Blog Fixer's Diary

SendOwl Review - Loads of Bugs and Attitude at an Affordable Price

2016-08-02T08:25:00.002-07:00

This post is a review of SendOwl eCommerce platform. I have been using SendOwl for the past 4 months for my eLearning website. I have had a very bad experience so far. The platform has several issues and bugs, and as if that was not enough, the management is headstrong, and their attitude obnoxious. I deeply regret the decision to go with SendOwl. If you are considering going with SendOwl, then you are forewarned. Read the full review to learn more.

I had been using eJunkie for the 5 years prior to moving to SendOwl. eJunkie is a dead platform by all means, with no new development taking place for the past several years. All they have done in past 7 years is to create a new HTML 5 based admin panel, which too looked outdated on the day it was launched. However, to eJunkie's credit, the platform is super stable, the support staff very technical, and I hardly faced any issues during those 5 years. So, why did I switch, you might ask.

The first and biggest reason to switch to SendOwl was a bug in eJunkie platform where some affiliate orders were missing critical information in their IPN notification. This was causing my order workflow to break. eJunkie didn't have any developers onboard to investigate the issue. Second reason was Stripe integration. I was fed up with PayPal and wanted to try Stripe. Third reason was a need to get on to a more modern eCommerce platform. eJunkie looks stale by all means. SendOwl met all my main criteria, was within my budget, and looked modern at first glance (when compared to the antiquated eJunkie anyway). I did evaluate couple other options but they didn't satisfy some or other requirements. So I decided to go with SendOwl.

Here's a compilation of just some of the issues I faced with SendOwl. I've more on the list and would post them in the next instalment.

The thing I disliked the most about SendOwl is that they do not have a public forum for their customers to ask questions. Such forums serve as a knowledge base for new customers and can be a huge help during onboarding. In my 5 years with eJunkie, I contacted them fewer than 5 times. That's not because I didn't have issues or questions. It's because 95% of the questions or issues were addressed by reading the posts on their public forum. But in my first 2 weeks with SendOwl, I had to contact them about 20 times. For every little thing, you have to write to the SendOwl support. Their help pages only provide basic information and you need to contact their support at every step along the way.
Moreover, it's also an issue of transparency. When a customer has issues, the company is not providing any channel to voice out the concerns. They claim to have thousands of customers, but if you visit their blog, it's a complete monologue. There's hardly any engagement with the customers. They do not have any significant presence on any of the social media platforms.
Quality of support is mediocre. The only support staff person they have is a non-technical person. It invariably takes 3-4 emails just for him to understand a simple issue. When that person is not around, the owner takes over and things move slightly faster until they hit a deadend. Once the issue is established to be a shortcoming or bug in their platform, the discussion ends with this standard response - "That's how it works now. We have an item to change behaviour or fix it in the future but it's on our backlog of work so I can't confirm the time right now. Until then I'm afraid you'll have to live with the current system (or move to another provider)."
I had an extremely frustrating experience at onboarding itself. I had a problem integrating their Add to Cart / View Cart buttons on my website. When I requested their help, they simply gave up and said they do not know how to resolve it. Any self respecting programmer would not give up so easily. I had to download their scripts and debug them to finally understand and resolve the issue on my own. The issue dragged on for several days. Anyone with the knowledge of the script could have resolved the issue in 5 mins. That should have served as a red flag and but I failed to acknowledge it at that stage.
They do no seem to use any CRM system that can provide a unique ticket number for each issue. All issues are handled through emails with no unique identifier.

Now let's talk about issues with the platform itself. I have not evaluated their video streaming service. So, I'll not go over it.

