Getting a @yourfamily.com email address

While giving away my email address, I frequently get weird looks and comments like

“Euh, li marser meme sa?”

In some way, having a family email address makes you feel cooler (yeah!) and more geek that those who having the usual @gmail, @yahoo or @hotmail inbox. And believe me, some people use @orange.mu too!

My family email address runs on gmail, i.e. the same size, features (most of them), looks etc.

What does it cost?

Only around $12 (approximately Rs360) yearly per domain. I mean that if you got 2 sisters, 5 brothers, 10 cousins and 12 kids, you pay only about that much per year!

The steps

1. First of all, you need to buy the domain name. On Godaddy.com for example or you can do it directly from Step 2 in case you don’t have a domain. (btw, NO, I cannot buy it for you, don’t even think to mail me about that!)
2. Register for Google Apps (Click here)
   While writing this post, I noticed that Google gives you the possibility to do the setup pretty straightforward. The purchase and configuration is done directly from there itself.

   

3. If you choose to do the DNS settings manually, you can have a look at the various articles on the web, or just leave a comment here.
4. Once everything is set up, please give up to 24-48 hours for the DNS to propagate.

Just imagine how cool it might be: dad@family.com, mum@family.com, firstname@family.com, me@family.com…

You can even use it for your MSN Messenger and Google Talk too. Finally, don’t forget to change your email address everywhere : Facebook, twitter, newspaper subscriptions (and your porn sites[!!!])

The switch

Most probably, you won’t be able to change email address abruptly. You need to do it over certain weeks or months so that people actually start contacting you using your new email add. During that transition period, you can redirect or forward your old emails to your new inbox or vice versa. It is even possible to compose/reply to emails using different “from” email add :

Now, please update your address book.

After months of smooth transition, I made the final jump. My email is yashvin[@]awootar[dot].com and please keep your spam for yourselves or everything from you will go to the junk yard (Gmail handles this pretty good, you have been warned!).

Hope that this post was informative and interesting! Waiting to see more personalised email addresses while you comment here!