Create your own free website (plus 100% ad free Hosting)

Everyone wants to have a website of their own - be it for personal uses or corporate needs. There are a host of premium registrars like Godaddy, Hostgator or Speedhost, but as a beginner who just wants to test the waters or own a website just for the fun of it, one doesn't really have to plunge into premium hosting packages that cost a monthly fee. I mean, people I know or personally I wouldn't! ;)
There are some really good free alternatives that you can opt for without the fear of unsightly provider advertisements or flashing "click me" gif that would give anyone a seizure attack ;)


The first one, called as Get-Your-Business-Online is a Google-HostGator collaborative initiative that gives you a premium quality domain + hosting package for the first one year. The service is well polished, comes with ready made premium quality web building tool, modular dashboard to administer your web content with ease. The downside is, this one is available only as a ".in" domain, meaning, your webpage will look something like this rather than the conventional extension. Also, during the first one year, you are not allowed to upload content to the online drive directly as most other hosting providers let you. This is great if you want a simple webpage just with preset templates only to add contents but definitely has a downside if you want complete control over your hosting space right from the start. However, like always, you can upgrade immediately to a full fledged hosting by paying the associated fee. 

Next up is The Free Domains project from various web service providers such as co.nr, Basic Networks, co.in. The guys here offer you a domain name that either goes like or some are advertisement free and some have provider advertisements. These domains however, require you to find a hosting provider in order to be able to actually use them or make them available online. 

Okay, I promised I will show a 100% free web hosting that is as good as premium hosting providers with all the full fledged CPanel dashboard. There are many such providers, but the best one that I have personally used is 000Webhost (No I am not getting paid to suggest them here) that offers anyone a totally advertisement free hosting where you can plug in one of your free co.nr domains or a paid <.com> domain thereby saving on your hosting costs! They are best for blog hosting or any personal website that doesn't require  mission critical uptime or stability.

Final words, these alternatives are okay if you plan to do a trial run for a starter blog as they also allow complete freedom of migrating to a paid hosting package in the long run. Now, there is no reason not to create your own blog for free ;) Get going!!

5 Mobile phone Spy Softwares for the concerned individual

A saying from the not so long digital era goes something like this, "Couples get to share anything & everything except their personal mobile phones!" Why the security & privacy bubble? I don't know, guess its best to respect each others privacy. But for the rest of us who are not too comfortable, yes that includes corporates doubting a possibly rogue employee, or a parent concerned about their teen children, help is here!

Top 10 Antivirus - 100% free direct download!

Top 10 Antivirus for your computers
        With rising number of viruses and malicious codes out there that aim to sabotage your computer, steal data, delete your documents or crash your system in a way that it won't start up, you, as a home user must be aware of ways you can defend yourself. Most organizations have high quality bespoke anti virus solutions along with other advanced software to safeguard their data, but a typical home user is often left with over priced antivirus packages or at times, has no clue what he needs and ends up leaving the system vulnerable. A word of caution, please do not download "cracked antivirus" software as they are prone to malicious code themselves and often do not receive virus definition updates from manufacturer server since the keys you used are probably blacklisted. So that said, here is top 10 packages that you can download directly by clicking on them!

Avast! 100% free for Home users
Back in the days as a home user, i had been using Avast for quite a long while and I must say, this package coupled with a good firewall kept my system safe for years! The package is free to download, comes with a great looking User Interface and 100% free updates as well.You might be asked to register with an email ID initially. Premium version available for a 30 day trial.

Avira Free Antivirus
Quite popular among home users worldwide, Avira has an easy installation setup and is light on the system. Premium version available for a 30 day trial.

 AVG antivirus
No antivirus listing goes complete without mentioning AVG antivirus! Tried and tested personally, AVG does a decent job of securing your files from viruses and malware.

ESET NOD32 antivirus
A pretty good antivirus made by the Slovak, allows server deployment and live monitoring of access files. A must try! 100% free with live installer and updates.

Comodo antivirus
A decent antivirus from a popular Firewall manufacturer, comodo is light on system and does the job perfectly. Comodo Antivirus quotes itself as the "Best Antivirus on the Market. Guaranteed." Try it!

Microsoft Security essentials
For the uninitiated, its a myth that microsoft sucks at security. Be proud that inspite of a hundred million viruses trying to break the Microsoft Windows OS, the company still stands firm and will stand as well! So try their security product too to go along with your windows.



Panda Cloud Antivirus
Panda offers its anti virus protection as a service over the cloud. A very minimal installation is required on the client machine. The software is not standalone and requires active internet connection. Not recommended to be used as a standalone but does a great job of complimentary protection. Must try if you have an unlimited internet and talk the cloud language! 

Bitdefender Free Edition
A quite a popular antivirus manufacturer, now offers a free edition for home users. A few manufacturer accompanied advertisements, but that doesn't disturb the job! 


Immunet Antivirus
A less popular antivirus package that is teething and growing. A good enough interface and timely updates. Worth a try.

Digital Defender Antivirus
Another lesser known antivirus package, new to the market. They quote that their product is the future of security! You'll never know unless you try it.

A new Browser For Facebook Users

They know that you, me and probably most others are on facebook and how serious we are about social networking and keeping in touch with our friends and family. But how many times a day do you login every few minutes into your facebook account from your browsing hours to update that 450Character status message?? Well, here's a simpler way! Rockmelt Browser could be your answer.

