Dreamhost is my favorite shared hosting because of the performance it has given me in last one year. If you have been thinking of buying shared hosting , dreamhost is the way you should go. Here is 50$ discount coupon for this month (valid till June 2010). Dreamhost allow multiple domain hosting. It means if you have multiple domain , you can host all of them there are dreamhost. Here is step by step tutorial on adding an addon-domain to dreamhost.

Login to your cpanel and click on manage domains. There enter your domain URL and assign how your domain should add for prefix www. I selected the second option so that any one type my domain without www will automatically be redirected to www prefix.  This has an added advantage on SEO.

You can run this addon domain on the previous  username, but I prefer creating a new user for this addon domain. This makes it easy for me to give control to particular users.

Last option is php mode and setting up Google apps for your domain. Dreamhost makes it very easy to configure Google apps (professional email address for your domain).

Click on Fully host domain. If you have purchased your domain from somewhere else, you need to change your DNS to point it to Dreamhost. That will be

• ns1.dreamhost.com
• ns2.dreamhost.com
• ns3.dreamhost.com

I’m sure those who have dreamhost account will find this tutorial useful. If you don’t have dreamhost account yet. You can take advantage of Dreamhost free trial account now and grab a webhosting for yourself.

Dreamhost 50$ discount code October 2009

How to Add addon domain to Dreamhost Webhosting

ShoutMeloud

I am not sure if many of you have known this, but Google has been offering additional storage for Gmail and Picasa Web users for some time now. If you had been wanting to upgrade but found it too expensive, here’s great news. This morning, Google not only bumped up the maximum disk usage that users could buy, but also reduced the prices.

Currently, free users have around 8 GB storage for themselves, out of which 7 GB is reserved for Gmail messages only and 1 GB for Picasa Web Albums. You could store your photos and videos in here. Photos posted to blogger too are included in the latter 1GB storage.

From official announcement

While storage costs have been dropping naturally, we’ve also been working hard to improve our infrastructure to reduce costs even further. Today, we’re dramatically lowering our prices to make extra storage more affordable. You can now buy 20 GB for only $5 a year, twice as much storage for a quarter of the old price, and enough space for more than 10,000 full resolution pictures taken with a five megapixel camera. And if you need more than 20 GB, you can purchase up to 16 terabytes!

In the last few years, the very needs of users have drastically changed and technology has advanced at a great pace too. It’s easier to communicate and stay in touch with loved ones no matter how far they are spatially. For instance, Photo sharing with my friends and family had never been easier since I started using Picasa. I just upload it once using my desktop software and all my folks and view them online or even download it for offline viewing using the same app.

So the people at Google do realize our need for cloud storage, also taking advantage of the vastly decreasing cost of storage systems, have reduced the cost of extra storage. You could, such as, buy 20 GB storage for $5 a year, which is one-fourth the previous price and double the storage. This storage will be shared both with Gmail and Picasa.

Comparing Google’s new plans to other popular services, it seems a good deal. Dropbox offers 50 GB for $120 a year, while Google gives you 80 GB for $20. However, on the contrary, Google doesn’t give you file sync abilities that Dropbox does. We can only hope for GDrive to arrive soon.

So if you’re Google storage is reaching its limits head over to google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage to check out the new plans available for you.

Also, let us know if you use Picasa Web Albums or any similar service for sharing your photos with friends and family? How many of you actually practice the habit of storing your photos “in the cloud”?

Dreamhost 50$ discount code October 2009

Google Cuts Prices for Extra Storage

ShoutMeloud

We have already told you about benefit of custom domain and sooner or later after buying custom domain, you might like to shift from Blogspot to Wordpress. I was working on a client blog migration and he bought his domain from Google. Finding the domain setting was not very tough, but like other cpanel it was not easy. So this is the guide which will help you when you buy a domain from Google. Google use Enom service to buy domain and this step by step tutorial will help you to change your DNS.

Login to your Google apps account to manage your domain.

You can simply access your domain by typing

http://www.google.com/a/MYDOMAIN.com

Replace MYDOMAIN part with your actual domain name .

Once you are inside your domain name, click on domain settings

On next page click on sub tab which says Domain names and Advanced DNS settings.

On the next page you will have a link to login to your ENOM account and username and password. Click on the link and use the username and password provided there to login.

Click on Sign in to DNS console and you will be inside your Enom account and from there change your DNS settings.

