Which Web Hosting should I take?

Thats the most frequent query that I see in most startup forums. No wonder it is, as setting up a domain is the first thing that any tech startup needs to tackle. Hence I decided to write a post on this, giving my answers. This post will help you with the following:

• Registering a domain.
• Understanding different types of web hosting.
• Setting up email

Registering the Domain
While many hosting providers provide free domains, I believe it is always better to buy your primary domain individually rather than tied to any hosting plan. That ways even if you have to switch your hosting provider anytime, you need not worry about the domain. And with domains costing around $10/year, this is a pretty cheap investment.
There is not much of customer service needed from any Domain Registrar, so I simply looked for the cheapest I could find and registered the domains I needed. I used www.domainsearchindia.com, and while the website looks unprofessional and I had to call them to get things done, it got the job done at pretty much the cheapest prices I have seen so far. Lots of registrars would offer you Email Forwarding or Managed DNS hosting services, but you would not need them. The only thing you need after buying the domain name is an ability to change its nameserver to point to your hosting provider, and that comes for free.

Web Hosting
Web Hosting is a different beast. Here you need reliable servers, high uptime, good customer service and cheap prices on top of that. My first advice is to look for hosting in US. 2 reasons for that - first, bandwidth is cheaper in US and hence you can find a cheaper deal. Second, in general the reliability of US hosting providers and their customer care is better than the Indian ones.
There are 3 kinds of hosting - Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting and Dedicated Servers.

Shared Hosting - The cheapest option available and is around $5-10 per month. Basically the server hardware on which your website would reside would also have 400-500 other websites hosted. Such a setup is in general used for hosting blogs or simple sites with low traffic. The hosting provider would offer huge bandwidth and harddisk, however there would be no promises on website loading speed. You can start with this for initial testing as well as till your traffic is low. A lot of people recommend Dreamhost for this. We used Lunarpages, and their service wasn't all that great but it was kind of okay. One piece of advice - look for SSH access. The web admin interface they provide isn't meant for techies.

VPS (Virtual Private Server) Hosting - The server hardware is sliced into 4-5 virtual servers using a virtualization software. So effectively you have your own machine with root access. Internally all the slices still use the same hardware but there are some gurantees on your share of CPU and memory. My friend Prateek suggested an excellent VPS hosting provider VpsFarm. Check out his blog post on why he recommends it. This type of hosting costs around $40 per month and works of medium traffic. A lot of people recommend buying multiple VPS slices for horizontal scaling as your traffic grows.

Dedicated Hosting - You own the whole server hardware. Costs start around $160. We have been using SoftLayer and have been pretty satisfied with that. We moved directly from Shared hosting to Dedicated hosting, primarily because I didn't know abt VPS hosting at that time. My website on Indian Tourism serves quite a lot of static content and VPS may have worked out well for us.

Another advice - Most US sites give out discount coupons/special offers from time to time. Do look out for offers and you may be able to get a good deal.

Setting up Email
Use Google Apps for your domain. Thats free and simplest way to setup your own email@domain-name. You would need to put some CNAME records and MX records in the DNS entries of the Web Hosting provider. If you are on shared hosting, you would need to ask the customer support to do the same for you.

This should solve some of the basic pains of setting up your own domain. One thing to notice is that cost of initial setup is pretty low. A domain name with shared hosting would set you back around Rs. 3000 for an year. That would give you enough time to test your new idea :-)

Upgrading iPhone from 1.1.4 to 2.2

It has been quite some time since version 2.0 was released for iPhone 2G. Even though I thought of upgrading many times before, I couldn't due to following reasons:

• The sites I used for unlocking 1.x versions didn't provide any info for 2.x, and I didn't feel like googling.
• I wasn't sure whether my data could be backed up.
  
• While info on unlocking a fresh iPhone was available, I couldn't really find anything on upgrade.
  
• Most tools I found were Mac based.

Now that I did put enough time on google on this and successfully upgraded, here is how I did it:

• Before starting, this article is strictly for iPhone 2G (i.e. the first phone Apple launched) using Windows.
  
