Sandeep Hegde

Getting Started with Google Apps

// October 17th, 2009 // Comments // Tech, Tools, Tutorials & How to's, Web

Here is the documentation i prepared for my client to get started with google apps.

Now that you have a new Google Apps account, you’re ready to take advantage of all the benefits of Google Apps Mail, Calendar, and Docs. We think you’ll find that these services will make communicating and collaborating with your coworkers easier and more efficient.
To get started with your new email and calendar services, follow the instructions in this guide to complete the following tasks:

Step 1: Access your new email and calendar services.
Step 2: Set up your email  (including personal contacts).
Step 3: Set up your calendar.

After you finish the setup tasks, browse the rest of this guide to learn more about using your new email and calendar services.

How to Get Help

If you have a question about Google Apps or your account that you can’t find in this guide, or you encounter an issue comment to this post.

Step 1: Access Google Apps

You can access Google Apps directly using these links:

http://mail.yourdomain.com – for Google Mail

http://calendar.yourdomain.com – for Google Calendar

http://docs.yourdomain.com – for Google Docs

http://sites.yourdomain.com – for Google Sites

 

Please note! You cannot go to http://gmail.com and login with your Google Apps Domain username and password – you need to use the link on the http://mail.yourdomain.com page or one of the links above.

Step 2: Set Up Your Email

To complete the switch from Outlook Mail to Google Mail, you might need to set up email filters, create an email signature, and import your personal contacts.

Set Up Email Filters

1. Click Create a filter at the top of your Mail window:

   

2. Enter your filter criteria in the fields:

   

3. Optionally, click Test Search to see which messages currently in Google Mail match your filter terms. You can update your criteria and run another test search.
4. Click Next Step.
5. Select one or more actions to apply to messages that match this filter’s criteria:

   

   Note: These actions are applied in the order in which the actions are listed. For example, you could choose to Forward matching messages to a specific email address, then Delete the messages.

6. Click Create Filter.

Create an Email Signature

You’ll need to create a new email signature in Google Apps.

1. Access Google Mail.
2. In the upper-right corner of the Mail window, click Settings.
3. On the General page, in the Signature section, create your signature.
4. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Note:

• Your signature can be plain text only.
• You can’t add a corporate logo to your signature.
• You can set up only one signature.

Import Your  Personal Contacts

You can import all of your personal contacts in Outlook Contacts to Google Apps, using a comma-separated values (CSV) file. However, you can’t import any mailing (distribution) lists you saved in Outlook.

1. From the Address Book feature, click Import / Export from the Address Book Tools menu.
   The Import / Export Contacts page will be displayed.
2. Under Export:, leave the Choose a file format to export to: drop-down as "Microsoft Outlook (.CSV file)" and click Export Now.
   Your system’s File download utility will appear, asking if you want to open or save the file.
3. Save your file (which will have a default name of cc_addr_outlook.csv) to your hard drive so that you can import it into Google.  Note: If you have more than 3,000 contacts, you must create two or more "smaller" CSV files with fewer than 3,000 contacts each, and import these files separately.
4. Open Google Mail and click Contacts.
5. On the right, select Import, browse to the file on your computer, and then select Import.

Create Personal Mailing Lists

If you used personal mailing (distribution) lists in Outlook, you can recreate them in Google Apps, using your contacts manager. For details, see Add a Contact or Group.

Step 3: Set Up Your Calendar

To complete the switch to Google Calendar, you might need to set your time zone and other options, recreate your calendar events in Google Calendar, set a different default reminder time for events, and turn on invitation replies (notifications you receive when attendees accept or decline your invitations).

Set Time Zone and Other Options

The default time zone, language, and other locale settings for Google Calendar are:

• Time zone: (GMT-05:00) Eastern Time
• Display language for interface: English, unless you chose another language when your first accessed your account.
• Date format (for example, month/day/year): Depends on the language currently selected
• Time format: 12-hour clock (for example, 1:00pm)

To change the default time zone and other settings, follow these steps:

1. Access Google Calendar.
2. In the upper right Calendar window, click Settings.
3. On the General page, in the Language section, select a language.
4. In the Country and Your current time zone sections, select the appropriate options.
5. In the Date format section, select an option.
6. In the Time format section, select an option.
7. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Recreate Your Calendar Events

The first time you access your Google Apps account, your calendar will likely be empty or show only a few new event invitations.

