Our new platform is already available at www.gandi.net

Go to the new Gandi

To give you a little more time to adapt, we have left the old version of Gandi's website accessible at the following address: http://v3.gandi.net

Of course, all the operations that you could do on the old version will work on the new :)

Also, if you are still a little bit lost, despite our efforts to not totally mess-up the interfaces, you can continue to perform all your operations on the old version of the website. We will keep it in place for 2 to 3 weeks, so that you will have enough time to become used to the new site ;)

Finally, if you find bugs, things that dont quite work well, anomalies, or you would simply like to give us some feedback, please feel free to write to feedback@gandi.net

--------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: At a Glance
--------------------------------------------------
1. Accented Domains from AFNIC
2. The Opening of .PT
3. One Year Registration of British Extensions
4. 2 NEW Extensions at Gandi: .MG and .IO
5. May Promotions
6. Server API Brings New Opportunities
7. The Simple Hosting API
8. New Ubuntu VPS Image Available
--------------------------------------------------
.
This month, we decided to do things a little differently, adding this summary so that the impatient among you can
scan it like a menu. and skip directly to your favourite dish of information.
At the end of this newsletter, we have our usual feedback link, so take the opportunity to tell us if you like the new format!
Featured this month is the sunrise for “accented” character in extensions offered by AFNIC, including the most famous:  .FR.

Slightly lower in European impact, but still significant, the Portuguese national extension (.PT) is open as of May 1, and, on this same date, .UK  will be able to be registered for 1 to 10 years (instead of the previous minimum 2 years).
We added two extensions to our collection, .MG and .IO. You will find, as always, the perennial section summarizing the domain name promotions for the month of May, and then, to conclude, some news about our Web Hosting API and a new Ubuntu distribution for our servers.

----------------------------------
1. Accented Domains from AFNIC
----------------------------------
We often talk about IDN, or Internationalized Domain Names. One aspect of this type of domain is that a domain name can contain one or more accented characters. This lets you distinguish your domain from the clearly less stylish, unaccented versions! For instance: meme.fr, mémé.fr and
même.fr, are 3 distinct names, not just variations on a meme. Making these available has to be done carefully however, to avoid a potential cybersquatting issue with trademarked un-accented versions. To do this properly, AFNIC has proposed a kind of “sunrise-based” registration period. It’s dependent on ownership of the name, without accents.
To continue with the example above, if you have meme.fr, then for the next two months you have the opportunity to register any and all accented forms. From May 3rd on, owners of domains in .FR, .RE, .YT, .PM, .WF, and .TF can register accented versions. If you don’t own such a domain in unaccented form, just wait. On July 3rd, you can register the accented or unaccented version, as you like. Here’s a post on the Gandibar that also describes this: http://www.gandibar.net/post/2012/04/27/Accented-FR-domains

-------------------
2. The Opening of .PT to everyone
-------------------
Until now, if you wanted to register a .PT (the Portuguese national extension) you had to show credentials proving that you were a legitimate company, registered in Europe, and that the name you wished to register was the exact business name of the company.
No more! Since May 1st, you can register any name you like with a .PT extension (except of course for certain terms prohibited by the registry, as is the case for every extension).

You must provide (as applicable):
- Your EU VAT No. for companies in the EU
- An identification code for companies and individuals not in the EU
- A fiscal code for Portuguese nationals
- A passport number for individuals of other nationalities

For more details, see:
https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2012-04-27/639-opening_of_the_.pt_extension/

-----------------------------------------
3. One Year Registration of British Extensions
-----------------------------------------
Being fond of exceptions, our friends in the United Kingdom had long ago decided that a .UK domain name must be registered for a minimum of 2 years, and that it could be renewed only six months before the expiration date.
Well, like many exceptions, this rule has fallen to the tyranny of the majority, and the new rule, in force since May 1st, allows registration of a .UK (that is, .CO.UK, .ORG.UK, or a  .ME.UK) for as little as a single year. Actually, you
can also renew a .UK for over 2 years (up to 10,
like other extensions). This is good news.
One minor caveat: registering for a single year costs you more per year than if you take it for 2+ years.
https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2012-05-01/642-.co.uk_for_one_year/

