Newsletter April 2022
In this month’s newsletter: four alternatives to Microsoft Office, how to add a volume to your GandiCloud VPS, making a living off your blog, NixOS updates, 7 WordPress Gutenberg features to make your life easier, three things we’re reading this month, and more!
This month:
- 4 open-source alternatives to Microsoft Office
- How to add a volume to your GandiCloud VPS
- Other popular news this month
- Three things we’re reading this month
- Release note: what’s new at Gandi
- Gandi Supports
- Promo roundup
- Calendar
4 open-source alternatives to Microsoft Office
The Microsoft Office software suite is so ubiquitous and essential that Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are now taught in schools. However, there are also open-source alternatives that match and even surpass Microsoft’s suite of tools.
Video tutorial: How to add a volume to your GandiCloud VPS
When you build your own website and make a living from it, you may need to have more than one volume on your server to make sure your website works well.
In this video, we introduce you to two ways you can add volumes to your Gandi VPS server.
Other popular news this month
Is it possible to make a living off your blog?
Do you have a blog that’s going well and you want to monetize it? Like 39% of bloggers, you aspire to make a living from your passion. But how can you stand out amongst the competition, knowing that space is limited?
NixOS and automatic snapshots are now on GandiCloud VPS
You can now launch an NixOS server on GandiCloud VPS. NixOS is a new image supported by our GandiCloud VPS product that uses a declarative configuration and allows for reliable system updates.
And that’s not all—automatic snapshots are here too! With this feature, you can automate snapshots (which capture the state of a hard disk at a given moment).
7 WordPress features that could change your life, do you know them all?
From markdown formating to adding anchors, using the “/” function, or adding text columns, we listed all the features we use daily on our WordPress blog. Do you know them all?
Three things we’re reading this month
1. How .ua (Ukraine’s ccTLD) is staying operative
Despite the ongoing war in its home country of Ukraine and frequenty cyberattacks, the .ua TLD has remained standing, thanks to the brave efforts of the .ua registry team. In this interview, Dmitry Kohmanyuk, a .ua employee caught outside the country, describes the efforts to keep .ua up, his perspectives on the cyber side of the war, and prospects for the future of .ua.
The efforts of Dmitry and his colleagues are laudable and represent truly the best of the domain name world. Bravo to them and their efforts.
2. Open-source security stands on its own merits
In a sign of open-source software’s maturity, a report by IBM-owned Red Hat has found that 89% of IT leaders now trust the security of open-source software.
An interesting aspect of this report is that it appears this increased accpetance is not due to the traditional arguments about “many eyes” creating more secure software (versus secrecy ensuring security for proprietary software), but rather due to the inherent flexibility and quality of open source software generally.
It’s interesting to see open source so trusted by IT leaders due to them evaluating open-source options on the same level as proprietary software options—and judging the open-source options as qualitatively better, particularly on security. It shows that at least for some applications and use cases, acceptance is no longer a primary issue in the field of open-source software.
3. FCC to combat digital redlining
The term “redlining” stems from the drawing of maps in the 1930s by US banks that systematically flagged Black and minority neighborhoods as areas where home loans were high risk. While this disciminatory practice is now illegal, one of the ways in which its legacy lives on is in access to broadband internet.
The pandemic, and the subsequent move to remote work, remote education, and remote services, has highlighted the fact that many in the US, but especially those in low-income areas, do not have reliable access to high-speed internet. Now, the FCC has been tasked with correcting this inequality.
The equalizing power of the internet can hardly live up to its full potential if the means of accessing it replicate existing and past inequalities. Improving internet access in the US (and everywhere) can only have benefits for society and the economy as more of the world can find—and express—itself online.
Release note: what’s new in Gandi’s interface?
This month:
- Improved view of add-on products at check-out
- Simplified purchase process and automatic WordPress installation
- Trustee service now available when you transfer a domain
- Two-factor authentication displayed in the Sharing tab
Gandi supports
Gandi supports DIYseeds
DIYseeds is an educational video project that started in 2012 for everyone who wants to learn how to produce vegetable seeds. Find out how to grow your own seeds with their video series “ABC of seed production,” available for free online.
Promo roundup
Quarterly promos
- .org — $9.99 (regular price $17.20)
- .io — $37.00 (regular price $55.00)
- .blog — $9.99 (regular price $38.35 per year)
- .gay — $12.00 (regular price $47.87 per year)
- .ink — $12.00 (regular price $31.90 per year)
- .tattoo — $12.00 (regular price $57.40 per year)
- .wiki — $12.00 (regular price $31.90 per year)
These promos might also interest you
- .art — $6.99 (regular price $17.44 per year)
- .cloud — $10.99 (regular price $24.29)
- .eu — $6.00 (regular price $15.00 per year)
- .link — $8.00 (regular price $13.66 per year)
- .me — $6.00 (regular price $26.40 per year)
- .shop — $3.00 (regular price $45.95 per year)
- 5 Radix domain endings (.tech, .site, .online, .store, .space) starting at $3.40
- 35 Donuts domain endings (including .email, .info, .solutions, .world) starting at $4.00
*all prices listed are in USD and based on pricing Grid A.
Calendar
| Past events | Upcoming events |
| March 24 — Registration of .au domain names open | April 15 — Price increase on .saarland and .cyou domain names |
| April 1 — Price increase on .in | April 17 — Last chance for topic proposals for Paris Web |