Email Advice

surfergirl_3

Hi,

Hubby has recently started his own business, its not an online business but he needs email quite a lot, We have the phone through Talk Talk along with the broadband (I know, i can hear you groaning)but it was the cheapest and money is tight when you start up.

Question is the e mail seem to take forever to arrive ( though not always) and customers have had them bounced back cause the server had timed out?
So if we were to get our own domain name, and point it to our ISP would the service be better? Sorry i dont understand how all this works!

We have also seen the small business section on Google with email and shared calenders which would be useful to us, has anyone any experience of this.

Would the Google thing be a short term fix and should we be looking further ahead, as i dont no whether this would restrict us if say in the future we wanted our own web site.

Sorry to ask all these questions, but i feel we need to get it right and hopefully with all you clever people out there we will.

Thanks in advance

Surfergirl

superscaper

If the ISP is the problem then I don't think forwarding to the same ISP is going to make any difference. You want your email account to have nothing to do with your ISP (I'm on Talktalk as well but I'd never use their email servers to receive). If you get your own domain forward it to another email account such as gmail which is free and requires no downloading. You could also have your domain hosted (but this would be an additional cost) which would mean that you don't need to forward the email as the domain email would be an account in its own right that can be accessed and downloaded.

surfergirl_3

Thanks Superscraper,

Thats kinda explained what i thought, everyone kept saying get your own domain and point it to your ISP, but i thought we are still going down the same route, but as i say i dont really understand all this.

I believe i can register a domain name through G.mail, have you any experince of this?

Cheers

Surfergirl

superscaper

Not personally (I have both gmail accounts and my own domains but they're completely separate). I'm sure someone with personal experience will post.

surfergirl_3

Anyone used the small business section on Google for mail, calendar etc.(see original posting)

Cheers

Surfergirl

Terrylw1

Hi Surfergirl,

I use my email accounts for business use and I regularily send large mails & databases back and forth without any of these problems. I'm guessing that my mails would be much bigger as you wouldn't be sending zipped databases around with a lot of table data??? So, it sounds like a problem with your ISP.

Could it be a problem with the options you have set in the timeout section in dial up options in explorer? Maybe its set to timeout very quickly by mistake?

Also, as others have pointed out in these forums, you may lose your emial addresses if you wish to transfer provider in the future which may be a big problem for you. Getting your own domain will mean you can keep it no matter when or where you transfer as you own it whilst you pay for it. Also, you could have your company name in the mail then which is good.

I wouldn't go with a domain just to sort the timing out issue though as it sounds like your ISP or PC to me.

Good luck with the new business.

unrich

If you get a domain you will need to have it hosted.

The cheapest ways of doing this do NOT include a SMTP server. This is the bit that allows you to send an email. They rely on you having an SMTP server from your internet provider i.e. you send your mail using your tesco ISP account with a "reply to" of your hosted domain name account.

If your ISP is good (resonable email support) then you could initially register and host your domain through a free host who will simply forward your mail to your ISP account (e.g. a43gty@broadband.isp.blueyounder12.net).

You can pay to have the domain hosted and pay for email services including SMPT server. This is more expensive but may include spam filtering.

You may want a website in the future and your domain hoster may be able to provide this.

As a guide I have my domain hosted for wife and I. We have easy email addresses myname@something.co.uk My wife seems to be on the active spam registers and I have signed her account up for antispam. We get webmail accessible from any computer and SMTP server. Its about £30 for a year's hosting and email and £30 for anti spam.

I have a couple of other throwaway accounts for logging on to spam rich areas like forums and the like.

superscaper

unrich wrote: »

If you get a domain you will need to have it hosted.

Not necessarily. You can use it just to forward emails to another address. As I mentioned just a simple gmail account for example. Most registrars offer free forwarding.