To recreate your calendar manually, you can can:

• Send new invitations for events you previously scheduled in Outlook
• Request others to send you new invitations to events to which you were previously invited

To import your calendar events from CampusCruiser:

1. Access your Personal Calendars.
2. Click on the Export button.
   The Export Event pop-up will be displayed; click Close to close this window without exporting events.
3. In 1. Please choose from the following available calendar(s), use the drop-down to select which of the calendars to which you have access should have its events exported.
4. If you have a specific date range in which the target events exist, then do the following:
   • In the Between field, click on the calendar icon to pick a date or enter a date in MM/DD/YYYY format as the start of the date range.
   • In the And field, do the same to set the end date of the date range.
   • Note that setting a date range is optional.
5. Click Export Event.
   The Export Event pop-up will perform the export process; in a moment, your browser will give you an option to save the resulting file to your hard-drive.
6. Click Close to close the Export Event pop-up.

Import events from iCalendar or CSV files into Google Calendar

1.  

2. To import events from TimeCruiser, iCalendar or CSV files, just follow these steps:

3. Click the Add down-arrow button at the bottom of the calendar list on the left side of the page, and select Import Calendar.
4. Click Browse and choose the file that contains your events, then click Open.
5. Select the Google Calendar where you’d like to import events, then click Import.

Please note that recurring events may not be recognized when importing events from CSV files. In this case, individual items will be created for recurring events that fall between the dates you’ve selected.

Set Up Event Reminders and Invitation Replies

By default, the event reminder is turned off for Google Calendar. You can turn reminders on, and choose whether to receive a pop-up notification or an email notification:

1. Access Google Calendar.
2. In the upper-right corner of the page, click Settings.
3. Click the Calendars tab.
4. Under My Calendars, click the Notifications link for your calendar. For example:

   

5. In the Event reminders section, click Add a Reminder:

   

6. Set reminder options.

   

7. In the Choose how you would like to be notified section, select the email check box for Invitation replies.

   

8. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

How Google Apps Mail Is Different

The following are some key features that make Google Mail different from Microsoft Exchange

Email Conversations Instead of Multiple Messages

Rather than listing each message reply as a new message in your Inbox, Google Mail groups a message and its replies in a conversation, which is listed only once. Opening a conversation shows all its messages in a neat stack, which you can easily collapse or expand. When a new reply arrives, the stack grows and the conversation is marked as unread, indicating there’s something new to look at. Grouping messages this way allows you to quickly retrieve all messages within a thread and reduces inbox clutter.

Here’s how a conversation appears in your Inbox:

Here’s what an opened conversation looks like:

Labels and Stars Instead of Folders

Instead of organizing messages in folders, you can organize your Google email conversations by applying labels. The conversation remains in your Inbox with the label clearly shown. You can list all conversations associated with a label, similar to opening a folder of messages. But unlike with folders, you can view all conversations in your Inbox at once, r

egardless of label. And if a conversation applies to more than one topic, you can give it multiple labels, retrieving it with any label.

The "stars" feature provides another way to categorize and access messages. Simply click the star icon to the left of any message to highlight it. You can then display any starred messages by clicking Starred in the left pane.

Archiving Online Instead of Saving to Your Desktop

With Google Apps Mail, you no longer risk running out of space for storing email. Instead, you get 25 GB of online storage space for just your own email and attachments, all hosted on Google’s secure servers. With that much space, you no longer need to save messages on your desktop in [personal folders (PST files)/an email Archive] to free up disk space, but can archive messages online instead. An archived message is removed from your Inbox but you can still find it later by viewing All Mail or using search. Or, add labels to messages before you archive them for even easier retrieval.

Google-Powered Search

Google Mail features the same powerful search technology used on the Web to perform accurate keyword searches of all of your email and attachments. Search by keyword, label, date range, or a host of other options. By also archiving messages, you can instantly find any message you’ve ever sent or received, without having to create elaborate folder structures or keep unwanted correspondence in your Inbox.

