Create multiple email ids for your domain for free

According to Daily Changes currently there are 133,339,810 domains (Websites) in active state as on 2nd October, 2011. Today, buying a domain for personal use is not uncommon. Even those who are not professionals or know nothing about the software technology buy domains for blogging or personal use like posting pictures, bio etc.

Domain sellers mostly provide the option of having one or 2 custom email addresses. Do you know that you can have more than 2 email addresses for your domain and that too without paying for any mail server or email service and without the help of a professional? If you don't know how to do it continue reading....

 How to create multiple email addresses for your own domain?

• To create free email addresses register on Google App Standard Edition here. It offers creation of 10 email addresses for free.
  
• Enter you domain under the section "I want to use an existing domain name"
• Enter details to sign-up for Google Apps
• You would need to verify your domain; There are multiple ways to do it, upload the HTML on your website, add the meta tag as suggested or if you can, add a new DNS record by logging into your domain host account. You can also verify the domain by linking your Google Analytics account. Domain verification is must since it's the only way Google can ascertain that you are the owner of the domain(website)
• One you have completed any of the verification processes you are good to go
  
• Complete the verification process and return to your domain host (The one from where you have purchased the web-domain)
• Login and add a new MX record entry. Click here for detailed instruction on how to add MX record enter for different domain hosts. You would need to enter MX records as depicted below:

• Once all MX record entries are done, go back to Google Apps account and start creating new users or email addresses by clicking on the Organization and Users tab.
•  Click on create a new user, enter details and enter email id you want to create. For example info@yourdomain.com. Repeat the process to create more email addresses.

You can send or receive emails for these email address at www.google.com/a/yourdomain. Write your domain name in place of yourdomain.com. You can also configure these email address in outlook by following instructions mentioned here.

So go, create your own personal email addresses (yourname@youowndomain.com) for free.

authorSTREAM launches new Pro plans with a time limited 50% off offer

authorSTREAM the PowerPoint sharing platform and a SlideShare competitor has gone all out to launch their new pro plans. authorSTREAM's new paid plans are very competitive and rich in feature set. authorSTREAM pro plans start at $2.5/month and provide features like advance analytics, unlimited private uploads, PowerPoint to video conversions etc.

authorSTREAM - Features and Subscription Plans

authorSTREAM is also offering 50% off for next 7 days, which means you just have to pay $15 for the entire year for Pro.

One of major differences between SlideShare and authorSTREAM is the presentation output quality. authorSTREAM is capable of handling the basic PowerPoint features like animations, sound and videos whereas SlideShare just produces static output with no animations and media. While SlideShare is into everything like document, excel, pdf and video sharing, authorSTREAM seems committed to presentation sharing only.

On the lines of Pc vs. Mac, authorSTREAM has also launched a authorSTREAM vs. SlideShare campaign. authorSTREAM has done a fair job by comparing the presentation output and feature set in detail. This comparison might help power users of PowerPoint to  make their decision about authorSTREAM or SlideShare.

Here is a nice video done by authorSTREAM to highlight their unique features.

Money Manager for Indian customers

On the lines of mint.com, CNBC TV 18 network in collabortaion with intuit has launched Intuit Money Manager for Indian customers. Intuit Money Manager lets users manage their money- users can brings all their financial accounts together online, can categorizes their transactions (dining, travel, household), and let them set the budget and  help them achieve their savings goals. Users can set triggers to be notified about payments or if budget for some category has reached or is about to cross the set limit. Aimed to help people manage their portfolio, the product can go big way provided the monthly fee is nominal.

Internet explorer 9: HTML5, hardware acceleration and much more

Microsoft Internet explorer (IE), which is facing stiff competition from Chrome and Firefox browser, has something promising on the platter. Next version of Internet explorer, IE9 will support HTML5, new Java script engine and will utilize graphics card to render media, images and text. Internet explorer's share is continuously declining despite being default browser of  Windows operating system.

Current market share of different browsers:

2010	IE8	IE7	IE6	Firefox	Chrome	Safari	Opera
April	16.2%	9.3%	7.9%	46.4%	13.6%	3.7%	2.2%
March	15.3%	10.7%	8.9%	46.2%	12.3%	3.7%	2.2%
February	14.7%	11.0%	9.6%	46.5%	11.6%	3.8%	2.1%
January	14.3%	11.7%	10.2%	46.3%	10.8%	3.7%	2.2%

                                             Latest stats from w3cschools

IE 9 with its rich features may change the game again.