I use the service to sell eLearning subscriptions and offer downloadable PDF files with the subscription purchase. I use the PDF stamping feature. Once or twice, the download link failed to work. Other than that, configuring PDF stamping was not an issue and it has been working pretty well. Overall, this is an improvement over eJunkie's service.
They do not support product variants. You can use bundles as a workaround, but it's extremely painful to set bundles to be variants. Even if you have a small business with 10 products with 5 variants each, you'll have to setup 10 base products and 50 bundles (one for each variant). So, now instead of managing 10 products, you are managing 60 (10 + 50).
The admin panel interface is poorly designed. It requires too many clicks to find a product or bundle once you have more than couple dozen products and bundles, and in generally confusing to navigate around.
Integration with Stripe is broken. As I mentioned above, Stripe was the biggest driver for me when opting for SendOwl. Stripe generates really nice receipts, but due to the broken interface, those receipts are not sent to the customer. What's sent is an ugly text-only receipt from SendOwl to my customers.
There's no option to disable certain type of emails. The default receipt that is sent from the SendOwl system looks ugly and unprofessional. I requested to have their receipt disabled because a receipt is sent by the payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe by default, and it doesn't make any sense sending 2 receipts to the same customer. eJunkie had a simply switch to turn off their receipt. However, I couldn't win this battle with SendOwl owner. First they plain lied to me that it was a requirement imposed on them from the payment gateways. I checked with both PayPal and Stripe (the two gateways that I use), and both denied imposing any such requirement. When I confronted SendOwl with this information, they said it's a legal requirement in some countries to issue receipts to the customers. I countered saying that I'm the merchant and my payment gateway is issuing the receipt to my customers. SendOwl is a non-entity as far as my customers are concerned and I do not want to confuse my customers by sending them an email from sendowl.com, a domain that they do not recognize. But he refused to budge and I'm still living with that problem.
The coupon code implementation is horrible. eJunkie's implementation far excelled.
- Three months ago, I enquired whether there's a feature to hide the coupon code field on the shopping cart. eJunkie had this feature (to show/hide coupon codes from cart). I was told that as long as there's at least one valid coupon code on the account, the field would appear on the cart. I waited for another month to let all my coupon codes expire. When all coupons had expired and the field still showed up, I was told that as long as there's any code on the account (even if they are expired / used up), the field will show up on the cart. To hide the coupon code field, I would have to delete all the codes from the account (and lose the history in the process). Again I was told to look for another provider if that was a problem.
- This week I discovered that once a coupon code is applied to a cart, even if the customer cancels the checkout, it's considered consumed. So, if you have issued a single use coupon code to a customer, then it becomes useless. Moreover, to add to the confusion, in the admin panel it will still show such (consumed) coupons as Active.
The affiliate management system is pretty rudimentary and has several problems. I particularly do not like the heavy-handed approach they take for the affiliate management. The affiliate relationship is between the affiliate and the merchant. The merchant should have full control over how they manage their affiliates. The system should be the enabler and shouldn't interfere or take decisions on behalf of the merchants. Apparently, SendOwl owner has a different approach - he wants to be the policeman and ensure that things are done right according to the standards that he sets for everyone. All the following were non-issues with eJunkie.
- You cannot join your own affiliate program even if you want to do so just for testing the features (because their owner doesn't think it's right).
- If you issue a partial refund, the entire affiliate commission on that order is rolled back (it should be pro-rated by default). You have to manually reconcile such issues at the end of the month.
- If you even make a minor change to a product, it triggers mass emails to all the affiliates without any warning whatsoever.
Reports have several issues too.
- The full order report doesn't know the name of the affiliate for orders coming through affiliates. You have to run multiple reports and manually reconcile the information every month. It was a breeze with eJunkie.
- The monthly affiliate commission reports that are sent out to affiliates often show the wrong commission payable to affiliates. It's a shame that a task as basic as calculating monthly affiliate payout accurately is not handled well by their system.
- Reports do not show a total summary. You need to download the csv file, open it in Excel and calculate the total.

