Author: Ana Tapia

ICANN 71 opts to open up to everybody

Posted on by Ana Tapia

The move by the international body to open up to the world makes it possible to follow the ICANN 71 Virtual Policy Forum online from 14 to 17 June. The forum will be looking at progress with policies to combat DNS abuse, mechanisms for protecting intellectual property and the calendar for the next round of applications for new top-level domains (TLD). Other topics under discussion are the new governmental laws on web domains and the safety and treatment of data, domain registration data and the impact on people and companies.

The forum also includes a meeting by the geographical top-level domain (GEOTLD) group on Tuesday 15 June. The session will assess the impact of .barcelona policies and the rest of the geographical domains. As a member of this group, Punt Barcelona will be taking part along with representatives from other world cities and extending a welcome to the domain .madrid. The sessions in the forum can be followed live and registration is free.

ICANN is a non-profit corporation set up in 1998 to work for and guarantee global stability for the internet, helping to coordinate domains on a world level.

Tools to help you with teleworking

Posted on by Ana Tapia

More and more companies and organisations are turning to teleworking, mainly in response to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic but also as a way of optimising time and resources. Yet working remotely also has its difficulties if communication is not good enough and workloads are not managed properly between teams.

Here are some tools which are sure to help you with everyday teleworking.

Communication and meetings

If there’s one thing we’ve discovered during lockdown it’s the various videoconferencing tools available, from the classic Skype to WhatsApp and Zoom, probably the biggest discovery of 2020. If you’re after an alternative which gets well away from large corporate options, there are a couple of free tools available to you: Jitsi, with the advantage that you don’t need to create a user account to make use of it, just create a link and share it, and Framatalk, a videoconferencing tool from the Framasoft project which also allows you to create a virtual meeting room without the need to register.

Shared files

Tools for shared files exist to avoid having multiple versions of a document, enabling users to share files in the cloud, update them and share them with various other users. The best known are Google Drive, which offers 15GB of free storage, and Dropbox, which offers 2GB of free space with the possibility of increasing this up to 16GB by inviting friends to use the service.

Other options here include Mega, with 50GB of free storage space, and Degoo, which offers 100GB, although the free version only allows users to upload files from three different devices.

Framasoft also offers various free open-source tools such as the collaborative calendar Framagenda, the collaborative spreadsheet Framacalc, the presentation software Framaslides and the meeting planning tool Framadate.

If you want to go a step further, the French collective Chatons offers a list of various open-source software alternatives to Google Drive and Dropbox.

Organisation and management of projects and tasks

One of the main difficulties with teleworking is managing tasks carried out by people participating in the same project. There are various tools available which can really help us with this and provide control and information on the tasks being done by each person.

One example is Trello, a collaborative tool for managing tasks and projects based on cards, lists and panels which allow users to organise and prioritise work right down to the last detail. Another example is Asana, a web and mobile management app which allows users to divide projects into a list of allocated task for each team member, view the status of each one and pick up on any issues which might hamper task fulfilment.

Optimisation and management of time

Anybody concerned about too many distractions working from home or who needs to organise their day to ensure it is productive also has a couple of interesting tools available to them.

TomatoTimer is a timer for applying the Pomodoro technique (25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest) and managing the time needed for each task. It allows users to configure the time needed for each task, along with audio tones and the volume of alerts. If you want to know how you’ve used your time you can use the Toggl app, available for web and mobile alike. This tool enables you to monitor the distribution of your working hours and generate reports which can be exported as Excel, CSV or PDF files.

Want more?

If you’re interested in finding more free open-source office automation tools, the Xarxa d’Economia Solidària (XES) has shared a repository of open-access tools where you can find browsers, mail managers and tools for editing images and video.

The pandemic highlights inequalities in the use of ICT

Posted on by Ana Tapia

Use of information and communication technologies (ICT) has risen by 62% in recent months as a result of the Covid-19 health crisis. Teleworking, online schooling and remote administration procedures mainly account for the increase, which has been slightly greater in areas with average and above-average incomes, and lower in areas with below-average or low incomes.