IE9 and HTML5 support

There is no doubt that HTML5 is the future of  the web. After Safari, Chrome and Firefox now it's  IE 9 which will be fully equipped to read and and execute HTML5 tags. Major tag in HTML5 is video tag and IE9 will be supporting video tag with H.264-encoded videos.

New Java script engine

IE9 will have a new Java scriprt engine, codenamed Chakra.Chakra includes a new JavaScript compiler that compiles JavaScript source code into high-quality native machine code, a new interpreter for executing script on traditional web pages, and improvements to the JavaScript runtime and libraries. IE9 includes a fast interpreter for running pages quickly on startup. For compilation, it uses as background code generator that compiles script code, and  push compiled methods back into the application. Because the code generator runs in the background, it can take advantage of  multi-core machines and generate higher-quality code, while not blocking initial execution of the application.

IE 9 and Graphics processing unit

Internet Explorer 9 will use the power of  Graphics processing unit (GPU) or graphics card of your system to render all standards-based web content – text, images, video and SVG. As IE9 will do  more stuff using the GPU, there will be less CPU load, enabling other browser subsystems to do more, as well as enabling higher frame rates for smooth animation and video playback. IE9 is based on Windows technologies like Direct2D, DirectWrite and XPS. Using  hardware acceleration, IE 9 will offer fast zooming, smooth text animations, high quality graphics printing, smooth video playback experience and this all will not drain much of your laptop's battery.

All of these GPU-powered capabilities of IE9 will make it easier for developers to create a new class of rich media web applications.

Browse Facebook for free on your mobile

Image via CrunchBase

Now you can browse Facebook for free on your mobile. Yes, Facebook has launched a new mobile site, 0.facebook.com which can be accessed on select carriers for zero data charge. This new mobile website is available through more than 50 mobile operators in 45 countries with zero data charges (see list below).

The new mobile site includes all of the key features of Facebook but is optimized for speed. Users can update their status, view their News Feed, like or comment on posts, send and reply to messages, or write on their friends' Wall just as they do on Facebook.com. Rather than making photos viewable on 0.facebook.com, the photos appear on click so they don't slow down the experience. You need to pay for data charges when you view photos.

The site has been optimized for speed on mobile devices. Facebook already have a standard mobile site which requires you to pay for data charges. Facebook 0 with zero data charges is certainly going to make Facebook fans happy.

Countries and mobile operators offering Facebook 0

How to get to million users in a short span?

For any startup, getting a user base of million users is counted as a big achievement. For some it may be a break even situation and for others it may be the right time for pitching the product to investors to raise funding. It may take years for any startup to get to the magic number of one million. Besides offering a quality product startups need to work out SEO, SEM with a strong presence on various social media platforms. As the financial and human resouces are limited for most of the startups so every small decision  can make and mar the future growth of the product.

Here are some quick tips from Adam Smith, the founder of  Xobni(Outlook add-in) and Drew Houston, the founder of  Dropbox(Sync your files online from your computer) on how to get from Zero to a Million Users.

From Zero to a Million Users - Dropbox and Xobni lessons learned

View more presentations from Adam Smith.

Find and Replace text in multiple files in one go

For developers, technical writers it's quite common to face a situation where they have to change or replace some incorrect text in documents(.doc), text files(.txt), XML or HTML files. With modern text editors it is quite easy to find and replace text  in a single document. You just need to press Ctrl+H in notepad or MS-Word and enter the text you want to find in the find box and a text you want to replace in the 'replace with' box. As soon you click replace all button, all the incorrect text get replaced with the text you provided in 'replace with' text box.

What about the situation where you have to correct a typo or a complete sentence in 50 XML or HTML files? In such situations Replace text, a free software from ecobyte, comes handy. Replace Text is a free  string-replacing utility for Windows. Find and Replace text software can replace text in more than 50  HTML, Text and XML files with hundred percent accuracy in just a few seconds.

When specifying which files to be included in a particular replace operation, you can either add one file at a time, or you can tell Replace Text  to use all the files from a particular folder. You can also set filter(such as *.txt or *.html) to include files of that particular extension only from a folder for replace operation. Additionally, you can decide to include all the files from the folder. Find and Replace from ecobyte will for sure save valuable human resource time.

Caution: Replace Text is designed to operate only on true text files. Do not use Replace Text on binary files (such as Word documents) unless you understand the consequences.