Gandi Bar - Tag - Domain name

Setting up your domain with Google Apps Has Just Been Made Easier

Thomas — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:27:00 -0800

If you want to join the thousands of users who use Gmail, Google Docs, and all the Google Apps on your personal domain, Gandi just made it really easy. Find out how!

A few years ago, when Gmail was gaining in popularity as a free email platform, Google started releasing complementary applications to go along with it. Google Apps, as the collection is called, has since become an invaluable resource for millions of business users.

The fact that you can economically use Google for company email and collaboration, including Google Docs, as a paid SaaS (Software as a Service) offering has made it a vital competitor to in-house offerings from Microsoft like MS Exchange and MS Sharepoint.

Previously, if you wanted to use Google Apps with your domain, some specific MX records needed to be added to your DNS zone file. If that doesn't scare you, and your domain is at Gandi, then you can easily do it yourself following instructions here. But starting today, things are changing for the better!

In the same way that Google has made the Internet accessible to millions by making it easy, Gandi and Google have partnered to automate the changes to DNS. Now with this new innovation, you can configure the domain for Google Apps with the touch of an authenticated button. No more editing the zone file, copying and pasting records. Thanks, Google!

How the domain name industry works - part 1

Joe — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:40:00 +0100

Registry, Registrar, Registrant, (Registratum, Registrata, Registrunt). Ok, so the last 3 are made up words, and the domain name industry wasn't really founded in ancient Rome nor part of your everyday Latin dialect, but what do the first three words actually mean and how does the domain name industry work? We've been working in the industry for years, so we have a pretty good idea. But we can also understand why all this really can just sound like ancient Greek to many people and not mean a thing. So in the spirit of lifting the lid and keeping things honest (as Gandi likes to do), we thought we'd give you a quick overview of what it all means.

Who's who in the domain name world?
Which one are you? Well you're the registrant, the purchaser of domain names and the last link in the chain that runs from ICANN at the top to you at the bottom. But there are several layers it passes through to get to you. Let's take a look.

ICANN - Top Dog

Let's start with the big dog itself ICANN. ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a body in charge of managing the domain name space. In its own words "ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet’s unique identifiers." It loosely the gTLD registries (see below), and sets policy around new domain extensions. Generally its a good guy, and the last word on domain disputes, though it is sometimes lofty, intellectual and bureaucratic (not that those are all bad things, an organisation like that needs to be careful).

Registries - They're Wholesalers Only

The registries are the managers of the TLDs (Top level domains), either gTLDs (generic, like .com), or ccTLD (country code, e.g. .uk, or .fr). When you buy a domain.com it is recorded in the registry's database and that is the ultimate record of your ownership of the domain.

The TLDs are created by ICANN and the rights to manage them are tendered to commercial companies in the case of gTLDs (e.g. .com is managed by Verisign), or for ccTLDs given to the national governments who in turn assign/tender their management to other organisations (e.g. Nominet in the UK for .uk, or Afnic in France for .fr).

But the registries generally don't sell direct to customers (or can't in some cases), so instead they sell domains wholesale to the registrars.

Registrars - They Sell You Domains Direct

Here's Gandi. Hurray! The Registrars are the commercial companies that sell one or more domain name extensions direct to you and me (or through resellers - see below). The top tier of these are ICANN accredited which is a greater 'seal of approval', but nowadays there are so many this doesn't necessarily mean much. (Gandi was one of the first to be accredited in 1999).

Registrars interface directly with one or more registries, they manage your details and billing relationship. They represent your interest at the registry and will usually be the first port of call for domain disputes. So they are important to you, particularly their service and policy towards disputes. Know your registry!! Which brings us to Resellers.

Resellers - They Sell on Registrars Domains

Resellers look like registrars, but they aren't. They are commercial companies selling domain names, but they don't have direct relationships with the registries, but instead use the technology of another registrar to manage the domain names. This means if your domain provider is a reseller, it is using another registrar, and you may not know who that is. Many domain companies are registrars for some domains, and resellers for others. Interestingly in the UK, most of the big domain companies are not registrars for the gTLDs, e.g. .com, .net, etc., instead they use the technology of other companies. This can be problem when it comes to registrar behaviour or disputes (more next time).

Gandi is a registrar for all its domains, and there are some reseller companies that use Gandi as their registrar.

