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Readers' Hotline 3/12/12

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Lost and found
A big thank you to the person that found that metal disc out on the New River Trail. We have a granddaughter with cerebral palsy and that disk holds her iPod. That is one of the few enjoyments she has in life. That disk dropped off of her wheel chair. Thank you again for rescuing it and making it so we could find it so easily. We will have a much happier granddaughter because of it.

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GB Reviews Latest & Upcoming Adventure Games GB Annual Game Lists GB Interviews

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The article you have requested: Rumor: New IP Will Accompany Wii 2 is not available. Perhaps you would like to post an article to share news with our community or explore:

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REVIEWS Zero Escape: The Nonary Games Review
Plan your escape one last time.

Mass Effect: Andromeda (PC) Review
Another PC gaming success story.
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Seems like Suda51 saw Frozen, played Dark Souls, and then got the lyrics mixed up.
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Welcome Back to the West
By oneshotstop
Posted on 08/01/16
The only thing that stops the dust is the rain. It’s a sweet reprieve, but there is no middle ground. The land is either as dry as the Betty Ford clinic, or as wet as the ocean floor. Everything can be seen from the ridge overlooking Armadillo as John Marston gently bounces along atop...

Restaurant Master Screenshots

The main theme of this game, of course, is restaurant management. You should draw customers, serve and cook to make money and get the management point. A 'Franchise Mode' is the core contents of this game and besides 'Challenge Mode' exists.
Content on this page comes directly from press releases and fact sheets provided by publishers and developers and was not written by the Game Revolution staff.

More information about Restaurant Master

More On GameRevolution


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Oct 24
By Matt Gander In This Week's Games 1 Comment

Microsoft hasn’t been shy about letting the press get their hands on Forza Horizon. Reviews appeared online nearly two weeks ago, including an 8 from EDGE, a 9 from Eurogamer and 9.0 from IGN. More of the same? Absolutely not. New studio Playground Games has turned the franchise upside down, and as the scores show it’s a better game for it. There’s a demo on Xbox Live if you’re not sure if you’ll take to the new open road structure.

It may be worth bearing in mind that Need for Speed: Most Wanted is out next week. The first review to surface was a 9 from EDGE, which generated a lot of excitement on Twitter.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter is also one that has got tongues wagging, but not for the best of reasons. EA didn’t send out review code until embargo day which really isn’t a good sign. The few reviews online at the moment are from smaller websites. “Medal of Honor: Warfighter is cradled comfortably somewhere between Call of Duty and Battlefield 3. Seemingly content to take as little risk as possible, and thereby offering little excitement outside of the aesthetic,” said AttackoftheFanBoy.

The fact that it comes with beta access for Battlefield 4 is sure to help it shift a few extra copies. If you are planning a purchase then be warned – there’s a huge day one patch.

There are quite a few handheld games out this week. Sadly, quality doesn’t appear to be high on the agenda. There’s the budget priced movie tie-in Hotel Transylvania on DS and 3DS, mini-game collection Merlin on DS, the bound-to-be-popular Moshi Monsters: Moshlings Theme Park on DS and 3DS, and the currently-review-shy Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of the Frozen City on 3DS.

Releasing that last one on the same day as Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask seems like an odd move, especially seeing as reviews have been full of praise, such as GameSpot’s 8.5 and GameCentral’s 8/10. The 3D investigation sequences are really well done, and there are new puzzles to download every day for the next 365 days too.

After being delayed from earlier this year, Atari’s Rollercoaster Tycoon 3D is also out this week. Don’t get too excited though – it appears to have been made on a budget of nothing. VentureBeat called it a “lazy, featureless shell of its predecessors” in their review, where it walked away with a resounding 25/100.

The PS Vita gets a couple of games of note in the shape of Street Fighter X Tekken and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz. The online retailers have been offering Super Monkey Ball for an absurdly cheap price – £13.85 at ShopTo is the lowest we’ve seen it for. Don’t let that cheap price tag put you off – the reliable Pocket Gamer called it a “job very well done” in their 8/10 review. Next week is looking better still for the handheld with three major releases out.

This leaves us with two titles that are distinctly hardcore. Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition offers ten hours or so of new content on top of that of the superb original. It’s currently £20 on Amazon. American gamers got their hands on 2D brawler Persona 4: Arena a few months ago, where it received decent reviews. It’s by the developers of Guilty Gear, so if you’ve played any of the games in that series you’ll feel right at home here.

Next week: Assassin’s Creed 3 (PS3, 360), Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation (PS Vita), WWE ’13 (PS3, 360, Wii), Need for Speed: Most Wanted (360, PS3, PS Vita) Cabela’s Dangerous Hunts 2013 (PS3, 360), Nike+ Kinect Training (360), Dragon Ball Z: Budokai – HD Collection (PS3, 360), Silent Hill: Book Of Memories (PS Vita), Smart As (PS Vita), Thundercats (DS) and PlayStation Move: Sports Champions 2 (PS3).

Published Wednesday 24th October 2012 by Games Asylum

About the Author
Matt Gander

Matt Gander

Matt is Games Asylum's most prolific writer, having produced a non-stop stream of articles for the site since 2001. A retro collector and bargain hunter, his knowledge has been found in the pages of tree-based publication Retro Gamer.

  • Matt

    Looks like Under Defeat HD is out too. Amazon said 3rd Nov but Play and Zavvi both say this week.

© 2001-2017 Games Asylum


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text:
Dynasty Warriors 8 strikes in July

Tecmo Koei's historical standby returns

Dynasty Warriors 8 will release in Europe and North America on July 12 and 16 respectively. The prolific semi-historical brawler series will appear again on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and chances are you already know if you're going to buy it.

More than 70 characters (not to mention like a billion nameless soldiers) will fight across 40 new stages of city and countryside in the Three-Kingdoms-romancing story mode. New "What If?" scenarios will explore alternative historical happenings--like how crazy would it be if Yue Jin died at the battle of Xiaoyao Ford... or maybe if he lived? Our ancient Chinese history is rusty.

The July release will include both English and Japanese voiceovers and subtitles in English, French, and German. We didn't like Dynasty Warriors 7, but if you're still a fan of the series the heck do you care what we think?

We recommend


text:
EA and Hasbro have teamed up to declare that today shall henceforth be known as “Global Monopoly Day.” The game developer is hoping to use the day to set a Guiness World Record for most people playing Monopoly Millionaires over a 24 hour period.

The day has already officially started and will run until 11:59PM tonight. You can RSVP over at the official Global Monopoly Day page, which will put you in the running for some prizes, of which there are over $20,000 worth. What, specifically, those prizes are we don’t know, but there will definitely be some sort of Apple goodies mixed in, as well as cash prizes and Visa gift cards.

Once the festivities are over, on April 8, EA will continue the Monopoly love wil sales on mobile versions of the game across the iPad, Kindle, and other platforms.


text:
Dig Duck

If the App Store is indeed “the new arcade,” then Retro Dreamer is an aspiring Atari. The two man team from L.A., artist Craig Sharpe and programmer Gavin Bowman have consistently knocked it out of the park with addictive retro-inspired experiences for the new era. Since their latest release Velocispider catapulted them to notability, the indie duo has had many chomping at the bit for more. I’m happy to report you can stop that gnashing and say hello to Duckers.

It started almost two weeks ago, when Bowman took to twitter and casually “realized” in public that ” it’s definitely time for us to announce our new game,” adding that while “it’s always felt too early…it’s [now] getting very close!” Then, he followed up with a link to Retro Dreamer’s blog. A short entry, simply entitled “Duckers! Coming soon from Retro Dreamer,” accompanied by the teaser poster below.

Immediately, members of the twitterverse followed up with congratulations, excitement, praise for the absolutely adorable main character, and speculation as to what type of game it was. Okay, that last part might just have been me. Regardless, the promise of a new retro experience by “the end of May” saw me filling the time with guessing. In the end, I settled on “innovative bubble popper,” given the character’s flight helmet, and seemingly captured flame. Today, however, an official trailer blew that theory out of the water. I should have been looking down the whole time.

Far from an ode to Bubble Bobble, Duckers dives head first into the Dig Dug style of play, sending its too-cute-for-words main character (seriously, look at it!) and turtle amigo down into the ground on a hunt for gems. From what we’ve been shown so far, it looks like players will use their finger to set a course and dash around the earth’s crust collecting gems and diamonds to rack up a high score. Along the way, you’ll have to avoid spikes, tilt to steer through low-grav airborne pockets, and will even get the chance to snag boost powers that send you rocketing downwards.

With Bowman having already confirmed that there will be in-app-payments via twitter, it seems that hearts will be your lifeline to keeping your hard-earned score, with each one spent bringing you closer to a game over. In exchange, I’d imagine you’ll be able to purchase them with gems, and buy more from the store with real gems of your own to store retries up for later. In the spirit of Jetpack Joyride, I’m also hoping we get to see some exciting mid-level powerups to add more depth and excitement to a classic formula.

Then again, this is Retro Dreamer we’re talking about. I wouldn’t be worried.


text:
Game of Dice has received an exciting PSY-themed update which includes a ton of new features based on the hit singer songwriter.

As you’d expect, you can now play as PSY himself. The new character, ‘Daddy PSY’, is inspired by the costume worn in for the singer’s new song ‘Daddy’ and specialises in Mini Battles and Toll Increases. You can get it as an IAP until January 22nd.

PSY game of dice

‘Daddy PSY’ is fully-voiced by the South Korean star himself in both English and his native language, and you can watch him speaking his lines in action by viewing the making-of video below.

