With Christmas only a few weeks away and summer sunshine on its way, it’s time to celebrate!

In this issue you'll find information on a holiday promotion, upcoming survey, scams to avoid, WorldPay, free single page site & Tasman Projects.

Congratulations to our recent refund draw winners rasmussenelectrical.co.nz and lyford.co.nz.

The Freeparking Team

You’ve worked hard and deserve a break! Freeparking is refunding 10 lucky customer purchases in December. Just buy or renew any Freeparking domain name, email or hosting plan to enter to win. Don’t let Santa have all the fun over the holidays. Click Here to find out more!

To ensure that you’re satisfied with your Freeparking product and service, we conduct customer surveys twice a year. From our last survey in June, we’ve been working on simplifying the website navigation and copy (to be introduced in early 2008), updating set up emails, offering more webmail options, and creating new templates for SiteBuilder. Our next survey is in December and as our way of saying ‘thank you,’ we’ll be giving away 4 prizes to winners with their choice of a digital photo frame with clock, MP3 player with radio, two tone twill weekender or a leisure fishing set. So look for your email in the coming weeks, fill out the online survey and be entered to win!

There is currently a letter being distributed by Domain Registry of America (and possibly others) informing people of their domain name expiration. The letter looks like an official notice and appears to be an invoice asking you to pay $AU 41 ($NZ 49) to renew your domain name. With Freeparking you pay $39.95/year for your domain name. To respond to this letter will actually mean switching your domain name to a new registrar. Domain Registry of America have been successfully prosecuted several times in the U.S. but somehow keep popping up again. We just want to inform you that this is a scam and not official documentation. With all Freeparking hosting accounts your domain name is included free.

Thinking about accepting payments through your website? WorldPay offers retailers mutli-currency transactions with 3 free currencies of your choice (over 120 to choose from), multiple payment options (online and offline), the latest security measures and an online customer management system. Through Freeparking you can get all this for only $35 per month and through 31 December 2007, the standard $250 set-up fee and $0.18 per transaction fees are waived. See how WorldPay can assist your online business today.

Did you know that your domain name includes a free single page website? With Single Page Site you can create your own one page website for visitors to your domain name to view instead of having a 'parked' page at no extra cost!

Benefits:

• Choose from 100’s of templates.
• Allows you to add your contact details so any visitor entering your domain name can view your information.
• You can include your email address, so that visitors can contact you quickly.
• Allows up to 2 images to be included, such as your business logo and/or photos.

For more information on how to use the Single Page Site, please refer to the First Time User’s Guide.
 

Thinking about breaking away and going out on your own? Don Robertson did just that in 2004 with Tasman Projects and is enjoying the luxury of a home-based business.

After over 20 years of project management for a Wellington-based project management consultancy, Don decided to opt for a slower-paced South Island lifestyle and hasn’t looked back. He’s worked on civic and cultural facilities such as the Nelson Tasman Regional Museum and the redevelopment of the Tasman District Council’s main office, as well as projects in education, health, industrial and local government.

“Being self-employed, the use of online technology is important in providing a cost-effective service. It allows me to stay in touch if I’m in the office or away from it,” explains Don. “In setting up the company myself and not having an IT background, Freeparking service and setup was faultless and allowed a seamless and fault-free start-up process.”

Don says that being able to provide a simple, but hopefully effective and informative web page without any setup problems was a huge advantage. The single page site offered with his domain name was the perfect solution to providing images and information about his company with the ability to easily update at any time.

“I know from my work that if I need to find out information about a supplier, design consultant or contractor, the first place I look is on the web,” says Don. “The key is communication. Technology such as that provided by Freeparking for small businesses is a key element in providing good communication.”