Spiral Hosting

The IE Domain Registry has confirmed that there was a record number of dot-ie domains registered in 2009.

A total of 37,055 domains were registered during the year, which is an 8 percent increase on 2008 figures. There are now a total of 136,000 dot-ie domains registrations.

The fourth quarter of 2009 saw a total of 8,533 new registrations in October and December, representing a 11.5 percent rise on last year.

IEDR Chief Executive David Curtin said: “It is more encouraging still to report that overall, 2009 was our strongest year ever for .ie registrations; an 8 per cent increase on last year’s figure is significant against the backdrop of economic difficulty for businesses and consumers everywhere”.

“It is important that Irish entrepreneurs now recognise and seize opportunities for growth online.”

For more information on how and why you should register an .IE domain name please see: Spiral Hosting > Irish domain registration

Spiral Hosting strongly support open source products and believe they are central to the development of the Internet.

You may have heard that Oracle has acquired Sun and along with it, MySQL, which is the most popular open source database.

MySQL is not an important part of the acquisition. Oracle have bought Sun for other reasons. Their ownership of the MySQL project could have detrimental effects to the open source ideal. The concern is that if the Intellectual Property Rights for MySQL fall into the hands of MySQL’s primary competitor Oracle, then MySQL immediately ceases to be an alternative to Oracle’s own high-priced products.

With this in mind, we have signed the Help Save MySQL petition, and we are asking you to lend your support too by signing the petition. The Save MySQL website has lots of information about why the community feels that MySQL is important, and what you can do to ensure it stays open and freely available to the entire Internet community.

Spiral Hosting are announcing our first Snow Sale!

We are offering 10% off ALL domain names while it’s snowing here in Ireland.

That’s 10% off any domain extension you choose, and for any registration period available!

We know that many countries are used to heavy snowfall and arctic temperatures, but last night in Ireland it was -12 degrees (celcius) and some parts of the country are practically unreachable. Schools are closed and the Army might be drafted in to start shoveling snow. This could last another week or two, but the moment the snow stops, so will our promotion!

Take advantage of this promotion! Here’s how:

• Simply visit our site
• Choose any domain name!
• Choose 1 to 10 years registration (where applicable)
• Enter the promo code: snow

This offer expires: when it stops snowing in Ireland. Valid on new registrations and transfers only. Available to new and existing customers. Our usual Terms & Conditions apply.*

We regret to inform you that CNNIC has announced an indefinite suspension of all .CN registrations from overseas Registrars, including our registration provider OpenSRS/Neustar.

As a result of this action by CNNIC, we can no longer provide new .CN registrations with immediate effect.

Please note that renewals and transfers will continue to be supported. There is no timetable for the resumption of new registrations, but we’ll keep you posted if the situation changes.

The .Info Promotion has been extended for another 6 months. All new .Info registrations are only €1.95 until the end of June 2010.

The discounted price will be reflected at the checkout. No coupon code is required.

All about .Info

The .INFO generic top-level domain was introduced in 2001 and has since grown to be one of the most widely used TLDs on the Internet. .INFO domains, as the extension would suggest, tend to be used mainly for websites where the primary goal is to provide information.

• There were approximately 5.2 million .INFO domains registered as of April 2008.
• .INFO is the fourth largest gTLD on the internet, after .com, .net and .org.
• The word ‘info’ means “information” in 37 languages.
• .INFO is the fastest growing new TLD to date.

To take advantage of this promotion, simply check for your domain’s availability. Offer valid until 30th June 2010. Available to both new and existing customers. Promotion price for 1st year of new registrations or 1st year of multi-year registrations only. Subject to our usual T&C’s.

We launched an update to our website in the early hours of Saturday morning. It’s dubbed “version 3″ and the changes are quite significant.

The main things you will notice are:

• The website design has improved. It’s a lot neater, it isn’t as wide as before and it works in much better proportion with different screen resolutions.
• The country flags on the top right. Yes, we’ve started showing different content to different countries based on IP delivery and the user’s preference. The countries currently supported are Ireland, UK, US and France.
  This allows us to show local currency pricing, local phone numbers and other details relevant to each country on the website. For example, you can see how www.spiralhosting.ie/contact has our Irish phone number and www.spiralhosting.com/uk/contact has our UK phone number. Localized content only shows on some pages at the moment, but the infrastructure is now there for us to fully roll it out.
• We now have a multi language website. The first language we’ve added is French (www.spiralhosting.fr). A sizeable amount of our customers speak French, and we also hope more will join us!
• We now support multiple currencies. You can purchase in Euros, Pounds or Dollars depending upon your preference. Prices in Pounds and Dollars are updated daily on our website based on our base currency (Euros) so we always offer the best price.
• We have added new products such as GlobalSign SSL certificates and .fr domain names.
• We’ve also updated the templates on our Client Area, Company Blog and Status Blog to reflect the new design.

Version 3 is a big improvement but it’s only the first step. We have more updates planned shortly as we add more languages, currencies, products and features.

