This blog, www.nirjhar.com is on WordPress Engine. From this you can imagine I am a great fan of WordPress though I am not a regular blogger but reader indeed! I am a regular reader of TechCrunch (www.techcrunch.com actually my favorite site in this world ) and it is also a blog. The Great blog.

Few days back I started observing my native blog platforms very closely. While watching Somewherein Blog (www.somewhereinblog.net), Amar Blog (www.amarblog.com) and some individual bloggers (which are also in wordpress. Example Shahidul Alam’s blog http://shahidul.wordpress.com) for my test cases and after while Nations’ largest newspaper The Daily Prothom Alo launched their own blogging site (www.prothom-aloblog.com). That was also a positive step for this country, Bangladesh. The largest print media is shacking hand with web based media. For me it is a milestone.

Origin of Blog (From Wikipedia)

Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, commercial online services such as GEnie, BiX and the early CompuServe, e-mail lists^[56] and Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet forum software, such as WebEx, created running conversations with “threads.” Threads are topical connections between messages on a metaphorical “corkboard.”

The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers. Justin Hall, who began personal blogging in 1994 while a student atSwarthmore College, is generally recognized as one of the earliest bloggers,^[57] as is Jerry Pournelle.^{[citation needed]} Dave Winer’s Scripting News is also credited with being one of the oldest and longest running weblogs.^[58][59] Another early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person’s personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site in 1994. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance, and such journals were also used as evidence in legal matters.

In 1993, Dr. Glen Barry started publishing the first political blog — the “Forest Protection Blog” (originally entitled “Gaia’s Forest Conservation Archives”) at http://forests.org/blog/ — both to campaign for forest protection and as his Ph.D. project^[60]. This political blog initially used the gopher protocol, and has been on the web continuously since Jan. 1995, making it the web’s first and longest continuously running political blog. The work has since evolved into the world’s largest environmental portals.

Early blogs were simply manually updated components of common Web sites. However, the evolution of tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of Web articles posted in reverse chronological order made the publishing process feasible to a much larger, less technical, population. Ultimately, this resulted in the distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize today. For instance, the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of “blogging”. Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services, or they can be run using blog software, such as WordPress, Movable Type, Blogger or LiveJournal, or on regular web hosting services.

Blogging and Bangla:

Apart from the blogging history a new era was brought in Bangladesh on 16th December, 2005 on the day of Nations “Victory Day”. On that day somewherein net launched the first Bangla (Bengali, bn) blogging platform with full support of Unicode (UTF-8) with phonetic Bangla keyboard input. Before that Bangla bloggers were using Blogger to write their Bangla blog with external unicode keyboard like Avro, Ekushey, Bijoy. But blogger wasn’t in Bangla. My favorite Developer Hasin Hayder was the developer of this blog. And again in 2008 hasin created the new Bangla blogging platform Prothom-aloblog. Congratulations Hasin.

And now, blogging in Bangla is really easy for the easy typing method and easy Unicdoe conversion tools. And creating local blogging community is a trend now in Bangladesh. Each day I am getting question from people “How can I start a blog platform?” and My answer is always Wordpress. And then they asked what wordpress? Is it WP or WPMU (WordPress Multi User)? Then I have to answer them with care.

Here is some facts.

