November 2009 Archives

Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) keep on increasing in popularity. After the big news of IDN country code top-level domains and the recent introduction of .NAME domain names with special characters, another domain extension is now opening its namespace to non-Latin alphabets.

As of December 10th it will be possible to officially register IDNs under .EU, the top-level domain for the European Union. With 27 member states and 23 official languages, this is an important step as many countries use these characters in their written language.

Characters include the Swedish å, German Umlauts ä, ö, ü and the Romanian ș letter. But the process doesn't end with the extended Latin alphabet with accents. Both the complete Cyrillic and Greek alphabet will soon be supported as well. See the full character list below:

Latin supplement alphabet

à, á, â, ã, ä, å, æ, ç, è, é, ê, ë, ì, í, î, ï, ð, ñ, ò, ó, ô, õ, ö, ø, ù, ú, û, ü, ý, þ, ÿw

Latin extended alphabet

ā, ă, ą, ć, ĉ, ċ, č, ď, đ, ē, ĕ, ė, ę, ě, ĝ, ğ, ġ, ģ, ĥ, ħ, ĩ, ī, ĭ, į, ı, ĵ, ķ, ĺ, ļ, ľ, ŀ, ł, ń, ņ, ň, ʼn, ŋ, ō, ŏ, ő, œ, ŕ, ŗ, ř, ś, ŝ, š, ť, ŧ, ũ, ū, ŭ, ů, ű, ų, ŵ, ŷ, ź, ż, ž, ș, ț

Greek alphabet

ΐ, ά, έ, ή, ί, ΰ, α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ, η, θ, ι, κ, λ, μ, ν, ξ, ο, π, ρ, ς, σ, τ, υ, φ, χ, ψ, ω, ϊ, ϋ, ό, ύ, ώ

Greek extended alphabet

ἀ, ἁ, ἂ, ἃ, ἄ, ἅ, ἆ, ἇ, ἐ, ἑ, ἒ, ἓ, ἔ, ἕ, ἠ, ἡ, ἢ, ἣ, ἤ, ἥ, ἦ, ἧ, ἰ, ἱ, ἲ, ἳ, ἴ, ἵ, ἶ, ἷ, ὀ, ὁ, ὂ, ὃ, ὄ, ὅ, ὐ, ὑ, ὒ, ὓ, ὔ, ὕ, ὖ, ὗ, ὠ, ὡ, ὢ, ὣ, ὤ, ὥ, ὦ, ὧ, ὰ, ά, ὲ, έ, ὴ, ή, ὶ, ί, ὸ, ό, ὺ, ύ, ὼ, ώ, ᾀ, ᾁ, ᾂ, ᾃ, ᾄ, ᾅ, ᾆ, ᾇ, ᾐ, ᾑ, ᾒ, ᾓ, ᾔ, ᾕ, ᾖ, ᾗ, ᾠ, ᾡ, ᾢ, ᾣ, ᾤ, ᾥ, ᾦ, ᾧ, ᾰ, ᾱ, ᾲ, ᾳ, ᾴ, ᾶ, ᾷ, ῂ, ῃ, ῄ, ῆ, ῇ, ῐ, ῑ, ῒ, ΐ, ῖ, ῗ, ῠ, ῡ, ῢ, ΰ, ῤ, ῥ, ῦ, ῧ, ῲ, ῳ, ῴ, ῶ, ῷ

Cyrillic alphabet

а, б, в, г, д, е, ж, з, и, й, к, л, м, н, о, п, р, с, т, у, ф, х, ц, ч, ш, щ, ъ, ы, ь, э, ю, я

iWantMyName will be fully enabled for .EU IDN domain registrations in preparation for the launch on December 10th.

With the demise of Geocities, it was only a matter of time before Google ramped up its website creation offering for the mass consumer market. Google Sites has been around for a while but this week they launched a new template gallery which further simplifies making your own personal or small business website.

The free website builder is aimed firmly at small companies, home users, schools and not-for-profits who just need to get online with a basic brochure quality set-up and who don't have corporate level online marketing budgets to spend. The new templates should drive a lot of interest in the service, which previously had only a low profile.

The introduction of Google Sites webpage templates is great news for iWantMyName customers because we already offer to link your domains through to free Google services. There are many templates available already, some examples from the directory are below.

Build your family website - Template:

family-website-template.png


Create a website for your restaurant business - Template:

restaurant-website-template.png


Make a wedding website - Templates:

wedding-website-template.png


Customers managing their domains through iWantMyName get free provisioning so that they can hang all their Google docs, including GMail and Sites beneath their own personal domain name. So now you don't need a team of web experts to set up all the services you need for a home office, small or medium sized enterprise or not-for-profit organisation.

One of our core philosophies at iWantMyName is openness. For example, we we don't force you to use our nameservers and DNS hosting services for your domain names. It might even make perfect sense to seperate domain registration and DNS hosting in some cases. That's why you can always update the nameservers of your registered domains in real-time through your online dashboard to host it somewhere else.

There are many free DNS hosting services out there and depending on the level of service or amount of domains (some of them offer paid account upgrades) they might already be sufficient for your needs. Some of the most popular ones are:

Running out of space for your Gmail account has become even harder today. Google just announced an option to upgrade the storage space for Gmail and Picasa to up to 16 Terabytes. This also applies to Google Apps accounts using your own domain name.

See the full pricelist:

  20 GB - $5
  80 GB - $20
200 GB - $50
400 GB - $100
   1 TB - $256
   2 TB - $512
   4 TB - $1024
   8 TB - $2048
 16 TB - $4096

Visit https://www.google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage to add additional storage space to your Google Account.

Do you love Gmail but need to migrate to a personalized address? iWantMyName makes it easy to setup Google Apps with our Domains for Apps offering. Start using your own domain email instead of a "@gmail.com" address today.

Droplr is a little Mac application that runs in your menubar and can be used for uploading, hosting and sharing files with your favourite Twitter client or other apps. What we really like with Droplr is the custom domain option. Simply enter your own short domain name into their web application, change the DNS A record settings and all links to your hosted files will contain your branded URL immediately.

It's best to see it in action so watch the demo video below and see how easy Droplr works with Twitter or email:


The service is currently in private beta but we could score some invites for you which will be raffled among all commenters to this blog post (don't forget to leave your email address).

It is with a huge amount of pride that we announce the launch of two new domain registrar sites:

benikvrij.png

In conjunction with a great partner in the Netherlands we've created Benikvrij (Am I free), a Dutch language version of our service. With all the functionality of our existing site, local web apps, plus full Euro currency integration Benikvrij introduces the iWantMyName platform to one of the largest domain markets in Europe.

But we aren't just stopping there. We've also opened a wholly owned and operated German language domain registrar site and we called it simply meinName (my name).

meinname.png

The German language site is a special achievement because ideegeo in part has its origins in an idea that began in Germany. So meinName is a little bit like a return home for us.

The new sites demonstrate how we can powerfully leverage the underlying platform technology behind iWantMyName and how we can make other partnerships work in new markets. Expect to see further rollouts and cool new services in the future as we change the face of domain name management.