Oct 29
future proof your email address
I am still amazed by the number of people I meet who have an email address associated with their ISP - even if they've moved from that ISP to better things. I myself had the email address christopher.brind@virgin.net for many years, even after migrating to various ISPs.
It occurred to me that I really needed to future proof my email address and this is how:- Go to a domain reseller that allows you to manage email forwarding, I use http://www.123-reg.co.uk - they are relatively cheap, reliable, have good customer service and give me full control over my domain's DNS settings
- Find a domain that you fancy and can afford the repeat payments on ... my email address is brindy at brindy dot org uk and costs me about 5 quid a year
- Update the email catch all for the domain to forward to your favourite email provider ... I use Google Mail which lets me send emails from any number of email addresses that I own
So say that Google Mail shuts down - an unlikely scenario today, but who knows what will come along in 5 or 10 years. Because I own the domain I can quite quickly shift the email forwarding to someone else without ever having change my email address.
