Use Google to host your website : For Free! — Part ONE

I had been struggling very hard (read tapping-on-keyboard-into-wee-hours-of-night) to get my website up. Now, don’t get me wrong — i know the basic rules:-

1. Buy a domain name;
2. Buy some space;
3. Use some templates (given by the space provider), use your brain (no, not that one please!) and get your freaking site up!

The problem is, i am broke most of the time (if you don’t believe, ask my family and friends :)). I somehow managed buying a domain, but when i googled, i found out that web-space was not free (well, it was in some cases, but they came with their own baggage). So i decided to write down my requirements for the website (i guess the developer in me will never die, sigh!):-

1. Maintain my blog;
2. Publish my resume, and to keep it updated;
3. Tell (honker) everyone about my skill set;
4. Keep a list of projects that i am doing currently, and to keep it updated;

I realized a few things:-

1. I don’t need a dynamic site for now, a static one will do;
2. I had already started a blog, so moving the blog would be a concern (more so to a lazy bum like me);

Around the same time, i came to know that one can use google to host his/her website. There are two ways, Google Apps, and Blogger.

I will not be writing about the first one because it didn’t work in my case (can’t figure out why). If someone succeeds at it, please tell me so, and i would be happy to include it (with all due credit) here.

So, without wasting your time anymore, here are the steps that i took to put my own website up on blogger:-

1. Create a blog on Blogger;
2. Modify the blog design;
3. Change configurations in your DNS settings (of the domain that you own) and that of the blog.

That’s right! you don’t create your own site, you just modify your blog to look like a site. Then you need to modify your DNS settings a bit. After that, you need to configure the blog publishing settings, and presto!

Check my next blog post to know how i did that …