Super fans will also be excited by the PSY Dice which you can now get for free by logging in on launch day. You’ll get PSY Dice fragments by doing so.

Joycity is also holding a bunch of events to celebrate the PSY collaboration. You can earn PSY Dice fragments here too – but you’ll need to win seven matches.

Finishing off this excellent update is a club-themed event map. Play on this and you can get crafting items like Sunglasses, Bowties, and Microphones.

Joycity is giving away 2,500 gems worth of in-game rewards to every player that logs in after the update goes live.

Game of Dice is a board game in which you make your way around a tiled board by throwing dice, and take every property you land on.

Complete a lap of the board and the value of all your properties increases and the tolls you’ll  collect from enemy players when they land on them.

The variety of skill cards, dice, and characters helps to set Game of Dice apart from its genre competitors by offering unique abilities that help you overcome the competition.

Game of Dice has impressed since launch, ranking first in the Hong Kong Top Grossing Game Charts in the App Store and third on Google Play. It’s also been downloaded over 4.5 million times.

Game of Dice is available for free from the App Store [download] or Google Play [download].

This article is sponsored as part of Steel Media Preferred Partners.


text:
SplashFighters - Feature

All Images for SplashFighters

SplashFighters Boxart

Game Details

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Game Summary

SplashFighters is a fast-paced, online action fighting game where players battle it out in high-octane, martial arts combat. Learn to fight in the Peaceful Death Dojo before taking your skills online against other fighters around the world to become the best of the best! Utilizing hand-to-hand combat, weapons, and even superhuman psychic abilities, SplashFighters is an anything-goes fighting game that is easy enough for anyone to learn, but takes skill to master.

SplashFighters Images


text:
news\ Jul 7, 2014 at 9:45 am

Watch the Sunset Overdrive opening cinematic, complete with dubstep and the apocalypse

Sunset Overdrive

The first "real" next-gen games are about to start releasing this fall, and there's not one that I'm more excited for more than Sunset Overdrive. I was able to play the Xbox One exclusive at E3, and it impressed the hell out of me. It's stylish, gorgeous, action-packed and fun.

At RTX 2014 in Austin, which is the convention hosted by Rooster Teeth that celebrates gaming and internet culture, the opening cinematic for Sunset Overdrive was shown. So watch the video below and see how Sunset City becomes the starting place for the apocalypse.

Sunset Overdrive releases on October 28.

You can follow Senior Editor Lance Liebl on Twitter @Lance_GZ. Or you can email him at

About The Author
Lance Liebl Ray. If someone asks if you are a god, you say, "yes!"
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First Cast Event - Big Savings Online & In-Store!

Fenwick/Pflueger Iron Hawk Baitcasting Combo, 7'0", Medium-Heavy

Item # 820801

In-Store Only

Additional Information:

Prices, promotions, styles and availability may vary by store and online.

  • Hidden Handle Design with carbon fiber hoods

  • TAC and cork handle

  • Corrosion-resistant, stainless steel guides

  • Machined aluminum Pflueger reel

  • Adjustable magnetic control eliminates backlash

Product Summary

The Fenwick/Pflueger Iron Hawk Baitcasting Combo is extremely versatile, allowing anglers to effectively fish for a wide range of species and use a variety of techniques. The Fenwick Iron Hawk rod features Fenwick's Hidden Handle Design with carbon fiber hoods that provide extreme comfort not seen elsewhere, allowing anglers to fish all day without feeling the 'threads' of traditional reel seats. The TAC and cork handle provides a solid grip, even when the handle becomes wet. Stainless steel guides are lightweight, strong, and corrosion-resistant.

The Pflueger reel comes with a lightweight, machined aluminum handle and EVA knobs that provide for a strong, comfortable grip when reeling in that big one. The adjustable magnetic control eliminates backlash. The reel also contains 5 stainless steel ball bearings and an On/Off instant anti-reverse bearing. Machined ported and double anodized braid-ready aluminum spool. Smooth main-gear applied star drag system. Precision-cut brass gears.

Rod Length 7'0"
Number of Rod Pieces 1
Rod Power Medium Heavy
Line Weight 10 - 20 lbs.
Lure Weight 1/4 - 1/2 oz.
Blank Construction Graphite
Handle Material TAC/Cork
Handle Type Split
Reel Gear Ratio 6.4:1
Bearings 5 + 1
Retrieval Right Hand
Reel Weight 5.64 oz.
Mono Line Capacity lb./yds. 12/128, 14/110, 17/90
Braided Line Capacity lb./yds. 20/166, 30/125, 50/87
Max Drag 9 lbs.
Line Retrieval 25.9" Per Turn


text:
Gandi Bar - Gandi Gandi blog, to share our opinions 2016-04-05T13:22:08-07:00 urn:md5:f49183ef45cfbb4636800d6f37cee96f Dotclear 15 years: Gandi by the numbers urn:md5:5c87ad4747afda4b10417fe6615f14ba 2015-03-27T15:31:00-07:00 2015-03-30T00:35:43-07:00 AJ Gandi
Hundreds of miles of cables, thousands of gallons of coffee, 1.7 million active domains

In case you missed it, we're celebrating our 15th birthday this month, and giving away over 15,000 prizes each day at .

We wanted to share a few numbers with you on the evolution our activity over the past 15 years.

That's:

1.7 million active domains

5.2 million domains registered

8 million orders

75,000 websites via Gandi's website builder

2 million support requests

110,000 servers created

150,000 Simple Hosting instances

75,000 SSL certificates

$0 spent on advertising

It's been a great 15 years. We look forward to spending the next 15 with you!
 March 2015, 15 years already?! urn:md5:0b8b5d73353a96aeac3f6252d7a4ebce 2015-03-26T11:23:00+01:00 2015-05-22T00:22:31+02:00 So. Gandi
1000 birthday presents an hour, don't miss our 15th anniversary game!

It was 15 years ago that we sold our very first domain name. With only three extensions to choose from, we entered the world of domain name registration, or Gestion et l’Attribution de Noms de Domaine sur Internet (that's French for "Management and Assignment of Domain Names on the Internet") but since that was a mouthful, we just shortened it to Gandi. Since those humble beginnings, we've grown to a registrar offering more than 600 extensions and as of 2008, several hosting options as well. In those early days we were just four people; today there are more than a hundred Gandians, spread out between four offices (Taipei, Luxembourg, Paris and San Francisco) over three continents and we now manage over 2 million domain names and hosting of our customers' sites and applications.

All that growth, though, is not thanks to an aggressive business strategy or smooth-talking marketers. We're proud to say it comes from not compromising on our values, from word-of-mouth recommendations by people like you, impressed with the quality of our services, excited about our personal and financial investments in the open source community and involvement in more than 300 humanitarian, alternative, economic and technological projects the world over.

We don't want to get too sappy here, but seriously, you guys are our everything. You're the smartest, most amazing, beautiful, wonderful customers a registrar and hosting provider could ever want. We knew it when we first saw you way back in 2000, the way you smiled while registering that .com. And to show you just how much you mean to us, we're going to make the 10,000 domains we gave you for our 10th anniversary look like a souvenir mug by comparison. Thanks to some strings we pulled with our partners, we're giving away 1000 gifts an hour from March 30 to April 03, starting at 5 am (PDT) every morning and ending at 8 pm (PDT) every night (that's like, 15,000 prizes a day).

There will be something for everyone: domain names, hosting, t-shirts, ... and just like five years ago, our most loyal customers get the most out of it, with the number of possible prizes proportional to the number of years you have been with Gandi. If you're not a customer yet, don't worry, you can still benefit from some very attractive deals, unless you're lucky enough to have a friend who wins and wants to share

To try your luck, head over to  and wait for the next hourly window for the next drawing. To make sure you don't miss anything, we suggest keeping an eye on our Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

The rules of the game are as follows:

This operation will go down from March 30 to April 03, from 12pm UTC to 2am UTC

A minimum of 75,000 prizes will be distributed (over 1 million dollars' worth!)

Gandi account that is 1 year old = 1 prize, 2 years old = 2 prizes, 15+ years old = 15 prizes. The age of your account will be shown once you log in at

New customers can play, but are limited to 1 gift

Customers are limited to 3 prizes per day (so if your account is 15 years old, you'll have to play every day if you want the maximum number of prizes)

On your marks, set...?
 Warning: Slamming wave in progress urn:md5:4aeb88e1e09aa5e54e6b4fd298ece38c 2015-03-02T06:31:00-08:00 2015-03-02T09:09:50-08:00 AJ Gandi Abuseanti-spamDomain namesSpamwhois
Don't be fooled by a new wave of attempts to trick Gandi customers with fraudulent renewal notices.

If you are the owner of a domain name, there's a good chance you've already been exposed to this slamming campaign: an email exhorting you to quickly renew your domain or update your banking information while threatening the loss of your domain due to an imminent expiration.

Here is an example of one of these deceptive emails, which can be safely disregarded:

Attention: Important Notice , DOMAIN SERVICE NOTICE
Domain Name: EXAMPLE.COM
Complete and return by fax to: 1-716-650-4815

ATT: JOHN DOE, ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT

G23475397CF426333A39B8A1BF5BD226A-1234567@CONTACT.GANDI.NET

GANDI 63-65 BOULEVARD MASSENA - - (GANDI) PARIS - - - (GANDI) 75013

WWW.EXAMPLE.COM

Please ensure that your contact information is correct or make the necessary changes above

PART I: REVIEW SOLICITATION
As a courtesy to domain name holders, we are sending you this notification for your
business Domain name search engine registration. This letter is to inform you that
it's time to send in your registration and save. Failure to complete your Domain name
search engine registration by the expiration date may result in cancellation of this
offer making it difficult for your customers to locate you on the web. Privatization
allows the consumer a choice when registering. Search engine subscription includes
domain name search engine submission. You are under no obligation to pay the amounts
stated below unless you accept this offer. Do not discard, this notice is not an invoice
it is a courtesy reminder to register your domain name search engine listing so your
customers can locate you on the web.