• All your data would be restored to the phone after the upgrade, so you need not worry about losing anything.
  
• The process is applicable on both upgrading and setting up a fresh iPhone.
• This would both jailbreak and unlock the iPhone. If you don't know what jailbreaking is, you need not worry.
  
• Standard Disclaimer: Unlocking the iPhone voids its warranty. If you don't want that, don't do it. Of course, if you have the 2G iphone in India then its useless without unlocking.
  

What didn't work - This tutorial using WinPwn. Probably because I missed a few instructions. In any case, WinPwn doesn't 2.2 as of now.

What worked - This tutorial using QuickPwn. Time needed - 25 mins.

Why should you upgrade? iPhone Apps. Check out all the new apps that are available in iTunes store. I have already installed more than 20 (all free) and they greatly enhance the ability of iPhone.

Trouble Shooting (some steps I tried while giving phone support to friends who had issues upgrading)

• Check that the restore file you downloaded is not corrupt. You can do it by finding the md5sum of the file. It should be 3603b5d9536cd0b269261cab406a7c38. To find out the md5sum, download from here.

Life, Recession and some Nostalgia

Sometime around this last year, I was patting my team members on the back. We had collectively achieved what for me was "the biggest achievement of my career".

Some 10 months earlier, my CEO had felt the need to revamp one of our offerings. It was a web application in the Education vertical of Lead Generation market, and it had gone pretty big contributing to almost a third of company's revenues. But the product was a two tier jsp/servlet/mysql architecture with little reporting features. We wanted to take this to the next level - scalable and flexible architecture, easier maintenance, much higher data gathering and lots of reporting, optimization and mining on top of that. Me and a colleague of mine were entrusted with this project.

This was exactly the kind of technical challenge I was looking for. Working on the product from scratch, right from reqts to design to coding to testing/deployment, everything was in my hands. And as I realizes later on, such challenges are not just "technical"
10 months is a long time. Its the time when confidences get shaken. Its the time when the entire business team gets changed. And its also the time when a team to 2 grows to team of 10. And when a guy moves from Senior Software Engr -> Tech Lead -> Tech Architect.

It was a great Dec. There are night outs everyday. Everyone in the team was highly motivated. Typical schedule was working till 11 and then having dinner together. We were determined to get our baby to replace the old boy by January. And we did it. I was so proud of my team. I still am.

Sadly, not many are in the company to witness the 1st birthday of the child. The success of the product gave me enough confidence to move towards my next dream, my entrepreneur venture. But some of the others were not as lucky. I never really felt that recession would cause laying off in Indian companies, but it did happen last month and quite a few of my colleagues were unfortunate to be part of it.

Life does not always have a happy ending, but that does not reduce the flavour of the proceedings. The time we all worked together was great, and I would always be proud of working with such a great team. And thank you everyone for making my dream a reality.

AVG Antivirus 8 doesn't update

I recently upgraded my AVG 7.5 to 8. I have been using and recommending AVG for home users since a long time now primarily due to two reasons:

• It is free.
• All major antivirus solutions are trying to become all-in-ones with integrated firewall, anti-spyware etc etc. While this is beginner friendly, it also makes them pretty resource hungry. While Avg Pro is in the same race, I still see Avg free as much lighter on resources.
  

Having said that, I also feel that an average Avg user needs to be computer literate.

I didn't face any issues with AVG 7.5 other than the update server being down sometimes. However, I ran into an issue as soon as I installed AVG 8. After a few auto-updates that went fine, it suddenly stopped updating, giving an error message - "Invalid CTF file". At first the AVG update server was down, but this went for longer than I would expect the server to be down.

I googled around a bit and found this. The solution was straight-forward

• Goto C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\avg8\update\download
• Delete the 2 .ctf files there.

And it worked. No issues with AVG 8 after that. However, I am pretty surprised by that AVG has not understood the gravity of the situation and have failed to provide an automatic patch. I agree that this is a free product, but how do you expect your free users to convert to pro if your free product will fail to provide the security that it promises. Issues like these can single-handedly kill a product.

