Jimmy Requa Web Site - E-mail ideas

Your Own Permanent E-mail Address

Where you get your e-mail and what your e-mail address is has nothing to do with where you buy your Internet service and who your ISP is. Most people don't know that and go through the hassle of changing their e-mail address when they change Internet service or when their service goes out of business and their account gets bought by somebody else. The following is confusing and hard to believe for many people, but I'm telling you, it's true:
Just like your web browser connects to computers all over the Internet to get web content, your e-mail program can go to computers all over the Internet to get e-mail. Well, you probably only want one e-mail address, but still, it can be anywhere.

There's more. Many people use their ISP e-mail address and a Hotmail or Yahoo address. One because it came with their Internet service and the other because it works from a browser. That gives them the worst of both worlds. The ISP address is bad because it may change over time and the other one is bad because you get loads of advertising and spam.

Here's what I'm getting to: You can get a single address that will be good as long as you want it with a company that won't send you any advertising and won't sell your information to others and you can use this address for all your correspondence, both from home via your e-mail program and from other computers via their web browsers. It will give you access to mail sent to it and to your ISP e-mail account at the same time.

Here's how.

The best way is not the most expensive way. It is to buy your own domain name. You can do this for about $9 per year. You'll have it as long as you want it and you control it completely. I, for example, bought the requa.net domain and have the jimmy@requa.net address. There are variations on this (both cheaper and more expensive) that give you various features such as more addresses and even your own website.

My next recommendation is a service called myrealbox owned by Novell and used to showcase their latest technology.

There are several ways the service can work:

They can hold your mail for you to pick up with a web browser. This lets you use any computer to get mail.
They can hold your mail for you to pick up from their POP3 server. This lets you get mail onto your own computer.
They can forward your mail wherever you say. This lets you get your mail if are using a service that can't run standard mail programs (Get a new ISP if that's so).
Along with that, they can pick up mail from other accounts such as the account you get from your ISP.

It's free and they give you all sorts of goodies.

An expensive but nice service is netaddress for $40 per year. You get lots of nice features, and an @usa.net address.

The first time I switched Internet Service Providers and realized I was going to have to send change of address notices to more people than I could find, I signed up and got requa@usa.net which seemed easy for people to remember. It was free in those days. I'll be dropping it when renewal time comes.

There are many ways to do these things. If you get stuck and need help or just want more advice, write to me. I'll be glad to help.