Bugs and issues that I've encountered:

WebHooks SHA verification header was changed without notice causing all my transactions to fail. After breaking my head with the support for several hours, they finally acknowledged that they had changed the request SHA request headers but were absolutely unapologetic.
I started receiving duplicate order receipts were sent once. This issue was resolved after I managed to win a long battle with their owner that some merchants (if not all) do not want duplicate receipts.
While setting up my account, I added T&Cs to be shown to my customers. Next day, all of it disappeared with no trace. They could not give me any reasonable justification.
I found a user interface issue where the checkout page was not redirecting back to merchant site properly. This issue was fixed by them.
The shopping cart was not visible at all on iPad. Such a huge issue, and their response was that it's Apple's (iOS) problem not theirs, so they won't fix it. Finally, after I pressurized them, they finally fixed it.
Account password reset workflow is broken. You need to write to support to get your password reset.
PayPal - return to merchant site link is broken.

Other issues and annoyances:

For products on which qty cannot be more than 1, the qty field should be completely hidden.
When cart is opened in a new window, it has a Close X button, but the button doesn't actually work (confusing UI).

Conclusion:

I'm extremely dissatisfied with SendOwl's service. I would probably rate is 2 out of 5. It promises a lot but fails to deliver on several counts. It has been extremely frustrating 4 months with them. I'm looking forward to jump the ship at the next available opportunity. If you have experience (good or bad) with SendOwl's service, please post your comments below. If you have other questions, comments or suggestions for me about other eCommerce platforms, please share them too.

Macbook Pro Battery Replacement in Singapore for $43.99

2013-11-24T07:23:00.002-08:00

Recently the battery on my mid-2010 Macbook Pro died. The Macbook Pro was about 2 years and 10 months old and had 1056 cycles on it. After some research, I found that Apple had released an SMC Firmware update (This update addresses a rare issue on some Apple notebooks where a battery that has accumulated more than 1000 charge cycles may unexpectedly shut down or stop functioning) for exactly the issue that I faced. I applied the updated, but it didn't revive my dead battery. During the process, I also learned that the battery in my Macbook Pro is non-user replaceable.

I called up Apple customer care even though I had not purchase the Apple Care with my Macbook Pro. I told that this is a known issue for Apple, and they should help me. They said them that the update should have been applied while the battery was still working. Once dead, there was no way to revive the battery. Moreover, according to them, since the battery had already completed more than 1000 cycles, it was time to replace it anyway. I told them that my battery was giving a good 3-4 hrs on each charge before it suddenly went dead. They listened to me patiently, but didn't offer much help, other than providing contact numbers for all the authorized Apple Service Centers in Singapore. Since I didn't have Apple Care plan, I didn't see a point in arguing with them further.

The real shocker came when I started calling up the authorized Apple Service Centers. All of them quoted SGD 280 (about USD 220) for the battery. But that was not the shock. The real shock was the service charge for replacement - another SGD 120-130 (about USD 100). On top of that, they offered just 3-month warranty for an SGD 400 purchase. I decided that I would rather donate my computer to a charity instead of feeding 400 of my hard-earned dollars to the Apple mafia.

Even though I was told that it was non-user replaceable battery, I decided to go DIY. I googled for Macbook battery replacement and found several good videos on YouTube for battery replacement. After watching couple videos, I opened up the back cover on my Macbook Pro and learned that even my 8-year old son could replace that battery. The only problem - I needed a tri-wing screw driver. I went to eBay and found that the battery was being sold for SGD 129 by a Singapore based seller, and the screw driver was on sale for USD 0.99 by a Hong Kong based seller. But I wasn't confident of purchasing a battery from eBay. I also found that original Apple OEM batteries were on sale on Amazon for under USD 50, but unfortunately Amazon does not ship batteries to Singapore. BTW, I have been buying things on Amazon for years, and have good faith in them.

