Create a Personal Website Quickly using Google Sites

Ever wanted to quickly create a webpage for your neighborhood book club or sports team? Or maybe a personal page that you can share with your friends and family for a specific event like a wedding or birthday party?

If you do a Google search, you’ll get hundreds of listings on creating web pages instantly using templates, etc, but you normally have to spend a little bit of money. Those sites will get you a pretty looking site and it’ll probably be really customizable, but sometimes you just need to create something super simple, you don’t care what it looks like and you don’t want to spend a cent.

Google Sites can solve that problem for you because all you need is a Google account! Google Sites has been around for a long time, but it’s not terribly well known. The main reason is that Google only markets it to Google Apps for Work users, but it can be used by anyone. Here is an example website that I create with Google Sites in just the last 45 minutes to write this article.

As you can see, it’s a really simple webpage with a bunch of widgets added in two columns. It’s nothing fancy, but it gets the job done for a small family website. Also, if you do know a bit of coding and are tech-savvy, you can make the site look much more professional. For Google Apps users, you get 10 GB of space, but for non-app users, you get only 100 MB, so it’s really meant to be a small site.

By default, the site will have a URL starting with sites.google.com, but you can easily use a custom domain name if you have already bought one or purchase one using Google Domainsor any other domain registrar.

To get started, go to sites.google.com and click on the Create button to create your first web site.

To start off, you can pick from a couple of templates like sports team, classroom site, wedding, etc. Make sure to click on the Browse the gallery for more link because there are many more templates broken down into categories like activities & events, business collaboration, schools & education, clubs & organizations, etc.

Give your site a name and then customize the end of the URL if you like. By default, it’ll just be sites/google.com/site/sitename. You can change it to something else, but it has to be unique amongst all the Google Sites created in the world. If you chose a blank template, you can select a theme also. Click the I’m not a robot button and then click Create at the top.

You’ll now be brought to the home page for your new site. The important section is at the top where you can edit the current page, create a new page and adjust the settings for the page and the site.

The first thing I would suggest doing is to click on the gear icon and then click on theManage site link at the bottom.

Here you can configure a bunch of options like the site name, site description, the landing page, etc. You can also setup a site notice, which will pop up a message for all visitors of the website. If you want, you can configure Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools here also. At the bottom, there is an option to make the site responsive by adjusting it for mobile phones.

On the left side, you can also see recent site activity, all your pages, attachments that you upload, page templates you can use, apps scripts, sharing and permissions and themes/colors/fonts. The last section lets you add a header image and change the font, color and size for the text in various sections of the site like content area, sidebar, navigation, etc.

Once you have configured the site settings, it’s time to make sure you pick the layout you want for the entire site. To do that, go back to your homepage and then click on the gear icon again. This time click on Edit site layout.

It’s really easy to change the layout of the site. By default, Header and Sidebar are selected and enabled. If you want to remove or add a section, just click on the appropriate button at the top. When you have the sections you want, you can then hover your mouse over the section to edit it. You can also choose a custom site width if you like. For example, when you click on the header, you’ll get all the header options you can configure.

You can click on the sidebar to choose whether you want it on the right or left side of the site and adjust the width. You can click on the footer to choose what links you want there, etc. If you choose to add a custom footer, you can insert images, tables, etc. For my example page shown above, I got rid of the sidebar and the header.

After these two items have been completed, it’s time to start editing and creating pages. Before we get into that, there is one more concept to understand. In Google Sites, you can create four types of pages: Web Page, Announcements, File Cabinet and List. The home page is set to web page as default.

An Announcements page is a blog page with posts listed in chronological order. A File Cabinet page lets you upload files and will list them on the page. A List page allows you to create a list of items and displays them in table format. You can change the template for a page anytime by clicking on the gear icon while on the page and choose Change page template.

Now go back to your home page and click on the little pencil icon at the top to edit the page. You’ll see a new menu across the top of the page.

By default, the layout for a new page is set to One Column (Simple). You can change this by clicking on the Layout menu option. The simple versions don’t have a header or footer.

