One email address for life?

I am attempting to have the same email forever so that I don't have to periodically update my address when my ISP goes belly-up (like @home did last year). Also, I am reluctant to use my work address in case my employer decides that it would best if I found employment elsewhere. If you're working in any field remotely related to technology today, that's a very distinct possibility, if it hasn't happened to you already. I decided to try to maintain a single, consistent email address by having a unique domain name that belongs to me and isn't related to any business. The domain name is the part of your email address that contains the 'company.com' part. In my case, it's k0lee.com. The character after the 'k' is a zero and it's my ham radio callsign so it's unlikely that anyone will claim that I'm squatting on a domain name that rightfully belongs to them. You can register your domain with any number of companies whose job it is to provide this domain name to a large database stored on domain name servers (known as DNS's) so that email can be routed to you. Many of these companies have 'value added' services that allow you to forward your email to a 'pop' server which is the place that holds your email until you retrieve it. You can change the forwarding destination whenever you need to change ISPs which is as common as changing socks for many people. You can also have your email forwarded to multiple addresses, if necessary. A feature in Outlook Express and most email programs allow you to change your 'reply to' address so that even if you're mailing from an ISP like msn.com, it will still come up as you@yourname.com when people 'reply to' or add you to their email address books. Incidentally, just about everything I mention here doesn't apply to AOL which is a world unto itself. They have many features that are intended to prevent you from ever getting away from them.

The three things I wanted from my home email service were: 1.) Email forwarding 2.) Web accessibility so I could check or respond to email using a browser from anywhere and 3.) POP access so I could use Outlook express to access the mailbox which is much more convenient than a web browser interface when I'm at home.

In reality, I have several email addresses. One is for work, of course. One is my 'official' home address and only my friends or legitimate businesses get this address which is 'my name' @k0lee.com. I don't post this on any websites or any place that a spambot could pick it up. I expect to see only mail I genuinely want to receive in that mailbox. The other home address is a free hotmail address that I use so that I don't have to give out my real address to just anyone who needs it. I post this address freely all over my website. Hotmail does a decent job at filtering out spam, which accounts for about 90% of the email I get at that address and puts it in a special 'junk mail' folder. I still have to check that folder since it's not perfect and occasionally (~2% of the time) puts a legitimate email in there. Even with the filtering, about half of the mail that lands in my Inbox is unwanted. But like I mentioned, this mailbox is one that I post everywhere so it gets lots of offers to fix bad credit, showing me how to spy on people, enhancing certain body parts, and many other things that I'd rather not mention.

An alternative to getting a domain name is to get a forwarding service. Many of these are free, and they are usually related to organizations trying to build name recognition for themselves. Many university alumni programs have email forwarding, as long as you keep up your membership to the alumni club. Sometimes professional organizations will offer it as a benefit. I use these occasionally myself and they appear to work fine, except I know they will go away as soon as I stop paying my $40/yr membership fee. You can get your own domain name for as little as $20/year and you won't have to worry about the forwarding organization spamming you. Some offer email forwarding services for free, but I am always wary of free services on the Internet. If they don't have a business model, they won't be around for too long. Also, I've learned that nothing is really free, it's always included in the price of something else which means that somehow you'll pay for free stuff, most likely in the form of inconvenience.