Domain + Email??? Help

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Starplay

267 posts

Ultimate Geek

#78857 9-Mar-2011 16:57

My mum runs a small business... and has deceided that she wants her own domain... not so much for a website... but more for the fact so that she can have emails come to @whatevershechooses.co.nz

She wants to be able to have all the emails sent to this address come through to her email and also set up a personalised account as well.. e.g melanie@whatevershechooses.co.nz and the ability to have differing usernames.

I havent had any experiance with setting up / running domains but im sure with help from you guys ill be fine... What I want to know is:

1. What is the best way to set this up?
2. How to set up the email side of it?

So basically any ideas on the best way to get this all working for her.

Oh... and what is the best way to get old emails from her xtra.co.nz account... would it be best to keep the account open and just forward them through to her new email or would she be best to have an email reply generated saying that her email is now whatever it is... Can xtra do this? Or would I need to set up the email myself?

Just let me know if any parts of it dont make sense... Im writing this in a bit of a rush... Thanks

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121 posts

Master Geek

#447017 9-Mar-2011 17:20

I personally think the best and easiest way you can achieve this is through Google Apps

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html

It's free, provides the most used apps. Multiple email support, nice and clean user-interface to use with your new domain.

Since your not hosting a website, you use the basic MX settings that Google provides you during the setup.

You need to change your DNS settings on the domain to point to the Google servers.

Everything you need to know will be here : http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=33352

Enjoy :)

rscole86

4976 posts

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#447019 9-Mar-2011 17:25

Ditto, use google aps! Works perfectly for me, my domain is only used for email atm.

I would keep the @xtra.co.nz for a while longer, but change the reply-to so it comes to your new email address, and even include that in your signature from now on.
You can decide to stop using it based on how many emails you actually get to it.

It may pay to have a simple site, so if anyone tries 'googling' due to your old xtra.co.nz nolonger working, they will hopefully still find you.

Starplay

267 posts

Ultimate Geek

#447020 9-Mar-2011 17:31

Cyris: I personally think the best and easiest way you can achieve this is through Google Apps

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html

It's free, provides the most used apps. Multiple email support, nice and clean user-interface to use with your new domain.

Since your not hosting a website, you use the basic MX settings that Google provides you during the setup.

You need to change your DNS settings on the domain to point to the Google servers.

Everything you need to know will be here : http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=33352

Enjoy :)

Sweet... Thanks for all of your help

Is there anyway to get a .co.nz as the google apps only offers .com and is it possible to have both the .com and .co.nz come to the same email?

Im guessing to get the .co.nz I will have to buy the domain from elsewhere... e.g godaddy?

Thanks

dontpanic42

1574 posts

Uber Geek

#447023 9-Mar-2011 17:41

+1 to Google Apps.
It's been a lifesaver for me. I highly recommend it.

As above, it is fairly simple to get your domain email address running through Google Apps. Yell out if you get stuck though. :)

Once you get your Google Apps account set up, you can also set up your new Google Apps account to check your old xtra.co.nz email account if you wish. Do note though, that Google Apps can only download messages from other email accounts using POP3, unfortunately no IMAP.

Is there anyway to get a .co.nz as the google apps only offers .com and is it possible to have both the .com and .co.nz come to the same email?

Definitely. All you need to do is buy the yourdomain.co.nz domain name and then set it up using Google Apps.
As for both .co.nz and .com, you would have to buy both the yourdomain.co.nz and yourdomain.com domain names for that to work. I not entirely sure how that would work with the Google Apps account, but I'm sure it would be possible somehow to point both your .co.nz and .com domains to your Google Apps account.

Any domain registrar should offer .co.nz domain registration. I have used http://www.1stdomains.co.nz in the past. They seem very good. Maybe not the cheapest around, but very easy to deal with.

Starplay

267 posts

Ultimate Geek

#447032 9-Mar-2011 18:00

Awesome... Who is it best to buy my domain through... And will the price change every year?