These are the main conclusions from the Report on the digital divide in Barcelona in 2020, conducted by the Fundació BitHabitat with the collaboration of Mobile World Capital to analyse the evolution of the digital divide in the city and the impact of Covid-19 on the use of ICT. The report is based on a survey of 2,542 people in the autumn of 2020.

The vast majority of people in Barcelona have an internet connection (92%). Just 8% of households have no connection and most of these, some 55%, are made up of people over the age of 74. Notably, the divide in terms of connections and household incomes has been significantly reduced in Barcelona over the last four years. The number of low-income households with internet connections has risen from 75% to 91%, closing the gap to just 6% with high-income households, which have gone from 91% to 97%.

Teleworking

Teleworking has gained ground during lockdown. Some 59% of employed people have been able to do their work remotely over this period, while 39% were unable to as their work could not be done remotely.

The survey shows some significant differences by income: some 56.3% of people living in low-income areas were unable to telework, compared to just 24% who were unable to do so in high-income areas.

Education

Online schooling has mainly been possible thanks to ICT. Some 73.2% of schoolchildren under 16 have been able to continue their studies online during the lockdown, according to people surveyed living in the same home, while 26.8% have been unable to.

However, in low-income homes, in over 50% of cases where children did not continue their education online the reason was because they did not have sufficient devices, a decent connection or the necessary training. In the highest income bands, these causes represented 20-22% of cases.

E-administration

At the same time, the lockdown and the social and health crisis have seen e-administration procedures rocket. Over 75% of people living in average or above-average income areas have conducted e-procedures with the administration, compared to 63% in low-income areas.

Some 81.9% of people with university qualifications have conducted procedures online, compared to 28.7% of people without studies. Over 80% of people under the age of 55 have conducted e-procedures, compared to just 34% of people over 75.

Qualitative analysis of the ICT officer programme

The ITC officer programme was launched by the City Council as part of the Shock Plan for Digital Inclusion to help people conduct e-procedures with the administration. In the period from 21 September to 27 November 2020, the service helped resolve 3,068 e-procedures and attended to more than 1,904 people in person, devoting 30 minutes to each of them on average.

Two out of three people required support to apply for economic support: 33% for unemployment benefits and subsidies, 21% for income support and 7% for the guaranteed citizen income.

The digital divide, which is not only linked to equipment but to digital skills, is wider among the most vulnerable.

Want to know more?

At Ca l’Alier, the urban innovation centre and headquarters of the Fundació Bit Habitat, you can see an exhibition on the digital divide in the city. Full data from the survey can also be found on the Open Data BCN website.

New domains up by 20% in Europe due to the pandemic

Posted on by Ana Tapia

The pandemic, and in particular the lockdown in the spring, has prompted an increase in the creation of new domains.

The recommendation for people to work from home and the impossibility of attending to customers in traditional establishments mean that so far this year the number of newly created websites is up by 20% in Europe, with e-commerce accounting for a large volume.

The data for the whole of Europe is handled by the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR), whose goal is to promote and participate in the development of high standards for Internet Country Code Top-Level Domain Registries (ccTLDs), in other words, the two-letter domains corresponding to countries.

For instance, .es domains (Spain) reached the same levels as in 2013, while .it domains (Italy) reached record figures, with over 60,000 new domains registered.

With the exception of August (summer in the northern hemisphere and consequently in Europe), the volume of registrations was high and averaged 0.9% in the last quarter (some 3.4% over the last 12 months).

At the peak of the first lockdown, newly created domains rose by 20% compared to the same period last year. Though some doubt remains as to whether this can be attributed to the pandemic, if it was the case, it would be a matter of checking whether these domains are renewed once the health crisis is over.

The average number of .barcelona domain renewals is up by 10% compared to last year, and 3% compared to 2018. This figure means we can affirm that although domain loyalty is reasonably high, there is still room for it to improve.

Five tips for choosing the name of your website domain

Posted on by Ana Tapia

Choosing a good website domain is a key step for your internet presence. Using a provisional name and changing it later can cause all sorts of headaches: people who already know you keep searching for you by your previous domain, loss of indexing with search engines, not very robust as a brand etc.

