Another interesting idea. I used to have my own domain but I can't remember how the e-mail forwarding worked. Would I still have to have them forwarded automatically from say xxx@martha.com to someone like Comast? (It's been 10 years since I had mine). If so, it doesn't really solve my issue with Comcast. But great ideas and I appreciate you folks!

 

And also a good point since basically all of our financial dealings are handled on line now and you have to use the e-mail for all that obviously. The personal domain is sounding good with the possible problem of still having to use a Comcast or someone to receive via.

 

I've done that for years. I have DSL as my "pipe" going out of the house, but I have a shell account at a local ISP (the one I used to 56K dial into). My email and such goes through them, and I only the the DSL as my connection to them.

It's probably not more reliable. It's probably less reliable (since it introduces two possible points of failure). But it means I'm paying the DSL provider to do what they do best (provide DSL) and the ISP to do what they do best (run servers).

I also have a domain name of my own (mikegarrison.com). I can use that for email addresses and just direct it to whatever email provider I may eventually switch to in the future. That's in addition to having a lifetime email forwarding address from alum.mit.edu. So for most people I give out the MIT address, but for transactions where I don't want people to know my permanent MIT address I tell them "bestwestern@mikegarrison.com" or "unitedairlines@mikegarrison.com" or whatever. ANYTHING at "mikegarrison.com" comes back to the same place.

When I switched from dialup to DSL, nobody but me knew about it, because all my email addresses still worked the same.

 

Thanks guys. I've learned a lot here.

 

ps. I've had other Mike Garrisons offer to buy my domain name, but no one has offered enough. A few hundred is not not enough, but a few thousand would be. I got there first, so sucks to be them.

 

Reminds me in the early days of the internet before many of us had figured out what one would do with it, I sat on a flight to London next to a guy who had made of business out of domain names. He would fly to the U.S. and look for things he thought would be big, go home and buy the (I suppose) UK version of the name. He said he had Holiday Inn, McDonalds and some others that they bought from him, but who knows. He could have been lying.

 

That's not legal any more. The courts now rule that you can not "cybersquat". In my case, however, it is not cybersquatting because I really do have a legitimate reason to own "mikegarrison.com".

 

According to whois.net tomorrow is your expiry date. Have you renewed yet?

 

That's interesting, but I'm not sure I understand why really. Though if this guy was to be believed, he'd done well enough way back then that it wouldn't matter today. I think I'll see if my name is available.

 

and we now all have your address and phone number...........