In my example page, I chose Two column (simple). Now you can start adding stuff to your page! To add a table, click on the Table menu item and choose the size of your table in terms of rows and columns. To insert anything else, click on the Insert menu option.

You can insert all kinds of items like images links, text boxes, HTML boxes, calendars, charts, maps, YouTube videos, etc. Since Google Sites is owned by Google, it integrates with Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Hangouts and other Google services. Under Gadgets, you’ll see Recent posts, Recently updated files and Recent list items.

You can only add those to a page if you have already created an Announcements page, File Cabinet page and List page, respectively. In my example page shown at the top, those three items are added in the second column. When working with text, you can click on the Formattab to pick different heading styles, etc.

Note that if you want to add any kind of CSS, JavaScript or custom HTML to your page, you’ll need to insert an HTML box. You can view the HTML for each page content area, but you can only make very few edits to CSS and HTML.

Lastly, you can create a new page by clicking on the Create Page button that is directly to the left of the Settings button.

Give you page a name, choose a page template and then choose the location of your page. You can create a top level page or put it under a different page.

Well, those are the basics for creating a simple webpage or website with Google Sites. It’s nothing to write home about, but it’s very easy to use and learn. It’s also completely free, which is nice. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment. Enjoy!

How to Find Out Who Hosts a Web Site (Web Hosting Company)

Here’s a quick little tip for anyone looking for a simple way to find out who is hosting a particular website. Trying to figure out who hosts a web site can be an annoying task if you’re trying to go through the usual channels by searching a WHOIS database, etc. A lot of times you’ll only get the company or person that registered the domain name, but not the actual hosting company.

Who is Hosting This? is a very simple web service whose sole purpose is to tell you the company that is hosting a website. I really like this because most of the other online web site checking tools simply do not give a clear and concise answer to this very simple question.

I came across this website because I was looking for a for better hosting company, but I first wanted to know what hosting companies some peer sites in my field were using, such as HowToGeek, Labnol.org, etc. I know those sites run smoothly and have millions of visitors every month, so if their servers can handle that traffic, I would be more inclined to go with one of those hosting companies.

Once you type in a domain name, for example, labnol.org, you’ll get your answer right away:

DreamHost is actually the hosting company for the Digital Inspiration website. I’ve tried it on a good number of sites and the results have been correct each time. Also, very large sites like Google.com, etc. will not give you any useful information because they have their own IP address ranges and use their own servers. You’ll also see this for other companies like CNET, etc because they manage all of their own hosting.

In addition to websites like Google and Facebook, you may also run into smaller websites that use private registration or extra privacy settings at their hosting company. When a domain is private, the information is hidden from public view and you’ll only see information about the company that is being used to hide the registration or nothing at all, like in the example below:

This site does a pretty good job because you can sometimes tell the hosting company by looking at the Name Servers, but here they are simply using the domain name and not the name of the hosting website. Even if you click on the WHOIS link, everything is privately registered.

If you try to look up the IP address, you will have more luck. Once I did a WHOIS lookup on the IP address, I was able to determine the hosting company. You can also try another website like WebHostingHero. Their site was able to give me the correct info.

That’s about it! Overall, you should really run into very few issues when trying to determine the hosting company for a website. If you do, someone is really trying hard to hide his/her server from the public. If you have any questions, post a comment. Enjoy!

How to Setup a Website With a Custom Domain in 30 Minutes

I’ve been blogging on Online Tech Tips and Help Desk geek for years now, but I really can’t use them to post random thoughts, ideas, links, notes, etc since they consist of more professional content. That’s why I decided two days ago to setup another blog using the aseemkishore.com domain name I had bought a long time ago. I ended up setting it up on Tumblr, which I love since it’s so easy to use and looks great.

The whole process took me about 10 minutes to do. I’m adding 20 more minutes for telling you how to do it because you might have to spend 10 minutes buying a domain name and 10 minutes getting a little used to GoDaddy’s interface. If you have a domain name, then you can probably setup a website using Tumblr in 10 minutes too. I’m going to use GoDaddy for the domain name and Tumblr for the website content management system. Of course, you can setup websites in a myriad of ways, but the point here is to go from no domain name to a fully functional website in 20 minutes.