WordPress	WordPress MU
Supports one blog with multiple bloggers. Bloggers can’t use a avatar picture by uploading in database.	Supports multiple blogs and multiple bloggers. Bloggers can write for multiple blogs. Blogger can use avatar.
Famous for its “5 minute install.” In practical it needs actually some seconds if you use some service like SampleScript or Fantastico .	Setup is more involved. Really tough.
No advanced hosting requirements. Any host with a MySQL Database support will do.	Your host needs to support wildcard DNS to use the sub domains feature. And most of the cases few hoster (very costly) has this feature. You can’t use this in a Shared Hosting service.
Instant installation (through Fantastico, etc.) supported by many webhosts.	FTP time! You can reduce it by uploading in .zip format and decompress with Shell extension or CPanel File Manager. But still this is kind of Geek work.
Each user is assigned a role level (subscriber, contributor, author, editor, administrator).	In addition to the standard WordPress roles, you can also specify “site admins” who can add/edit/delete all blogs and users.
WordPress receives updates first.	MU users must wait for WordPress updates to be applied to WordPress MU.
Administrators can edit themes, plugins, and code files from within WordPress.	The Theme Editor, Plugin Editor, and Manage Files sections are all disabled for security reasons.
Plugins can be enabled/disabled by the blog administrator.	The site admin can opt to have plug-in disabled altogether (the default setting), or allow blog administrators to enable/disable plug-in that have been uploaded. Plug-in can also be uploaded to a special “mu-plug-in” folder, where they will be executed automatically on all blogs. (Some plug-in won’t function property when run this way, however.)
If you have multiple blogs running standard WordPress, you’d need to upload plugin updates to each one.	Plugins for all WordPress MU blogs are stored in one place. Update once, and it takes effect on all the site’s blogs.
If you have multiple blogs running standard WordPress, you’d need to login to each one separately to access the administration.	You can switch between blog admins using a simple drop-down menu.
Allows you to use most HTML in your posts, but strips out PHP.	In addition to removing PHP, WordPress MU is more strict in regards to what post HTML it accepts. For example, it will strip out class/ID attributes, inline styles, <span> tags, etc.
WordPress allows posting via email.	WordPress MU lacks this feature.
WordPress lets you customize its list of update services.	WordPress MU doesn’t let you specify update services.

Facts are collected from WordPress Expert Blog and modified in many part. Thanks Wordpress Experts.

I think there are other issues involving this comparison. As I am not an expert so dear folks please update here. I’ll love to put those.

Why WordPress?

Here is my points for WordPress:

1. It is really stable and fast.
2. Very easy to setup.
3. Versy easy to manage posts, comments, tags, categories and Spam.
4. Has huge range of Theme (template) to furnish the blog.
5. Plenty of tools (plug-in) is ready to enrich the blog.
6. You can post through Windows LIver Writer, MS Office, ScribeFire and Other supported offline applications.
7. The message compositing composer is really attractive with rich media support.
8. Using the custom fields is really handy.
9. Easy to track back the posts.

If I highlight number 6 (desktop blog posting software) both Somewhereinblog and Prothom-aloblog doesn’t have this feature. Only amar blog (www.amarblog.com) has it as because of WordPress MU.

Moderated Media in Bangladesh:

In Bangladesh every media is moderated. If you think of a printed media they’ve huge moderation due to the limitation of space. So few of lucky person can write their (The Editors and Journalists are lucky, they’ve some space their ). When Bangla blogging started with the slogan “Badh Bhangar Awaj” as it implies the sound of breaking off the dam to unlock the free expression of motions, emotions, interactions in Bangla blogs the writers (bloggers) were happy. At least they’ve a place where they can write whatever they like. After while the blog community was polluted due to slang and personal attack. Then the blog company started to moderate the posts. Then again the moderated media is reborn.

For this reason many bloggers started their own personal blog. Because they believe blog is still their their Web Log.

amar blog · Blogging Engine · Blogging Platform · hasin · history · prothom-aloblog · somewhereinblog · swi · techcrunch · wikipedia · wordpress · WP · WPMU

Are you running a small business? Are you looking for better mail services for your domain? Do you want to see your team member’s task list or appointments?

If you feel in this way, I have better options for you which are absolutely free. And the services are provided by a giant called Google. Do not wonder. I am not Joking. I am going to talk about Google Application Services.

By using Google Apps you can customize various services like mails, calendar, docs, and sites and start page for your own domain.

In this article I’ll discuss the Setup of Google Apps and use of it. So I’ll separate the article into two parts.

1. Setup Google Applications.

2. Using Google Applications for your domain.

How to setup Google Apps for your domain?

