The Underscore Archives

On 6 Jul 2006, at 16:59, Jon Hadley wrote:

> Looks like all the invites went out at the same time ;o)

Yep :)  I wonder how quickly a new sign-up will get invited...



> I'm just about to transfer my personal domain over (expect me to
> disappear off _ as my MX records go all screwy).

Hmmm.. it went quite painlessly for me.  No apparent break in  
communications.  As I have kept the old mail forwarding mechanism  
(GoDaddy) in place, I expect it'll work either way.

When I logged in and clicked on the link about setting up MX records,  
it worked out that I was using GoDaddy as my DNS provider, and gave  
complete instructions on how to use their web tool to set up the MX  
records and the SPF record (optional).  Neat.



> I'm not expecting any huge difference in use. However, in the past I
> have set clients up with email addresses that forward to gmail
> addresses and used the 'Send mail as' setting in the normal gmail
> account to allow them to send email that appears from their domain (i
> send underscore mail from this address in the same way).

Snap.



> It's all a bit messy and time consuming, Gmail for domains will make
> it a lot cleaner.

It also has the virtue of fewer points-of-failure.  I suppose the  
eventual conclusion is Google offering a domain registration and DNS  
hosting facility.

The only niggles I can see:

1. My old GMail account can't be imported in, so I have to start  
fresh.  Also, my normal Google login won't be fixed to this new account.

2. It uses a different login page, so I have to remember a new URL.   
Understandable for replaceable branding reasons, but I'd like to be  
able to type tom at gidden.net into the normal GMail login box and have  
it figure it out.

3. There's no facility for adding my secondary domains (eg.  
gidden.org, litebase.com).  Bit of a shame.  Means I have to keep the  
GoDaddy mail forwarding in place for those domains.

4. I can't set up proper forwards.  Nicknames are almost forwards,  
but limited to destination addresses in the same domain.  To set up a  
forward, I have to create a new user account, log into it, and set up  
normal GMail forwarding with "delete mail" set.

5. The 2GB limit is fixed, rather than the ever-increasing limit of  
normal GMail.

All of these are fairly minor and esoteric, though.  In all, looks  
like a keeper.  I just hope Google haven't changed their de facto  
definition of "Beta".


Tom

-- 
Tom Gidden
http://gidden.net/tom/