-------------------------------------------------
4. Two NEW Extensions at Gandi: .MG and .IO
-------------------------------------------------
Two new extensions are being made available to Gandi customers this month, with the Malagasy .MG and the very “Input/Output” appropriate .IO. A .MG will cost you the tidy sum of € 90.00 for one year, grid A. All the prices are here:
https://www.gandi.net/domain/price/detail/mg

The British Indian Ocean Territory is much more accessible, and very popular with us geeks, because of its representation of I/O (the abbreviation for Input/Output in computerspeak). To get your .IO for a year, it will run you € 39.00, in grid A. These two extensions are open to all. See the prices here:
https://www.gandi.net/domain/price/detail/io/

--------------------------------
5. May Promotions
--------------------------------
As usual, here's a summary of active domain name promotions this month.

All creations for .PH are half price for the entire month of May.
https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2012-05-02/647-.ph_for_half-price_in_may/
New registrations of .PRO domains for one year are € 3.25 + VAT, at A rates, until the end of the month of May.
https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2012-04-13/529-big_promo_on_.co/
The .INFO extension continues its 50% off  for one year of new registrations, for all price grids until late June.
https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2011-11-17/493-.info_at_50_off/
The .ME extension is half-price until July, for new domain creations in grid A
https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2011-10-01/457-50_off_.me/
The. CO is now half-price for domain registrations of one year, until the end of the month
https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2012-04-13/529-big_promo_on_.co/

------------------------------------------
6. Server API Brings New Opportunities
------------------------------------------
If you are a user of the Gandi API (or not yet, for that matter), it has probably not escaped you that you could not buy Gandi server resources (in IaaS) directly via the API. This situation will be ancient history, starting May 7. This opens new opportunities to potential resellers (you, for example). You can now purchase and deploy complete IaaS server solutions right from your own applications.
It’s also useful for configuration management, too. You can now script the whole life cycle of a server, to you own specifications. Fire them up automatically, re-configure them on the fly, take them down when conditions you define are met.
If you want to test this API, it’s already available in the test region (OT & E). It will be promoted to production on May 7th. For more information and feedback
on this API, see:
http://www.gandibar.net/post/2012/05/03/Managing-IaaS-Cloud-Hosting-resources-via-API

-----------------------------------------
7. The Simple Hosting API
-----------------------------------------
In case you missed it, you should know that the API
for Simple Hosting management is available in Production
at Gandi, since April 19. With it, you can create your own interfaces for reselling our Simple Hosting solution directly. You can easily combine it wit the API that controls domain names, which means you can easily resell full solutions,
packaging hosting with domain name registration. The possibilities are endless.
For more information, see:
http://www.gandibar.net/post/2012/04/12/Simple-Hosting-API%3A-Empowering-Web-Hosting-Resellers

-----------------------------------------
8. New Ubuntu VPS Image Available
-----------------------------------------
Of all the members of the Ubuntu family of strange animals, I would like to have a pet Pangolin.
Ubuntu 12.04 is now available for Gandi VPS Servers in 32 and 64 bit versions. This version of Ubuntu, called Precise Pangolin is the latest, and it is scheduled to be maintained for 5 years (or until April 2017). Come see what a Pangolin looks like ☺


As usual, don’t hesitate to send us your suggestions for how we can improve our services, your enhancement requests, this newsletter, as well as your ideas for news features, or your questions, queries, and complaints. Our newsletter address is newsletter-en@gandi.net  

Sincerely,  

Nicolas Lhuillery
Product Director
Gandi
http://www.gandi.net  


To subscribe to our newsletter, simply change the newsletter selection in the “Update Personal Information” section of your account.

Get ready for spring! April is the month to think about a change of wardrobe, and, depending on where you live, to start wearing some new duds. Gandi is helping you out this year with another chance to get some cool Gandi t-shirts.


