Free and reliable PHP and MySQL web hosting

 

 

I have tried a lot of free web hosts when I was learning WordPress and other open source CMS applications.  From year 2005 to till date I have tested more than 15 free web hosts.  Free web hosts normally put their advertisements on top of the site to cover the costs they incur on free web hosting, which makes the site appear somewhat ugly.  The ads occupy the large space.  Another disadvantage using free hosts is that we cannot question them if it goes down.  Some free hosts go down even for weeks.

 

After testing these free hosts for more than six months, I chose FreeHostia as the best free web host.  I have been using it for more than three years without a problem.  I have been building mini websites and blogs for my customers using FreeHostia.  FreeHostia offers an ad-free Linux hosting for free.  It has the following features:

• Apache, PHP, MySQL, PHPMyAdmin, and Perl
• Hosting for 2 domain and 10 subdomains
• Data storage of 250 MB
• Monthly bandwidth of 5 GB
• 1 MySQL database (10 MB DB space)
• 1 FTP account & web-based file manager
• 3 POP3 accounts with SpamAssassin protection & Webmail
• FrontPage Extensions
• Free 24/7 technical support and ticketing system

Review and sign up for the free hosting here.

The downside of FreeHostia is 10 MB limit of MySQL DB.  When you reach that limit, you can either move to their paid hosting plan, which costs $1.95 per month and upgrades your MySQL database size to 25 MB or to a better and cheap paid web hosting like DraemHost, which removes all limits.  If you are planning to install WordPress on it, don’t forget to install the plug-in Revision Control, else your database will be filled up too fast because of the new feature called “Post Revisions.”

CutePDF – Add a PDF printer

CutePDF is a free software to create PDFs from any Windows application. It installs a printer driver and shows up as a virtual printer when you print from any application. While giving the Print command (Ctrl+P), select the “CreatePDF Writer” as printer and it will create a professional quality PDF. I have been using it for years and helps me a lot.  It has endless possibilities.   I downloaded a free invoice template from Microsoft Office Templates.  I use it to prepare invoices entering all the details of customer, particulars, and bill amount and export it as PDF just clicking the “Print” button and selecting the “CutePDF Writer” as printer.  I can export the Wikipedia pages from browser as PDF files for storing.  I can print PDF from any application let it be Excel, Power Point, Firefox, medical dictionary, etc. etc. and it goes on.

CutePDF supports Microsoft Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7 (x86/x64). It requires PS2PDF converter such as Ghostscript.

Read more about it: http://cutepdf.com/products/cutepdf/Writer.asp and get it at: http://download.cutepdf.com/download/CuteWriter.zip

Online Free SMS Applications – With Address Book & Reminders

I used to use Krify SMS for all my free SMS needs, but as the time is passing on, new SMS sites have been coming up with lot of features. So, here is the review of two best applications I have been using for sometime. They also offer address book facility, so that you can store all your friends and family’s mobile numbers and just by typing few words, you can retrieve just like what you do while sending SMS on your mobile.

1. 160by2.com

This is really a nice fast-loading site with Ajax touch. It offers address book as well as reminder facility. It also comes with predefined quick SMS templates. It sends the message within few seconds. It allows the users to send message up to 80 characters and they append an ad to the message sent using the rest of 80 characters. That is why, they chose 160by2 as their site’s name. 160 characters shared by user and the site.

They also offer features like address book and alerts. By using alerts, you can set reminders to be sent to your mobile. You can separate the alerts into three different predefined sections Birthday Alerts, Reminders, and Anniversary Alerts. This is my favorite option is 160by2. You can also create groups and send message at one click via web access or by sending from your mobile to a designated 160by2 member, which is available in the section >Contacts>My Groups

2. SMS Me – Orkut Application

 

SMS Me is also a free SMS application which is available as an application in Orkut. To start sending free SMS using this application, first you need to add this application in your profile. Click on the “Add Apps” on the left side right below your avatar. It will show a number of applications available to add. If your browsing Orkut in India, then the application will be in the second place right below the Slapster.