With this in mind, here are some tips to help you find the best domain name right from the start.

Got your own name?
If you’ve got a business or a project with its own name, that’s a good start for creating your .barcelona domain. The first thing you need to do is check if it’s available. How? Easy. On the .barcelona website you can check by using the registration section and putting the domain name in the search field. If it’s available, it will appear as such and you can register it. If it’s taken, a message will appear showing that it’s unavailable.

If the name you want is unavailable, think about the key words which define your project and try various combinations to see if they’re available so you can choose the one that suits you best.

Make sure it’s not too similar to other domains

If you’re fortunate enough to find the name you want is available, don’t rush things. Search the internet and check if anybody else has got a project with the same name. If you see projects appearing with the name, but which rather than using a .barcelona domain use others such as .com, .cat, .es, it might be a good moment to think the name over again before registering it.

The shorter the better
If you can come up with a short name which is easy to memorise, it will be much easier for people to remember your domain and access your website spontaneously, or for people to remember your website domain when they see it written somewhere.

Easy to write
A good domain name is one that is easy for people to share verbally or in writing, and which is easy to understand. It’s important that you also consider whether your potential users speak just one language or various languages. If the latter is the case, you’ll need to take special care to find a name which is easy to write and understand in any language.

Avoid hyphens and numbers
While we might often choose a free email address by adding full stops, hyphens and numbers because the combination we initially wanted is unavailable, when it comes to domain names it’s not advisable to use the same strategy as it may lead to errors.

We only recommend the use of numbers or special characters if they’re included in your brand name.

Smart City Week returns with a new edition focusing on digital inclusion

Posted on by Ana Tapia

The third edition of Smart City Week is being held from 9 to 15 November with the slogan ‘Reconnecting Barcelona: City, Society and Technology’. Jointly organised with the municipal foundation BIT Habitat, the programme includes over thirty free online activities reflecting on digital inclusion in the city, a priority for improving the situation of people for whom technology is still a barrier.

This edition broadens its outlook to open up the debate to citizens and analyse the opportunities offered by technological advances for fairer, more sustainable and more inclusive cities.

The activities being offered include lectures, debates, exhibitions, documentaries and initiatives for families, with three itineraries providing the common thread for the programme:

  • The city we see: activities relating to access to technology, connected spaces and the explanation of urban space.
  • The city we don’t see: infrastructures which make digital interaction possible, linked to related activities through an explanation of the digital city and skills acquisition.
  • The city we imagine: the city of the future, presenting activities linked to the innovation ecosystem and the projection of the future.

BIT Habitat, the urban innovation centre housed in Ca l’Alier, is also inaugurating an exhibition on the digital divide. Under the slogan ‘An analogical vision of digital inequality’, the display explores the race towards total digitalisation.

Renewed your .barcelona domain yet?

Posted on by Ana Tapia

When you register any internet domain you do so for a specific period of time, normally a year. Once that period expires, if you don’t renew the domain it becomes available so that any other interested party can register it.

How do I know when my domain expires?

The user panel with your registration company displays the date of purchase and the expiry date of your .barcelona domain, as well as any other services contracted with them (hosting, personalised email etc.). You can also renew your .barcelona domain from the panel and keep it active for your website and/or email.

It’s important to understand that you don’t need to wait until the last minute to renew your .barcelona domain. It can be renewed in advance without forfeiting the period in between. For example, if your domain expires on 10 January 2021, you can renew it now and it will remain active until 10 January 2022. This means you will never lose out on the time your domain is valid for or be at risk of losing it.


I’ve got a discount code for renewal. When can I use it?

If you got a discount code from one of the .barcelona promotions you need to bear two things in mind:

  1. Whether your registration company is one of those which accepts the discount code.
  2. Whether the code is still valid and hasn’t expired.

Don’t leave it until the last minute and renew your domain to take advantage of the discount code.