Using Email

Send a Message

1. Access Google Mail.
2. In the pane on the left, click Compose Mail.
3. In the To field, enter the first few letters of an attendee’s full name to look up the address in your corporate directory.
4. Enter a subject and the message.
5. To add a file attachment, click Attach a file, and then browse to the file on your computer.

   

6. Click Send.

At message appears at the top of the Mail window, confirming that your message was sent.

Reply to a Message

You can reply to just the sender or to all recipients of a message.

1. Open the message or conversation. If the message is part of a conversation, open the conversation and select the message to reply to.
2. At the bottom of the message card, click Reply or Reply to all.

   

3. Optionally, add other email addresses to which to send the reply.
4. Enter your reply in the message field.
5. At the bottom of the message card, click Send.

Forward a Message

You can forward a single message in a conversation or an entire conversation.

To forward a single message:

1. Open the message. If the message is part of a conversation, open the conversation and select the message to forward.
2. At the bottom of the message card, click Forward.

   

3. Enter the email addresses to which to forward the message, and add any notes in the message field.
4. If the message has attachments, you can choose not to forward them by clearing the check box next to the file name, below the Subject field.
5. At the bottom of the message card, click Send.

To forward an entire conversation:

1. Open the conversation.
2. At the right of the conversation view, click Forward all.

   

3. At the bottom of the message card, click Send.
   Note: All messages in the conversation appear in a single message card to the recipient. Each message is clearly marked, and messages are listed in order from oldest to most recent.

Print a Message

You can print a single message in a conversation or an entire conversation.

To print a single message:

1. Open the message. If the message is part of a conversation, open the conversation and select the message to print.
2. Click the down arrow to the right of Reply, and then click Print.

   

   A printer-friendly version of the message appears.

3. Use your web browser’s Print options to print the message.

To print an entire conversation:

1. Open the conversation.
2. At the right of the conversation view, click Print all.

   

   A printer-friendly version of the conversation appears.

3. Use your web browser’s Print options to print the message.
   Note: Each message in the conversation prints on a separate page.

Using Your Calendar

With Google Calendar, you can create a calendar event in multiple ways: using the Create Event link, clicking on the calendar, or using the Quick Add feature.

Create an Event

To create an event:

1. Log in to your Google Calendar.
2. In the upper-left of your calendar, click Create Event to open the event details page.
3. Enter details, such as recurrence, attendees, an agenda, and a reminder.
4. Click Save.

Or, click on the calendar:

1. Click a spo

   t on your calendar to create a 1-hour event, or click and drag to create an event of more than 1 hour. Then type the event title in the box. For example:

   

2. Click Create Event to publish the event, or click edit event details to invite attendees, add an agenda, and so on.

Or, use Quick Add:

With Quick Add, you can type text such as "Meeting with Jane at 2pm next Wednesday," and Quick Add enters a new event on your calendar. If you type the full email address of an attendee, such as [email protected]," Quick Add adds the attendee to the guest list and asks you if you want to send an invitation to the attendee.

1. In the upper-left corner of your calendar, click Create Event to open the event details page.
2. Type a description of your event.
3. Click the plus sign.

Invite Attendees and Enter Event Details

If you’ve already published your event, you can edit its details by clicking the title of the event on your calendar:

Note: Once you’ve finished entering event details, click Save at the bottom of the event details page.

To invite attendees:

1. Open your event.
2. Click Check guest and resource availability.

   

3. In the Find a Time window, in the Attendees field, enter the first few letters of an attendee’s full name to look up the address in your corporate directory.
   Important: You can’t invite add email list (mailing list) to the attendees list. If you do, the members of the list won’t see the event on their calendars. However, you can create a contact group instead, using the contacts picker, which allows you to choose contacts from your corporate directory. You can then add that group to the attendees list.
4. In the Find a Time window, check availability of attendees. This window shows the free/busy information for any employee, even those still using Outlook. If necessary, use the options in the window to change the time for your event.
5. Click OK.
6. Alternatively, you can invite attendees as follows: In the Guests box on the right, enter the email addresses of the people you’re inviting, or click the Choose from contacts link to open the Contacts Picker, with which you can find addresses of your Google Apps Domain, or add a contact group that you already created.
7. Optionally, in the Guests box on the right, let attendees invite more people to your event or view who else was invited.
8. Click Save.