It also has address book facility and if your friend is also using this application in Orkut, then you can send SMS at one click without needing to remember his/her number.

How to filter adult content at home/office – An easy way

My friend called me asking a solution for the above question. He runs a small medical transcription company. When transcriptionists are busy with searching medical terminology, there is a chance for accidentally going to the sites with adult content. He also wants to restrict the net use for the night shift people. He don’t want to spend money buying the content filtering software and it must be easy to setup because they don’t have system administrators to do that. Everything related to systems is taken care of by themselves.

So, I have started searching the net and found these easy steps to stop the adult content showing up in browsers. It is basically about changing the DNS servers in your system.

What is DNS?
DNS (Domain Name System) is a process that translates easy to remember addresses (like www.scrubit.com) to a numerical IP address used by computers (67.138.54.99) Everyone uses DNS. Most DNS is provided to the user by your internet service provider, or a recursive DNS service like ScrubIT. More info you can read on Wikipedia here.

Here I explain about two services OpenDNS and ScrubIt.

OpenDNS: It offers more free services than ScrubIt and more it is faster than ScrubIt. But, adult content filtering is not turned on by default. You have to create a free account on OpenDNS to turn it on. It will give you access to a number of interesting features like Adult Site Blocking, Phishing Site Blocking, Phishing Site Blocking, Stats and Logs, Typo Corrections, etc. Change your DNS servers to 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220, create a free account on OpenDNS, add your IP address, and turn the adult site blocking on. Now you are free from adult sites.

Note that this works only with static IPs as your free account is linked to the IP to gain the control. Lot of broadband accounts comes with static IP and if your internet provider does not support static IP, you can download the Dynamic DNS client to update your IP address automatically. More information is here: http://www.opendns.com/support/dynamic_ip/

Below are some screenshots. It is totally free, so give it a try to learn more about OpenDNS.

ScrubIt: Just change the DNS servers to 67.138.54.100 & 207.225.209.66, and it starts working. Though it is somewhat slow compared to OpenDNS, there is no hassle of setting up anything. Takes few seconds and efficiently starts blocking adult content.

Go to the ScrubIt’s website to know more.

Screenshot:

Finally, how to change the DNS servers in your system? Do the following:

Right click on the network connection icon displayed in the notification area on the taskbar. A menu will appear and select “Status” from the list

Click the “Properties” button and a properties window will open.

Then click “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) ” and it will open up a window with DNS servers list.

You can also locate the local area connection from control panel

Sharing internet connection between two computers – a step-by-step guide

A week ago, I have purchased another system as we got a small project to work on. It is an online project and both systems need to have Internet. We have Sify connection at home and now we have to share it in both systems. I never tried before connecting two systems or sharing an internet connection. I have digged the net and found that we can share the internet using router. Router is a bit expensive one, so further digged the net for a simple workaround to connect both computers and share a single internet connection.

I found that using LAN card and crossover cable, we can setup a LAN connection and share the internet connection. Everything I did, but network icon in system tray was showing limited or no connection. For another one hour, I tried all sort of things, but failed. I put the same IPs in both systems, it did not connect. Then, I selected the option of obtaining IP automatically, again failed. Everyone one the net was describing about connecting it step-by-step, but no one explained about IPs. At last, I searched for it on Microsoft website and in an article, I found the IP numbers to put in, which are the default when you connect in LAN.

Following is a step-by-step instruction to connect two systems and share the internet connection.

Things you need: LAN Card and crossover cable.

Install LAN card in one of two systems, which will act as a Host. You need to connect to the internet through this computer. Connect one of two pins to the Host system and another pin to the second system. Once you connect both through cable, you can see the network icons glowing in your system tray. Sometimes, it may show the message that it is acquiring the IP address.