We want to say a big thank you to our web designer Clément for all the work he has put into it. Great job!

If any customers or visitors have feedback on the new site or find any bugs (like broken links) please do let us know.

Ho! Ho! Ho! We have sent the following email to all customers:

Merry Christmas from Spiral Hosting!

Dear client,

Thank you for your continued support over the past year. Spiral Hosting has grown, developing our infrastructure and customer support and building on our successful brand and products. We have big plans for the next year, and we hope that as our business prospers yours does too.

Instead of sending you a Christmas card this year, we have chosen instead to make a charitiable donation to Concern Worldwide.

Concern is committed to a world without poverty. They work in 28 countries bringing food, clean water, good health, education and a higher standard of living.

We donated by buying gifts from www.concerngifts.org. We bought some essential drugs, water filters, two piglets, six chickens and a donkey called Pete.

If you would like to know more about the work of Concern, visit www.concern.net or call their donation line (Ireland: 1850 410 510 or UK/International call +44 (0)800 032 4002).

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy & Prosperous New Year,

The Spiral Hosting Team.

http://www.spiralhosting.com

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You can view all the latest announcements, including Christmas opening hours, on our company blog.

Our customer/technical support will be available every day throughout the Christmas holidays 24/7 as normal via our support ticket system.

Our sales & billing phone number will close at 2pm on 16th December (for our staff Christmas party!) and it will also be unavailable on 24th, 25th and 31st December, and 1st January. It will be operating as normal on all other dates.

If you are a dedicated server or colocation customer you can still avail of our 24/7 server reboots and emergency phone support by calling the out-of-hours mobile numbers. These can be found on your last server invoice.

Spiral Hosting has today warned customers of a domain name renewal scam.

ISPrenewal.com (also known as domainrenewalonline.org and onlinereminder.biz) has been sending domain renewal reminder emails to our customers, requesting that they visit their website and pay $79.95 for their domain name renewal. We wish to advise all customers that this is a scam. Customers are advised to disregard all communication from ISPrenewal.com and any other domain names that the scammers may be using.

We have sent an email to all customers explaining that from the 1st January 2010 we have to start charging 17.5% tax on all products sold to EU residents. Here’s the details:

Dear client,

This is a notice that from 1st January 2010, Spiral Hosting Ltd will begin to charge Value Added Tax (VAT) on all products sold to customers located in the European Union. This notice explains how it will affect you and how you can claim an exception if you have an EU VAT Registration Number or operate as a ‘relevant business person’.

If you are not located in the European Union, please ignore this email as it does not affect you.

Who has to pay VAT?

All customers who reside in the European Union (EU27) must pay VAT. Spiral Hosting Ltd is a registered company in Northern Ireland and will therefore charge the standard UK VAT rate, currently 17.5%.

The EU27 includes: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France (incl. Monaco), Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

If you are located in any other country, we will not charge you any VAT.

Exemption for Businesses

- Firstly, VAT Registered Businesses:

If you are a business with an EU VAT registration number, please email your VAT number to billing@spiralhosting.com and we will change your account so that invoices are VAT-Exempt. You can also enter your VAT number through our Client Area by going to the My Details page: https://secure.spiralhosting.com/clientarea.php?action=details . If you do this, no VAT will appear on your invoices and you will be responsible for paying any VAT yourself directly to your local tax authorities.

Please note:
1) Under EU VAT Directive 2008/8/EC, we will validate every VAT Registration Number and detail your VAT-exempt business expenditure on our EC Sales List.
2) There is an exception for UK businesses. We cannot VAT-exempt invoices for UK businesses and you will have to reclaim any VAT from HMRC.

- Secondly, other businesses:

If you do not have a VAT Registration Number, we can still change your account so that invoices are VAT-Exempt providing you take responsibility for paying any VAT to your local tax authority. To make such a request, please email billing@spiralhosting.com stating: “On behalf of Business Name, I declare that we are a ‘taxable person’ under EC Directive 2006/112/EC, Article 9. I request that you do not charge us VAT on our invoices. We agree to pay any VAT directly to our local tax authority in Country.”

We may ask for additional information to keep on file so that we can prove you definitely operate a business. This may include a company registration number, a certificate from your local tax authority, or copies of your business letterhead, commerical documents or commercial website.

Please note:
1) We will detail your VAT-exempt business expenditure to our local tax authority if they ask why we have not charged you VAT.
2) There is an exception for UK businesses. We cannot VAT-exempt invoices for UK businesses and you will have to reclaim any VAT from HMRC.

When will I start seeing VAT on invoices?

Invoices created on/before 31st December 2009 will not have VAT, and invoices created on/after 1st January 2010 will have VAT. This is regardless of the date that the invoice is actually paid.

Can I avoid paying VAT?

Yes! You can renew your web services with us before we start to charge VAT. Many services can be renewed up to 10 years in advance. Please speak with our Sales Team.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact billing@spiralhosting.com or your Account Manager directly.

Best regards,

The Spiral Hosting Team