Posted on

How to Host Your Email on Your Domain using Google Apps’ Gmail– for Free!

google apps' gmail - sent mail screen With Google Apps’ Gmail you can set up personalized email addresses for yourself, up to 50 members of your family or 50 employees in your business, using an Internet domain you own and control – for free! Your email address will no longer be chained to your ISP or your web-based email provider such as Hotmail, Yahoo! or Gmail.

I have been using Google Apps to host my personal and professional ‘@daledietrich.com’ email (pictured above) for about a year now. In this post I provide detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to do this.

While Google Apps’ Gmail is completely free, to use it you must register your own domain. If you haven’t yet, you can register a domain with a Domain Host (‘DH’). I use GoDaddy. As of the date I write this, GoDaddy charges $9.99 U.S. ($9.99 on sale) for a one year registration of  a DOT COM domain ($6.99 to transfer in an existing .com domain) and $10.69 for annual renewals.

Screenshots below were taken when I set up my ‘daleipshere.com’ domain to use Google Apps Gmail using GoDaddy.com as my DH.

 

Why Google Apps for Email?

A. Email Hosting for Any Domain – for Free: I used to pay $65 a year to have my @daledietrich.com email hosted by Elehost (a terrific ISP by the way). Now my @daledietrich.com, @daleisphere.com and @wishhh.com email is hosted on Google Apps for free!

B. Freedom from ISP Domains: Most personal email accounts use the ISPs domain – eg: yourname@comcast.com, yourname@rogers.com. This artificially locks users into a given ISP. If you wish to change your ISP you may be reluctant to do so because you’ll have to change your email address. If a move results in a change of ISP, you’ll have the additional hassle of changing your email address. But, when you set up a Google Apps Gmail account with your own custom domain, email accounts you set up for your family or business can be used forever – regardless of your ISP.

Continue reading “How to Host Your Email on Your Domain using Google Apps’ Gmail– for Free!”

Posted on

How to Sync ‘Work’ and ‘Home’ Email Addresses Between the iPhone and Outlook 2007 – Error Free

iPhone to Outlook Contact Sync ExampleWhen adding contacts into each of the iPhone and Outlook 2007, there are built-in, distinct ‘home’, ‘work’/’business’ and ‘mobile’ telephone number fields. Yet, surprisingly, Outlook 2007 does not provide built-in, discreet ‘home’, ‘work’ or ‘other’ email address fields. Yet, the iPhone does!

As a result of this disparity, you can get very odd results when synchronizing your iPhone and Outlook 2007 contacts. Unless you are aware of, and properly handling, how the syncing works, it will seem as if the iPhone randomly categorizes email addresses originating from Outlook 2007 as either ‘home’, ‘work’ or ‘other’.

Happily, as described below, the Outlook and iPhone email fields do sync in a predictable way. With little effort, you can make sure that ‘home’, ‘work’ and ‘other’ email address fields are properly synched between Outlook 2007 and your iPhone.

The Problem

As you can see from the picture below (after the break), when adding new contacts in Outlook 2007, there are no built-in, discreet ‘home’, ‘work’, ‘business’ or ‘other’ email address fields. The only choice you have is the default non-numbered ‘E-mail…’ field, and the ‘E-mail 2’, and ‘E-mail 3’ fields (available from the pull-down menu).

Continue reading “How to Sync ‘Work’ and ‘Home’ Email Addresses Between the iPhone and Outlook 2007 – Error Free”

Posted on

Get Rid of AVG’s ‘No Virus Found’ Email Footers

image I highly recommend Grisoft’s AVG’s Free antivirus software (v. 8.x available here) and the free Windows Defender (spyware protection) to my friends and family as cornerstone software in the ongoing battle to keep their computers safe and secure. AVG is powerful and very processor efficient. In other words, it doesn’t suck the life out of your computer like Norton and McAfee do.

But with the default AVG installation settings, pesky "No Virus Found" footers like the one shown below appear at the end of every email you send and receive.

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.10/1421 – Release Date: 07/05/2008 5:23 PM

They are pointless and serve only as a marketing tool for AVG. They become especially egregious as they pile up, one after the other, at the end of long email discussions.

With a few tweaks to the default AVG settings, they can easily be removed.

Below I show you how to get rid of them in both AVG 8 and the older AVG 7.5.

Continue reading “Get Rid of AVG’s ‘No Virus Found’ Email Footers”