How Not To Setup A Spam Zombie (Google Apps for You Domain)
Owning a domain name is one thing, but putting it to use is an entirely different matter. During my final year of University I spent up big for my own little place on the Interweb; smoiled.com. Up until now I have tried and failed to make something with this name for countless reasons. One major obstacle that has popped up time and again was a lack to anywhere to host a server to do all the things I had dreamt; mail, web hosting, off-site storage etc. When my dad's business upgraded their Internet link to broadband with a nice static IP, I took the opportunity to experiment with setting up a website and running a mail server. To this day the website continues (not that dad knows this) however the mail server failed miserably after it was turned into a spam zombie. Ever since I have been reluctant to try again as I didn't consider the ability to manage my own e-mail accounts worth the hassle. The knowledge remained though that one day I would try again, and when I discovered Google Apps for Your Domain (GAFYD), my dream was finally made reality.
The first time I came across GAFYD it sounded a little too good to be true. Although it was only in a restricted beta back then, the promise of managing smoiled.com e-mail addresses within gMail type system drew me in and I sent in my invite request. A couple of days later I was rewarded with an account and instructions for configuring my name server settings. Within 15 minutes I had my admin account up and running and sent out a test e-mail to my personal gMail address. Everything worked as promised and I sat back, once again, in awe of Google. Seamlessly, GAFYD was able to redirect my mail traffic to its own servers and dish it up as gMail. This was exactly what I had been hoping for, a hosted mail solution that I have full control over and for the best price ever... free!
In the true sense of Google, the GAFYD service is not limited to mail but also includes a calendar, instant messenger and a basic page creator. Although I am yet to try out the messenger and page creator, I have definitely had time to play with the mail and calendaring solutions. As could be expected, these are identical to gMail and gCal right down to the sharing and forwarding options. To make management of these accounts and my personal accounts that much easier I decided to get everything headed to the same place. As I have been using Google Homepage, it only made sense to have as much as possible integrated here. One limitation of GAFYD is that it does not offer the homepage solution of a basic gMail account, which meant that my personal account would need to act as a central point. After a bit more work I had all smoiled mail forwarded to gMail, permission to send as a smoiled user in the personal account and all calendars displayed and editable from the one page.
Google Apps for Your Domain provides a service that I have been dreaming of for a number of years. It takes everything that has made gMail and associated services popular and puts the power in your hands. For any personal domains or even small businesses starting out with online I would highly recommend looking at using GAFYD in some manner. Taking advantage of these services can make setting up your own online presence a hell of a lot easier.
Categories: Web2.0, Mail, Calendar, Google, Hosted
The first time I came across GAFYD it sounded a little too good to be true. Although it was only in a restricted beta back then, the promise of managing smoiled.com e-mail addresses within gMail type system drew me in and I sent in my invite request. A couple of days later I was rewarded with an account and instructions for configuring my name server settings. Within 15 minutes I had my admin account up and running and sent out a test e-mail to my personal gMail address. Everything worked as promised and I sat back, once again, in awe of Google. Seamlessly, GAFYD was able to redirect my mail traffic to its own servers and dish it up as gMail. This was exactly what I had been hoping for, a hosted mail solution that I have full control over and for the best price ever... free!
In the true sense of Google, the GAFYD service is not limited to mail but also includes a calendar, instant messenger and a basic page creator. Although I am yet to try out the messenger and page creator, I have definitely had time to play with the mail and calendaring solutions. As could be expected, these are identical to gMail and gCal right down to the sharing and forwarding options. To make management of these accounts and my personal accounts that much easier I decided to get everything headed to the same place. As I have been using Google Homepage, it only made sense to have as much as possible integrated here. One limitation of GAFYD is that it does not offer the homepage solution of a basic gMail account, which meant that my personal account would need to act as a central point. After a bit more work I had all smoiled mail forwarded to gMail, permission to send as a smoiled user in the personal account and all calendars displayed and editable from the one page.
Google Apps for Your Domain provides a service that I have been dreaming of for a number of years. It takes everything that has made gMail and associated services popular and puts the power in your hands. For any personal domains or even small businesses starting out with online I would highly recommend looking at using GAFYD in some manner. Taking advantage of these services can make setting up your own online presence a hell of a lot easier.
Categories: Web2.0, Mail, Calendar, Google, Hosted
posted by Adam at 8:53 PM
2 Comments:
hi, just would like to know how you configure your POP/SMTP account on GAFYD using your personal domain? thanks for the reply.
I have tried out POP briefly, but I tend to work directly online out of gmail/hotmail or whatever. I do though like to have all of my mail redirected to one account and so have configured forwarding to send copies of all mail to my main gmail account. The settings for this are under 'Settings > Forwarding and POP'. From what I have tried though, the POP service works identically to standard gmail, only you have to enter your @domain.com address instead of @gmail.com.
Hope that helps
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home