Google Calendar asks you whether you want to send invitations to the attendees.
Your attendees can respond to the event and leave comments in the event details.

To book a room or other resource for your event (depending on which resources are made available):

1. Open your event.
2. Click Check guest and resource availability.

   

3. In the Find a Time window, under Where, do either of the following:
   • Start typing any part of the room or other resource’s name in the "filter room" box. A list of matching resources appears in the list. For example:

     

   • Browse the list to find the room or other resource you want to book. For example:
     
4. Check the icon to the left of the resource name to see if it’s available during the time of your event:

   – Resource available

   – Resource not available

5. To see all the free/busy times for a resource, select the resource in the list and then click Add. The resource appears in the attendees list. If necessary, use the options in the window to change the time for your event.
6. To book the resource, make sure it’s in the attendees list, and then click OK.

To set a reminder for your event:

1. Open your event.
2. In the Options box on the right, choose the type of reminder you want (pop-up or email message) and when you want to receive it:

   

3. To add more reminders, click Add a reminder.

To set up a recurring event:

1. Open your event.
2. Select an option in the Repeats drop-down list:
   

Add an Attachment to an Event Invitation

At this time, Google Calendar doesn’t let you add a file attachment directly to an event invitation. However, you can add a link to a document on the intranet or to a document you created in Google Docs. If you want to attach a Microsoft Office document, you can upload it first to Google Docs (which converts it to the Google Docs format), and then add the URL to the Google Document to your event.

1. Open your event.
2. Copy and paste the URL to the document in the Description field:

Note: Alternatively, you can do either of the following:

• Send the attachment in a separate email message to attendees.
• Schedule the event through Google Mail: Compose a new message and attach the file. Then click Add event invitation and enter information about the event.

Share Your Calendar

By default, your "free/busy" calendar information is shared with everyone in the UNE.edu domain. You can share additional information with everyone or just specific employe

es, or stop sharing all calendar information.

1. Access your Google Calendar.
2. In the My calendars list on the left, click the down-arrow next to the appropriate calendar, and then select Share this calendar. 
3. Select the sharing options you want to use for your calendar.

View Another User’s Calendar

If other users have shared their calendars with you, you can add them to your list of shared calendars. If a user hasn’t yet shared his or her calendar with you, can can send a request to that person.

1. Access your Google Calendar.
2. In the Other calendars box on the left, click the Add down-arrow, and then select Add a friend’s calendar.

   

3. Enter the appropriate email address, and then click Add.
   If the user has shared his or her calendar, it appears in your list under Other calendars, and the user’s events appear on your calender. 
   Note: To hide or show the user’s events on your calendar, simply click the calender in your list.
4. If the user has not shared his or her calendar, a page appears, on which you can send a request to the user. Edit the default message if you like, and then click Send Request.

Print Your Calendar

1. Make sure the calendars you want to print are selected in your list under My Calendars. If not, simply select the calendars to highlight them.
2. At the top of the calendar view, select the view you want to print; for example, Day or Week:

   

3. At the top of the calendar view, click Print.
   The Calendar Print Preview window appears, on which you can select a font size, page orientation, and other options.
4. Select the options you want, and then click Print.

Create a New Calendar

In addition to your account’s primary calendar, you can create any number of secondary calendars. Each calendar you create appears in your list under My Calendars.

1. Access your Google Calendar.
2. In the My calendars box on the left, click Create. 
   The Create New Calendar window appears.

   

3. Enter a name for the calendar. You can also select a time zone and sharing options for the calendar.
4. When you’re finished setting up the calendar, click Create Calendar.

Note: The number of calendars you can create at one time is limited. If an error message appears after you create several calendars, wait 24 hours, and then try again.

