc Less than 20 gTLD  more than 20 gTlds exists. (Thanks to Samit http://twitter.com/mwzd for correction)

Country code Top Level Domain - .in,.de,.us,.be etc – More than 200 ccTLD exists.

Entities

• ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non profit organization who are responsible to manage Top Level domain(TLD) name space (DNS root zone).
• Top level domain name Registry – ICANN appointed body (mostly contracted) for Top Level Domains that manages and maintains domain registration data for respective Top Level Domains (TLD).
• Domain Name Registrar – As per WikiPedia A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity, accredited by a generic top-level domain registry (gTLD) and/or by a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry, to manage the reservation of Internet domain names in accordance with the guidelines of the designated domain name registries and to offer such services to the public.

Keyword-Extension Model for explaining registration of domain name

All gTLD domain names can be registered at Second Level domain name like Google.com, att.net,wikipedia.org etc (Here, Google, att and wikipedia are keywords and .com,.net,.org are extensions). However,some ccTLD registry allow registration at third level domain instead of second level domains. Like UK allows registration like google.co.uk, example.co.uk (Here google and example are keywords while .co.uk is extension, which is in turn second level domain ). A few countries allow registration at second level domain and third level domain at the same time. Like Indian extension .in, you can see domains like ebay.in and google.co.in. Although ebay is second level domain and google is third level domain in this example, for domaining term one can say ebay and gooogle are keywords while .in and .co.in are extensions.

Why Domain Names

You would be surprised to know that internet data does not travels based on domain names but numerical representation of it, called IP Address. Format of a typical IP address  8.8.8.8. When you request a page using URL, Domain name is resolved by DNS server to an IP address.As you can think of, remembering something with IP address would be not easy. That is the reason domain names were invented.Its very easy to remember Insurance.com, Business.com etc, but it would be difficult to remember  http://70.42.23.110 or  http://199.102.249.25 There are other technical aspect as well about co-relation of domain name and IP address, but easier recall value of Domain Names over IP address is prime reason why domain names exists.

What you get when you decide to register a domain name

You may register an available domain between 1 to 10 years for most of the extension. What you get is exclusive rights to use the domain name for period of registration and renewal date. You can sale this right to other person or entity by transferring the exclusive right to use the domain name. The domain which are already registered and sold to other entity as new “owner” is known as buying or selling in secondary market. Secondary market is also sometime called as “aftermarket”.

If you are looking for detail about the topics of Domain Name and URL, you may visit following links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_registrar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_resource_locator

Hope, you got pretty good idea about “what is a domain name”. Please post your comments and questions using comment section of this post.Happy Domaining!!

Bye-Bye to Google Adsense For Domains

I am not a huge fan of Google Adsense for domains, I had parked couple of names for testing purpose and they were not doing it better than other parking companies. In fact, stats were worse that Sedo or Bodis. I thought they never wanted to compete with parking companies, may be the parking revenue for Google is small compared to their total revenue. Also, it was sort of conflict of interest with partner parking companies. Today, I received communication from Google that they are shutting down, business of Adsense for domains, directly. They will continue to do so, through partner companies. Couple of months back Google banned most my parked domains from their network. Not sure how to interpret this development, in that sense.

This is what I received

SUB : Retiring AdSense for Domains in your account

Hi,

We’re contacting you because you’re using AdSense for Domains to monetize your undeveloped domains. After evaluating the benefits of our partner network, we’ve decided to retire the Hosted domains product within AdSense. Going forward, undeveloped domains will only be served through our existing AdSense for Domains distribution network.

Our records show that 9 of your Hosted domains will be affected by this upcoming change, which will follow the schedule below:

• March 21: You’ll no longer be able to create new Hosted domains
• April 18: Hosted domains will become inactive and it’ll no longer be possible to earn from them
• June 27: Hosted domains will no longer be available in AdSense accounts

To continue monetizing your undeveloped domains, you can migrate your domain portfolio to any domain parking provider. Find out how in our Migration Guide:

Please note that this upcoming change won’t affect any other AdSense products you’re currently using or the availability of other products to you. In addition, reporting on your Hosted domains will remain available throughout the schedule above and for a period following the retirement.

For more information see the Help Center. We appreciate your understanding and thank you for your patience as we continue to develop new features and offerings within AdSense.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

---

© 2012 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043.

You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your AdSense product or account.

 

Have you parked domains using Adsense for domains? What were your experience?

Review of Head First Web Design and Notes

I have created numerous web pages and websites as a hobby in last 12 years. But,I always wondered about the industry known as “Web Design” and profession “Web Designer”. I thought creating cool logo and graphics using Photoshop as skills of web designer.Also, I was aware of the fact that people who create Wordpress and Joomla templates are web designer. As you might have understood,I had no formal education of Web Designing. Reading any book on this subject was always there is “to do” list but had low priority. I bought the book “Head First Web Design” last week from Flipkart  to read it, while I was supposed to travel.If you are in USA you may buy it from Amazon. Now, I am glad I bought the book.

The book explains the concept of Web Design in interactive manner. It has a lot of images, examples and tasks. I read the book in just 2 sittings!! It’s so interesting.The book assumes that you have some working knowledge of XHTML and CSS. All the technical examples in the book use XHTML and CSS. Book explains in detail about process involved in Web Design and have a chapter  about “The business of Web Design” as well. Here is chapter wise summary of the book.