Cyris

121 posts

Master Geek

#447037 9-Mar-2011 18:03

Godaddy is an easy choice, besides their increase in prices last year they would be your best bet.

richms

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#447041 9-Mar-2011 18:10

Domains are so cheap that they should not factor as a cost, the .com price will convert to a different amount each year of cource, but US$10 is nothing in the scheme of things anyway. .nz are more expensive but again, nothing in the big scheme of things.

Google apps is great if you only want to use a few addresses at the domain name, they lack some options that other providers have to allow multiple addresses into one mailbox etc, but once you are using it you can learn if you can work within the limitations of what it provides, and it certainly is the right price.

When I last tried, it was not possible to have multiple domains all go to one set of mailboxes so I moved the domains to a friends server which could be configured how I wanted it since I have about 20 domain names and dont want to log into them all one at a time via gmail.

Richard rich.ms

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billgates

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#447045 9-Mar-2011 18:25

Take a look at Windows Live Admin Center. Has full support for office online/web apps.

https://domains.live.com/

Do whatever you want to do man.

scuwp

3886 posts

Uber Geek

#447064 9-Mar-2011 19:44

I recently set up an account with www.net24.co.nz for someone starting a business (website to come later)

Domain registration was about $20 from memory and email hosting is $5 per month for up to 5 primary accounts. Not sure if they are the best/cheapest but very easy to set up and manage, email forwarding, auto replies etc just like a normal business account...and you don't need to be a geek to get it started.

Provided it's not taken you can choose any domain you want.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

Starplay

267 posts

Ultimate Geek

#447071 9-Mar-2011 20:23

SO using google apps.. Do the emails of the domain get pushed through to a gmail account... but the gmail account will be @domain.com not gmail. So when emails are sent they will come up from @domain.com.

Also... Can I have as many usernames for the @domain.com using google apps or just a specific one e.g name@domain.com

Thanks

Cyris

121 posts

Master Geek

#447072 9-Mar-2011 20:26

Yes.

When using Google apps, you are basically just using the Gmail Interface for your own Domain name.

And yes, you can have multiple email accounts on your domain via Google Apps.

richms

28192 posts

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#447097 9-Mar-2011 21:49

Starplay: SO using google apps.. Do the emails of the domain get pushed through to a gmail account... but the gmail account will be @domain.com not gmail. So when emails are sent they will come up from @domain.com.

Also... Can I have as many usernames for the @domain.com using google apps or just a specific one e.g name@domain.com

Thanks

You can, but because they are google accounts, if you want to flip between mailboxes often you have to log out and in of each of them, and any google readers, maps, contacts etc in other tabs will then give errors etc as they have had the account changed under them. There is a claimed feature of multiple accounts in gmail where you get a dropdown at the top to choose the account, but it has not worked 100% for me, and nothing is more annoying than typing a long email and hitting send and getting the little red error banner and losing what you typed. That is why I have up to 8 firefox profiles running at any given time.

Richard rich.ms

hairy1

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#447110 9-Mar-2011 22:13

You can have up to 50 user accounts (50 gmail accounts effectively) but it is a bit of a pain switching between accounts. Best idea is to setup nicknames if you want different addresses but have one inbox...

Cheers.

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

Starplay

267 posts

Ultimate Geek

#447368 10-Mar-2011 18:03

So I think that I understand everything now... the only thing that i want to check is that my domain price wont be raised greatly... At the moment Go daddy are offering me my domaon for $8yr and I am going to register it for 3 years... In 3 years time it wont become $100 or something crazy will it... and I will be given the first option of renewing it before the domain is available again?

Thanks

richms

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#447369 10-Mar-2011 18:05

If they do put their prices up to that point then you would just move the domain to someone else before renewing it, but I think there are places where the standard price is close to $8 a year so they would be idiots to up the price a huge amount at the end of your introductory deal.

Besides, hopefully in 3 years your business has grown to the point that even if it was $100 a year it would be chump change ;)

Richard rich.ms

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