Mar 11, 2008

MAGID ON TECH: A revolving door of e-mail addresses

By Larry Magid / Daily News Columnist

I have a friend who has changed e-mail addresses three times in the last several years. First he had a work address, but that went away when he left his job. Then he switched to AOL for a while, until he got a DSL line from what used to be called SBC. Last week I got another e-mail from him saying that he's now at Comcast.net.

For years my e-mail address was magid@latimes.com, but don't write to me there. I lost that address shortly after I stopped writing for the Los Angeles Times in 2002.

I have an e-mail address at cbsnews.com, but I don't give that out outside of CBS because, as much as I love being CBS' technology analyst, I don't know if that might change in the future. One thing that won't change is my name, which is also now my e-mail address: larry@larrymagid.com.

Having my own "domain" is surprisingly affordable - it costs only $10.19 a year to maintain larrymagid.com and I pay nothing for the best e-mail service I've ever used.

To get your own address all you need to do is register the domain with any registrar that's accredited by ICANN - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. You can get a complete list of registrars at http://tinyurl.com/y7827r, but shop carefully. Registrar's pricing and services vary widely. I have been very happy with GoDaddy.com because of its price ($10.19 a year or cheaper if you register for multiple years) and excellent 24/7 service. GKN.net, which is also quite good, is slightly less expensive.

These and many other registrars will forward your mail to any address you choose. For an extra fee these companies can host your Web site, but you can also host a site elsewhere or use the company's free forwarding service to have your Web address (URL) forwarded to another site, including a free page you can set up on social networking or blogging sites like MySpace, Facebook or Blogger.com. So you can not only get e-mail at your own domain, but have a Web presence too. Or you can use your domain for e-mail only and not bother with a Web site.

Of course you don't have to use your name for your domain - you can use any available string of characters and if your name is relatively common, it's possible that someone else might have registered that domain. I have also registered radiolarry.com, pcanswer.com and several other domains. You can also reach me at larry@radiolarry.com.

And speaking of e-mail addresses, by publishing my e-mail address I just violated one of the cardinal rules of avoiding spam, which leads me to my next point.

Although I could purchase a mailbox to receive my mail through GoDaddy or GKK, I've found a better way, which happens to be free. I use these services to forward all my mail to a Gmail account. Gmail, which is operated by Google, is one of several free Web-based e-mail services. I use Gmail mainly because it has incredibly good spam filters - so good that I'm not nervous about giving out my e-mail address to the public. Gmail also gives you a very large inbox and the ability to quickly search for mail, no matter how long ago it arrived. I don't give out my actual Gmail address because I don't want people writing me there. Besides, if I later switch e-mail services, I can just change the forwarding address and get that mail on whatever service I use. Gmail can be configured to use another e-mail address for outgoing mail so even when I send mail from Gmail it still uses my larrymagid.com address.

Gmail users can access their mail online at gmail.com, but can also use any e-mail program. Accessing mail via program can be more convenient, allows you to read it when you're not online and doesn't display any ads. I sometimes do check my mail at Gmail.com, but I also use Microsoft Outlook as well as Mozilla's excellent free Thunderbird e-mail program that works on Mac, Windows and Linux. And that brings me to my next point.

For you to access your Gmail from an e-mail program you need to first configure Gmail to allow for POP (Post Office Protocol) or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). Gmail has long supported POP, but has recently added IMAP.

The difference between POP and IMAP is that POP simply sends a copy of your mail to the program while IMAP actually synchronizes your mail between the Web site and whatever program or programs you use to access it. With IMAP enabled, you see the same inbox, sent mailbox and other folders regardless of how you access your mail. So what I see using Outlook on my desktop is the same as what I see using Thunderbird on my notebook PC or Gmail from a cyber cafe. If I delete a message in one place, it's deleted in all the others. If I move a message to an e-mail folder from my desktop machine, it's automatically moved to the same folder on my laptop or on the Web. It's actually a very powerful way to manage your mail.

There is one drawback to IMAP, but there's a fix for that. One of the best things about Gmail is that it archives your messages but if you use IMPAP and delete them from a PC, it deletes them on Gmail, which defeats the purpose of the archival system. The solution is to set up two Gmail accounts - one that you use to access from a PC or Mac and the other that simply archives your mail. You can have your registrar forward your mail to both accounts or you can use Gmail's forwarding system to have one of your accounts forward your mail to your other account. I've been using Gmail since 2004 and can actually find mail going back that far.

As the proud owner of larrymagid.com, I'm a master of my own domain. And thanks to Gmail, I can get my mail free of charge and (almost) free of spam.