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Tut-Tech-AH 3/4/2000 16:55 Page 6

MAY TUTOR ■
EMAIL FOREVER

email
that’s forever
Your email address is one of the most important things that you can own; allowing countless num-
bers of people to keep in contact with you. If you’ve ever known someone who’s changed their email
address, you know how frustrating this can be: unless that person contacts you, chances are you
have lost them in the ether. Don’t let it happen to you: make sure your email address is for life.

any situations can cause your nicknames for quick typing of recipient

M email address to change. Per-


haps your Internet service
provider (ISP) was bought
out or you decided to change to a new
email addresses, spam suppression and
email reminders. It’s a free service.
Bigfoot is a forwarding service only;
there is no Web access. email forward-
provider with better features. If your ing solves the permanent address prob-
email address is linked to your work or lem by forwarding your messages to
school, you will lose it when you change the POP3 mailbox supplied by your
jobs or graduate. The more heavily you current ISP. Instead of giving out your
rely on email to communicate with the POP3 address, you give your forward-
world at large, the more inconvenient an ing service address. If your POP3 ad-
email address change is. dress changes, you simply change the
Ultimately, the only way to really en- forwarding address used by the service.
s u re that your email address never Bigfoot can filter incoming email and,
changes is to register your own domain depending on the subject or message
name. The two other approaches are content, reject it or distribute it to one
Web-based email and email forward- or more POP3 mailboxes. It also lets
ing. Hundreds of sites provide these you distribute copies of your email to
services, but you must choose careful- multiple email addresses. A free ser-
ly. You want a service that is extreme- vice, Bigfoot also offers an auto-re-
ly reliable and likely to be in business sponder for answering email while
for the long term. If the service you you’re away, spam suppression and
choose goes under, your email address will vices offer an email forwarding option or let email reminders.
die with it. you access your email using POP3 email
Web-based email provides a permanent programs. Hotmail, the first Web-based email VANITY NAMES
address because it’s ISP-independent. The service and still the biggest, lets you access If you’re going to keep an email address
only software you need is a browser. The your Web-based email off-line if you use for the rest of your life, it’s nice if it suits you.
downside is that access is slower than with Outlook Express 5. Other services (discussed If you don’t want to go through the trouble
conventional POP3 email that you download below) let you use any POP3 email pro- of registering your own domain name—or
and read off-line. But most Web-based ser- gram. Hotmail also offers a “QuickList” of if all the ones you like are taken—you can