I’m sure this will help those who are stuck somewhere . Meanwhile if you face problem with team edition Google apps or getting message while login to your Google apps account

“Your IT administrator is managing user accounts. To invite additional users to Google Apps, please contact your IT administrator.”

You need to recover your Google apps password and login using that.

Dreamhost 50$ discount code October 2009

Change DNS of Domain bought from Google Apps

ShoutMeloud

The smartphone arena is buzzing again with Google going aggressive with the Android mobile platform. While Apple would disregard the competition with words like ‘they are still catching up the first iPhone we released two years back’, fact remains that Android takes a significant mind share with the new version 2.0 aks Eclair. Verizon has got some google love behind it and has managed to slip in the v2.0 with the Motorola Droid much before any other manufacturer can.

Android 2.0 brings in an improved DNA which catches up with the iPhone better than ever before. Two great things about the Android OS 2.0 is the support for multiple screen sizes / resolution and the revamped gaming support. As you see in the demo video below now developers need not develop different versions of their app for different devices that support varied screen sizes and resolutions. The updated SDK will automatically adjust the app for different screens.

These aren’t the only few things that makes the Android 2.0 a killer platform. Google has just gone ahead and launched a navigation services free of cost. This brings ability to search for a business by its name, traffic data, voice-assisted turn-by-turn directions, combined data from Satellite and Street View and more features to Google Maps. Thus beating TomTom and other expensive paid services. And to add a last blow to the iPhone monopoly in the touch arena, the Motorola Droid / Milestone was spotted supporting Multitouch. If this really goes live for Android devices when on sale, the single biggest advantage for iPhone in the user experience and media handling would be lost. And too us it already looks lost with the Palm Pre offering multi-touch interface since months now.

The only real advantage that the iPhone has is its mega hype, still an unmatched UI and the App Store apps. But Android 2.0 sure is an accelerated attempt to catchup with the iPhone. (the underlining statement perhaps is the fact that Windows Mobile and Symbian are left out in the blue, while Android battles it out with the iPhone!)

About the author: Annkur P Agarwal is a technology lover who loves sharing the latest in technology. You can follow him on Twitter @onlygizmos or read the latest iPhone stuff over at iPhoneHelp

Dreamhost 50$ discount code October 2009

iPhone versus the Android 2.0

ShoutMeloud

Digg and social bookmarking sites start with word social, that means where other people can connect and share something interesting. One of the most common misconception with these websites that they are only meant for self promotion and people tend to submit only those articles which are from own domain, and never care to contribute by submitting articles from other domains.

The golden rule to become a social media expert is share anything from anywhere which are good and deserve a share. See the time line of power twitter users or digg power users, you will realize every submission they have made are coming from different domain and posts which people love to tweet, digg or stumble.

Here are few things which I realize any newbie blogger should take care of while trying to set his foot print on social media websites.

One profile One identity

Many social bookmarking websites like Digg or stumble upon do not allow multiple account from same IP. So if you have created more than 1 profile and think you can digg from it or stumble it and this will help your submission, you are extremely wrong. Chances are high that your profile will be banned anytime.

Self promotion

This is one obvious reason most of the bloggers join social bookmarking websites to promote their domain or stuff. But promotion should be done in an honorable way and should not be done like a spammer. See this screenshot in which someone has created a profile on digg, and he is using it to post comments from only one domain.

If you do such mistakes, make sure you avoid it.  Try to create a unique identity, so that other will remember you for great share. You can also consider reading following posts which will help you to understand Digg and social media sites.

• What do Digg and twitter have in common?
• Digg The Beginners Guide
• How to become Digg power user?

Last two articles were written year back but still many of theory explained there, hold true even now.

How do people know you on such sites? As a contributor or as a spammer? What action do you take to make sure people will love you as a social media person?

Dreamhost 50$ discount code October 2009

Are You Social Media Spammer or Contributor?

ShoutMeloud

I first started using social networks while I was still in school. I remember how popular hi5 was in those days. I saw myself moving on to Orkut and finally Facebook. A recent market research by Nielsen Claritas has released some debate worthy trends among users and relates social networks to the demographics and background of the users.

Nielsen examined few of the most visited social networking platforms in the US viz. Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, Twitter, WordPress, ClassmatesOnline and LinkedIn.

While the first fact revealed is not news to us – that the number of users participating in social networks is on the increase worldwide.

The second revelation is somewhat astonishing. According to the survey, in which more than 200,000 users participated, the more affluent societies prefer Facebook over others. The top 30% of the lifestyle segments are likely to use Facebook while bottom one third uses MySpace. There is no specific explanation for this. While some users say they prefer Facebook as it is cleaner other give its secure platform the credit.