1. Building beautiful web pages -  The chapter introduces about four core processes of Web Design.
   • Pre-Production
   • layout
   • navigation
   • writing (content)
   The chapter also introduces a terminology, Information Architecture (IA).Information Architecture is a process to break the content in chunk and arrange in in hierarchical order of one another.It is achieved by organizing the site content and building an IA diagram. Website Navigation is a product of IA.

   The chapter also introduces a term called StoryBoard in Web design.Storyboard facilitate visualization of the design and test basic layout before one can start coding the layout.

2. Pre-Production – Pre-production involved developing a theme and Visual Metaphor for the Website. This would include -

   • Choosing a color palette for the website
   • Using visual elements to reinforce the theme
   • Design a layout based on content.
   Hand drawn Storyboards should be used to finalize and visualize the design before its finalized.The book has given example of developing a storyboard from a real life scenario. Authors have suggested following process for development of storyboard.
   • Make grid on a paper
   • Sketch your design
   • Add color and finalize your design
3. Oraganizing Your Site – The chapter teaches how to find categories and section for content. The process is named as Information Architecture. Using card sort the content is broken into hierarchy and IA diagram is created. 
4. Layout and Design – One need to put the design on computer screen. Considering this, a screen resolution needs to be decided, based on end-user PC.Authors have shown how to develop the \layout using CSS based grid layout. The chapter also introduces concept of “Rule of thirds (2/3 and 1/3)” or “Golden Ratio”, while designing content area in any layout.
5. Designing with color – The chapter talks about
   • Choosing the color wheel
   • Concept of Color schemes
   • Triadic and Tetradic Color scheme
   • And a tool to choose color palette (Kuler.adobe.com)
6. Smart Navigation -   Information Architecture of a given site should serve as base of site navigation. Authors talk about horizontal and vertical navigation scheme as well as primary and secondary navigation for a site. They have also gave example when one may use horizontal versus vertical navigation besides other things related to navigation.
7. Writing for the Web – There is some surprising data in this chapter. Did you know that people read slower on computer screen than a printed material. The difference is significant about 15% slower than printed material having same content. Also, reading habit for same person is different, while reading on printed material than reading in in browser. On internet people hardly read top to bottom and left to right, religiously. They tend to scan the matter and decide if they need to read first para or more.That means, writing on web needs to be different that writing a book. Authors have provided nice examples about “How to write for web”.
8. Accessibility – US Census Bureau categorizes 19.6% of the US population as having some sort of disability. Book explains why we should consider including accessibility options in our web design and how we can achieve this. This topic is also necessary for people who are providing or may provide services to USA government agencies.As section 508 of US Federal Rehabilitation Act requires that Federal agencies make their electronic and information technology, including websites accessible to people with disabilities.
9. Listen to your users – This chapter emphasises importance of user feedback about your website and listening to their demands. It describes techniques to enable “listing to users”, like survey, analytics etc in detail.
10. Evolutionary Design – the book says, “A website should evolve (change incrementally) instead of changing radically all the time”. It lists a few ways to do it using Jquery, Lighbox and blogging.
11. The Business of Web Design – The chapter deals with various aspect of running Web Design service as business. It starts with ways to deal with web design piracy, then moves to defining categories of professional services in world of web. Aspect of managing it as firm or company (this information is only valuable for USA based guys) and prevailing wages in Web Design industry. It also help you to write proposal letter for your business and estimating the job of web designing task.
12. Appendix - Appendix of “Head First Web Design” is useful as well . It talks a little bit about 10 more topics which book didn’t cover in detail.

In India, you can buy Head “First Web Design” online from FlipKart while in USA you have option of buying it from Amazon. Is the review helped you to decide, if you want to introduce yourself with world of web design?

XAMPP for Windows Installation and Configuration

I had used LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) since long. My main laptop is dual boot with with good old Windows XP and Ubuntu.I use a few critical tools that need Windows and these tools runs almost all the time. Hence, working with LAMPP was not an options. I needed something similar on Windows. I wanted Apache with PHP and MySQL support. An easy to use environment where I can experiment with Joomla in short term and PHP and MySQL. As it would be an development environment, security was an non-issue.

XAMPP a easy to use (Apache, PHP, MySQL, PHP and Perl) environment was the thing I needed. Best thing is it comes for Linux, Windows,Solaris and Mac. Windows version have a few option as well.XAMPP for Windows exists in three different flavors:

Installer

Probably the most comfortable way to install XAMPP.

ZIP:

For purists: XAMPP as ordinary ZIP archive.

7zip:

For purists with low bandwidth: XAMPP as 7zip archive.

I did choose 7zip format. Extracted in a folder E:\xampp and ran the program E:\xampp\xampp-control.exe. This program is known as XAMPP control panel. As the name suggests you can start  or stop the server component that comes with XAMPP.

I started the Apache and MYSql server and worked with dowloaded Joomla code as well as Phpxref for Joomla code documentation (using Perl). It worked with charm. No configuration was needed. This is great development environment on Windows. Also did use MOD_REWRITE with apache and result was pleasant.

I would highly recommend this environment to people who are looking for LAMPP (Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP and Perl environment on windows.