1. Buy Your Domain Name

You can buy a domain name wherever you like, but I have all of mine at GoDaddy.com, so I’ll show you the steps specific to that site. You can probably get a domain name for cheaper somewhere else and the process of buying a domain name is not really that different, so get it wherever you like. If you already have a domain name you want to setup the website for, then skip down to the next section. Go to GoDaddy.com and type in the desired domain name. If it’s available, you’ll get the Congratulations message on the next page:

Go ahead and click on the Buy It Now button. On the next page, you’ll be able to choose the term for the domain name, which is set to 2 years by default. The current price for a domain name on GoDaddy is $12.49 a year.  Go ahead and click on the Checkout button at the right:

Type in your billing info and choose your payment method. Then just click on Place Your Order. You’ll have to create a GoDaddy account to manage your domain and change settings, but first let’s setup the front-end now.

2. Setup Tumblr Blog

Now go to Tumblr.com and click on the Sign Up button at the top. Go ahead and type in your email, a password and a user name.

You’ll get an email with a verification link. Click on that and you’ll be logged into your Tumblr account. Now you’ll have a default untitled blog. The URL will be username.tumblr.com. Now in order to get everything connected to your custom domain name, you need to click on the Settings (gear icon) at the top and then click on Untitled below Apps. In the screenshot below, it’s my name because I renamed the blog from Untitled to Aseem Kishore.

Check the “Use a custom domain name” box and then type in the domain name you just bought. Don’t click Test your domain yet, because we haven’t configured the domain name settings yet. That’s all you have to do on Tumblr, the rest is done over at GoDaddy.

3. Configure DNS Settings

In order to get a custom domain name to work with Tumblr, all you have to do is change one setting for you domain. That’s why it’s so easy and fast. Tumblr has a FAQ page on how to do this, but I’ll walk you through it since it’s the only semi-complicated part of this whole process.

First, go to GoDaddy.com and click on MyAccount at the top left after you login.

Next, click on Domains to manage your domain or domains.

A list of domain will pop up below and you’ll see a button called Launch at the right.

Now you’ll be at the Domain Details page, which looks quite overwhelming if you don’t have any idea what that stuff means. Don’t worry, you don’t need to know anything about it. What you have to do is launch the DNS Manager, which is towards the bottom.

Now here’s where the magic happens. There are two ways to go about getting this setup to work. One way is that you edit a record called the A record. Another way is to add a CNAME record. Don’t worry about what it means, it’s not worth the trouble. Why are there two ways? Well, if you edit the A record, then your website URL will be domainname.com. If you want the www in front (www.domainname.com), then you have to use the CNAME record. It’s just a matter of preference.

If you go the route of changing the A record, typing www.domainname.com will simply redirect to the non-www version. I did mine using the A record method. To do that, click on the little pencil icon in the Points to box under the heading A (Host).

Change whatever IP address is there to 66.6.44.4. That is the IP address for Tumblr. That is all you have to do. Now you just wait a few hours and you’ll be able to visit your domain name and it should load up your Tumblr blog! If you really want that www in front, then modify the CNAME record. If you scroll down, you’ll see one called www.

Click on the pencil icon in the Points to box for www and change the value todomains.tumblr.com. That’s it. Note that you only have to do one or the other, not both. I’m not really sure what happens if you do both the A record and CNAME record, but I’m not going to try it and it’s not recommended.

So there you have it: a super fast way to go from no website to great-looking website in no time. Tumblr is not for everyone, but it’s got that ultra-convienent feature of just having to change one record in your DNS settings to get it to work with a custom domain name. If you have any trouble or have a better way than what I’ve done, post a comment and let us know. Enjoy!