86 May 2000 www.DITnet .co.ae ■ www.pcmag -mideast.com


Tut-Tech-AH 3/4/2000 16:55 Page 7

■ MAY TUTOR
EMAIL FOREVER

use a vanity email service. These services


collect domain names and let you choose
among them when picking a permanent
email address. Hotmail users will always
have hotmail.com addresses, and Bigfoot
users will always have bigfoot.com ad-
dresses. But users of vanity sites can select
from dozens of names and choose one that
has meaning to them.
The vanity email service provider Mail.com
lets you choose from over 100 domain
names. There are career names like sociol-
ogist, techie and umpire, or continent names
such as USA, E u rope, Asia and India.
Mail.com is advertiser supported and the
basic service—Web-based email and for-
warding—is free to users. The Web-based
email has so many advertisements that per-
formance is rather slow, so you’ll probably MyOwnEmail offers free Web-based email, but for-
want to use forwarding. If you don’t have a Bigfoot has no Web-based email. It’s strictly a for- warding costs $1.95 per month. There is no POP3
POP3 account to forward your mail to, you warding service. The Members page describes the access. The FreeDrive feature gives you 50MB of
three available forwarding options. The service is Internet accessible space for backup or file
can upgrade to POP3 access of your Web- advertiser supported and free to users. sharing.
based mail. This works with any POP3 email
program and costs $39.95 per year or $3.95
per month. Mail.com, which was originally Vanity Email (www.vanityemail.com), you. So, for example, you could register the
called iName.com, powers a number of oth- doesn’t offer Web-based email—just for- domain name TheSmith Household (as-
er Web-based email services, including warding and POP3 access—and there is a fee suming it’s available) and then set up sep-
AltaVista. for the service. Forwarding costs $29 per arate mailboxes for every family member.
Mail.com has competitors in the vanity year or $19 for six months. You can for- Another, cheaper, approach is catch-all email
email category, but not as many as you ward copies of email messages to any num- aliasing, where all email sent to the do-
would think. The best ones started collect- ber of email addresses. POP3 access, which main—no matter what name is used—is
ing domain names a few years ago, because includes forwarding plus 5MB of storage, forwarded to a single POP3 mailbox.
most of the good ones are now taken. An- costs $60 per year or $35 for six months Until June 1999, Network Solutions (NSI),
other service that’s been around for a while and works with any POP3 email program. as operator of the US government-owned In-
is MyOwnEmail (www.myownemail.com). There is also an auto-responder feature and ternic (www.internic.net), was the sole reg-
It offers more than 200 domain names in var- a spam filter. istrar for domain names ending in .com,
ious categories. MyOwnEmail doesn’t have Vanity Email offers only 48 domain names, .net and .org. Now, the domain name sys-
typical extras like spam blocking or email re- but they’re good ones. For example, you’ll tem has been opened up to competition.
minders, but it includes a ShoutMail.com find fisherman, skydiver, skater and soccer- You can obtain a list of accredited registrars
account for accessing email by phone, as mom. Most interestingly, you can use Van- at www.icann.org. Companies not on this list
well as 50MB of Internet accessible space ity Email’s services with your own domain can sell domain names as resellers, but only
from FreeDrive.com. You can access your name—one you have registered yourself. If accredited registrars can actually register a
email on the Web or pay $1.95 per month you don’t already have a domain name, you domain name.
to have your mail forwarded. There is no can register one through the Vanity Email site The US government-set pricing for do-
POP3 access. for a $50 setup fee, in addition to the stan- main name registration was $70 for two
The original vanity email service, called dard registration charges. years and $35 per year thereafter. Most reg-
istrars continue to use this traditional price
YOUR OWN DOMAIN structure, but a few have dropped their fees
Registering your own domain name is the slightly. Some offer additional services, such
only way to be truly sure your email ad- as domain email and Web hosting. N S I
dress never changes, because the name be- (www.networksolutions.com) has launched
longs to you and not to a service. There are a domain email service called dot com mail.
two parts to the process. First comes the For $169 for two years, you get one Web ad-
actual registration, which involves filling dress, one dot com mailbox (which includes
out a form and paying a fee. But that’s just three aliases) and one dot com “biz card” (a
the beginning. Someone has to host your do- one page Web site). Each additional mailbox
main email. You’re probably not interested costs $60 per year. The email service is both
in maintaining your own mail server, so the Web-based and POP3-accessible and offers
solution is a virtual domain that’s hosted by 10MB of disk space, spam blocking, nick-
a service. Because anyone can host your names and auto-forwarding to multiple mail-
Mail.com has a feature rich Web email interface, domain and you can change hosts at will, boxes.
but its many advertisements make access slow. domain email truly provides email for life. The first of NSI’s competitors, register.com,
Email forwarding is free, but POP3 access costs If you own the domain, any email ad- also offers domain email services. Powered
$39.95 per year.
dressed to a name at that domain will get to by usa.net, the service is aimed at business

www.DITnet .co.ae ■ www.pcmag -mideast.com May 2000 87


Tut-Tech-AH 3/4/2000 16:55 Page 8

MAY TUTOR ■
EMAIL FOREVER

but virtual domain hosting. One of the best


is HalfPrice Hosting (www.halfpricehost-
ing.com), which offers a wide range of ser-
vices at cut-rate prices. The Beginner plan
is $99 per year with a $50 setup fee, and Half-
Price Hosting pays the registrar’s fees. It of-
fers a very rich set of features, including an
unlimited number of POP3 mailboxes, catch-
all email aliasing, email forwarding and
auto-responding.
Another good host is 123 HostMe (www
.hostme.com). There is no setup fee for do-
main name registration. The registrar will bill
you the standard fee of $70 for two years.
There are a number of hosting plans; the
cheapest costs $23.50 per month with a $20
setup fee. This includes ten POP3 aliases.
You can search for domain hosts that meet
specific re q u i rements at http://web-
hostlist.com, www.hottesthosts.com and
www.hostcompare.com. For information
on what to look for in a domain host, see our
story “Get Online with a Web Host,” Janu-
ary 2000.