Luckily for me, one of my friends was going to the US for a 2-week business trip. So, I approached him for help and he obliged. I ordered the battery from Amazon for USD 43, and the screw driver from eBay for USD 0.99 (a total cost of USD 43.99 including shipping). The screw driver was shipped to me within 5 business days, much before I got the battery. I tested the screw driver by opening the 2 screws holding the old battery in place, and they came off easily. About 10 days later, my friend returned from the US and handed me the new battery. It came in a good packaging and looked brand new, and exactly like my old battery. It took me 5 minutes to replace the battery, with my Made In China screw driver (an effort worth SGD 120 in Singapore).

I pressed the power button on my Macbook Pro (without the power adapter of course), said a little prayer in my mind, and it instantly came to life. After it booted up, the first thing I did was to check the cycle count and it had just 4 cycles on it. I charged the battery to full, removed the power adapter, and let it run it on battery until it was completely drained. On the first charge, it gave me 4+ hours running Windows 7 under Boot Camp and that is as good as it gets. It's been nearly 2 months since I replaced the battery and my new battery has been holding up pretty well.

I wanted to share my experience with other Macbook users, especially those in Singapore. I understand that not everyone can order a battery from the US (like I did), but at least it should help you know that more economical alternatives to authorized Apple Service Centers exist. Good luck!

Disclaimer: Please use this information at your own risk. What worked for me may not work for you. Your mileage may vary.

How to Install Kindle App on an Android Device in Singapore

2012-08-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

If you are based in Singapore (like me) and want to have the Kindle app on your Android device, then you have come to the right place.

Cutting the long story short, Kindle app is not available in Google Play Store (Android Marketplace) when you access the Store from Singapore. But there's an easy way out. Follow these simple steps:

1. Download the app (.apk file) to your computer from the following page:

Download Kindle for Android

Note: I couldn't access that page directly from the phone.

2. Transfer this file to your Android device. I transferred the file via Bluetooth.

3. Install the app and enjoy reading on Kindle.

Just for your information, I installed the app on my Samsung Galaxy S3, and so far it has been working well. Let me know your experience.

How to get a List of All Blog Posts on Blogger

2010-04-03T23:43:00.000-07:00

Blogger offers several feeds for blog posts by default:

1. http://blogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml - the old address for Blogger's ATOM feed
2. http://blogname.blogspot.com/rss.xml - the address for Blogger's RSS feed
3. http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default - the full feed
4. http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/summary - the summary feed

My requirement was to publish a complete list of all my blog posts on a "Site Table of Contents" (or a site directory) page. The problem is that the default full feed (http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default) does not really return a feed of all the posts. It usually returns only a handful of recent posts.

The trick that I found to get the complete list of posts was to append "?max-results=1000" (you can change the number '1000' to any number of your choice) at the end of the feed address. Your complete feed address would look like this:

http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?max-results=1000

With the above feed address, you should be able to get a feed of all the blog posts. It worked very well for me. Let me know whether it worked for you.

URL Redirection with eNom

2010-02-20T21:25:00.000-08:00

If you have registered a domain name with eNom, and want to redirect a domain http://www.myotherdomain.com to http://www.mydomain.com , then follow these instructions:

Log into eNom's DNS Console for http://www.myotherdomain.com
Under the "Host Records" section click the "Edit" button.
Update: Delete all rows (if any) with Host Name as "@" or "www" (without quotes)
Click "Save"
Click the "Edit" button again.
In the edit mode, click "Add New" to add a new row.
Add the following in the new row:
- Host Name: @
- Address: http://www.mydomain.com
- Record Type: URL Redirect
Add another new row with the following entries:

Host Name: www
Address: http://www.mydomain.com
Record Type: URL Redirect

Click "Save".

That's all there is to it. After a few minutes, http://www.myotherdomain.com should automatically get redirected to http://www.mydomain.com .

How Do I Get Started Making Money With Google Adsense?

2009-12-07T08:34:00.000-08:00

Are you interested in making some money with your website? Are you familiar with Google Adsense? No? Then there's a nice tutorial on Google Adsense, by Dave Taylor:

How Do I Get Started Making Money With Google Adsense?