MacBook vs MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro with Retina Display

Considering buying a MacBook over a Windows laptop, but not sure which one to get or when? Well, even though you have only a handful of choices when it comes to Macs compared to the plethora of Windows options, it’s still not necessarily an easy decision, especially considering you have to shell out a lot more money on a Mac.

As of now, you have the following choices when it comes to Mac laptops: The new 12-inch Retina MacBook, the older MacBook Air, the 13-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro and the 13 and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros.

In this article, I’m going to discuss the differences between these models and also talk about the current state of all the MacBooks and whether or not you should even bother buying a Mac, especially right now (June 2016).

Wait, or Buy Now?

The first thing you should ask yourself is whether or not you should buy a Mac right now. Apple creates great products and their hardware definitely includes some of the best designed laptops on the market.

With that, Apple also tends to release these great products at very large time intervals. By the time they release their next great version of a particular laptop, which could take years, Windows laptops will have copied and surpassed the Mac.

Take, for example, the MacBook Air. It was released about 6 years ago and the design hasn’t changed a bit. Of course, the internals have been upgraded, but not as fast as on Windows laptops. They still have Intel Broadwell (5th generation) chips whereas you can easily buy a Windows laptop with a Skylake processor (6th generation).

My first recommendation is to go to the MacRumors Buying Guide and follow the advice there. Their recommendations are always current, so even if you are reading this article 6 months from now, their recommendations for when to buy will always be more accurate than what I can try to predict. Note that you should only use this guide as a way to determine whether you should buy a particular Mac right now or not. It’s not really a guide to help you decide which Mac to buy.

As you can see with all the red, most of the recommendations at this point are to not buy. This is because most of the laptops haven’t been updated in a very long time and paying full price for a machine that has parts that are several years old just doesn’t make any sense.

In my opinion, no one should ever buy the regular non-Retina MacBook Pro. It’s expensive and it has been updated in almost 1500 days. So that basically leaves you with the Retina MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and MacBook.

According to most rumor sites, we’ll see big upgrades to the Macs in September or October of 2016, in which case the Retina MacBooks will be the clear choice for power users. On the less expensive side, it’ll be tough to say. Some people are saying that the MacBook Air will be removed since it’s very similar to the new 12-inch MacBook, which is a much better option right now over the Air. Now let’s talk about the differences between the laptops.

Retina Display

The biggest difference in my opinion between the different laptops is retina vs non-retina. Aretina display basically has more pixels packed onto the screen, giving you a higher resolution than 1080p. So far, on the Mac laptops, retina does not mean 4K. You can only get a 4K or 5K display from Apple if you buy an iMac.

There are Windows laptops from Dell, etc. that have 4K screens, but everything is scaled up because a 4K native resolution on a 15 inch or 13 inch screen would make everything extremely tiny. What I like about the Mac retina resolutions is that you can keep it at the native resolution and still use the computer (if you like things small, but not tiny).

If you’ve never used a retina display, then you can still consider buying a non-retina laptop. Once you have used a retina display, however, you will find it very painful to go back to a non-retina display. Everything is much clearer and crisp and make a big difference, especially if you are in front of the computer for several hours a day.

Each retina Mac has a slightly different resolution because of the size:

12-inch MacBook - 2304x1440
13-inch MacBook Pro w/Retina - 2560x1600
15-inch MacBook Pro w/Retina - 2880x1800

If you can get a Mac laptop with a retina display, you will be much happier with your purchase. The only advantages to buying a MacBook Air are that you can get a slightly bigger screen size (13.3 inches), a slightly faster processor (up to a dual-core i7), slightly better battery life and a couple of USB and Thunderbolt 2 ports. Other than that, the 12-inch MacBook beats out the Air on everything else.

For me, personally, the retina display makes up for any of the other small disadvantages. If you’re going for the higher end MacBook Pro laptops, don’t even bother with the non-retina display option. That’s probably going to be eliminated very soon anyway.

Ports

I mention ports next because this could be a deciding factor for some. On the 12-inch MacBook, for example, there is literally just one port: USB-C port. This is a new iteration of USB and will probably be the future of USB, but not many devices use USB-C yet.