Farewell letter to Sourav Ganguly

Dear Sourav

I was in class Xth when I first heard about you. My friend told me that these matches would be telecasted in some new channel ESPN, which I cable provider didn't provide. I wasn't too keen anyways. Next day he told me that you hit a century on Lords. Bahut hi beautiful khel raha tha yaar, aur off side main to amazing hi maar raha tha. 

Then came Toronto, the Sahara Cup. You won the man of the match with your batting. Sachin, who was captain then, said - We have a secret weapon, and he did it for us. Next match, small target for Pakistan. They were doing well. Suddenly you came and took 5 wkts. We won and you won the man of the match again. Sachin - As I said we have a secret weapon, and he can bowl too. Another match, another man of the match. and then another one. Sachin was running out of words. All he said was - Well, our secret weapon is not longer secret. And you became the God of offside.

Then I went to college. you and Sachin became the most successful opening pair for India. And you would come at no 6 in tests, inevitably hitting a century playing with tailenders. And inevitably you would come down the track and hit the ball for a six on mid on. Sixes from Indian Batsmen were a rarity those days. We actually believed that Rahul Dravid cannot hit a ball for six as he doesn't have enough power. This and the Straight Drive six from Sachin were the treats that we would watch a match for. And what happened in that faithful match with Sri Lanka Sourav. You just kept on coming down the track on Murali and hitting him for a six. A score of 183 to break the age old Indian record by Kapil Dev. I haven't seen anything like that before. And I thought, what are you doing Sachin, this record should belong to you. And he heard me too. In the hindsight, Sachin and Sourav with #1 and #2 best individual scores for India make perfect sense. 

Me and my friend used to just read statistics on cricinfo as a pastime. We found out, not surprising though, and that you have taken less matches to cross each 1000 runs landmark. I remember this link, At that time there used to be only 2 names there, and your name on the top (and only one name in the next list).

An injury to Ajay Jadeja and you were given captaincy for one ODI which we won. Then among some match fixing controversies and a ban on Jadeja, you became the captain. That was the time when we realized that your true greatness was more than batting. You became the most aggressive Indian Captain ever. Statements by the Steve Waughs would now get matching answers. You became the center of Indian Cricket, as many critics and there were fans. Some would say you couldn't play on the leg side. Others would say you can't play bouncers. But we the college youngsters just loved your attitude. You made us believe that we can be more than just tigers at home. And forget cricket, you taught us aggression, and the confidence to take on the world. 

It was you under which we witness the most historic wins. That Very Very Special Eden Gardens Test, that Natwest Final where you took of the ur shirt. In there anyway one can forget them. Then there was the overseas victory in England. And it didn't come easy. You took the brave decision to bat first on a testing pitch, then Dravid passed that test with flying colors to hit a century on day 1. Then Sachin and you took over and just murdered the English bowlers. I remember the umpire offered you guys light and you didn't take it. Instead, both of you scored 83 runs in the next 10 overs that we bowled. The first time when the God, the Wall and the Prince all hit centuries in the same test, and that too an overseas one. We had to win that one. 

Then people started questioning your batting. We thought its just a lean patch and will be fine as long as you are leading well. Then came the World Cup. Suddenly the pacers who used to be the weakness of the team became match winners. Suddenly the fielding improved. Suddenly there were weird things happening like Team Huddles. Before the Pakistan match, you said We just need to win every match. And you did. Except Australia. But you did establish India as the second best team after all.

But what happened then Sourav. That lean patch would simply not end. Its not that we didn't wait. 3 years is a long long time. Its a long time when everytime you would watch a match hoping to see that flair again that Sourav was known for, and all you would get a yet another disappointment along with everyone else saying bad words for you. You got a century in Australia and you almost made it a miserable last series for Steve Waugh. But we wanted more than that. You only taught us aggression. And aggression also means dropping a senior player mercilessly if its good for cricket. But you seeemed to forget your own principles. And one day you were out. I thought it was probably good for you. But I felt bad the way media used it. But that was is their business, isn't it. 