This Notice for: WWW.EXAMPLE.COM will expire on FEBRUARY 26,2015 Act today!

Select Term:

[ ] 1 year 02/26/2015 - 02/26/2016 $75.00
[ ] 2 year 02/26/2015 - 02/26/2017 $119.00
[ ] 5 year 02/26/2015 - 02/26/2020 $199.05
[ ] 10 year -Most Recommended- 02/26/2015 - 02/26/2025 $295.00
[ ] Lifetime (NEW!) Limited time offer - Best value! Lifetime $499.00

Payment by Credit Card: Select the term above, then return by fax: 1-716-650-4815

By accepting this offer, you agree not to hold DS liable for any part.
Note that THIS IS NOT A BILL. This is a solicitation. You are under no
obligation to pay the amounts stated unless you accept this offer.
The information in this letter contains confidential and/or legally
privileged information from the notification processing department
of the DS 3501 Jack Northrop Ave. Suite #F9238 Hawthorne, CA 90250 USA,
This information is intended only for the use of the individual(s) named
above. There is no pre-existing relationship between DS and the domain
mentioned above. This notice is not in any part associated with a
continuation of services for domain registration. Search engine
submission is an optional service that you can use as a part of your
website optimization and alone may not increase the traffic to your site.
If you do not wish to receive further updates from DS reply with
Remove to unsubscribe. If you are not the intended recipient, you are
hereby notified that disclosure, copying, distribution or the taking of
any action in reliance on the contents for this letter is strictly prohibited.

How to tell if an email is really from Gandi

Sender email address

Before clicking any links or even opening the email, check the address of the sender. This is not a guarantee that the email is legitimate, because it's easy to spoof emails to look like they come from another address.

For most TLDs, we warn you 60, 30, 15 and 1 day before the expiration date from the email address support-renew[@].

Recipient email address

If you have our anti-spam protection activated on your account, another thing to check is the receiver email address.  We only send email directly to the address you have on file with us, so if you see the receive email address is the "obfuscated" forwarding address visible in the whois (e.g. G23475397CF426333A39B8A1BF5BD226A-1234567@CONTACT.GANDI.NET, as in the example above), you can know that the email didn't come from Gandi.

Check messages and domains in your account

You can find copies of all the reminders we send you in the Messages folder in your account, and you can verify the expiration date of your domain from your list of domains.

By the way, if you are concerned about missing an expiration date, you should know that you can always activate automatic renewal.

Activate or refresh anti-spam

Remember that you can replace your real email address in the whois with an obfuscated forwarding address (see how). Every time you submit your contact information (whether you make any actual changes or not), the "scrambled" forwarding address is regenerated and the old one stops working. If you're getting multiple emails to the obfuscated whois address, just resubmit your handle's contact info.

If you have any questions, you can always contact our support team or ask @gandibar on Twitter.
 How to contact Gandi's customer support team... urn:md5:74a5e1e20f7e9419a458aa9a79302abe 2014-12-11T10:30:00-08:00 2015-11-25T14:05:08-08:00 AJ Gandi Customer serviceSupport
... and why it's usually necessary to open a ticket for us to handle your request.

... and why it's usually necessary to open a ticket for us to handle your request.

At Gandi, we know the importance of fast, accurate responses to your questions. Our support team is 100% in-house, and since we opened an office in Taiwan, we have teams on 3 continents, meaning we now have nearly 24-hour coverage, 6 days a week, in multiple languages.

Although we have a presence on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn, we like to use these channels to talk about other subjects than support requests, like the cool stuff we are doing with virtual networking, supported projects, and our latest new gTLD releases.That's why you will see us direct customers to the Support contact page on our website to open a ticket if they post support requests there. The support request form is designed to gather all the data we need to give you a complete, accurate answer in as short a time as possible.

Why are tickets necessary?

Sometimes, a complex issue requiring the intervention of a specialist can be hidden behind a seemingly simple question. The diversity of our products and services sometimes leads to very specific situations. Opening a ticket allows us to collaborate and manage the flow of a ticket by directing it towards the team that is best equipped to answer your question or resolve the problem.

Our answers often include links to our online documentation or a more detailed explanation. It's also sometimes necessary to send screenshots, logs, or documents, and email is the most practical means of doing so.

Also, sometimes the involvement of more than one person is needed. One ticket might be transferred to two or three support agents, ensuring timely, qualified replies. It's also a practical way of referring to any previous issues you may have contacted us about, since each ticket is saved and visible for reference in our system.

Now that you know why we need a ticket, here's an infographic illustrating the process of getting support when you need it:

 Python 3.2 now available on Simple Hosting urn:md5:2842bd05cf4cedd3a5a09e5405db9bb5 2014-09-29T02:00:00-07:00 2014-10-23T16:44:13-07:00 AJ Gandi
Python 3.2 is available in beta on Gandi Simple Hosting instances.

We're happy to announce Beta support for Python 3.2 on Python Simple Hosting instances!

It's easy to select your version on current or new Python instances. Python 2.7 remains the default and therefore no change is needed if you don't wish to upgrade.

To specify which version of Python you want to use, add a `gandi.yml` file at the root of your application code and include the following information:

 # ./gandi.yml

 python: version: 3.2 # or 2.7

Check out the documentation for the Python Simple Hosting instance for more information.

Be on the lookout for any odd behavior or regressions during the Beta period and please contact us at `` in case of problems.

Remember that our Support team is always here for you and that you can pop into our IRC channel at `#gandi-hosting` on `` and talk directly to fellow customers and our developers.

P.S. In case you missed it, we recently released the Gandi CLI, which is also written in Python. We <3 pull requests!
 Gandi CLI is now open source urn:md5:f2aac56cd3a246d1544e3f979026f97b 2014-09-19T09:19:00-07:00 2014-09-19T12:44:05-07:00 Thomas Gandi CLIGandi.netopen sourceour customers really are great
We're so happy to open source our new favorite tool for management of domains, SSL certificates and hosting, the way it was meant to be: on the command line.

One of our users' favorite things about Gandi is the fact that we offer a powerful API that lets you do nearly anything that can be done in your Gandi account via a web browser. A web browser is a graphical interface used for clicking, waiting for pages to load and looking at pictures, as well as consuming all that pesky extra RAM.

A while ago, in our quest to avoid browsers and mouses, we began informally working on a tool that would permit performing certain Gandi operations on the command line. Even though it's very much in alpha, we've already grown very fond of it. And since many Gandi customers have written their own CLI tools for interacting with the Gandi API, we decided to share it with you as-is, in order to share the future of this tool with you, the Best Users in the Whole Damn World.

The Gandi CLI is already so useful to us, and we think it's now at a point where you'll find it useful too. You can already register and view domain names, deploy applications on Simple Hosting, and create, reboot, stop and start virtual machines. You can also integrate the Python module into your own scripts and projects, allowing you to automate more tasks in your perpetual quest to Automate All The Things! \o/ (just keep in mind that the CLI is in very active development, so significant changes are inevitable.)

All you need is:

An active API key (activate yours on your account management screen ; it's free), and

An active prepaid account  with a sufficient positive balance and/or Hosting credit balance, if you want to perform operations that cost money.

  For more information, visit   or see the GitHub repository.

Let us know what you think! If you notice a bug, feel free to create an Issue on the GitHub repo, and of course, we welcome pull requests with open arms.
 nǐ hǎo Gandi Taiwan! urn:md5:632250a6040908a992baa16f6dbef927 2014-07-02T15:09:00-07:00 2014-07-09T17:24:33-07:00 Thomas Gandi Customer serviceGandiGandi AsiaGandi US Gandi is expanding to Asia with a new office in Taiwan! Celebrate with us and get a discount!

 We're not out to conquer the world per se, just to bring it great services!

  If you are reading this, you probably already know that Gandi has offices in Paris, Luxembourg, and the USA. We have been steadily upgrading and installing multiple new data centers, and have local support teams in all our locations.

 This is something new, however, even for us. We are opening an office in Asia!

 Taiwan made sense for us, since we could find a new team, office, and connectivity practically overnight. Once trained, the new staff will allow us to provide more robust 24/7 support, while maintaining the high service quality you have become used to seeing from us.

 Gandi has an ever-growing and increasingly international client base, so it is important for us to be able to offer a local contact for our Asian customers. We are active in the community in Asia too, and we will present, as sponsors, at Pycon 2014 being held in Tokyo from September 12th to 15th, 2014.

 Feel free to say hello to our new team members on Twitter: @gandi_asia (in English) or @gandi_tw (in Chinese).

 Since good news is best when there is a lot of it, we are inviting you to help us celebrate our presence in 3 continents with a big promotions on .EU, .US and .ASIA domains!
 Together at last: The limited edition Gandi Supports logo mashup t-shirt series urn:md5:774a3674f8d17f263678021e88a23a86 2014-04-23T11:16:00-07:00 2014-04-24T10:49:05-07:00 AJ Gandi Gandi supportst-shirt
It has been eight years since we started selling t-shirts to benefit Gandi's supported projects, and we're betting on our customers' inexhaustible love of Gandi apparel once again. Today, we're announcing a brand new, special-edition series of shirts: it's two of your favorite logos in one!