Another .UK contest is also going on (read on for details), and we will summarize our current promotions and some useful information on .PRO. Also, you may not have noticed, but we added a very useful feature on Simple Hosting.

# Free Gandi duds!
We are giving away 500 Gandi "Twitter Special Edition" free t-shirts! Winners of the simple (you guessed it) Twitter-based game this week will be eligible to get one of 100 shirts a day, starting today, and ending Saturday April 14th.
For game rules, please see

http://www.gandibar.net/post/2012/04/10/Gandi-Spring-Fashion-:-500-Free-t-shirts-via-Twitter

# Nominet wants to give you gear…
Speaking of competitions, the .UK registry (Nominet) is running a promotion, giving out 1 free New iPad a day. While an iPad is arguably more useful than a Gandi t-shirt, it’s obviously not nearly as cool. We can understand why you might want both, though, so check out the Nominet giveaway rules here: https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2012-03-27/611-win_an_ipad_with_.uk/


# More .UK News
We have more good news from Nominet. It used to be your only option
for registering a .uk domain was to do so for a minimum of two years.
Luckily for us, .UK domains will soon be available for just one year at a time! The rules change May 1, so get ready for more flexibility in your .UK domain management.

# The .PRO dance
If you've always wanted a .PRO, you probably already know the rules have changed, making it easier than ever to register your own domain with the extension exclusively for professionals and their companies. There is also a 75% discount in effect right now, and this unique opportunity runs out this month (it ends May 1).  After that, the price goes up 36% for registrars like Gandi, to cover the registry’s cost of checking the validity of the owners. This increase uncharacteristically applies to renewals as well as new registrations, and will apply to .PRO domains you transfer to Gandi.
So you don’t get caught off guard by this increase,
we are offering you a promo code good for a 2.00€ reduction off the VAT tax on your renewal. This will soften the blow for those who have to pay VAT on top of the increased price, and we will honor it on renewals from 2 up to 9 years (VAT applies to customers in the European Union).
See the post about this here: https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2012-03-27/614-.pro_price_increase/


# From Russia with .РФ
With the release of the new IDN TLD extension (see the full article
here: http://www.gandibar.net/post/2012/03/19/), Russia leads the way on new extensions. We are highlighting
this with a promotion: Until the politically-appropriate date of May
1st, your cost for the creation of a .РФ (.RF for Russian Federation in
Cyrillic) will be 14.00€ + VAT with A rates, (down from 28.00€ +
VAT). See: https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2012-03-30/617-promo_on_russian_extensions/


# The other domain name promotions we have running are:
.ME is half-price until July, for A rates. See: https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2011-10-01/457-50_off_.me/
.INFO is 50% off for all rate levels until June. See:
.ASIA is 5.00 € a year for all new registrations until the end of April (act fast for .ASIA!) https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2012-01-01/535-.asia_creation_promo/
.CO is also half-price for new registrations, now till the end of April. See: https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2012-01-01/529-big_promo_on_.co/


# A simple Simple Hosting improvement
Some of you have managed to crash your Apache processes running on the Simple Hosting platform. It’s not as hard to do this as it should be: putting a foot wrong the PHP code is the most common method we see people inadvertently use.
It’s not that big a deal, usually, since restarting Apache fixes the problem, at least temporarily. The issue was that with Simple Hosting, you actually needed to contact our support line to do this. No more!  We have added restart to the list of actions you can take on your instance. Look for a little blue arrow on your list of pending operations:
(https://www.gandi.net/admin/hosting/paas/management) or the "Restart" link in the instance management page.


# Coming Soon to Gandi
In the next few weeks, we will proudly debut another choice for WYSIWYG web site editors. “Basekit” is getting added to Gandi! Unlike SiteMaker, which uses Flash, Basekit will create your website in HTML and CSS (perfect for display on the New iPad you can win from Nominet). It’s going to be offered by Gandi with a free beginner site, of course, and some nice, reasonably priced extension packages.
What else is new? Well, of course we are adding new extensions, some for regular customers, and some reserved for Corporate clients, since they are complicated to manage due to registry rules and restrictions, and mainly of interest only for brand protection purposes. We have also added little enhancements here and there, and fixed minor problems some you have reported (thank you!).  

