Mayank Sharma

Aug 2, 2009

Money for Nothin and Google Apps for Free

Somewhere around begining of 2009, Google stopped its free version of Google Apps. In my view this was one product which really helped any new startup or small company to get bootstrapped with email and other communication tools in a matter of hours. It did receive some backlash for taking such a step. But in my view as they have their popular email services (gmail) free, It is ok to charge people to have a company email account.

In one of their blog (in 2008) google did mention that it was difficult to find the free service but asserted that there is one. Later when they decided to remove even that option in the Google Apps page, the whole world was furious at them. But I guess they forgot to tell their Google Appengine team that Google Apps was no longer free.

So here is a step by step process of setting up your free Google Apps account. I have used this method to setup a free Google Apps account twice for my friends so I believe this method is valid today. However I cannot guarantee in future that this method will work. In case it works, do drop me a mail and a cheque for 50$ for saving you some precious money.

Head straight to http://appengine.google.com to create a free Appengines account. Yeah I know you are not interested in creating an application on appengine, and you don't have to. This is just a back door to your free Google Apps account.
After logging in with your gmail account, create a new appengine application. Give it any name. We are not going to use this name anyways.
Once you are in the dashboard of your new what-you-wanna-call-it application go to versions link under Administration.
Click on the 'Add Domain' button that you see in this page. This will take you to a page where you will see a link 'Sign up for google apps'. This link takes you to a Google Apps signup page, which is the free version of Google Apps and not the Premium one.
You really think there is another step after creating your brand new free Google Apps account? Yes there is. Did you forget about writing me a cheque for 50$?

So Google Apps is still free Mr. Arrington. They have just made it a little difficult for you to find it. And guess what there is even simpler way than the one mentioned above.

I've got Binged

Call me a narcissist if you will, but I do have a fetish to keep looking up my name in google for quite some time. Ever since I knew about google (1999), I've been keying in 'mayank sharma' in it to know where I stand in in the internet. For some reason my page at btech96 website of IITD always used to figure #2 or #3.

In fact one of my secret dream is to get slash-dotted once. But I believe that probability of getting slash-dotted is inversely proportional to number of years you've been out of your college. So I don't really think I'll be slash-dotted ever.

But I never really expected Bing to through up this blog of mine as the first result when searched for me. I had my 30 seconds of fame moment. I was pleasantly surprised as the last blog post was done in March 2006. That is a really long time ago. But still it was the number #1 result. Infact the last blog post contained about 20 odd spam comments which I had to immediately delete once I realized that importance of this blog ;).

It then occured to me that I should probably revive my old hobby of blogging. I have revived it a multiple times, but the urge died down soon after a post. Let's see how long it lasts this time. By the way for the record, this blog appears #3 in Google Search, and my photograph, which I took almost 10 years ago at 2 in the morning sitting in front of an SGI machine wondering what to do, ranks #1 :-). And my btech96's page figures #4. So watch out Geekbodhy for a stiff competition from me.

I have been using google and bing together for some time to see the quality of results being shown, and my initial verdict is that you cannot quite rule out bing as you did msn search earlier. You do get some good results from bing sometimes. The core of google search engine (PageRanking) has really been too good till now. A lot of search companies tried semantic search to get context into the user's search queries and hoped that they will serve better results to the user. But inspite of their good algo's they have not really been able to challenge Google's simple PageRank.

But now as Internet matures into web 2.0 as we call it, I think the dynamics of content is changing quite rapidly. Social networking today helps you build a huge network and hence you do get a lot of inbound links. In such a scenario I do not know how well the PageRanking algo will perform.

The recent Microsoft-Yahoo deal has already provided about 35% of market share to Bing. If they can continue to provide good search results in this new world, they really might just give Google a stiff competition in the near future.

Mar 5, 2006

Theft @ Rangashankara

Last Friday Roma and I went to wach the play Theft at Rangashankara. Top Cast was doing this Eric Chappell’s play. The earlier Top Cast play that we had watched was Where There’s a Will and it was quite hillarious. This one also was quite good.

The play is about these two couples who are good friends. A thief breaks into their house one night. But before he is able to escape, the owners come back, and he is somehow caught. The thief first fools them to believe that he is a policeman investigating the burglary, but eventually he is caught. The house is situated in a countryside and there is no good access to either neighbours or police. So by the time they try to get some help, the thief talks to each individual and is able to extract one secret about them. Now he takes over the commanding position, and everyone wants to get rid of him. Through some good comical sequence, the thief brings is able to disrupt the two happy marriages and a strong friendship.