Gandi is currently supporting more than 300 projects. Not always directly connected with our industry, these projects move us because they correspond with our values and jive with the No Bullshit way of life. Open source projects, associations, organizations, foundations, podcasts; some bigger than others; some being little more than an idea, yet unhatched, but whose time has come: the one thing they all have in common is that we think they each make the world a little better than it was before.

Of course, none of this would be possible without you, because our modest contributions to these projects are made possible by the thousands of shirts that you have purchased.

Today, we are pleased to finally show you something that has been in the works for nearly a year now: a limited series of shirts blending our logo with those of our favorite supported projects. Nine of our supported projects have accompanied us on this particular adventure and have seen their own beloved logos blended with ours, with really cool results:

FreeBSD, Creative Commons, Electronic Frontier Foundation

World Wildlife Fund, VLC, Geeklist

International Federation for Human Rights, Canard PC, Ubuntu

The shirts are now available for purchase on our website, and we will contribute 100% of the profit to the project whose shirt you buy.

We are taking care of the printing (with the help of four different providers), sales, and arranging for shipment. The cost of printing and sending a single shirt varies from around $13 to $20; we've standardized the prices based on these logistical factors, and most of these designs will cost around $26, shipping included. Delivery is available almost worldwide.

As usual, we won't be buying ads for this, so we're counting on you to spread the word.

These shirts will be for sale on our site until 31 May 2014, or until stock runs out, whichever comes first!

Get yours here!

  Tweet   On Security at Part II urn:md5:7901fbcb7f5b7a7400801d4366d15381 2014-04-10T11:59:00-07:00 2014-05-07T16:22:34-07:00 AJ Gandi Domain namesPrivacySecurity
Protect your Gandi account with these security tips.

In Part I of this post, we described some of the ways we help keep your domains secure. But it's not just up to us; security is a joint effort between us and you, and there are many things you can do to minimize risk.

So, what can you do to protect your Gandi account?

 Use your real name.

 It is super important that the whois data be fully accurate and verifiable.

As much as we support your right to privacy on the internet, domain names are one area where it's really important to use your legal name. ICANN rules and relevant law is more or less clear on this: the registrant name = the domain owner.

Using a pseudonyms or your initials as the registrant name might sound like a good way to hide your identity and thus protect your privacy and the security of your account, but it actually increases your risk. Using fake registrant information will come back to bite you if you ever have to prove you are who you say you are. Your account, domains, email, and hosting can end up orphaned, and there will be very little you can do, short of changing your legal name to Anon McLeet.
 It's also a violation of our terms of service (pdf, see sections 4.1 and 12.2.1), by the way.

On a related note, be sure to keep your contact information up to date!

 Deactivate password resets via email, or at least choose your security question wisely.

 You have the option of allowing password resets via email. This feature is on by default, and, depending on how your account was created, a security question may not be present by default.
 If you choose to leave this feature enabled, be sure to choose your security question and answer wisely. Remember that the answer to your question doesn't have to be the truth. Store it in your secure password manager.

 Use a dedicated email address for your Gandi handle that isn't used for any other purpose, and guard it carefully.

 Instead of a generic address like hostmaster@, use a separate, dedicated address that's not used for anything else. You can only associate one email address with your Gandi account, and it's important to choose it wisely. You have a couple of options:

You can use a mailbox associated with a domain you control. (See the next section for an important caveat!) If you own, say,, you could use as your account email. It is imperative that you guard this domain carefully! If its MX records are compromised, things like password reset mails could be diverted. [For an IRL example of this tactic, see the theft of @N.] Also, make sure these mailservers are not susceptible to DDoS [this is what the attacker tried in FastMail's case).

You can use an address from an email provider, such as Gmail (or FastMail!  ). Choose the provider wisely, and be sure to activate two-factor authentication there, too. If someone gains access to that mailbox, you could be in trouble.

 Don't use an email address that is dependent on a domain owned by that handle.

 For example, don't use on the same handle that owns the domain Why? Because if your domain expires, you won't be able to reset your password. Because domains can be renewed from any handle, you can always create a new one just for that purpose, but that's a pain. And if your domain reaches the redemption period, restoring it doesn't recreate the mailbox, so you'll have to request a manual email change.

 Activate anti-spam so your real email address isn't visible in the whois.

 One of the issues highlighted by FastMail was that in their case, the attacker subscribed their email address to a bunch of mailing lists so that they'd be more likely to miss our emails about the manual email change that had been requested.
 This could have been avoided if they had anti-spam protection activated, which replaces your real email address in the whois with an obfuscated forwarding address. The attacker still would have been able to use the obfuscated whois address to list-bomb them, but a) it's easy to filter these, and b) regenerating the anti-spam address would have immediately stopped the flood. (Edit: To regenerate the anti-spam address, simply resubmit your handle contact info, with or without actually changing anything.)

 Instead of sharing the login and TOTP seed with multiple people, use a different Gandi handle for the admin, tech, and/or billing contacts.

 The admin contact can do anything the owner can, except change the owner. The technical contact can do most of the everyday tasks you probably need to do. If you must share access to a handle, use the technical or admin contact to do so instead of the owner.

 Enable IP address restriction on your account.

 This is an advanced feature that lets you specify specific IP addresses and ranges that are permitted to be used when logging in to your account. Be careful! If you make a mistake, you can end up locked out of your account and be back to having to prove your identity all over again.

 Talk to a human.

If you're concerned about the security of your account, feel free to contact us. We can add a note to your account to be extra vigilant about any requests for changes.

Security in Layers

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to security. Not all levels of security are appropriate to all customers or for all situations. If you only have one domain and you log in once a year to renew it, it doesn't make sense to have IP restriction and 2FA on your account.  If you have 300 domains and 6 servers, you probably ought to have both, plus any additional layers of security we decide to implement in the future.

There's a balance between security and convenience; choose what's appropriate and let the layers work in your favor.

Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments, or tweet us @gandibar.

Related posts:

Gandi helps guard your privacy, July 2008

8 Things a Domain Thief Loves, February 2009

Gandi fights back against domain abuse, January 2007

Special hat tip to FastMail for inspiring this post, and to their dedication to making the internet a more secure place for all.
 On Security at Part I urn:md5:532676cf8a38caa9e6bb1f378974f814 2014-04-07T20:06:00-07:00 2014-04-10T15:21:11-07:00 Thomas Gandi AbuseDomain namesSecurity Much has been made lately about stealthy hackers stealing domains, websites, Twitter handles, and even Gandi accounts (or trying to). In this series, we want to share a story or two, and let you know what we think about how to keep your account secure, what we do for your security, and what you can do for your security at

 Much has been made lately about stealthy hackers stealing domains, websites, Twitter handles, and even Gandi accounts (or trying to). Of course, this is not a new problem. The more something is worth, the more likely it is to be targeted. Some attackers are motivated by money, and there is no reason to expect they will stop anytime soon.

The first post in this series will be dedicated to describing the things we do at Gandi to help keep your domains secure.

 What can we can do to protect your Gandi account?
 Our job is to have processes in place that balance the needs of customers (who are human, and sometimes forget things) with the need to make successful attacks more difficult. At the same time, we don't want to have a scripted system with procedures for everything, or our system will become too hard to use.

 We have to have multiple layers to our security. We also have to treat it as a process, with constant improvement based on current threats. Usernames and passwords have their weaknesses, sure, but we can provide additional measures such as two-factor authentication and IP address restriction.

 We do offer these features.

 We also have to effectively screen out fraudulent requests to access accounts. We get a ton of these, and have a robust way of dealing with them, but (in the sense that security is the inverse of convenience), they involve some requirements for documentation and paperwork, confirmation by you, and ultimately having you prove to a very high level of certainty that you are who you say you are.

 Yes, we know that can be a little annoying. But not as annoying as losing your domains.

 We have to listen to you. When your accounts are attacked (and they are, every day) it tests our people, processes, and systems. We are constantly reviewing these, and your comments and suggestions help to point to weak points, improvements, and even (in the worst case) actual vulnerabilities. We like to think these are rare, but we need to look at every attack and ask ourselves how it could have succeeded, and how we can stop that from happening.

The FastMail incident
 Time for a little story. We have a big customer (, who takes security very seriously, and implemented two-factor authentication on their account. Not long after, a determined, targeted effort was made to steal the account. The attacker(s) tried to change the email address and password via the manual email change process, using forged documents and diversionary tactics. They did not succeed. Even if they had, they would not have gotten to the two-factor authentication, but nonetheless it really tested our processes, and Fastmail staff were quick to let us know where we could improve them. (They also wrote a blog post about the experience.)

No one can think of every possible scenario, and while the account was not compromised, we definitely learned a thing or two about how to avoid the pitfalls. Next time the would-be attacker will have an even harder job. That's the value of listening.

 Check out Part II of this post: Security tips for protecting your Gandi account

 Why doesn't Gandi advertise? urn:md5:1ba1b3670ed58a1865f68b4e6ea4afb1 2014-03-26T21:37:00-04:00 2014-03-26T17:16:55-04:00 AJ Gandi Domain name ethicsGandiGandi supportsNo bullshitour customers really are great
Wondering what we do with the money we'd otherwise be spending on ads?

As you may know, Gandi doesn't advertise as a matter of principle. We believe there are ways of letting people know we exist without spamming them or shoving ads in their faces. In other words, we won't pay for a captive audience.

Gandi's service itself is its marketing, and our customers are our only marketing department.