It indeed was good for you as you fought back. You taught us yet again on what to do in unfavorable circumstances. You fought and fought hard. You won back ur place. And you proved yet again that you deserve a much better exit than what you got earlier. 

Cricket ceased to be the same and so did life 6 years after college. There would not switching off the TV when Sachin would get out. There would not be a sense of confidence that one need not worry as long Dravid in on the crease. And there would not be leader like Sourav who would just not take sh*t from anybody. 

You can never forget heroes that you grow up with. And You are one of those. Farewell Sourav, I salute you, as much for being in the game as for leaving it. 

Update: This post is on BlogBharti

Photo Courtesy: rediff.com, welovesourav.com

Paragliding in Manali

What a fantastic vacation it was. I have always had a knack for adventure sports and Paragliding was loads of fun as well as satisfaction to learn something new. Five of us went together to do a course on Paragliding at Solang close to Manali.  

Continuing the tradition of live blogging in Ladakh, I wrote most of the blog during the vacation itself, and this time it was much easier to type on my iPhone. 

10-10 8:30 PM

Learning from the mistakes of Ladakh Trip, we booked a HPRTC Volvo Coach well in advance. In the bus right now and it looks pretty good. This is the last official bus to manali. However, lots of private deluxe and sleeper buses seem to be available.

11-10 11:30 AM

Reached manali in exactly 15 hours. Gonna be leaving for Solang Valley(thats where the paragliding happens) immediately via a taxi. He has agreed for 400 bucks.

11-10 10:00 PM

Today has been all about resting. While having lunch at our hotel, we spotted some people doing paragliding and clicked photos. 

First View

Had a walk in the evening to the paragliding centre. There is Horse Riding, Zorbing and a ride in an all terrain vehicle. Prices are exorbitant and nothing other than Paragliding seemed interesting. 

Zorbing

12-10 3:00PM

Today is our first day at paragliding. Our instructor is Mr. Anil. The first session was pretty good. Paragliding is best during summers. Heated surface generates thermals needed for high flying. Also the wind needs to be continuously belly up.

The basic concept of paragliding is "take the glider and run". As Rishi Kapoor said in Namastey London - ball phad, aur saand ki tarah bhaag.

Run hard

4:30PM

We couldn't do any paragliding in the afternoon as the tail wind started instead of belly up. Need to start early tomorrow.
6:30PM 

We met Mr. Bhagat, who is the organizer here. Very nice guy. He would be giving us lift to Manali. On the way, he showed us this great place for pizza and beer. Its called Himalayan sports club and its open only on Sundays. After a good pizza, we are off to manali. 

With Bhagatji

13-10 8:00PM

A very satisfying day at Paragliding. The trainers today were sikander and dharmender, two young and enthusiast chaps. During the last practice of the day, I was actually able to take off. Shobhit also reached pretty close to taking off. One bad thing that happened was that Shitiz got injured during the start of the day. Though the injury is minor, it prevented him from any practice today. We came back at 4, rested and then left for Vashisht Springs and manali at 6.
10:00 PM

We had a bath in the hot spring of Vashisht Temple. The water was pretty hot. It was just great. Had dinner and came back.

Come on Fight

14-10 4:00 PM - Rest Day.

We decided to take a day off from paragliding as everyone was pretty tired. Shitiz injury is not yet healed. It came out to be a good decision as it started raining around 11AM, which meant we could anyways not paraglide today. We decided to visit Manikaran to visit the gurudwara and the hot water springs there. Manikaran is quite a long drive from solang. The route is solang -> manali -> kullu -> manikaran. Took us 2.5 hrs to reach there. We visited the gurudwara and had langar. Then we saw the hot water springs and the shiva temple of Manikaran. The water was boiling hot. Even the temple surface was pretty hot due to the water.

Hot Springs

8:00PM

We went to Kullu to see the dussehra mela. Kullu Dussehra is famous and is celebrated over 7 days here. Various god statues from nearby villages are brought over to kullu where the kullu god is brought by the king of kullu. We reached just in time to see the procession of the gods.