Click for bigger & clear image

Now, go to the Control Panel>Network and Internet Connection>Network Setup Wizard in Host system, in which you have installed an extra LAN card.  Look at the screenshot on the right side.

It will show a popup. Click two times and follow the below screenshots.  Click on the images for a bigger and clear images.

Select “Just finish the wizard” on the last window and we are done with the Host system.  I named it as “Home.”

In the Client system, run the same network setup wizard, but this time select the connection method as second one, look at the image below. Rest of the process is same.

Now, in the Host system, you will be entering the IP address provided by the Internet provider. In the Client system, enter the below IP details and click ok. Now, you will see a popup from the second connection telling that it is now connected at 10 mbps speed.

Now when you connect the Host system to internet, you can access it from the Client system too.

Pros:
1. Any type of Internet connection works.
2. Low cost of implementation (Rs.200-250)
3. Easy to install.

Cons:
1. You can only connect two systems.
2. Host always to be on to access net on the Client system.

If you still have problem, post in comments and I will try to answer.

Microsoft ICE - Free panoramic photo stitching software

I found this amazing software called Image Composite Editor (ICE) by Microsfot while searching for free software to stitch photos. I found few other free photo stitching softwares too, but they were difficult to install, took lot of time to stitch, and/or producing low-quality images.

 

Using photo stitching software, you can stitch a set of overlapping photos taken of a location into a single image. Assume that you want to shoot a wide-angled scene with your mobile camera, you can take photos of that scene into rectangular grid of rows and columns and then using photo stitching software, you can create a high-resolution single image.

Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) is available as a free software. It can stitch giga pixels of images into one single image. No other software can match its speed. It is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit windows and supported up to Windows 7.

Click the image for a bigger and clear image

Flickr has a group for the images stitched with Microsoft ICE, http://www.flickr.com/groups/922872@N23/.  Check the photos created with it and you will understand what you can do with this little free application.

For example purpose, I have captured the Microsft webpage into 4 different parts of unequal lengths and stitched into one. Click the below images to see, how good it stitched the images into one.

This is a photo taken from the ICE group on Flickr as an example for panoramic image created with stitching 14 photos into one:

Backup and sync Firefox environment with one click

My system has been giving problems lately with the hardware and at anytime, it can crash.  So, I have purchased a WD Elements Portable 160GB USB hard drive and uploaded all the data onto it. Whenever I download a software, I keep a copy on my hard disk, so now I am having all the software copies.  What I am missing is Firefox data.  

I use a number of extensions, tweaks, and themes and has huge number of usernames and passwords stored in it. So, this Sunday, I have searched and implemented few backup options and found FEBE as the best extension for it. Here is my review of this little useful extension that relieved my tension of being missing very important data:

 

FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension) allows Firefox users to quickly and easily backup extensions, themes, bookmarks, preferences, search plugins, and browser history. Before backing up, it will rebuild all the extensions individually into installable .xpi files, so you can sync the Firefox browser in your office and home.  It also has option of scheduling the backups. Another useful feature in FEBE is backing up the data onto your Box.net’s free storage account, which makes this extension hot.  I used to export the username and passwords list using Password Exporter plugin and then uploading them into Box.net account.  Now, I don’t need to worry about manually uploading them. Just a click takes backup of all the data and stores a copy in your system as well as on Box account.

It also has quick backup option from which you can select few or only one item to be backed up saving your time.

FEBE Options Tab

Taking backup and uploading them into Box.net account

Showing progress of upload into Box.net account

Restoring the files is also easy.  By going through Tools>FEBE>Restore option, you can restore all the data one by one.

Restore options

Health insurance policy is now portable

Now you can port your health insurance to any health insurance company in India. IRDA (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority) today released the advertisement to all newspapers about it. 

 

You can now keep the credit gained in your existing policy even after switching to a new insurance company. You may be aware or not, all medical conditions and pre-existing illness are not covered by all policies. Only few high-premium policies cover those. All other normal health insurances will not cover them for the first two years. They are only covered after you paid your third premium. Suppose if you want to change the insurance company in the fourth year, you need to start afresh with the new insurance company and you will be covered for pre-existing and few complicated medical conditions only after paying third premium.