We believe in the power of creativity and ethics when it comes to success (this goes for people as well as companies and organizations). At Gandi, we try to have plenty of both. In an economy and a society dominated by intrusive marketing and questionable business practices, it is becoming more and more apparent that people, making informed choices based on their own standards, can be the most effective force in guiding the internet in a positive direction.

What all this means is that we are in the uniquely delightful situation of having an outreach budget, but refusing to buy the thing that most companies spend lots of money on: ads.

So what do we spend that money on, you ask? Well, here are some of the things we've spent our antimarketing budget on in the last year or so:

An unConference of One's Own: She's Geeky

Fighting injustice is hard enough when you have a clear target, and things like pervasive microinequities are anything but. Sometimes, the most effective way to deal with a failing system is to build your own alternative. We applaud this spirit, and that's why we're proud to support and participate in safe, friendly spaces in IT like the Bay Area She's Geeky unConference.

This year, Gandi US provided a community sponsorship for the Bay Area She's Geeky unconference, and sent two of our employees to check it out.

She's Geeky offers an opportunity for women in technology to come together to share ideas and strategies as well as network in an informal, self-directed way. The unConference format -- no formal agenda, participants propose their own sessions and lead them that day -- turns talks into conversations by encouraging participation from everyone present, and allows participants the flexibility to explore topics that might not make it into the program of a large conference, such as:

Mob Programming (it's like a flash mob, only quieter)

How to tackle difficult conversations at work

Hiring the best by hiring the people your competitors discriminate against

She's Geeky includes all the perks of a traditional conference, though: raffles every day (lucky winners walked away with a Raspberry Pi and a Dell Venue 8 tablet, among other things), and, of course, tons of swag. If you were there you might have even gotten a coveted "#No_bullshit" Gandi t-shirt (more on this in a moment).

We met a lot of amazing developers, sysadmins and hackers, from rainbow-dyed mohawks to gray ponytails.

In particular, we'd like to give some props to:

ThoughtWorks, whose mission is "to better humanity through software and help drive the creation of a socially and economically just world."

Radical Designs, a scrappy web design cooperative in Oakland, CA.

Hackbright Academy

CodeChix

For more information or to sponsor She's Geeky, see .

Sustainable swag?
 Speaking of t-shirts, we've started getting ours from Bandwagon Merch, a screen printing and design studio based in Kansas City, MO. We buy the highest quality shirts from fair labor, American shops. You don't buy your domains from the cheapest registrar you can find. Why should we do any differently with swag?

You too can make your people jealous with our line of rad Gandi apparel.

 #Hack4Good

Several times a year, Geeklist throws #hack4good, a global hackathon in which people all over the planet spend a weekend coding up ideas that will make the world a better place. Gandi contributes to this effort by providing domain names and webhosting so that the winning projects can live on, as well as #hack4good t-shirts for attendees.

Domains4Good

Domains4Good originated as a project at the aforementioned #Hack4Good hackathon in San Francisco in October 2013. This so-simple-yet-so-brilliant service parks your domains, redirecting them every day to a social cause chosen by the community.

Don't feel so bad now about that domain-buying binge you went on last night, do you?

We know what you're thinking: why isn't this integrated into so you can buy your domains and park them with domains4good in one click? Patience, grasshopper. We're working on it.

For more info, see .

Unfilter

Jupiter Broadcasting has some amazing podcasts, but one in particular is right up our alley. It's called Unfilter, and it's one of the most informative sources on the intersection between politics and the internet. Their coverage of Snowden's leaks exposing the NSA's illegal mass surveillance is especially awesome.

The Unfilter show doesn't accept advertisers, in order to ensure they are only accountable to their listeners, which gave us happy feels.

As you can imagine, this is our kind of show, so we made a no-strings-attached donation to the general Jupiter Broadcasting fund with a request that the money be used to ensure that Unfilter keeps existing.

You won't regret checking out the Unfilter show.

Electronic Frontier Foundation

The EFF needs no introduction; they are doing some of the most important work of our era. We rely heavily on them for the information and analysis that serves as our guidance as we work towards a better internet, so crucial to a free society. It is with humble gratitude that we support the EFF, provide their domains, and plaster their stickers everywhere.

Join the fight.

That's awesome.
 And that's not even close to all we do! Check out a somewhat more complete list of our supported projects here.

On a related note, if you appreciate the fact that we don't advertise, it would be awesome if you could take a moment to follow us. We're on Twitter, Facebook, Google+,  and Github, and you can probably find us elsewhere too.

By the way, if you know of an event or a cause you think we'd be into, let us know in the comments, or tweet us at @gandibar. We love hearing from you!

Related posts:

How Gandi does marketing without advertising

The importance of our customers

 Gandi rolls out two-factor authentication urn:md5:40f95ac91ac494a53fc7a554afc9e612 2013-10-10T07:41:00-07:00 2014-03-11T16:19:33-07:00 Thomas Gandi GandiGandi.netSecurity You can now secure your Gandi login with a deeper level of authentication, keeping your domains and web content more secure from theft and defacement. Given the recent reports of registrar hacking, DNS hijacking, and the targeting of news web sites and domains, this is a timely feature.

 You can now secure your Gandi login with a deeper level of authentication, keeping your domains and web content more secure from theft and defacement. Given the recent reports of registrar hacking, DNS hijacking, and the targeting of news web sites and domains, this is a timely feature.

 You have probably see the reports of the New York Times and high-profile registrars getting hacked, and domains getting used for political messages by partisan groups in the Syrian conflict.
 While at Gandi this has not happened, we are all too aware that hackers are constantly trying to compromise Gandi accounts, and occasionally they succeed. Through techniques as simple as social engineering (basically, asking for the password), password guessing, and phishing, hackers try to gain access, and then transfer domains, use up your pre-paid account or use your hosting account to send spam mail. It is our job to make it harder for them to do this, while at the same time keeping our services easy for you to access and use. It is a difficult balance: "Security is the inverse of convenience" is a common way of saying it.

 We think we have found that balance in two new features, one of which we are rolling out right now: Two-factor authentication. The other, IP address restriction, will be out in a few weeks.

 What is two-factor authentication?
 This simple technique for increasing the security of your Gandi account involves adding one of the principles on which security is based to the login process. Security, or specifically the authentication part of security, is based on:

Who you are

What you know

What you have with you

 With a login and password, we are using the second factor. With two-factor authentication, we add the third - your smartphone or computer. IP address restrictions will put a locational restriction on who can log in, which is an imperfect proxy for who you are (since presumably only you or someone close to you would be using your ISP account or your company network). Everything you do to make sure only you can access your account helps.

 Your smartphone can run an app that generates a key, based on a seed value that we supply you when you activate two-factor authentication. We chose TOTP to generate the keys, since there are apps for iOS and Android, as well as apps for Windows and Apple computers.

 So, how do you activate two-factor authentication for your account?
 First, you will need a TOTP application. You can find a partial listing of workable apps here.
 Then just follow the steps in the tutorial on our documentation site.

 One big concern we had was how to recover from a lost key, for instance if you were to lose your smartphone. This is why we ask you for an emergency contact phone number, allowing us to get in touch with you there, when you ask us to help you set up the two-factor authentication again.

 One final note: this is not a panacea. Please remember that all the factors of authentication are important, so even after you enable two-factor authentication, never share your password, or send it in email. We will do our part, but you are the one who has the most control over access to your accounts. Compute safely!

 New Mobile Site Creator at Gandi urn:md5:9aaad0bc354b423640cc5db82f4ae487 2013-09-09T18:24:00-07:00 2014-04-19T14:31:53-07:00 Thomas Gandi Build a websiteGandi.netGandiSiteInnovation
 Most of you probably have heard of our simple website creation tool, Gandi Site? Well, we are updating it to allow lots more functionality, including the ability to create a mobile version of your site! Yes, that's right, you can now use Gandi Site to make a website for your smartphone. Welcome to the mobile age!

 Most of you probably have heard of our simple website creation tool, Gandi Site? Well, we are updating it to allow lots more functionality, including the ability to create a mobile version of your site! Yes, that's right, you can now use Gandi Site to make a website for your smartphone. Welcome to the mobile age!

  Gandi Site  is a WYSIWYG website editor anyone can use, regardless of your skill level. It makes it easy to create professional web sites with all the latest visual elements. Many pre-defined templates and widgets are included.
 <video controls="" height="338" width="600"> <source src = "" type = "video/mp4"></source><source src="" type="video/webm"></source><source src="" type="video/ogg"></source> Sorry! Your Browser does not support the video tag.

 Did you know that every domain name at Gandi comes with a free, 3-page Gandi Site web site? That will get you started, and when you are ready to go mobile, just upgrade to a  Business pack.

 With the Business pack, you get an unlimited number of pages, access to all templates, e-commerce store functions, and 100GB of storage space. And now you also get the Mobile site editor!

 With the mobile site editor, you can use the same tools and editing interface to create, test, and pre-view a mobile version of your site. Emulators for popular smartphones are included, so you can see how it will look. Your site will be accessible to users on the move, letting you reach more people, more of the time.

 Just create or edit your site, then hit publish. A few minutes later you will be online on everyone's smartphone.

 Gandi Expands in Europe and the World urn:md5:58510742300a171c970f5161674700e2 2013-09-03T07:46:00-07:00 2013-09-16T13:04:22-07:00 Thomas Gandi Cloud
Gandi is continuing to enhance its services to international customers with a new office in Europe.

Gandi is continuing to enhance its services to international customers with a new office in Europe.

Augmenting the current set of data centers in Paris and Baltimore, our newest installation is in the prestigious brand-new Luxembourg tier 4 class (peering geeks will appreciate this).