Managing Your Contacts

About Your Contacts

Your contacts in Google Apps fall under one of the following two categories:

• Personal contacts: If you imported your personal contacts to Google Apps (using the instructions in this guide), you can use the Google Apps contacts manager to access all of these contacts and add new contacts and contact groups. You can look up a contact to find email addresses and personal profile information, as well as quickly list all of the email conversations you’ve had with the contact.
• Corporate contacts: The email addresses of all your personal contacts, mailing lists, and outside contacts (such as vendors and suppliers) were added to Google Apps. You can access these addresses when you compose and email message or schedule an event, using either auto-complete address entry or the contacts picker.

Use Auto-Complete Address Entry

Google Apps contacts manager knows the addresses of all your personal contacts, mailing lists, vendors, suppliers, and so on. In addition, it automatically remembers email addresses of other people outside of your Google Apps Domain with whom you’ve corresponded. Therefore, when you start typing an address in an email message or event invitation, the addresses of personal contacts, employees, and anyone with whom you’ve corresponded automatically appear.

Use the Contacts Picker

The contacts picker lets you select any of your personal or corporate contacts when composing and email messages or scheduling an event. With the contacts picker, you can search for contacts using auto-complete address entry, or browse the list

To access the contacts picker when composing and email message:

Click the To: link:

To access the contacts picker when scheduling an event:

In the event details window, click Choose from contacts under Add Guests:

View Your Personal Contacts

1. Log in to Google Apps.
2. On the left, click Contacts.
   Your contacts list appears.
3. To view a contact’s information, select its check box.

Add a Contact or Group

To add a contact:

1. View your Contacts list.
2. Click the New Contact button in the upper-left corner of the contacts manager.
3. Enter your contact’s information in the fields. For additional fields, click More.
4. Click Save.

Note: Each time you reply or forward an email message, or move a message from the Spam folder to your Inbox, contacts manager adds the email addresses to the Suggested Contacts area of your Contacts list.

To add a contact group using personal contacts:

1. View your Contacts list.
2. Click the New Group button in

   the upper-left corner of the contacts manager.

3. Enter the name of the group.
4. Click OK.
5. In the Contacts list, select the contacts you want to add to the group.
6. Open the Groups drop-down list at the top of the pane on the right.
7. Select the group to which you want to add the contacts.
   
   Note: When sending email messages or inviting attendees to an event, you can enter the name of the group in the To field, instead of entering each contact individually.

To add a contact group using the contacts picker for corporate contacts:

1. Open the contacts picker by doing one of the following:
   • If you are composing an email message, click the To: link.
   • If you are creating an event invitation, under Add Guests, click Choose from contacts.
2. In the Search contacts box, start typing the name of a contact you want to add to the group. Then click the name to add it to the list below:

   

3. Continue adding contacts to the group.
4. When you are finished, click Save as Group.
5. Enter the name of the group, and click OK. For example:

   

6. To add the group to your email message or event invitation, click Done.

Note: You can quickly invite the same group to any future events you schedule in the future:

1. In your invitation, click Choose from contacts.
2. Selecting the group in the drop-down list in the contacts picker:

   

3. Click Select all:

So now you are familiar with using Google Apps. If you are facing any difficulties, feel free to comment to this post

How to bypass Cyberoam Client – Hack Cyberoam

// September 20th, 2009 // Comments // Software, Tools

Many of my friends and reader have been asking for an way to bypass cyberoam. Most of the organizations , educational institutes like schools and colleges are implementing cyberoam –unified threat management system now-a-days. Cyberoam is used to make filtration’s to the sites being browsed by the users i.e. unwanted sites are being blocked (Eg: facebook, orkut etc) Let see the details of cyberoam before cracking cyberoam

What is Cyberoam :

Cyberoam is Identity-based unified threat management appliances, offer comprehensive threat protection with firewall-VPN, anti-virus, anti-spam, intrusion prevention system, content filtering in addition to bandwidth management and multiple link load balancing and gateway fail over.

Identity-based controls and visibility are critical components of network security. With identity and network data combined, enterprises are able to identify patterns of behavior by specific users or groups that can signify misuse, unauthorized intrusions, or malicious attacks from inside or outside the enterprise. Activities and security policy rules can be enforced on network segments based on identity.

