My internet service provider is changing again. (I'm talking about the company that connects me to the Internet — the one that has my neighborhood wired for cable modems. This website is hosted by a different outfit which thankfully doesn't change owners every twenty minutes.) In the limited time I have been connected directly to the Internet, I've gone from Mediaone to Road Runner to A.T.&T. and in a month or three, it's gonna be Comcast. Each time, the new company has changed my e-mail address…and you'd think I'd be used to that by now. Before I got a cable modem, I had an e-mail address @mcimail.com, another @compuserve.com and yet another @netcom.com. This is all in addition to my addresses @aol.com, prodigy.com and Hotmail. Hard to believe my "whereabouts" on the Internet could keep changing while I remained in the same chair in the same office.
Even though some (not all) of these companies forwarded mail for a time, it has always been a royal pain in the gluteus maximus to change addresses. Fortunately, the last few relocations were painless, thanks to my personal domain. For the benefit of a few friends who don't understand the wisdom of a personal domain, I'm going to explain how this works, and I'll do so with phony names…
Charlie Witznitski has an e-mail address of witznitski17@freebish.com. This was assigned to him when he signed up with freebish.com, and all his friends know to write to him there. But then freebish.com is acquired by the massive Ferndoc Corporation, and they announce that everyone's e-mail address is going to have to change to something@ferndoc.net. In Charlie's case, since there are already 73 Witznitskis (six of them named Charlie) on ferndoc.net, he winds up with witznitski74@ferndoc.net, which is even more confusing.
To make sure this never happens again, Charlie goes out and registers the domain of witznitski.com. He declares his e-mail address will henceforth be charlie@witznitski.com. Then, with a very simple command at the I.S.P. where he has his domain parked, he sets all mail that's received at witznitski.com to forward to his real current e-mail address, witznitski74@ferndoc.net. The forwarding is invisible to those who write to Charlie. As far as they're concerned, they write to him at charlie@witznitski.com. Since Charlie owns this, it can be his permanent address. Next July, when ferndoc.net is absorbed into kreeblat.com and Charlie's local e-mail address changes again, he can just adjust witznitski.com to forward to the new address. He doesn't have to send out a jillion "change of e-mail address" notices and fear that some correspondence won't get rerouted at some point.
A further advantage of having his own domain is that Charlie can have an unlimited number of e-mail addresses @witznitski.com. He can give one address to his friends and another to businesses. When he signs up for mailing lists or has to leave an address with someone who's liable to send a lot of advertising, he can give them a special address for that stuff. Then he can set his e-mail software to check several different addresses and to perhaps filter income messages differently. He can have one e-mail address he checks once a week and another he checks several times a day. He has total control.
Many of you know about this but the other day, I was with someone who was lamenting the latest forcible change of his e-mail address and the need to send out notices. When I told him about permanent domains, he reacted like I'd cured some chronic disease…so I thought I'd mention it here in case any of you are similarly unaware and pained. If you're going to set up your own domain, I've been pretty darned happy with Dreamhost.