WHICH WAY TO GO
As you can see, there are many approach-
es to setting up a permanent email address.
The best choice for you depends on your cir-
cumstances. If you don’t own a computer
and rely on Internet cafes and libraries for
access, then Hotmail—as the premier Web-
customers. For $29 per year, you get Web- fee, which does not include the registrar based email service—is the best choice. If
based email with POP3 access, spell-check- fees. you have the opposite problem and juggle
ing, read-receipt service, auto-responders, EarthLink, another US ISP, offers domain multiple email accounts, a high powered
signatures and more. You can continue to hosting for $19.95 per month plus a $25 set- forwarding service such as Bigfoot may be
use the service even if you later switch to an- up fee. Or, if you only want the email and the best solution.
other domain host. don’t need a Web site, you can use their If you want an email address with more in-
“domain parking” service. This reserves the dividuality than Hotmail or Bigfoot but you
YOUR FRIENDLY ISP domain name but keeps the Web site inac- don’t want the trouble or expense of regis-
If you go directly to an accredited registrar tive. Users navigating to the site will see an tering a domain name, then a vanity email
to register your domain name, you’ll avoid “under construction” message. But you can service is a good option. The ones with the
additional service charges. But unless you still use domain email services with a parked best domain names are Mail.com’s service,
use the registrar’s hosting services, which domain. Domain parking is just $4.95 per My Own Email and Vanity Email. Of these,
may not meet your needs, you’ll have to fill month with a $40 setup fee, and catch-all Mail.com’s service offers the best value, with
out some forms that may confuse you. You email is $2.95 per month with a $4.95 set- free Web email and free forwarding.
can avoid this if you choose a host and then up fee. Additional mailboxes entail a slight- If you want to use your own registered do-
register your domain name through the host. ly higher fee. For details, go to www.earth- main name, you have a blizzard of options.
Many ISPs provide virtual hosting services, link.net/business/email. Like MindSpring, Which one you choose depends on whether
and some US national ISPs are domain name EarthLink can register your domain for you. you only want email or you want a Web
resellers, so you can register right from their Some smaller ISPs will provide catch-all site as well. If all you need is catch-all email,
sites. There is usually a setup fee, but they email for no additional fee. Separate mail- your first stop should be your ISP, since
handle all the gory details with the registrar. boxes require a multi-user account and an some ISPs provide this service for free. Oth-
MindSpring (www.mindspring.net) is a additional monthly fee, but you also get a erwise, your best bet is to register your do-
US national ISP with four levels of service Web site with your domain name. Small main name with register.com and use its
for domain hosting. The cheapest costs ISPs such as this don’t usually register the do- Web-based service with POP3 access. At
$29.95 per month for domain hosting, plus main name for you, but they will often pro- $29 per year, this is a bargain.
$5 per month for each mailbox. You can vide you with the information you need to As the Internet becomes an increasingly
have up to ten email accounts. The price also fill out the form. important part of our daily lives, a person-
includes a Web site with CGI scripting ca- alised email address that won’t change be-
pabilities and numerous other email fea- HOSTING SERVICES comes more and more desirable. But if you
tures, including forwarding and auto-re- If your ISP doesn’t offer domain hosting want one, you’d better act quickly. Domain
sponding. You also can register your domain and you don’t want to change ISPs, don’t de- names are disappearing at a record rate, so
through MindSpring. There is a $50 setup spair. There are services that do nothing reserve yours today.

REGISTER FOR COMDEX SAUDI ARABIA: GO TO WWW.COMDEX-MIDEAST.COM/SA www.DITnet .co.ae ■ www.pcmag -mideast.com

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