A strong overlap was also found to be seen when it came to users of Facebook and LinkedIn. This is not the first time that such a research is made. Back in 2006, we had heard similar stuff from Danah Boyd.

When it comes to Blogging, the demographics have less to do with affluence. However, it relates to the geographic locations. A large majority of WordPress and Blogger users come from the highly developed urban areas compared to the small towns. Well, we could attribute this to the level of exposure in the various regions. For obvious reasons, the people dwelling in the metropolitan areas have had longer and greater access to technology.

Similar trend was also found to be true for the increasingly popular micro blogging platform Twitter. However, Twitter has by far the most diverse set of users.

India has a slightly different scenario in terms of choice of networks. As comScore reported early this year, In India myspace is replaced by Orkut. The top social networks in India are (rank order) Orkut, Facebook, BharatStudent, hi5, iBibo and MySpace. While Orkut has the largest number of users still, a large fraction has been found to have shifted to Facebook this year. The thing about affluent and urban population holds good here as well. The other networks aren’t that much in the league though BharatStudent is coming up at a great pace.

When it came to user experience, the opinion was pretty much unanimous. All users seemed to hate when it came to improper incorporation of Ads in the webpages. The new tech savvy generation looks forward to ease-of-use while being able to connect to their mates after school or work and at the same time wish to have a secure environment for themselves.

I would love to hear back from our readers as to what they think about this demographic study. Is it just a coincidence or there’s actually a class divide when it comes to choice of networks? Also, tell us which social network appeals to you the most?

Dreamhost 50$ discount code October 2009

Social Class Deciding Choice of Social Networks

ShoutMeloud

One of the useful feature of wordpress is we get notification inside wordpress dashboard when we see an update, and when it comes to wordpress, we should install the latest version of wordpress to endure the security and bug fix of current wordpress version.

But when it comes to Wordpress plugins, it has a complete different story, Wordpress plugin gets an update for following reasons

• For latest Wordpress version compatibility
• For Fixing any current bug
• For Adding more feature

Though some time updating wordpress plugin breaks our wordpress blog and my advice would be make sure you take the backup before updating or installing any new plugin.

Another suggestion would be while updating any plugin to the latest version, check the change log in the latest version, and make sure if you really need that update.

Check this simple screenshot which will guide you on how to check the change log and if required update the plugin and make sure you take the backup of wordpress database.

In this screenshot I will be taking care of Wp-thumbie plugin, which shows related posts along with thumbnail.

Click on View-Version *.* details and click on change log to see the update in latest version.

As you can see the latest update fixed a big which is specific for a particular hosting and I don’t need it. So instead of making update, I will keep it as it is, and in the next update or after wordpress update I might make an update.

Do let me know your opinion on this part, do you update your wordpress blog plugin at the same time when you see a notification or you wait for some time? Meanwhile for more Wordpress Tips, I will suggest you should check out and subscribe to my latest wordpress Tutorials blog : Themepremium.com

Dreamhost 50$ discount code October 2009

How to upgrade Wordpress Plugin Correct Way

ShoutMeloud

Few days back Shoutmeloud wrote a post on Tools to improve English grammar and I always wondered if there was an easy way to minimize those petty grammar or spelling errors that would creep up in your blog article? Today, I introduce you to a new tool that will help you write better and spend lesser time editing your article.

“After the Deadline” is a WordPress plugin that has checks not only for spelling errors but grammar mistakes as well. This open source software is not only very efficient but free too.

It also has features to ignore certain words for instance the proper nouns you would use, such as your own name or your blog’s title. Once you install it in your blog you need to click on the proofread button in the visual or HTML editor to check spelling, style and grammar. Since After the Deadline communicates with a software service, you’ll need an API key to use this plugin. The same API, which is actually your profile as an author, can be used on multiple blogs that you might be wrting. The API key is unique to you and can be created on the author’s homepage.

Head over to this page polishmywriting.com to get a demo of the software before you go ahead with the installation of the tool to your own blog.

For more info on this tool or to know how to install it on your own WordPress blog head over to afterthedeadline.com

Check it out for yourselves folks, and let us know if you find this solution effective? Would you incorporate this tool on your own Blog? Have you been using any other spell check tool for Blogging, previously?

Dreamhost 50$ discount code October 2009

After The Deadline : English Grammar Check Wordpress Plugin

ShoutMeloud