Kullu Dev

Now we are going to manali to have dinner.

15-10 11:30 PM

Another rest day, a forced one. We started at 10 in the morning in overcast conditions. Barely did 3 flights when it started raining. Kept on raining throughtout the day. We have been playing dumb charades of Hindi songs since yesterday and we continued that. We have pretty much guessed every song of the world :D Sleeping and playing dumb charades has been the order of the day.

16-10 1:00PM

It hasn't stopped raining yet. Shobhit is not too happy. He wants to fly. But it seems like our paragliding dreams are over. It has snowed a lot at Rohtang and the roads are blocked. There is snowfall in Marhi too, which is normally the location for medium flying (i.e. people paraglide from Marhi to Solang). High Flying is from Rohtang to Solang, take around 45 mins. 

We went to Manali in the morning to take Shitiz to a local doctor to fix the bone joint of his knee.
We would be going to Marhi today to enjoy the snow.

11:00PM

Marhi was fantastic. I remember stopping at this place when we went to Ladakh. This time around it was covered with snow. Snowfall was going on when we reached, and we played in the snow for a while. Took some nice photos as well. The weather got cleared by the time we came back which gave us hopes of paragliding for tomorrow.

The Five Samurai

White all around

Marhi Panorama

At 11 in the night, I came out to photograph the snow covered mountains under the moonlight. Whatever photography knowledge I have gained so far got me this photo which I would call my best photo so far. 

Mountain in Moonlight

17-10 7:00PM

Beautiful sunny day. Paragliding at last. Started at 10 today. Shitiz is still not fit and Kirti got unwell due to the snow last night. So its gonna be just me, shobhit and shubra. We had quite a few flights today. Notice that I used the word flights and not trial :-) we learned a lot today and got lifted quite a bit in our flights. We paraglided till around 2 after which the tail wind started.

11:00 PM

We got tickets for Volvo coach back to Delhi for tomorrow at 5:30PM. Tomorrow is going to be our last day here and at Paragliding. We plan to paraglide till around 12PM and also get a tandem flight from medium height if possible. 

18-10 6:00PM

Another very satisfying day at Paragliding. This also concludes a very satisfying paragliding beginner's course. Shobhit and me both got some great flights, and I was able to reach the highest point for a beginner to take off from, in the last flight of the day.

Me Flying


Shobhit Flying

I finished the flight, took off the harness and helmet and went over to Sikander. As soon as he sees me, he says Aap Pitching theek se control nahi kar rahe hai, this is dangerous ... not really realizing that I am done for the season. That has been the story of the two coaches, Sikander and Dharmender, very keen on teaching and very strict. Next time when I come over, I would like to continue the classes and scoldings from them. 

With Dharmender and Sikander

Shubra and Shitiz did tandem flights too.

Shubhra Flying


Shitiz Flying

Now we are in the bus back to Delhi, ending a fantastic week. Next destination for me would be my hometown Jaipur, where I'll stay till Diwali. See ya and have a great Diwali. 

Off to Manali

Its been 3 good months in Bangalore. Its been fascinating working on Must See India and there has been great progress to keep the enthu going. For one, the traffic on Must See India has doubled in these 3 months! But the real motivation is the encouraging comments for travel enthusiasts that keep on flowing.

Other happenings in these 3 months have been Tennis, trip to Coonoor, two trips to Chennai and a rediscovered interest in photography. Traveling with some great photographers to Coonoor gave me motivation to get better pictures from my camera and I have been working towards learning the manual modes of my Canon Powershot S3 IS. The best of the pictures that I have taken all go in this Must See Photo Album.

After a real busy past 2 weeks, its time to take a break and do what I like the most - travel! Leaving for Delhi today, and then to Manali. The primary agenda is gonna be Paragliding at Solang Valley. And its gonna be a 5 day course where we should (hopefully) be able to paraglide all by ourselves.

So here I go, wishing everyone Happy Dusshera and a prosperous Diwali in this festive month.