The thief’s acting was quite good. The way he keeps his calm in the situation and the way he brings out everyone’s secrets is hillarious.

Some of the jokes in the play were really funny. Sample this.

Spriggs (Thief) : So how long have they been married ?
Trevor : 20 years
Sprigss : What !!, you don’t get that for killing a person !!

Miles : This is just a one sided argument
Spriggs : Of course it’s a one sided argument. Do you expect me to take your side as well, do you ?

Barbara : What happened
Trevor : We had an argument, He said i was a loser and he was a cheat
Barbara : So, where’s the argument

Mar 3, 2006

Tonsils and Me

I have a very interesting relationship with Tonsils. Every now and then i feel like i am getting a throat catch, and the next morning i wake up with one. Yesterday after lunch i had a feeling that i am going to get Tonsils. I was feeling quite drowsy as well. Today morning when i got up, there it was lurking in my throat. Salt water gargle does’nt really help. I am loathe to taking allopathic tablets, and avoid it whenever i can. My tonsils typically go away in 3 days. Thats as much time a tablet takes to cure anybody’s tonsils. So why take tablets ?

Are there any good cure for these tonsils that people know of ? What do you do when you have Tonsils ?

Feb 22, 2006

iPod and Me

Couple of months ago i acquired one of the coolest gadget of age, the Apple's iPod. RajaG was in US, and so i asked him to get me the 20 GB iPod. Ever since i have been collecting all the music i had heard and liked. Most of this collection came from my office itself. Some of the famous english songs and old hindi music was easy to find in office itself. The other favorites were acquired on the internet using peer-to-peer music sharing utility. Now i have 4 GB of music. Still approximately 15 GB of music can still be loaded on my iPod. One of the good things about iPod apart from it's sauvy design and ease of use, is the way it stores the music in the iPod. The iTunes software classifies the songs based on Artist, Album or Genre. I can also edit the id3 information of the music files so that i can easily locate the songs based on either the album name, artist name or genre. You appreciate this feature when you have 4 GB of music, and want to locate your song quickly.

Another good thing i managed was to get the iPod casette adapter and the Y Splitter cable. Roma was in US for couple of months, and i made her get these accessories. The casette adapter, i can use in Roma's car and listen to my iPod on the car speakers while driving. The Y splitter cable is used to feed the ipod music to my music system at home. Essentially one single collection of all my music, and enjoy it anyplace and anytime. Enjoying music has been a totally different and enthralling experience in the last couple of months.

Today was another one of the days when i appreciated my possesion so much. I had been contemplating to start jogging in the mornings. For some reason, i just could not wake up on time earlier. Today the weather had been pleasant and i did'nt have to get ready to go to office. So at 7 AM when i woke up, i decided to jog. Out came the iPod, pulled up my socks and i was ready for jog. Recently i had download the famous Billy Joel's songs. Piano man, River of Dreams, We did'nt start the fire etc..

It had been raining all night, So the weather was just perfect for the jog. Earlier whenever i decided to jog, it would turn out into just a morning walk. Moreover not more than 5 rounds. But today, with iPod with me, and Billy Joel singing the Piano Man it was a different day. Not only did i jog, i also completed 7 rounds. Though at the end i was sweating quite a bit and was completely exhausted, The experience was just too good.

Hamlet by Pravah

Pravah Theater group is staging Hamlet at Rangashankara. Hamlet and other plays by Shakespeare have been done in many different ways, each one trying to get a different meaning out of it. This play also tells the story of Hamlet but in a different form. This play merges vocals of 'Dhrupad', a dance form of 'Yakshgana' and finally the theater form of telling story. Some of the actors are from National School of Drama. All the diverse forms merging beautifully to re-create one of the best play ever written. Add to this the amazing Hindi translation done by Harivansh Rai Bachan and the Yakshagana delivering in Kannada with some part in English by our very own bard and you have one of the best scripts ever. The Hindi translation of this play is quite satirical with a touch of humor.

I was there at Rangashankara yesterday to watch the play first day first show and just loved it. Initially the cast talking in Hindi and English confuses you, but as you get used to it you realize how the director has picked up the best dialogues from both languages and presented it to you in a way no single language could do.

Please do take out some time in the evening and watch this play. The play is there till this Sunday. Please be warned that it is quite a serious play and is of 1:45 hours long without any break.

On a side note, yesterday during the last scene of the play Hamlet got hurt quite badly on his nose. He didn't flinch and continued his performance. When we saw blood on his face, we thought it was part of the play itself and he must have covered his face with some red paint. Only after the end of the play we realized that the blood was real and he was actually hurt. Kudos to that chap....