Hacking Cyberoam !

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Similar if cyberoam is blocking something there should be an way to unblock it. Nothing is impossible in the world of programming. The difficult part of cyberoam it is the system comprising of both hardware and software. Yet we could bypass it using Ultra surf proxy software as i explained in my post. Now that cyberoam has started blocking ultra surf also we have unblock cyberoam using a new method. this method is little complicated, includes two different software’s and manual configurations.  But ultimately at the end you get the freedom ! Freedom to browse the internet freely ! free to open your sites of interest like facebook orkut etc ! Freedom to download warez ! Freedom to download torrents ! Freedom to be unmonitored !

How to get going??

Phase 1 : Detecting external IP and open ports

Step 1 : Download Free Port Scanner Software

The first software required to crack software is a free port scanner software. For your convenience i have upload it online and you can download from http://hotfile.com/dl/13028395/0467e17/FreePortScanner.rar.html

Download now !

Step 2 : Install free port scanner

Once you have downloaded the free port scanner , you have install it on your system. The installation is typical to any other software installation on windows. You can follow the screenshots for smooth installation.

A. Double click on setup file and initialize the installation.

B. Choose the directory (destination location) where the software has to be installed

C. Select the start menu folder

D. Choose whether you want to create desktop icon and quick launch icon (optional)

E. Ready to install !

F. Completion of installation and launching the application.

Step 3 : Detecting the static IP assigned to your organization.

We need to find out the static IP assigned to your organization which is allocated by the ISP. Here the mechanism of hacking cyberoam is the route the packets directly to the external IP of your organization , thus bypassing cyberoam. Detecting your external IP is pretty simple

• Goto www.WhatIsMyIP.com

Here the site will display your IP address. Please note down your IP address which we will be using again in the further steps.

Step 4 : Scanning open ports for your external IP address

Run the free port scanner software which was installed in Step 2. Enter the IP displayed at www.WhatIsMyIP.com in the field for IP address. Keep the other settings default and perform and port scan. This may take a few minutes.

A. Entering IP address whose port has to be scanned.

B. Scan results

Once the scan is completed note down the port number of the port named “ndl-aas”. This ends the first phase of haking cyberoam

Phase 2 : Configuring proxy server

Step 1 : Download Proxifier – proxy software

The second software require to hack cyberoam is Proxifier. This software helps us to bypass cyberoam through proxy sevrer. For your convinience i have uploaded it online and you can download it at http://hotfile.com/dl/12316294/d423ac4/Proxifier_v2.7_CrAcK.rar.html

Download now !

Step 2 : Install proxifier software

Once you have downloaded the proxifier software , you have install it on your system. The installation is typical to any other software installation on windows. You can follow the screenshots for smooth installation.

A. Double click on setup file and initialize the installation.

B. Accept Licence Agreement

C. Choose the directory (destination location) where the software has to be installed

D. Select the start menu folder

E. Choose whether you want to create desktop icon (optional)

F. Ready to install !

G. Completion of installation

Please not to deselect launch application while finishing the installation process. proxifier is an proprietary software. If you cannot buy it you have to use a crack (Illegal – at your own risk). You need to replace the original exe file with the crack file , in the installation directory.

Step 3 : Configuring Proxifier software

The key of bypassing cyberoam lies in configuring the proxifier software. The IP address and port we detected earlier comes to use now.

• Under menu goto Proxy Settings

• After opening the proxy setting click on “Add”
• Enter the IP address and port which where detected in earlier step
• Use “HTTPS” protocol.
• Check if the proxy is working properly (Else can’t help)
• Select OK

• Done !!!!
• Open your favorite sites now !

Although this method is a tedious , time consuming it yields the best results. It is almost impossible for the network administrator to block this method !

Credits : Pritvi, for letting me know this technique.

Note :

• It might not work if your organization does not have an static IP.
• You need to run Proxifier first before opening the browser.