Parting Thoughts:
As usual, don’t hesitate to send us your suggestions for how we can improve our services, your enhancement requests, ideas for news features, or your questions queries and complaints. Feel free to send us your best pictures, your recipes for Easter treats or shish-kebabs.  Our newsletter address is newsletter-en@gandi.net

Sincerely,

Thomas Stocking
COO, Gandi US
http://www.gandi.net


Dear customer,

This month, we are pleased to announce the general launch of the .XXX extension, as well as the opening of .FR and other AFNIC-managed domains to the rest of the Europe.


.FR domains available to Europe
AFNIC has loosened registration criteria for its favorite extension, .FR. It is now possible for companies located within the European Economic Area and Switzerland to expand their presence in France with a .FR domain name, an extension which until now had been restricted to companies registered in France. It is no longer necessary that you provide your company registration number for registering .FR domains, though we strongly recommend that you indicate your DUNS code (or SIREN, if your company is registered in France), as this will be helpful if AFNIC requests this from you as part of a random check.

Associations do not need to provide their registration information either, though individuals living in the EEA and Switzerland that would like an AFNIC domain name still need to provide their birth date, city of birth, French Département of birth, and country of birth.

In addition to liberalizing .FR domains, AFNIC has done the same with .RE, .PM, .TF, .WF, and .YT! More information on this important development is available at http://www.gandibar.net/post/2011/11/17/FR-domains-available-to-Europe


.XXX general launch
Today, December 6th 2011 at 16:00 GMT, the .XXX extension will be officially open. Note that the registration criteria have not changed for this extension: if you are part of the adult entertainment industry, you may register a .XXX domain without difficulty. If, however, you just want to block a domain, and you missed the Sunrise period where you could block a .XXX for life, you can still block a domain, but at the same price as the others now. Keep in mind, however, that the domain will not be active, and you cannot do anything with it (nobody else can either - which is the idea). In both cases, the domain will need to be renewed yearly. You can see the full .XXX price list at
http://www.gandi.net/domain/price/detail/xxx/


Gandi is moving!
We are going to be leaving our location at Place de la Nation in downtown Paris, for another, more modern and spacious one in the southern part of the capital on the 16th of December. We will therefore not be in a position to assure a normal level of service on that day; you might experience an added delay in support tickets, and telephone support for resellers will be disabled. Please forgive us in advance for any inconvenience this exceptional event may cause you.


.WS domain promo
The registry in charge of .WS is having a promo for the month of December 2011 for new domain registrations, which are 50% off the regular price. More information is available at: https://www.gandi.net/news/en/2011-12-06/518-.ws_at_50_off/


Promos currently underway



Additional RAM for less
With a super promo on additional ram for the entire month of December, you will be able to add additional gigabytes of RAM for less! Units of 256MB are therefore $31.20/£21.60/€24 (or $2.60/£1.80/€2 per month excl. VAT). This promo only concerns additional RAM purchased with a yearly commitment. For example, if you subscribe to a Dual Core server with 2GB of RAM for one year, this will cost you less than €32 per month! Test the various configurations on our price calculator at the following page: http://www.gandi.net/hosting/proposal/price/

Finally, and as usual, please feel free to send me your questions or comments.

Sincerely,

Nicolas Lhuillery
Product Director
Gandi
http://www.gandi.net

PS: If you would like to receive this newsletter, please change the subscription setting in your Gandi handl's account modification page.

If you are one of the many people that have not been able to get your Gandi T-shirt in XXL, cheer up! Our new collection (or rather, our new model :)) has arrived! All mens' sizes from XXL to S and womens' from L to S are now available for €12 including tax and delivery*!

Like with the former collection, our T-shirts are, in addition to being geek and somewhat provocative, a way to show our colors and to support the projects that Gandi has chosen to help.

We would like to thank you on their behalf :)

* Delivery is only possible in France, the United Kindgom, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain.

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