.co.uk .com How do i..........

[stocktake]

For no other reason than wanting something different.

Quite fancy something like we have on here with @75ZT.org for emails

I have checked my name is available with .com or .co.uk after it for between £2.50 and £8.50 per year.

If I pay for this, do i have to pay anything else? How then do I obtain my emails and is there a limit? Can I have more than 1 email ( Me and wife say) Do I have to create a web page? How do I do that?

Sounds like fun but never dabbled before.

Thank you kindly chaps

Dave..

[GreyGhost]

Once you have bought the name it has to be hosted with a server that will provide you with email as well as web space. Usually mail service will offer a number of aliases for your domain. So you can have a number of email addresses dave@, marina@ etc. Hosting will cost an annual fee. Remember your domain name is only yours for two years then you have to renew and pay again. You do not have to have a web site but the space will be there if you do.

[smcaul]

Try domainmonster.com they only do domains, although you can host a basic web page with them. They offer email forwarding for free, so you could forward [email protected] to [email protected] etc, they also offer yearly pop3 mail boxes for a fee. Or if yu want to really play and have an old laptop or desktop laying around then host the email and web server yourself.

I use hmail (http://www.hmailserver.com/) for the email server, very, very, very good and simple piece of free software. I have about 7 domains and 20 odd email addresses that it serves, both for me and for a couple of friends.

For web server I use Apache, this is a bit more difficult to set up but there are loads of how to guides on the net. Took me 2 evenings to get it up and running, I now have several different domains running on it and also have it set for webmail access.

I have no IT training, everything I have done is from teaching myself.

You do need to mess around with the DNS settings for your domain for the above, but it is a cheaper way of doing things, much better then spending £5-10pm for hosting - although I do pay to have my business sit hosted but that is for reliability more then anything else!

[stocktake]

Thanks Mick, Stuart

Stuart, I may just have a play with the laptop idea I have a redundant fujitsi amilo L7300 1.5 processor and a gig of ram. think the HD is around 60g. nice little machine really. would that do?

If i do start to play is it OK to pm you if i get stuck?

Cheers Guys

[StevenWilliams]

If you only want the domain for emails then I'd just register it with someone like www.uk2.net. They allow unlimited pop3 email accounts off the domain for no extra charge

[smcaul]

I would think that should be ample, I started playing with it all on an old IBM thinkpad 380 with 128mb of ram and 4gb hd, it ran fine, in fact it is still configured as a back up if the new server I built for it falls over!!! The email and web server really do use minimal amounts of processing so this type of thing is an ideal use for older machines and laptops in particular as they are small and can be slotted away out of site.

Have a play and see, will not cost you anything and I found it quite fun (sounds sad I know!!)

[StevenWilliams]

I personally host my sites using www.ixwebhosting.com but I register all but one of my domains elsewhere.

www.ixwebhosting.com is great if you want a simple hosted site and cannot be bothered to host it yourself.

It's also VERY cheap. $3.95 month including unlimited accounts (email, ftp etc) and unlimited space and a .COM domain.

It comes with loads of extras and is stupidly easy to administer.