Update 1 : If the above method is not working try my other post  - Your-Freedom – Bypass Restrictive Firewalls and Filters

Please do spread a word about this article to unblock cyberoam. If you have any queries feel free to comment on this post

WordPress Workshop :: Part 2

// February 28th, 2009 // Comments // Cool Sites, Engineering, My Activities, My Works, Software, Tech, Tools, Web

Here is an continuation of my last post WordPress Workshop -Part 1

WordPress Workshop

I think I had written a lot in my last post on the day 1 of wordpress workshop. After self analysis of our performance with first batch me and Snehal decided to have some changes for the second batch. I had explained a lot of extras for the first batch and had to cut it down for the second batch. Also we decided that Snehal and Sanket will handle some portions. And to take some snaps of the workshop which we had missed out yesterday

We were in time at browsing center. We started uninstalling the wamserver installed by the previous batch candidates. Gudi sir set up the projector for us and he was going to be the photographer for us !  Sohel was missing since he went to attend the hacking Contest at K.L.E. Engineering College, Belgaum. Although we expected a lot of people today, there was no crowd outside. Everyone came one by one in time.

K.K.T.  sir started with the introduction and later he went out since he had some work. The first part i.e introduction to websites, blogs, wordpress, hosting, domains etc was done by Snehal. She explained it slowly point by point, asking questions to participants to make the session interactive ( I had finished it just in 5 min yesterday!).  As we had decided to tell the hosting & domain setup at end , I started with WampServer Installation. Unlike yesterday I did not make use of ppt for this. Everything was live ! The installation step seemed to be very easy to everyone( WordPress rocks !). Then Sanket took over to explain how to post on wordpress and how to create categories etc. I came back to explain wordpress themes, plugins and widgets.

The participants were more active compared to yesterdays batch. They were trying to create themes with wordpress theme generator and use it while i was explaining itself. Many had created beautiful designs in no time ! Same was the case with plugins. they googled and got new plugins. But Plugins seemed to be complicated for them due to the diversity in nature of usage from one plugin to plugin. They had a lot of questions to ask unlike yesterdays batch. Since it was afternoon time they seemed to be hungry and wanted to out fast !

I explained only basic stuff cutting a lot of information. Since Snehal and Sanket explain some portions my work was reduced. It was almost 3.30pm and decided to conclude. K.K.T had finished his work and had returned to workshop to conclude it ! Thus making the end of the movie WordPress Worksop – Part 2

We have plan about WordPress Workshop – Part 3 on Monday… Keep awaiting for my next post…

WordPress Workshop :: Part 1

// February 27th, 2009 // Comments // Cool Sites, Engineering, My Activities, Tech, Tools, Web

Hello Everyone,

Today was one of the most wonderful day in my life. As I has posted earlier the Workshop on ” Blogging with WordPress” started today. This was the first workshop I have ever conducted. there was an huge response from the students of I.S.E., GIT we had to decide to organize workshop in batches. So we had divided the registrants into two batches. One batch for those who submitted the assignment work given by us and another batch for those who are lazy to complete the assignment but still wanted to learn wordpress !

The schedule was announced in class and displayed on notice board.

Batch A: Late submissions (First come First Serve Basis)
Day: Friday
Date: 27th Feb 2009
Time: 2.00pm – 5.00pm
Venue: Browsing Center, GIT.

Batch B: For students who have submitted the website designs on or before 25th Feb, 2009
Day: Saturday
Date: 28th Feb 2009
Timing: 12.30pm – 4.00pm
Venue: Browsing Center, GIT.

But everything didn’t go as per to our plans.  There was an hacking contest organize in K.L.E.Engineering college, Belgaum and many wanted to attend it. So they requested that they will be attending on friday itself and we could not deny for that. Secondly the C.S.E. Department woke up after an semester to conduct an I.T. Quiz clashing with our workshop. They had taken registration entries in last semester and organizing this semester that too by announcing it on the previous day.