Tips for Shopping this Diwali season 2010

Diwali (Deepavali) is just around the corner and it means one thing, Shopping! You gotta buy gifts, gifts and then some more gifts for your family! Here's Part 1/2- guideline on how you can manage all that without burning too much of a hole in your pocket ;)

Enjoy 3D movies and Games at no extra cost!!

Of late, there's a lot of mojo going on around '3D' movies and 'in-your-face' gaming experience. Here's how to enjoy all that, at almost no extra expenses on your part!

Apple Iphone for $2 on auctions? Bids as less as a cent?

How does the idea of getting yourself that much awaited Apple Iphone or that 50'' inch LCD TV you wanted for your living room, all under $10?? Sounds too good to be true? Read on

Best Gaming Laptops under 1000$

           There are times when the inner gamer within us awakens and makes us go berserk to play the games out there on best possible settings! But any gamer worth his salt would know, to play a game in the way its meant to be played, one has to have the big boys under the hood and no, I am not talking about BFG*, I meant the hardware that runs your games... ;)

Godaddy: IIS6 to IIS7 easy upgrade path for YetAnotherForum

About two years ago, to host some academic content for my college, I signed up for a Godaddy Windows hosting plan with IIS 6 (the only option then). I had installed YetAnotherForum [YAF version 1.9.1.2]

Put your web browser through a HTML 5 test!

             HTML 5 (Hyper Text markup language) is the next major version and core language of the World Wide Web. As compared to the current HTML 4.x and XHTML 1.0, the future version hopes to reduce the usage of plugin technology like adobe flash, Microsoft SilverLight etc. Quoted to reach

Photography Tutorials part 4 - Playing with Light

Understanding the light around us is a very crucial step in photography. For if there was no light, there would be no photography.  Controlling the amount or color of light while shooting, requires special attention as light plays a major role contributing to the overall appeal of the image.

Blogger's all New template designer for 2010

Two days ago, when I logged into my blogger page, I was thrown a neat little surprise announcing a new feature being added to the blogger dashboard, called the "Template Designer".

Free youtube goodies

YouTube is been offering free pack of 50 business cards [worth 30$] to its Users/Contributors  via affiliation with the MOO network.

Wannabe Picasa or Van gough? Just move and click grids!

Here's two great applications that will keep your creative mind occupied for hours. Making art was never so simple!

Play with composition grids and lines:
Composition with Javascript is an interactive work made using HTML, CSS, Javascript and jQuery, based on Piet Mondrian's “Composition with Yellow, Red, Black, Blue and Grey” (1920). It allows everybody deconstruct the original painting and form it again in whatever he or she wants. Lines are shiftable (just drag it with your mouse) and colours changeable (click on it). Texture of the painting was preserved for authentic look. One can play with composition, forms and colours, alter the harmony of the piece or even destroy it and compose something pictorial
Visit Composition with Javascript


Play with Paint splatters and get creative:
There are times when you really cant make up your mind to paint a picture. You could either look at some reference pictures and get a cue or maybe just randomly spill out some colorful paint in a random fashion and peek into the splatter to identify your next masterpiece! Enter Jackson Pollock's paint room where the intensity of your mouse's movement throws out varying degree of paint splatter. Click to change color. You could save your doodle or that masterpiece by exporting it into one of the allowed formats.
Visit Jackson Pollock Paintroom

Understanding Google wave

Hey!

 Google Wave has gone public and is now available for everyone! All you need is a google account and you are all set to wave, literally! This article will try to explain some basic features of the wave and will help you get started using this great innovation.

The dashboard

Lets call the homepage of the google wave as "The dashboard" for the sake of convenience. Here's a screenshot of the dashboard.

The top left is your navigation menu. It contains a host of other options and add on applications called extensions that aims to ease your work and simplify your collaboration requirements. 

The bottom left panel is where your existing contacts are shown. You can also add/remove contacts in this panel. Even drag drop works!

The third panel, the inbox panel is just like your email inbox. This is the place where all your waves, conversations are archived chronologically. The upper tab also allows you to search within the inbox message contents very quickly. 

The panel at the extreme right is the place where all your wave activity, ranging from sharing pictures, editing documents, chat, group discussions takes place. There are self descriptive icons for each of the functions supported. 

All the panels of the dashboard are fully resizable and can also be minimized or hidden when required. 

Initiate a wave meet

Let us start by clicking a blank wave as shown below.

This will throw you a new panel as shown below. 

Choose to accept google gears if prompted. This will fasten up your page load times. Now to add contact, drag drop your contacts on the wave panel and you are now ready to start a wave meet with your friend. 

The chatting occurs in real time i.e your friends can see as you type. They need not wait until you hit the enter key! The level of interactivity has been considerably improved. Unlike conventional methods, you can just simply drag drop images from you computer to the wave panel and its shared instantly.

 A thumbnail preview is shown and can be maximized on to a clean black background too. Just like those online flash galleries.

The User Interface [UI] is quite intuitive and works just the way you want it, though google claims that there might be some bugs still. Say you accidentally added your friend to your boss's meeting and you want him removed, no need to head over to options, stumble onto remove contact. This time you do it in google style, yes, you guessed it, just drag and drop him back to your contacts list. He will be immediately removed from your meeting list. 

Here's a video from Google highlighting some special features of their wave:

The overall interface of the google wave is neat, clean, simple, intuitive and quite appealing. Google wave, A revolution in human collaboration??