You
It's you! Hurray!! You may be a company, an individual, an organisation, a ghost (well maybe not a ghost), but you are the purchaser of the domain name. You buy it from either a registrar (like Gandi) or a reseller. You should be the ultimate owner of the domain (you are with Gandi), though you should check the policies of your domain company to make sure they are not taking the ownership themselves and leasing it to you. You manage your domain via your registrar/reseller and they manage the records of your domain in the registry or registries (if you have lots).

So there you have it! Now you can entertain all your friends at dinner parties with your extensive knowledge of how the domain name industry works. Or hope that you get onto "Who wants to be a millionaire" and the last question is:

"In the domain name industry, the manager of the .com domain extension is know as":

a) Registrant
b) Registrar
c) Registry
d) Regicide....

(the answer is (c), (d) is about killing kings or something). Good luck!

Get your site at Gandi!

Ryan — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:29:00 +0100

No, we're not referring to healing the blind, although with our new online website creation tool, Gandi SiteMaker, you are indeed able to work with accessibility features to help the visually impaired...

Gandi SiteMaker is a product that has been developed by our English subsidiary, Moonfruit, since 2005. It is certainly the most impressive web 2.0 application that I have ever used, and this in an atmosphere where everything these days is being called web 2.0. It is really for this very reason that we asked them to join us at the time.

I can hear you saying right now, "...there’s already a boatload of WYSIWYG website creation applications out there”! And you could not be more right. Except that is has now been 9 years since they began the project, which has not stopped improving since then… And yet, I am not one who is really destined to appreciate this type of simple tool! I'm “Old School”, an old HTML tagger that still tries to optimize my gifs to be just the right hues… But to help Gandi, I have gone with Gandi SiteMaker, in order to see what it can do and experience its strengths and weaknesses.

What we are offering today, is an application with a extremely wide range of possibilities that will let you create a website of amazing quality in the blink of en eye! Dozens of templates are available to you as a basis for your site and for inspiration, while those of you who are graphic designers will find themselves a type of QuarkXPress of the web (yes – I did mention that I was old school…).

Now just hold on there (because I can hear the skeptics snickering in the background, thinking that I am going to launch into a sales pitch). I am not selling anything here! It’s free! Yes, that’s right: for those of you that have a domain name at Gandi, you can now create a website without any technical experience necessary. There are so many features that we had to create a lengthy FAQ just to cover all the questions of the product.

Features? Excluding the possibility of creating a website from an existing template (or a blank page for those of you that prefer it, of course), you may choose pre-established structure to help you along, and finally, with one click, you will find your website ready to be published or modified!

I recommend that you have a quick look at this video, which is no longer than 3 minutes long, and will show you just how easy it all is:

Now it’s your turn!

Wouldn’t it be nice to make a website for your parents of photos of your newborn? With one click on “insert”, then on “object”, I select “Pop-up Gallery”, and voilà! I now have a photo gallery, for which the most difficult part was to choose the order of my photos.

Have you been wanting to create a website for your local sailing club? Nothing could be more simple: a video player to show clips of the year’s bloopers, a web page where you can add a forum in just a single click, and a subscription form where you can manage the rights of members of your forum.

Aspiring artist, are you tired of non-lucrative expositions, and do you dream of having your own website with a gallery, an order form and an online payment system, so that you can sell your works all around the world? Once again, only a few clicks are needed to build your own website, and you do not need to know any computer language!

Hey! Let’s add a guestbook, ah…now that really is nice for visitors. Perfect!

Do you have a domain name at Gandi? Congratulations! You also have a Gandi SiteMaker Free Pack that you can already activate in your account, and begin to see this wonderful tool for your self – a tool that will truly let you create your online presence in no time at all!

Professional and customized

We have limited the Free pack to 2 pages, because we feel that this is enough to make a presentation page (a welcome page and a personal résumé for example) and in order to let you try out SiteMaker whenever you want. This is not a limited-time offer, it is a given for you.

Our two fee-based backs are for those of you that are more convinced that this is the tool for you, and who greater needs – still within an affordable price range. See for yourself: our Starter Pack, at €4 euros (excl. VAT) per month, allows you to create 50 pages, and to store up to 500 MB of files, and to benefit from all the advanced modules (with the exception of e-commerce). This latter feature is available with the Professional Pack, which costs €8 (excl. VAT) per month, with an unlimited number of pages and having 2GB of disk space. You can refer to our pack comparison page for more details.

Many of you have been requesting a service between free hosting and our Gandi AI virtual dedicated servers. With Gandi SiteMaker, we now hope to meet this demand, since the hosting of your websites is included in all the packs!