12-inch MacBook

This means if you need to connect anything to the MacBook, even a regular USB flash drive, you’ll need an adapter. This can be annoying for some and not worth the slim size and light weight. Also, the USB-C port is used to power and charge the laptop also.

On the MacBook Airs, both the 11-inch and 13-inch almost have the same number of ports: two USB 3 ports and one Thunderbolt 2 port. The 13-inch model also has a SDXC card slot, which you can use for transferring pictures and videos from your camera, etc.

13 inch MacBook Air

Both models have an audio-out jack and a MagSafe port for power. Next, we have the retina MacBook Pros (13 inch and 15 inch). Luckily, both of them have the same exact ports: two USB 3 ports, two Thunderbolt 2 ports, one HDMI port, and one SDXC card slot.

Retina MacBook Pro

Lastly, even though you shouldn’t buy one, the non-retina MacBook Pro has a couple of ports not available on the other laptops. If you really need an Ethernet port or a Firewire port, then this laptop has it. It does not have an HDMI port, however.

Weight & Dimensions

Another major factor in choosing a model is the weight and dimensions of the laptop. If you are a road warrior and take your laptop everywhere, the 12-inch MacBook is super-light and super-thin. The MacBook Airs are also very light and thin, but not as much as the 12-inch. Finally, the retina MacBook Pros are the thickest and heaviest, but also have the most power in terms of CPU and graphics. Here are the size and weight specs for each laptop:

12-inch MacBook

11 & 13 inch MacBook Airs

13 & 15 inch Retina MacBook Pros

CPU, Memory & Storage

The rest of the specs like CPU, memory and storage really all come down to your use case. If you want to do heavy video editing using Final Cut Pro, then it’s probably a smart idea to get a Mac with an SSD, a core i5 or i7 processor and at least 16 GB of RAM.

If you absolutely need 16GB of RAM, then you have to purchase a Retina MacBook Pro. If you want 512 GB of flash storage, then you can cut out the MacBook Airs since they only go up to 256 GB.

The other big differences here are the CPUs used inside each laptop. The 12-inch MacBook uses Intel Core m3, m5, or m7 processors. These are kind of like the Intel Celeron processors back in the day. The MacBook Airs move up to dual-core i5 and i7 processors. Finally, the retina MacBooks Pros move up to quad-core i7 processors (on the 15 inch).

Here’s the breakdown for each laptop:

12-inch MacBook

11 & 13 inch MacBook Airs

13 & 15 inch Retina MacBook Pros

Graphics & Video

Finally, the last major difference between the laptops is the graphics card. It’s worth noting that the only machine with a discrete graphics card is the 15 inch Retina MacBook Pro. So if you want a discrete graphics card, you only have one option.

However, it’s also worth noting that Macs are not good setups for gaming. Don’t buy the 15 inch Retina MacBook pro for gaming because you will be disappointed. If you work with CAD applications, video editing, etc., then it’s a good choice.

Both the 12-inch MacBook and the MacBook Air can output to the computer display and to an external display at 3840×2160 at the same time. On the MacBook Air, you can also output to DisplayPort, DVI, VGA or HDMI using the Thunderbolt 2 port and an adapter.

On the retina MacBook Pros, you can connect up to three external monitors. On the 15-inch with the R9 M370X graphics card, you can actually output to a single 5K monitor at 60Hz. Here are the full specs for each laptop:

12-inch MacBook

11 & 13 inch MacBook Airs

13 & 15 inch Retina MacBook Pros

Conclusion

There are other minor differences between the machines, obviously, but I don’t think they are deciding factors when making the purchase. For example, the 12-inch MacBook comes with a 480p FaceTime camera, which is just bad, but not the end of the world.

Battery life on all the machines is pretty good for a laptop and not something you really have to worry about. As mentioned, don’t ever buy the non-retina MacBook Pro and don’t buy anything other than the 12-inch MacBook until the end of 2016, when hopefully everything gets a major refresh internally and externally. Enjoy!