With portability, you can now change the insurance company keeping that “two-year-old policy” credit. You will be readily covered for all conditions by your new insurance company. If you don’t like your current insurance company or if you find a better policy offered at less premium, you can change it. You should apply at least 45 days before its renewal date.

The advertisement read as following:
•  Portability means transfer of the credit gained by the insured for pre-existing conditions and time bound exclusions if the policyholder chooses to switch from one insurer to another insurer or from one plan to another plan of the same insurer, provided the previous policy has been maintained without any break.
•  A break in policy occurs when the premium due on a given policy is not paid on or before the premium renewal date or within 30 days thereof.
•  A policyholder should apply to such insurance company at least 45 days before the premium renewal date of his/her existing policy for porting his/her policy.
•  The policyholder should fill in the Portability Form along with proposal form and submit the same to the insurance company.
•  If the insurance company does not communicate its decision to the requesting policyholder within 15 days of providing all the details as required by the insurer, the insurance company shall not retain the right to reject such proposal.
•  Portability is allowed to all individual health insurance policies issued by non-life insurance companies including family floater policies

Free Windows Registry Cleaner

While going through an online software selling website, I have seen approx. $25 costing registry cleaner in the hot selling products list.  I wondered why people are shelling out that much when there are a number of free registry cleaners are available.  So, this post has come out of that doubt and show the people a free registry cleaner that I have been using for years. 

What is a Registry Cleaner?
Registry cleaner is a software that cleans the unwanted registry entries, invalid paths, invalid ActiveX, unused file extensions, etc. thus by speeding up the system.  Registry is a database where Windows Operating System stores its settings and options.

One of the best and free registry cleaner is RegSeeker.  It come as a standalone product, which does not need any installation.  Just copy the folder onto desktop or just drop into your Program Files folder.

If you use it for the first time, you can see that hundreds of invalid and unwanted registry entries and after deleting them, you can see a slight boost in your system’s performance.  Sometimes when you uninstall a software, it just deletes the files in Program Files folder, but keeps the entries in registry like software key, which troubles sometimes when you change the key.  I have had these problems and resolved it easily by running Registry Cleaner.

It also comes with features like tweaks for XP, listing and uninstallation of installed products, and searching and deleting registry entries right from RegSeeker.

RegSeeker Homepage: http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm

Empty Recycle Bin at Logoff and Shutdown on Windows XP

I had been looking for a simple solution for legacy systems (Windows XP) to perform a simply empty recycle bin during a shutdown and even better if it can be integrated into a logoff. To my surprise there were tons of requests for years and nobody gave a solution properly which does not require any 3rd party tools.
Most of the users suggest to turn off Recycle bin totally, but it can save lives sometimes, so that not what we want. Secondly, if we need to install a tool, we are just expanding our exposure to risk since the tool may have vulnerability and who knows what it can do when run as SYSTEM during a shutdown.
I found the simplest solution is to make use of Microsoft's built in shutdown and logoff script function:
Shutdown scripts: https://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/gptext_assigncomputershutdownscripts.mspx?mfr=true
Logoff scripts: https://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/gptext_logoffscripts.mspx?mfr=true
However, do take note that Shutdown scripts are run as SYSTEM and logoff scripts are run as the user logging off.
A simple "Empty the Recycle Bin" scripts using just batch file:
ATTRIB %systemdrive%\RECYCLER\* -R -S -H /S /D
DEL %systemdrive%\RECYCLER\* /F /S /Q
RD %systemdrive%\RECYCLER /S /Q
It's 3 lines to make sure it deletes and finish the job. Just copy and paste into a batch file which is your logoff / shutdown script.
There we have it. A simple and do-no-need-3rd-party solution. I hope you will find it useful.