I've been using the internet since 1995, and since then have gone through 20 or more different e-mail addresses. I've had one's provided for me in school, ISP addresses, and of course have used web based versions like Yahoo!, Hotmail, GMail and most recently MobileMe. Now maybe this is because I have OCD (not officially, but I'm sure I do) but I've never ever been happy with any of them. They've annoyed me in many different ways, ISP emails have included very long domain's (@warp.nfld.net & @nf.sympatico.ca), I've never trusted emails provided by schools to be secure and private, and usually my main complaint with web based email is that I can never get the username I want, I'm usually stuck with adding random numbers to the end of my name.
Up until 2008, GMail was the best I had ever found. It's spam filter was far superior than anything I had ever used, it's interface and features was much, much better than what I had experienced with Hotmail or Yahoo!, plus ads, which are always going to be present with anything free on the internet wasn't in your face, it is artfully put in a place where it doesn't get in the way of using it. I should have been happy, right?
But I wasn't, as I mentioned earlier I couldn't find the username I wanted. Steven Davis is a rather popular name, so I was forced to add numbers at the end. This bothered me far more than it should have, given the awesome feature-set GMail has.
Then along came Apple's MobileMe. I had an iPhone & the though of true pushed email intrigued me. Plus, since it was a new service & it cost $100/year the name I wanted was available, without numbers! Beyond the email it also allowed me to back-up application data of various apps on my iPhone, which was very important to me. I didn't have a Mac at the time, so syncing to desktop versions of apps like OmniFocus (GTD, todo list app) wasn't possible. I had extra cash last summer, and given all of these features and the pretty looking online interface I made the purchase. I finally got what I wanted, I definitely should be happy now... right? Not bloody likely.
I missed GMail, plus MobileMe tends to only work when it wants to, it's much improved from the early days but it still has it's issues. I don't really know how to put this other than saying MobileMe lacks pretty much all the "geeky" features that everyone loves with GMail.
Then a few weeks ago, the sky opened and the lord spoke to me. Not really. It was just an old archived blog entry at lifehacker.com about Google Apps for Your Domain. Basically it allows you to add Google provided applications like GMail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs to your domain, plus you don't even need a hosting plan for a website, you just need to purchase a domain. At this point I don't really need a web hosting plan, I'd like one, but right now I just don't have the extra cash for it, since I'm in school. So i picked up a domain at GoDaddy.com for around $15/year signed up for Google's service, went through the relatively simple set-up process and it was done. It took less then a half hour of actual work, and now I have a GMail email but using my domain. For example: samplemail@stevend.ca .
So now I've got everything I wanted. The domain is short, all the GMail features, and any user name I want. It's amazing. And now that Google is offering full exchange support for contacts & calendars it's gotten even better. I suspect email exchange is coming soon, but for now IMAP on my iPhone is perfectly fine! I'd recommend this to anyone and everyone! Google's services is compeltly free (there is a pro version, but I have no need for that), so all it's going to cost you is the cost of a domain!
Have fun trying this stuff out! I'd aslo like to thank David for giving me the opportunity to write on his social blog! If you're interested in reading more of my stuff or following me on twitter I can be found here:
http://stevend.ca
http://twitter.com/stevendavis
Anna Fox