 By strengthening our presence in Europe, we will be able to serve more of the Eurasian continent. To reach this goal, we decided to locate in a country strongly committed to a digital future (with 10 Tier 4 data centers). Our American data center is working out well in Baltimore, and just as we did in America, we set up our systems "from scratch" in Luxembourg, establishing not only cages, servers, peering, and security, but also administrative offices including dedicated system administrators, who are ready to jump on any issues before they affect customers.

 Luxembourg invests heavily in its digital infrastructure, and as a result now offers one of the fastest networks in Europe.

 Our neighbors to the north (Germany, UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland) and to the East will enjoy the benefits of our faster infrastructure (particularly in terms of latency).

Of course, even though we have not specifically targeted them, the countries of France, Spain, Portugual and Italy will also benefit from their proximity to new Data Center as well.

 While located in Europe, our new data center is open to anyone. Having your data in Europe may be perferable to some in the USA, at least until Congress reins in intrusive surveillance practices, though of course Europe is not immune to that sort of thing.

 The on-site team of 8 in Luxembourg is dedicated to localizing the web site into more languages, expanding Gandi's services into new markets, and to servicing our European corporate customers (a growing segment for us as the value of our corporate offering becomes more widely known).

  Why Luxembourg?
 Our choice was guided by the search for top quality at a reasonable price. Luxembourg's industry has transitioned in the past from steel, to banking, and now is strongly committed to information and Internet infrastructure. Centrally located, with tier 4 data centers (uncommon in France) this location gets us low network latency to neighboring countries. Add to this that Luxembourg's population has 40 different nationalities represented in a small territory, which greatly facilitates our current and future recruitment, especially when searching for a diversity of languages and technical skills.

 To celebrate the opening of this new location for Gandi, we are offering several promotions:

 30% discount on all new registrations and transfers of European extensions, for 1 year. Use the promo code  EUROPE  from the 3rd to the 10th of September (D and E rate customers are not eligible. This applies to be, fr, eu,, ch, li,, nu,it, de, at, cz, me, lu, pl, es, im, cat, ru, nl,, se, pt, lt, no, dk, lv, ro, gr, fi).

  Get 60,000 hosting credits  for creating a server in Luxembourg from the 3rd to the 10th of September (to be credited October 1, for any servers still active).

 15% discount on the creation of a Simple Hosting instance in Luxembourg, for 3 to 12 months. Valid from the 3rd to the 10th of September, with the promo code  SIMPLEEUROPE

 15% discount on the creation of a Gandi site pack with code  SITEEUROPE . Valid from the 3rd to the 10th of September

 With this expansion Gandi can leverage the existing infrastructure and staffing in France, keeping our R&D and French-language support in Paris, while capitalizing on the growth of our international Corporate sales, and expanding our critical services, enabling a bright future.

 Gandi has a New T-Shirt: Gandi Invaders! urn:md5:b426b2465e7c7e5219e76b67c356552d 2013-06-26T14:19:00-07:00 2013-06-27T02:30:54-07:00 Thomas Gandi Gandi supportst-shirt
Our erstwhile in-house artist, Steven, was inspired to make a new t-shirt design by his years at Atari (or was it years playing Atari?). Anyway, we now have a great new way for you to express your displeasure with the invasion of bullshit nagging offers you get with other hosting and domain registrar companies. Who is the savior? An 8-bit Gandi!

Our erstwhile in-house artist, Steven, was inspired to make a new t-shirt design by his years at Atari (or was it years playing Atari?). Anyway, we now have a great new way for you to express your displeasure with the invasion of bullshit nagging offers you get with other hosting and domain registrar companies. Who is the savior? An 8-bit Gandi!

We were like, "Hey Steven, can you make us a new t-shirt design? Maybe something for summer? Warm colors, and a catchy theme?". Steven's response "Yeah! Wait and see... I've got some ideas.". He sure did... they included making our beloved Gandi blasting refactored space invaders with fireballs (in warm colors). Here it is:

The new t-shirt is a 4-color design, and is strictly  limited edition. We printed it on 3 colors of t-shirts (black, gray and blue),  250 per color.  That means there are only 750 total, and some sizes are regrettably few in number.

 Remember that t-shirt sales support the projects we sponsor, in addition to helping you to show off the only advertising we want: your recommendation. They are great conversation starters, and will surely tug at the nostalgic hearts of aging gamers you know... why not tell them about Gandi, and how to get a shirt like yours?

 We will be producing a very small number of these for giveaways in the USA, since we can't sell them there just yet. If you want one, let us know! We would love to hear about your experiences wearing a Gandi shirt, the reactions people have to the "no bullshit" slogan, and the people you turn on to the coolness that is being a Gandi customer.
 Setting up your domain with Google Apps Has Just Been Made Easier urn:md5:4f8ed6649f63f6bd85ef0a119431f698 2012-12-04T15:27:00-08:00 2012-12-04T13:52:28-08:00 Thomas Gandi Domain names 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 Gandi does marketing without advertising urn:md5:47a37bb1b6b04c206cc060b6671fd88d 2012-11-13T09:03:00-08:00 2014-04-19T14:31:53-07:00 Thomas Gandi Domain name ethicsGandiGandi supportsGandi.netNo bullshit The fact that we don't advertise or every pay for positive mentions makes for an unconventional marketing approach here at Gandi. We thought some of you might appreciate knowing how we go about meeting these challenges, while you are bombarded with ads from other less strictly ethical companies.

 Most marketing efforts are a combination of inbound and outbound approaches. Print, media, and Internet Pay-Per-Click (PPC) are combined with SEO, social media and publicity to make a well-rounded campaign, with hooks to build a community of common interest.

 What happens when some of these tools are simply removed from the toolbox?

 I work for a company who has actually publicly stated that we will never pay someone to say nice things about us. That is, we will not pay professional bloggers, buy advertising in print or media, or do any PPC.
 That’s actually a challenge for an Internet company, especially one selling in an incredibly competitive market like web hosting and domain name registration. How do people even know you exist? How do you generate awareness if you can’t even buy a banner ad with your name and logo? Is it even possible to build awareness in this context?

 The answer is that yes, it is possible. But that does not mean it is easy. There are specific approaches that work, some that don’t, and you definitely need to be patient. The good news is that your marketing budget, while not zero, won’t be broken if you do it right.

 At Gandi we have focused historically less on publicity and SEO than on building a community, and around making our products appealing in a context of minimal or even zero promotion. A lot of people know us for our tag line: “No Bullshit”. As a pledge of honesty it means, in effect, that we don’t pester our customers with upsell opportunities, sell their data to marketing partners, or otherwise try to leverage the commercial relationship in any way other than providing service in exchange for a fee.

 We really believe in the No BS philosophy, and we think many more people would take to it if they only knew we existed. How then to get the word out?

 To make more people aware we exist, in the last year we have focused on generating that awareness. This meant that when we released new products or features, we made press releases. We actually had not done that for a couple of years. We re-vamped the front-end of our web site to be more eye-catching, with subtly improved workflow, without actually changing the overall organization. This both gave the customer a better user experience, and generated a feedback loop with our user community. We re-organized the online product documentation to be more easily searchable and SEO-friendly.

 We have had some social media presence, mostly on Twitter, for a while. While it was a good, solid base of followers, and an excellent feedback channel, we decided to push the envelope a bit. This past spring we offered to reward followers with free t-shirts. While it’s almost like paying someone to say nice things (are follows nice?), we decided it was actually a kind of giveaway to build the community, and still far enough from actual advertising that we were comfortable with it. That choice did generate some critical questions from users, but a lot of people liked the t-shirts, too, and our follower base increased significantly. The community is now richer for it.

 We combined this with a company Facebook and Google+ page, opening more channels for user engagement and feedback.

 One of the more pleasing consequences of the no BS policy is simply that we need to rely more on actually delivering value. We found that when we actually deliver useful, high-performance products with innovative technological approaches, it helps us generate awareness.

 People like talking about things that are cool, that take some intellectual effort to understand and explain, and above all work well and efficiently. Intellectually engaging subjects make for good blog posts, and if the products also work well, and solve a problem, then people enjoy using them more, knowing that they have an advantage driven by innovative technology. That makes for satisfied customers, and that is who spreads the word.

 I’m leaving out a lot here. Gandi also builds communities through sponsoring non-profits, for example. And of course you can’t have a good reputation without having great support, making your site search-friendly, and adding the features people need in your field, and that your competitors have or will soon have. All that comes with the territory. We are doing all of that as well.

 The point here is that not harassing your customer base to buy more, not making claims or slogans in advertising that your real customers know to be misleading, and basically just providing good value for the money without claiming to do more, are all marketing advantages if you can find honest ways to talk about them. You don’t really need outbound advertising in this context, but you do need to use the tools of publicity, SEO, and social media to spread the word. Something new for urn:md5:0e0b8bcfa770d66a15b745e5bae4333f 2012-10-17T16:36:00-07:00 2012-10-23T00:27:34-07:00 Thomas Gandi We hope you like our new look!
 After a little over 12 years of refinements, we are pleased to release our 4th version of the Gandi web site graphical front end. It's deeper, cleaner, more colorful, clearer, more complete, and best of all, it can be customized to your preference and needs.

 Our goal was not to radically change the interface. Most of you like the Gandi web site, and we don't want you to have to learn how everything works all over again. All the same knobs and buttons are there, in the same places. It's as if we did the wallpaper, floor and ceiling tiles, but left the doors and light switches in the same places. You can still find your way around in the dark.