Reflections shared with over sixteen thousand people in the Biennial of Thought 2020

Posted on by Ana Tapia

The second edition of the Biennial of Thought further established it as a central event in the promotion of culture and participation in the city, offering an opportunity for dialogue and reflection on the challenges of the future and covering various topics such as climate change, the technological revolution, democracy, science and feminism.

Health and safety measures were in place at all activities and at all venues during the Biennial, ensuring that the full programme could be completed. On-site attendances averaged 75%, with over sixteen thousand people participating in all. In addition, the +Biennal section offered forty more activities promoted by organisations to bring debate and reflection to the whole city.

In terms of activities at the Biennial for people to follow from home, activities streamed on the website attracted nearly ten thousand viewers. The event which attracted the most viewers, both live and rebroadcast, was ‘The Planet’s Voices’, with Vinciane Despret, Antoine Bertin, Donna Haraway, Maria Arnal, Irene Solà and Maria Sánchez. The session was viewed over 1,800 times.

All the activities streamed live over the six days of the Biennial can been viewed on the ‘Open City’ website.

Choosing the best registrar for your .barcelona domain

Posted on by Ana Tapia

If you want to register a .barcelona domain you need to use a domain name registrar. There are currently over 25 companies offering .barcelona domains, but what do you need to consider when choosing the best registrar for your domain?

If you check our price comparison, you’ll see that the cost of the domain varies greatly from one registrar to another. This may be due to the various services that come with the domain registration. Depending on your requirements, you may only need the domain registration, or you may want to include other services.


DNS: This service manages the Domain Name System and translates domain names to IP addresses. It allows for the creation of sub-domains and forwarding. All registrars include this service as it is essential for anyone wishing to have a website.

DNS SEC: Some registrars offer DNS SEC, an innovative technology whereby encryption provides added security for the domain. This is recommended for anybody requiring their website to perform electronic transactions or handle sensitive information.

Hosting: With the registration of the .barcelona domain, some registrars include space for hosting information used on the domain: text, images, videos etc. If you want the domain to have a website, you need hosting. This service can be contracted directly with the domain registrar or from different website editors such as WordPress, who also offer hosting. The space offered varies from one registrar to another, so take into account the volume of information you want on your website to see what hosting you will need. 

Email: This is the number of available mailboxes you want for your domain, for example correu@elteudomini.barcelona. Email addresses with your own domain help you create your own digital identity under you own domain. There are currently various registrars offering between 1 and 3 mailboxes. Decide whether you need a generic email address or whether you need various addresses for your domain (useful for small businesses or organisations where there are various people or departments).
Statistics: Some registrars offer the possibility of viewing data or graphics relating to the domain’s performance (number of visits, duration, dates etc.). This is an alternative to services such as Google Analytics, allowing you to discover the content which attracts the most interest on your website and the type of people who visit it.

Finally, the price comparison also includes information on customer support provided by each registrar (phone, chat or email), their contact hours and the languages in which they can attend to you.

.stockholm, a domain to explain the reality of the city on the internet

Posted on by Ana Tapia

How to transfer over 3,000 website pages to a city domain.

Stockholm City Council has been working to revamp the stockholm.se website, with over 3,000 pages and thousands of documents and links, and transform it into start.stockholm.

The ICANN approved the .stockholm domain in 2015. In contrast to other city domains such as .barcelona, .berlin and .london, Stockholm opted from the outset to make the .stockholm domain exclusive for its City Council’s digital resources and for some cases of interest, such as important events in Stockholm.

When it came to designing their new website, they took user experience and common browsing patterns into account.  The same space allows citizens to access different services in the city. If somebody wants to apply to enrol their child at a nursery, they can also access the healthcare service for the care of a family member. Once the sections were chosen, they created their own .stockholm domains, all accessible from start.stockholm.

The first two sections, or websites, to be up and running were the nursery section (forskola.stockholm) and the care of the elderly section (aldreomsorg.stockholm) at the end of December 2018.

The migration of all the information to the .stockholm domains concluded on 29 January with the publication of the website start.stockholm. In under a month this has become the top result when anybody searches for Stockholm.