Nathan

Featured, Internet, Technology, Tips, Web Design

Background
For personal sites, it’s often not a priority to create your own domain and host it. Most don’t really bother to do so, because it usually entails a lot of work and effort to maintain, as opposed to just creating a free account in say, Blogspot or WordPress.com. I myself started my personal space in the Internet with free blogging  accounts courtesy of those services. It didn’t take long for me to start wanting to own a domain for myself, and ever since, I’ve been meaning to expand my space online.

Recently, I embarked on a journey to create a new domain to host my other blog on Travel and Photography.

Here I’ll share with you how you can actually create and host your own domain with ease, and have all the bonuses setup along with it. You can have your own blog, an email connected with your domain, and a calendar. All these are possible by connecting Tumblr (a good free blogging platform that is easy to use) and Google Apps with your domain.

Here’s How

1. Register a domain with NameCheap or your preferred domain registrar. This usually costs around USD 10 per year for a .com domain.
2. Create an account in Tumblr.
3. Edit your domain’s host records to point the domain’s A-record [IP Address] to 72.32.231.8.Note that for Tumblr, IP address is used, instead of nameservers. In NameCheap, the link to editing host records can be found under Host Management.
   

   NameCheap Host Records Link

   Edit the A-record as follows:

   

   NameCheap Host Record - Tumblr A-Record

   The @ signifies the root of the domain, i.e. iamasampledomain.com, while www signifies the root, with a www prefix, i.e. www.iamasampledomain.com. Save your changes.

   Note: It may take upto 72 hours before the changes take effect, depending on the registrar.

4. Customize your Tumblr blog to allow custom domains.
   

   Tumblr Custom Domain

   On the Info menu, tick the Use custom domain name checkbox and enter the domain you have created. Once this is setup, test your domain by clicking the Test your domain link. Don’t forget to save! You should now be able to type your domain and the site you have created should show up (assuming the domain settings has already been setup and has already taken effect).

   [optional]
   The following steps are optional if you want your own domain email via Google Mail and other Google Apps such as Docs and Calendar linked to your domain.

5. Create an account in Google Apps (Standard Edition) as an Administrator.
6. Activate and customize the email and calendar settings in Google Apps. Change the Web Address/URL for Email and Calendar to a custom name. e.g. mail.iamasampledomain.com and calendar.iamasampledomain.com.
7. Edit your domain’s host records CNAME to reflect the settings you made in Google Apps.
   

   NameCheap Host Record - Google Apps CNAME

8. In order to fully allow the emailing to work, you need to edit the MX records to:
   
   Priority | MX Server address
   10 | ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
   20 | ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
   20 | ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
   30 | ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
   30 | ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
   30 | ASPMX4.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
   30 | ASPMX5.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.

   For NameCheap, it’s a simple change. Simply tick User under Mail Settings, tick Quick Change and Google Apps Email then save. All the required MX records will automatically be loaded.

   

   NameCheap Host Record - Mail Settings

   Note: It may take upto 72 hours before the changes take effect, depending on the registrar.

Finale
Congratulations! You should now be able to access your newly created site, your email and calendar using your new domain.

Visit my Photravelography Blog for a sample blog done using the above method.

Have fun!