We did fix things that were broken, or clunky, clarifying and adding text and making the different translations more grammatically correct, consistent, and clear. Text is higher-contrast and more readable, and the code, while invisible, has been reduced for display performance and to comply more closely with web coding standards. Finally, we took a look at how all the pages look as a whole, and tried to make them more consistent in appearance, while differentiated enough so you always know where you are.

Customization features!

 The biggest change we made is one we didn't make, but left for you to do. We recognize that there are lots of users on, some of whom have very different ways of using the interface. With hundreds of thousands of active users, some individuals, some businesses, retailers, associations, etc. it's difficult to create an optimal display for everyone. In particular the tabular lists (domains, zone files, email packages, hosting, certificates, etc.) are hard to optimize across applications and use cases. To solve this conundrum, we developed a feature that allows you to choose what you want to display in these lists. A picture is worth a thousand words, so a video is worth, what? Ten thousand? Anyway, here is a short video showing how to customize a tabular list with your choice of fields.

Another new feature is that the screen space for the application is now bigger, and we have added a little extra feature on the right of the screen. Click the question mark tab on the right to display context-sensitive help, and see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for section you are in. You will also see our support people showing up in online chat on selected screens, so you can get quick answers to most questions, right there when you need them. Our agents are actual humans, and are fluent in the language you select from the menu when you go to chat. Our agents are all highly trained and experienced, but sometimes will have to answer you by email to get you the best answer possible, and maintain our support quality standards. If it's an easy answer, you will get it right away in chat, and if it needs research and actions by us, you will see it in email after a delay. If we can't answer you right away in chat, do not be disappointed. You will be able to ask your question via the usual support contact form, and get an answer in your email.

 For those of you who are nostalgic and/or allergic to change, ye olde version v3 of the interface will still be available for a few days  here. You can also use this to compare the two versions, or do something that you can't figure out how to do on our new version. If this happens, though, or if you find any problems, please do not hesitate to contact us on this  email address  so we can quickly address the issue. And if you have ideas for improvement, remember we always make our wishlists available, by product category, to guide our developers with your advice.
 We have tested this new version internally for several weeks, but it's always possible we missed something obvious (headslap) or embarassing (facepalm)...

 Finally, we will just mention that while this project required a lot of our time and energy for the last few months, now that it is available we will turn our attention to many usability improvements and new features that should delight many of you! We hope you will share your feedback, praise, criticism, and kudos! Thanks for reading. Gandi likes Non-profit associations urn:md5:8e019c119a27119c934911707a8d3be8 2012-08-30T13:55:00+02:00 2014-02-04T22:32:08+01:00 Ryan Gandi GandiGandi supportsour customers really are great
Non-profit associations make the world a better place, and we want the world to be better. That's why we just launched a program to help those associations successful in making significant changes by allowing them to benefit from our services at exceptionally low rates, or even in some cases, for free.
 We are talking of course about non-profit associations/organizations that help or run Open-Source projects and/or share our values.

 Yes, I know this is vague, but nobody likes to read a long list of criteria; let's say that the criteria we use are somewhat similar to those we use for our Gandi Supports projects.

 What do we offer? Very attractive (or better) prices on our hosting solutions. Up to 50% discount on our Simple Hosting offers, and on our dedicated VPS cloud hosting shares. This will give these associations a better presence on the internet, enabling more effective action. That means a better world.

 There is no fine print to this offer. None. However you should know that there is far from enough space in our systems to accommodate everyone we would like to. Nevertheless we will take the time to review all applications, but we have to reserve the right to reject an application without sending a letter justifying why we did so.

 What we want is to help out as many like-minded projects as we reasonably can, by sharing our expertise and hosting solutions with them.

 If you feel that your project meets these criteria, and if you would like to benefit from this opportunity to strengthen your presence on the web, please contact us! Gandi BaseKit: it's live! urn:md5:f1d82e3cd77fceb672c43ff1def7d613 2012-06-13T17:17:00+02:00 2012-06-13T17:29:57+02:00 Ryan Gandi
We spoke earlier about a new website creation tool that we really liked. After having taken the time to make a special version of it and seamlessly integrate it into Gandi's website, we are pleased to announce that it is finally live and available to everyone!

What is Gandi Basekit?

Gandi Basekit is a complete website creation tool that is based on HTML5 and CSS standards. It will let you create websites without needing any particular knowledge of these languages and uses a type of interface called "WYSIWYG" (for, What You See Is What You Get). In other words, its a graphic interface that you can use to create a website, similar to SiteMaker, already available at

What can it do that SiteMaker can't?

First of all, this is an additional product and not a replacement. Our die-hard Gandi SiteMaker fans can be assured that we are maintaining it. Gandi BaseKit is, unlike SiteMaker, clearly oriented towards standard languages such as HTML5 and CSS, and is therefore more open and easier to edit (the CSS is completely accessible and can be totally customized with the "Professional" pack), and it also has (for the moment) more e-commerce features.

 The tool itself is *really* different, and many of you will prefer it

Price-wise?

First of all, as a domain name customer at Gandi you will automatically benefit from two free BaseKit pages, just like we previously did with SiteMaker. If you have one or more domains and no SiteMaker website activated (1 domain = the right to create 2 free pages), you can then create a free 2-page Gandi BaseKit website to see what it looks like. And if you already have a free Gandi SiteMaker website, don't worry, you can keep it

There are three Gandi BaseKit packs that are for a subscription fee that give you more or less pages and content type. For more information on this visit this page to see a comparison of the offers.

 I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that you are no longer currently obliged to have your domain name at Gandi in order to purchase a Gandi SiteMaker or Gandi BaseKit website (but this is too bad for your domain ;)).

How about features?

The features are similar, though there is a large panel of the most frequently used tools, including a bunch of Widgets that are directly integrated into the options, complete and functional e-commerce solutions (PayPal and Google CheckOut), communication tools that link to social networks, etc. Everything is available there I think

 Getting started is easy, though very different from SiteMaker, and you will find a large number of guides and even a dedicated YouTube channel that visibly demonstrate how to do things, as well as show you some useful tips!

An offer that can be upgraded??

Yes, of course! And there are two types of upgrading:

the tool itself. This is because the BaseKit developers continue to work on their tool, every day, fixing problems, adding new features, improving processes... Their updating schedule is about every two months and we work with them to see which improvements should be made to our offer right away or which should wait until the next cycle. However, know that the tool is constantly maintained and kept up to date.

of the pack to a higher offer. Just like Gandi SiteMaker, it is impossible to downgrade however. This is not to hold you hostage, but simply because we don't have any way to control the content, and it is not possible, with the tool, to remove pages, features, images, or storage space to make it correspond to a lower offer. You will therefore want to be sure to choose to upgrade your website when you determine that is really is necessary...

And for import/export?

At present, there is no tool that is integrated into BaseKit that will allow you to export or backup your website, however with the help of the BaseKit development team, this tool will soon be available. And for those that know a bit, since this is standard HTML5 and CSS, a simple website scraper will let you make a local copy, while waiting for the integrated tool to arrive

However the possibility of easily and freely exporting your website is an absolute priority for us and we are doing everything possible so that this feature will be available to you soon.

Well, here it is for the general presentation, and the answer to some basic questions that you are bound to have I think. There will surely be others, though in the meantime, I'll invite you to have a look at some of the available themes, so that you can see the professional look of the website creation tool, and if you have a domain at Gandi and you want to test it out it's over here !


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Latest posts by gd

6 returned

My hardneck garlic is falling over

Posted: 18/07/2012 at 16:45

I just hope that we get good enough weather to cure my garlic. I'm using my shed this year as it gets direct sunlight longer than my conservatory, but first we need some sunlight!

My hardneck garlic is falling over

Posted: 14/07/2012 at 16:44

I checked my garlic today and my hardnecks were all yellowing and had some sort of rust while almost all my softnecks had fallen over. All signs that they need to come up sharply and it was just in time. The good news is that I pulled them up in time to keep them from getting moldy or rotting (only just I think, the outer skins on a couple of them were starting to slough off), the bad news is that they are pretty small and not that well formed. There's only 3 or 4 that have the traditional garlic shape with defined cloves in more than 2 dozen I pulled up. Many are the size of a golf ball. The softnecks were all a bit better defined but small.

When I planted my hardnecks I was very careful to separate each clove, however quite a few came up in clumps of 2 or 3 growing together. Did I miss something and not get them separated right, or do they just grow like that sometimes?

There are some that are so small that I don't think they've formed segments and I was thinking I might save them and plant them again in the autumn, will that work? I guess I don't lose anything by trying.

So mixed results for me. I got almost 100% germination and I got to them all in time to harvest them, but because of the atrocious conditions they didn't mature particularly well. Still, I got enough of them that I imagine they'll last me awhile. Given that we've had enough rain to ruin everything I can't complain!

My hardneck garlic is falling over

Posted: 09/07/2012 at 19:22

@hernando, If you have really pulled them up it's not likely you can put them back, generally you're supposed to dig around them to find out how big they are before you dig them up.

@buttercup4, how was the size of the garlic you pulled? Rust only affects the leaves I think so you should be ok I suppose.

My hardneck garlic is falling over

Posted: 02/07/2012 at 14:07

Last year I cured my garlic by hanging it in my conservatory, worked well. I think I'll do that this year as I don't see this weather drying up any time soon! At this rate I won't be harvesting until September!

