V11.04 April 2009

0. Introduction.
1. Crazy $10,000 API Contest Reminder!
2. Navigation Reorganization!
3. New: Bulk Transfer Domain Registrations!
4. New Charities: Save The Devils!
5. DHSOTM


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0. Introduction.

Boy oh boy, am I excited! It's the April 2009 Happy DreamHost Newsletter
and spring is in the air, my step, my mattress! I'm giddy because I know
THIS is the month I finally catch up on the newsletters! No more January
newsletters coming out in mid-July, February newsletters coming out just
in time for Thanksgiving, and March newsletters coming out in February!

Nope, this spring I'm cleaning up, just in time for summer. And I've got
a plan too. You see, we've already got WAY more than 4 new features all
ready to go, but I'm NOT putting them all in this newsletter. No way.

I'm going to split them up into THREE newsletters and declare them for
April, May, and June, (Huey, Dewey, and Louie's cousins) even though
they're all going to be coming out in the SAME MONTH!

Genius? My mother thinks so.


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1. Crazy $10,000 API Contest Reminder!

What better way to whip out newsletters than to re-hash the SAME old
stuff from LAST month?

In case you forgot, we've got a $10,000 contest going on for people who
write applications that use the new DreamHost API!

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=home.api

The due date is May 31st, although we already had a $2,000 winner for
the "best" app that was finished by April 30th:

http://www.chirpbot.com/

It's a Twitter interface to the DreamHost API! So incredibly useful I
can't even THINK of all the uses.. not even one!

If you've got something better up your sleeve, submit it via the comments
of our original post on the contest here:

http://blog.dreamhost.com/2009/04/09/big-boy-time/#comments

The prizes are as follows:

Grand Prize: $5,000
1st Place: $2,500
2nd Place: $1,250
3rd Place: $500
4th Place: $750 (NOT A TYPO! That's how CRAZY this contest is.)

If DreamHost API-ing ain't your bag of tea, you can actually win $1,000
in a separate contest/bounty I just dreamed up last night:

http://blog.dreamhost.com/2009/05/13/broken-browsers-part-one/

Yes it's true.. rather than developing our own new features, we've
degenerated simply PAYING you guys to write them for us! Hmmm.. maybe I
should have a contest next month to write the best DreamHost Newsletter!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Intriguing.....?!


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2. Navigation Reorganization!

What easier way to add a new feature than to do a simple re-ordering of
our menu system for navigating our panel?

https://panel.dreamhost.com/

None that I can think of! If you've been confused in the last couple
of days while trying to find a particular area of our panel you were
used to, it's probably my fault.

We've re-ordered some of the main tabs as well as the order of the sub-
tabs within them, and even renamed a few to hopefully be a little
clearer. I'd tell you what we changed but that'd sort of take the fun
out of it, right?

It wasn't all just change for change's sake, I hope for hope's sake. We
tried to bring the most frequently used areas higher up in the menu
system. Someday, we may even make a change to have it actually REMEMBER
what tabs you have maximized, and possibly even a way to customize your
own menu for the stuff you personally use the most.

I wouldn't hold my breath though. Unless maybe we make it a contest!?

How much money do we have left anyway?


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3. New: Bulk Transfer Domain Registrations!

Maybe we could make a little more money for contests if we had a few
more domain registrations! Well, we don't really make any money on
domain registrations, so that's probably a dumb idea. And maybe it's why
we never had a way to bulk transfer in your registrations from a
different registrar. UNTIL NOW.

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=domain.transfer

A couple of weeks ago a friend of Dallases was moving four domains in
and got in a tizzy about going through the process four times. But
THAT'S not why we did it. No, we did it because *I* had to transfer 11
domains in last week and *I* got in a tizzy.

Two tizzies in two weeks? That's one tizzy in one week too many.


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4. New Charities: Save The Devils!

AWESOME! It's time to switch the charities again, which means I've got a
totally easy newsletter feature!

This time, the new charities are "Save the Tasmanian Devil" as well as
"Operation USA" (a relief organization). The last ones we had were The
Valentino Achak Deng Foundation for which we raised $741.12 from 13
contributors and then matched it, and the Horatio Alger Association for
which we raised $581 from 14 contributors and then matched it!

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=home.charity

Is where you can go to donate to one of our current charities and get it
matched by us.. PLUS this time we have a super-special promo code going
where anybody who signs up with SAVETHEDEVIL as their promo code gets
$50 off PLUS we donate another $50 to save the Tasmanian Devil.

All because there was some dumb linux conference in Australia back when
I _should_ have been writing this newsletter.

http://blog.dreamhost.com/2009/05/11/tuz-tatz/


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5. DHSOTM

FULLY AWESOME! I can wrap this thing up with the old DreamHost Site of
the Month cop out feature!

http://www.earthfromaboveusa.com/

Won this time, and wow, for once I'm very very happy with the winner!

It's the official site of a free public art exhibit going on in NYC next
spring for 8 weeks; "a collection of large-scale aerial photography by
world-renowned French environmentalist, Yann Arthus-Bertrand."

The reason I'm happy is, as far as I can tell... no flash!

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=home.dhsotm

Go get YOUR site in the contest today, because it'll probably only be a
couple of days until the NEXT winner is announced!


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Contestedly Yours,
Josh Jones!

P.S. Hate the thrill of competition? Unsubscribe today at:
https://panel.dreamhost.com/id/?tab=contact

URL source: http://wiki.dreamhost.com/V11.04_April_2009

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