Missing Comments or Wrong Comments Count on Blogger

2009-11-27T21:30:00.000-08:00

This week many bloggers are reporting issues with the comments on their Blogger blogs. I faced this problem too on some of my blogs. The issues are:

Missing comments: Some or all of the comments on blogs are missing. For example, on one of my posts, I had 15 odd comments of which 5 were my own comments, made in response to visitor comments. I could only see my own comments. All the visitor comments were missing. It made quite a funny read :)
Comment count is incorrect

If you are facing similar problems on your blog, there's an official thread for this issue on Blogger Help forum that you can post your issue on. Here's the link:

Missing Comments and/or Comment Count Wrong

It's a Blogger issue and there's nothing you have done to cause it, or can do to fix it. You've just got to wait. In my case, the issue seems to have resolved automatically. But, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Blogger Error: Page Not Found ps/rpc_relay.html

2009-11-25T05:36:00.000-08:00

Problem Statement

Google Webmasters Tools was reporting a crawl error on multiple pages of some of my blogs. The error message was:

Page not found http://page_url/ps/rpc_relay.html

Some other folks who encountered this error on their blogs saw a drop in their blog traffic too. However, in my case, there was no noticeable drop in traffic.

Root Cause

In order to identify the root cause, I looked for any reference to ps/rpc_relay.html on my blog. I looked into the template source code, but it was clean. Then I looked at the page source and did find the reference there. Looking at the source, it was clear that the problem was associated to the Follower widget.

To confirm my suspicion, I removed the Follower widget and as expected, the reference to ps/rpc_relay.html disappeared from the page source.

Solution

In order to fix the issue and also retain the Follower widget, I replaced the Follower widget with Google Friend Connect. Basically, both are same. The only difference being that the former comes as a standard widget from Blogger and the latter as html code that needs to be added to a HTML widget on the blog. Here are the detailed steps:

Remove the Follower widget.
Go to Google Friend Connect (GFC) and login with your Google account (the same account used for Blogger).
Click on your blog name (in the list of blogs) in the left hand navigation panel -> Overview -> Add the members gadget.
If you want, configure the member's gadget to match the color scheme of your blog.
Grab the widget code.
Come back to your blog and add an HTML widget. It can be in the same section where the Follower gadget used to reside.
Paste the HTML code from GFC into the HTML widget and save it.

After replacing the Follower widget with GFC, the reference to ps/rpc_relay.html was gone from the page source (except for one reference which was a comment).

Two or three days after making the change, the error was gone from Google Webmasters Tool. The blog was clean again.

The solution worked for me and I hope it works for you as well. Good luck !

Blogger Javascript Error "Permission Denied" in IE6

2009-11-24T07:07:00.000-08:00

Problem Statement

I get a Javascript error (Line: 619 Char: 122 Error: Permission Denied) when my blog is loaded in Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) and the Google Friend Connect or the Follower widget doesn't load. Refer to the screenshot of the error below. The blog loads fine in Firefox 3.5 and Google Chrome 4.x.

Root Cause

The root cause is the conflict between the Poll widget and Google Friend Connect (GFC) or the Follower widget. If the page layout is such that the Poll widget loads first, I get the error. If GFC loads first, then there's no error.

Solution

I don't have a fix that addresses the root cause, but here are a few options that you could try:

Change the page layout such that GFC (or the Follower widget) loads before the Poll widget.
Remove the Poll Widget as a "widget" and embed it inside a blog post. This is the option that I've chosen. On the top menu, I've added a link to the Poll page. Obviously, this defeats the purpose of running a poll, but if your page layout cannot be changed due to some reason, then this is the next best option.
The obvious option is to get rid of either GFC or the Poll widget.

I posted this issue on the official GFC forum, but unfortunately, there's hardly any help available there.

If I find a better fix, I'll post an update here, and if you know of a proper fix to address the root cause, do let me know.