My hardneck garlic is falling over

Posted: 29/06/2012 at 09:21

Thanks for the response Lokelani! I bought my garlic from the isle of wight farm as well but I didn't get through to them when I called. I'm glad I was on the right track by not pulling them up. I'll only do that if the foliage all starts to die. My elephant garlic all speared about 6 weeks ago and my hardnecks were all about a month behind that. It looks like I won't be harvesting until August which is such a huge difference from last year when I had them all up by now. With a bit less sun and a bit more rain maybe I'll get a crop this year!

My hardneck garlic is falling over

Posted: 28/06/2012 at 09:54

I've planted some hardneck, softneck, and elephant garlic as well as some shallots in mid-winter. I got 100% germination which pleased me no end and all was going well until all the rain. My softneck and elephant garlic seem to be doing well, but many of my hardnecks are falling over with some small yellowing of the outer leaves. I dug around one and the bulb is no bigger than a golf ball.

If I dig them up right now I get no garlic at all to speak of from them so I am going to just leave them in for awhile and see if they'll grow more. Is there anything I can do to improve their chances? Will caning them up help at all?

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Discussions started by gd

My hardneck garlic is falling over

Replies: 21    Views: 4777
Last Post: 18/07/2012 at 16:45
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Stirring the pot, raising hell and rearing children in the Bay Area

The Santa Moment

Posted on Nov 22, 2011 in Featured, Holidays |

The Santa Moment

If you’re a parent, you don’t need to read the rest of this story.

It’s the story of the kid and the Santa jig, and the jig is up, and you are left as the grownup fool telling your kids for the past eight years that a giant fat man breaks into their house each year. If you’re already a parent of a kid older than mine, you know the sock-in-the-gut feeling of your baby’s childhood blinking away.

Today was that day.

I picked up my sweet Thing 2 from school, a rarity since returning to work. I took her out for a special treat (curry meat pie — my girl is special) and we spied friends outside. While we were chatting with them, our favorite toddler boy, Teddy said, looking at his hand-me-down pink tricycle, “Dis bike too small fo-me!” And his parents replied, “Well maybe!

And that was it.

She got it.

In one sentence. It was over.

She looked at me, took my hand, squeezed hard, and said, “Yeah, ‘Santa, or Mommy and Daddy.”

Stunned, I took her by the hand and walked away. I stared at my buddies with that Oh-Holy-Crap-That-Just-Didn’t-Happen eye stare. But it had happened. And there was no going back.

I tried to undo-the-undoable. I told her that our friends were trying to talk their son into asking for a bicycle from Santa instead of from their parents because bikes are expensive. And parents can’t afford bikes. And Santa helps because he can. And, you know, wink, wink, wink.

She didn’t buy it.

She rolled her eyes at me.

So I took her for a fancy haircut at a grownup hair salon to distract her.

Or maybe, to distract me.

She got a bob cut.

It made her look young.

Read More

Posted on Oct 9, 2011 in Holidays |

Thing 2 came in today with a giant eraser that says, “For Big Mistakes” on it. She says bluntly, “Is this for Jewish people?”

I looked at her, confused. My eight-year-old floors me frequently.

“Mom, it’s Yom Kippur, today is the day they get to erase all their mistakes.” My brilliant, beautiful, daughter. I told her we all have a chance to erase our mistakes and she tells me, “But today, my eraser can be for them to make their mistakes get erased easier.”

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V-Day: The Worst Holiday Ev.ah

Posted on Feb 7, 2011 in Holidays, iVoices |

The worst holiday ever? Valentine’s Day, of course. Watch fellow iVoices reporters and me chat about our most, um, memorable Valentine’s Day gifts. Love, hearts and twinkles. Blech.

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Mowing in the Target Trough

Posted on Jan 2, 2011 in Featured, Seasons |

Mowing in the Target Trough

“Valentine’s Day is coming!,” La Gringa said yesterday. “Shut the hell up”, I thought, as we were herded toward the Christmas blowout sale aisle with another three dozen bargain shoppers. If the post-holiday season wasn’t depressing enough, try perusing through the 75% off racks at Target with once-carefully thought-out gift options, now chucked on the ground, grinding under my shopping cart. The Target message was clear: the holidays are over sucker, move on the Valentine’s Day! MLK Day Commemorative Plates! SuperBowl Sunday Chip’n’Dip Bowls!

It suddenly hit me: Target is ruling my spending, my holidays and my calendar.

Now, like all good neighborhood residents, I try hard to shop locally, but Target is Target and we all eat from the same trough of discount deals, readily available everythings and decent selections. If you’ve got a lunch break, you go to Target, if you’ve got a bunch of errands, you go to Target, if you need uniforms, kids underwear, bananas, a birthday card and a new scale all at once, you go to Target (For the record, you don’t ever buy your wife a new wardrobe at Target for her birthday, trust me.). The problem is, Target is leading loyal customers into truly believing that it’s the benchmark for all things commerce. That’s where I draw the line.

There things to be mindful of when shopping at Target as a regular source of purchasing:

1. Emotion Marketing. Because Target says it’s time to start buying Easter baskets in February, doesn’t mean you should. Or that it should be on your mind, or in your current budget. It’s hard to resist, right? This year I saw Back to School clothes for sale at Target in June. By August when I went to buy the uniforms, they were sold out. You’re kidding me, right? I used to get my school uniforms the weekend before school started and supplies, the day after school started. Target has me thinking about — and buying — items on their marketing schedule, not mine.

2. Selection and Variety. We need a new scale. Target has four kinds of scales. Good variety, right? If Target doesn’t have it, then it doesn’t exist, or costs too much or is too much of a pain to get in the car and go across town to the shop that specializes in such things. There are four types to choose from, just pick one, right? The same goes for toys, kids clothes and seasonal tsotchke. I couldn’t find a silver cardigan for my daughter at Target, so I just didn’t buy it. The developmental kids toys are the same everywhere and I should just pick one of them in the “developmental” toys aisle at Target — well, at least that’s my thinking. Yesterday I staged a rebellion: I’m going to (a) research scales  (b) determine what kinds of features I want (c) read the reviews. Then, I’ll go to Target and if they have it, great, I’ll stick it in my cart next to the deodorant and Intro to Yoga DVD, but if they don’t, I won’t be a slave to the Target machine, I will buy the scale I want to buy. Maybe. That is, er, f I have time and I don’t have to stop by Target anyway on my way to pick up my kid from ballet.

3. Setting the bar. I am often reminded when I question authority, process and procedures that most things are geared toward marketing toward, or communicating with, the lowest common denominator. Everything from public school to airport security screenings are designed for Bozo the Clown, so it’s no surprise that even my son calls out the low bar of marketing messaging. “What does ‘MORE SWEAT FOR LESS’ mean, Mommy?,” my 7-year-old asks. “It means you can pay less money for sweat pants,” I replied. “Why do I want to sweat more for less?”  he answered. Indeed son, why? For the love of all that is good: My kid is calling out the low level communication strategies. But you know what I did, huh? Huh? I turned around to see if they had the same sale for women’s sweat pants.

And so it goes. I love me my “Tar-jay”  I know that I’m part of a marketing machine and I expect the bar to be set low. I’m never disappointed nor impressed. I won’t be deterred from the big red circle and cheap popcorn at the front door. I won’t either be impressed by quality, selection or price. But here’s the kicker, see… I don’t have to like it, but it’s hard not to.

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Hey, Hey, Hey, Goodbye

Posted on Jan 1, 2011 in Holidays |

We watched as my mom released 10 balloons into the sky on New Year’s Eve singing at the top of our lungs, “Nah, nah, nah, nah, Hey, hey, hey Good-bye!” Under my breath I whispered to her, “See you later, sucky year.”

2010 was a crap year.

There is nothing like the shadow of a sick mom to put a haze over even the best of years — months and weeks clouded by hospital visits, medication and status reports. Then the second shoe dropped: La Gringa’s mom had lung cancer too. Both our moms down for the count. Shockingly, we’re the ones who were lucky this year. One street over, my friend Rita was holding it together for her husband and children, but before the year ended, she’d said goodbye to her husband, not to a slew of balloons. My dear friend and soul mate Elliot died this year too from brain cancer. In a screwed twist of fate, his brain was known well for being far beyond any of ours. My friend Jill’s mom died suddenly on her anniversary morning after beating cancer the previous year– how whacked is that? El Ano Horrible also brought on bitch-slaps to savings accounts everywhere, sending most of us into (gasp!) cutting our Anthropologie budgets to halt. The year also a bust of companies I loved, worked for and was loyal to — from layoffs to shut-downs, Silicon Valley seemed to be on a colossal roller coaster.

I literally could not wait to say goodbye to 2010. And this morning, the first morning of the next decade, I cannot wait for 2011 to get started, looking toward a year that is just simply better than the last.

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Fudging It

Posted on Dec 16, 2010 in Featured, Food, Holidays |

Fudging It

It’s quite possible that I could be disowned for this one, but my grandmother has long passed and I’m just daring enough to give you the best holiday gift I have can offer: my fudge recipe. My only tip: timing is everything Oh, and one more: don’t forget to lick the bowl. Here you go, the one and only non-hand printed version of our family’s favorite:

Garza Girl’s Fudge

4 1/2 cups white sugar

1 can evaporated milk

36 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped rough fine

1/2 # unsalted butter, cut in chunks

10 ounces good quality marshmallows

2 Tablespoons vanilla

2 cups rough chop walnuts

Bring sugar and milk to a soft ball stage (don’t mess with it while it’s working its magic). Remove from heat. Add butter, chocolate and marshmallows and rapidly incorporate fully. Add walnuts and finish with vanilla. Place in baking sheet and cool at room temperature until set (about two hours). Cut fudge into one-inch squares.

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