For this implementation, you need a domain. If you already have a domain then make sure your domain management allows full DNS control. If you don’t have the full DNS service then you’ve to host your domain to a DNS hosting service. Don’t worry, there are lots of free DNS hosting in the Internet. If you or your company don’t have a domain name (think you’ve) then register a domain with any good service provider whom are providing full DNS management. I’ll suggest Yahoo or Godaddy for this. Both Yahoo and GoDaddy provide full DNS control. The other usual providers only provide the name server entries.

Remember:

You’ve to verify your domain in Google first. For this you need to upload a file in your web site root folder (public html folder root).

First Step:

1. Go to www.google.com/a

2. Click on Business and Employee (image shown).

3. Click on Get Started (Image Shown)

4. Click on Standard Edition Sign Up (image shown).

5. Check the Administrator radio button (detailed in image) and enter the domain name without www. Example: interlink-bd.com (I am using this domain for this article) and hit get started.

6. Fill the form carefully because this will be the Administrative account for this Application Service under the domain. Remember all * mark fields are mandatory. Just estimate your members’ quantity and put the approximate value in the Number of user’s field. Let’s say 200 that mean your organization has at least 200 of users. After finishing the form hit Continue.

7. Create the Administrative email address of this Domain user group and accept the Agreements.

8. You’re all done. You need to verify this domain. You can that all services are Not Active. Just do the verification. As I told earlier that you need to put a file on the web root folder. That time has come. Click on Verify Domain Ownership.

9. From drop down select Upload HTML method. Now open Notepad application (or any text editor) and copy and paste the text googlefffff***** (it can be vary) on it and save as the file as googlehostedservice.html. Now upload the HTML file to the root director of your website. Now Click on Verify.

10. Wait until the Domain has been verified. Take a snacks break. And come back and hit refresh on the browser.

11. Hopefully you can see your domain has verified. Now have a look on Email section. Click Activate on Email. You have to change the MX entry for your domain. Please select your Domain Service provider from the dropdown menu and see the instruction how to change the MX entries. I am giving you a image for GoDaddy as I am using its service. If your service provider is not listed here just go for the general instruction. Remember, you need the full DNS access for this purpose. If your provider does not providing Full Access ask for it. If they can’t then you’ve to host your DNS to a DNS hosting provider. Don’t worry. You’ll find lots of free DNS hosting services. After changing the MX records hit the ‘I have completed these steps’ button.

12. You can see all services are active except Email and Chat. This’ll take another 25minutes maximum though it has been said 48hours maximum. In the mean time let’s do something more. That is customizing the addressing.

Google provides unique address for each service. In general mail address access link will be mail.google.com/a/domain name but you can customize it by creating a C Name record like mail.yourdomain and point it to Google applications. For this method, you need to login your domain control panel again and give some times in C Name records section.

1. Click on Email link. Then Click on Change URL link. Point to the custom field and change the name to your desired name.domain and hit Continue>>.

2. Now the application system is telling you to create a C Name records called mail (which you input before) and point it to ghs.google.com. Do it. And then hit I’ve completed these steps. In this way customize all your service URL. I am giving you my DNS entries image.

You’re almost ready to use this free service by Google for your domain. Now only one thing left, you’ve to add users in this valuable service.

1. From the Google application control panel Click on Crea te new user’s link.

2. Now Create users entry individually or multiply and set password for each account. (Best practice will be set a password in common and tell them to change it immediately.)

3. You can create mail list. For example your company has a billing department which has 5 employees. Just create a list name ‘billing’ and add all billing people on it. So that if anyone mails to billing@domain all billing personnel will get that mail.

4. Make a Catch All account. If a mail comes to an address which is not created to your domain you can let it to store a particular email address or you can discard it. You can do this thing from the Email options. For this just click on Email link from apps control panel and set it.

This is the first version of this tutorial actually. I’ll modify this upon your feedback. Don’t forget to write to me if you feel anything or facing problem doing this.

lrnirjharATgmailDOTcom <<write here.

calendar · dns · google · google apps · imap · mail · mail server · mx · pop · Technology