Blogger Javascript Error Char 21131 IE6

2009-11-24T06:47:00.000-08:00

Problem Statement

Recently I had been getting a Javascript error ( Line 3 Char 21131 Expected ')' ) on my blog, when viewed in Internet Explorer 6 (IE6). There was no problem with the blog when viewed using Firefox 3.5 or Google Chrome 4.x. Refer to the screenshot of the error message.

Despite the error, everything on the blog including the AddThis widget, works fine.

Root Cause

After spending a lot of time investigating into the issue, I figured out that the problem was due to the AddThis (Bookmark and Share) widget.

Solution

So far, the only solution I know is to get rid of the widget. You can use a similar widget from some other provider.

If you know of a proper fix, do let me know.

Blogger error bX-q957zg while updating Blog Posts Section

2009-11-21T05:13:00.000-08:00

Problem Statement

When I try to edit the Blog Posts section on the blog layout page (Layout->Blog Posts Section->Edit), I get the following error:

===========================================

We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.
When reporting this error to Blogger Support or on the Blogger Help Group, please:

Describe what you were doing when you got this error.Provide the following error code and additional information.
bX-q957zg
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
blogID: 9179404155XXXXXXXX
host: www.blogger.com
uri: /rearrange
This information will help us to track down your specific problem and fix it! We apologize for the inconvenience.

===========================================

It prevents me from making configuration changes such as number of blog posts to display on the main page, date format, Adsense settings etc.

Root Cause

In my case, I found that the root cause was the way I had defined the font and color settings in the header of my custom template. Refer to the text in red below:


<Variable name="t2HeaderBgColor" description="Theme 2 Header Background Color" type="color" default="#885" value="#4b3c37">

<Variable name="t2HeaderColor" description="Theme 2 Header Color" type="color" default="#885" value="#FFFFFF">



<Variable name="t2SecHeaderBgColor" description="Theme 2 Sec Header Background Color" type="color" default="#885" value="#cde196">

<Variable name="t2SecHeaderColor" description="Theme 2 Secondary Header Color" type="color" default="#885" value="$t2HeaderBgColor">

I was referring to a previously defined font using $variableName syntax. Though I get the correct results with this notation, blogger apparently doesn't like it. This is the root cause of the problem.

Solution

Simply replace $variableName with the actual color code and the problem disappears !


<Variable name="t2SecHeaderColor" description="Theme 2 Secondary Header Color" type="color" default="#885" value="#4b3c37">

Note that the root cause and the solution was applicable in my case, but may not necessarily be applicable to yours. If this solution doesn't fix your problem, I suggest you look around for other similar problems in the font definition section of your template.

Good luck !

Display Adsense Ad on the Latest Post Only

2009-11-18T06:07:00.000-08:00

I have browsed tens of websites that provide hacks to display Google Adsense ads in the post body. There are several drawbacks with these hacks. Just to name a couple:

As you might already know, you can display a maximum of 3 Adsense ad units on a page. The ads are displayed in the first 3 posts on the main page. That means that you cannot have ads in the side bars (unless sidebars are rendered first in your template).

If you do put ad units in the side bars, then on the main blog page, the sections of the side bar containing the ad units display as empty blocks, which looks awkward.

Then there are hacks which take this to the next level. They will make an ad unit display only on the item page. This way, you still have 2 more ad units at your disposal that can be added to the side bars, or any other section of your blog. However, the problem is that the ad units are not shown inside the posts on the main page. This way, you waste one ad unit on the main page, which is probably your no. 1 landing page.

I really wanted a better solution. The ideal solution I had in mind was:

On the main page, only the latest (top most) post should contain the ad unit. Same goes for the archive page.

On the item page, the ad unit should be displayed inside the post.

With this arrangement, I'll always have the top most post on any page (main, item or archive) contain an ad unit. And I'll always have 2 other ad units at my disposal.

Now coming to the point - how do I get such an arrangement? I spent a lot of time searching on the web trying to accomplish this. I left comments on popular blog posts on this subject, sent emails to blog authors, but all in vain. So, I decided to figure out a solution on my own, and that's exactly what I did.