The students from I.S.E were totally not interested in attending it and all of them prefer to attend our workshop. ( Even I had registered for quiz last semester !) Most of the students had come early as we had said that entries will on first com first serve basis creating an mob outside the browsing center. Everything would have went fine if our H.O.D. would have not interfered in between. They had called up from C.S. Department saying we have told the students to attend the workshop mandatorily by bunking the I.T. Quiz (???????) Our H.O.D’s concern was genuine as he wanted to have an good relationship with the C.S. Department. So he asked us to cancel the workshop and send the student to I.T. quiz !

We had taken a lot of efforts from a week to organize the workshop and offcource how can we cancel it just like that? Prof. Kiran.K.T. was in support of  us. We anyhow managed to convince our H.O.D. Math Sir that we shall not allow the students who have enrolled for I.T. quiz (except me !) to attend workshop and send them to auditorium for I.T. quiz. We ensured I.T. quiz registrants  that we shall conduct the workshop on some other day for them. they agreed upon and went. It was an different matter that most of they went to home instead and those who went for I.T. quiz had missed the preliminary round and coud not participate in that too !

The workshop was finally started  with the words of Prof. Kiran K.T. He introduce us and then i took over.  I started with the presentation I had prepared. I have embedded the same copy here :

WordPress Installation Guide

As you can see it is an self explanatory power point presentation with live screen shots on how to install wordpress. It starts with the basic fundas like website, blog, wordpress, uses of blog, web hosting, domain etc. The actual part starts with signing up free web hosting account at www.FreeHostCell.com. Then comes an overview on hosting control panel and creating database in your free hosting account. The there is details on transferring files to the web server using FileZilla FTP client.  After that comes the actual step by step installation of wordpress. The presentation also contains slides on getting an free co.c domain name. It has links to various resource websites.

But due to problems with internet connection in the college we proceeded with the installation on localhost using WampServer. We explained everything live on the projector and simultaneously the participants did it on their computers. We explained all the menu in the backend i.e the control panel of wordpress. it was be creating post, editing it, changing permalinks, using tags and what not. We also gave an insight of generating wordpress themes using a wordpress theme generator. We also explained how to use plugins and widgets to enhance the functionalities of wordpress. The candidates also got to know how to use google analytics on wordpress and basic search engine optimization.

The worskhop went on for 3 hours and I don’t know how I managed to speak continuously not even drinking a drop of water ( I got to know about it only after Snehal told about it ) Finally we explained the judgement criteria’s for the wordpress blog contest and showed some popular blogs. Finally Prof. Rodd and Prof. Kiran concluded the workshop.

Thanks to Snehal, Sanket, Sohel and others who have helped a lot make it a grand success.

All the participants were very happy as the workshop was good, above their expectation ( and our expectation too !) Many of them commented that I’m best suited for lecture post ! Snehal was asking me how I spoke for 3 hours continuously in a loud pitch without a break ( and I got to know about it only after the workshop was over). I was totally in  a different world for those 3 hours. We remembered that we had forgotten to take snapshots of the event late but luckily we have a chance to get them in the next batch !

Now  I’m awaiting for the second batch to be organized tomorrow. So await for my next post i.e WordPress WorkShop – Part 2

Re. WordPress Blogging Workshop/Contest

// February 19th, 2009 // Comments // Cool Sites, Engineering, My Activities, Tools, Web

We have got an overwhelming response for WordPress blogging workshop/contest I had written in my earlier post. There has been more than 125 registrations till date. I think probably first timewe are getting such an response in Department of Information Science & Engineering, GIT.  Thanks for all who have registered their names.

Due to this large turn-out we are giving an small assignment to registrants. This is to filter out people who just write their name and never participate actively.

The assignment is to :

• Choose an topic for your site

- You can make it your personal website or of any other topic of your interest like sports, movies e

• Get the content ready for your website

- This may be your intro on home page, your biodata or any other article you want to have on your website.

• Draw a rough layout of your website.

- This may be a block diagram with menus and features of the website

• Other

- Creativity has no limit. Submit your own stuff which others may not even thought of !

I wish to make this Workshop / Contest a huge Success and each student of Department of Information Science, GIt to have thier own Blog.

Please comment your suggestions and feedbacks.

WordPress Blogging Workshop/Contest

// February 17th, 2009 // Comments // Cool Sites, Engineering, My Activities, Tools, Web