The challenge was really to identify the latest post. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a property like blog:post.index, which could serve the purpose. So, I resorted to using a dirty trick that solves the problem.

Every post has a unique 'Post ID'. For example, if you go to the edit page of a post, the URL would be like (the text in bold is the post ID):

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=9179404155691939198&postID=91589727429XXXXXXXX

We need to use this post ID to identify the top most post. Here's the hack that I used:

Go to your blog Layout -> Edit HTML page.

Click on "Download Full Template" to backup your template.

Select the checkbox "Expand Widget Templates".

Search for string "data:post.body/".

You'll see the above string in a section like this:

<div class='post-body entry-content'> <p><data:post.body/></p> <div style='clear: both;'/>  </div>

Insert the following code before or after the above section:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'> // Your adsense code here <b:else/> <b:if cond='data:post.id == "91589727429XXXXXXXX"'> // Your adsense code here </b:if> </b:if>

If you want the ad above the content of your post, your final code might look like this:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'> // Your adsense code here <b:else/> <b:if cond='data:post.id == "91589727429XXXXXXXX"'> // Your adsense code here </b:if> </b:if> <div class='post-body entry-content'> <p><data:post.body/></p> <div style='clear: both;'/>  </div>

Replace the text in red with your adsense code. Make sure you convert the adsense code before inserting it into the template. You can use the converter here.

Replace the text in blue with the post ID of your latest post. The painful part is that you need to update the post ID everytime you publish a new post. I know it's extra work, but it works. If I find a better solution, I'll post an update here.

Click on "Preview". You may not be able to see the ad in the preview, but if you do not receive any errors, it means that you can safely click on "Save Template".

That's all there is to this hack. Let me know if you face any problem with this hack. Though I'm still learning and don't claim to know everything, I'll do my best to help. If you are familiar with a better solution, I'll be glad to hear from you.

How to Add a Sub-domain to a Custom Domain

2009-11-16T06:41:00.000-08:00

If you own a custom domain such as www.mydomain.com, and you want to host a separate blog or website under a sub-domain (for example, blog2.mydomain.com), you need to create a new CNAME record with your domain host such as Godaddy or enom.

Follow the steps mentioned below to create a new CNAME record to a custom domain registered with enom.

Login into your enom account and go to the domain setting page. If you have registered your custom domain through Google, you can follow these steps.

You should see a screen similar to the following:

Click on the 'Edit' button under the 'Host Records' section.

Click 'Add New'.

Add the sub-domain name, for example, 'blog2' under the 'Host Name' field.

Add ghs.google.com. under 'Address' field.

Select CNAME (Alias) under 'Record Type' field.

Click 'Save'.

That's all. Your new CNAME record has been created and so is your new sub-domain.

How to access ENOM Domain Settings with Google Apps

2009-11-16T06:10:00.000-08:00

If you have signed up for a custom domain through Google, and wondering how to access the Enom domain management services, here's a quick step by step guide to help you.

Go to the URL https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/yourdomain.com/DomainSettingsAdvancedDns

(replace yourdomain.com with the name of your custom domain). The domain may not necessarily be .com in your case. It could be .org, .net etc. It will ask you to login into your Google Apps account, if you are not already logged in.

This page will give you the following information: To change Advanced DNS settings, sign in to your DNS console with the following information : Domain : <yourdomain.com> Password : <enom_account_password> enom customer service email : GoogleClients@enom.com It will have a link "Sign in to DNS console", which will take you to your domain management page on enom. You'll need this Domain name and password to login to your enom account.

On the enom domain management page, use the domain name and password (mentioned on the Google Apps page to login to your enom account).

If you have followed all the steps, you should be able to login to your domain settings page on enom.

Blog Fixer's Personal Diary

2009-11-12T07:38:00.000-08:00

This blog is my personal diary for blogger related hacks, issues, fixes, notes and everything blogger.