NietShell

Mess_aging

Some time ago, I bought a thick stack of business cards from zazzle. Almost immediately, I noticed stuff I had left off. My linkedin account is relevant to prospective employers. I created this site afterward, and have to write the address by hand now. The back isn't blank, as I put a small program than claim to be a programmer before I've been paid to do so.

The deficiency I hear about though, is my email address. Specifically, what does it mean? I use "damiengrey@..." and chose it in the spirit of a username rather than an identity. (At the time, I had just finished reading The Portrait of Dorian Gray) As I am paying for this domain, now is the time to finish cleaning up my online image. In that vein, I've been considering various email hosts that permit a vanity address. Here follow the tiers of service I noticed.

Free

I already have a gmail address courtesy of my youtube account. There are dozens more providers if I were content with the implicit advertisement of their domain. But, these are golden handcuffs to keep me locked in to their advertiser subsidized service. The solitary company offering a vanity email for free comes via Zoho Mail. They seem to be corporate oriented and using this tier as a loss leader to encourage small business owners to upgrade as their needs grow outside the garage scale. I was suspicious at first, but google too offered this service at a time for free.

X < 25$

An email server needs a static IP and downtime no longer than the time-to-live of any email message. So, I shouldn't be surprised that companies charge more than a few pennies. Of particular interest is my domain registrar. That way I'm not spreading my payment information to yet another database. Otherwise, it doesn't stick out from this group that doesn't stick out other than in price. I have no real idea how good their service is or whether I'm paying to see ads alongside messages meant for me specifically. Of course, name recognition - like my current email provider - doesn't guarantee that either. This warrants seeking out more reviews.

X < 100$

Lots of the expired advice about acquiring a free vanity email points at google's apps program. It has since discontinued offering the plan to new users, so forget it. It is worth noting that gmail will forward emails with a changed address. However, you have to receive their confirmation email to that address, so it's a nogo. The rest of these services are indistinguishable from the cheaper alternatives.

That is, except those I've marked with an S. The s is for 'secure.' These services promise to encrypt your email and respect your privacy. Our current ideological climate is sensitive to this, whether or not we are within three degrees of a criminal. Unfortunately, encrypted emails mean the webclient can't do all the fancy searches that gmail trumpets. Of course, these services probably anticipated that and insist on use of a downloading client that runs the queries on the downloaded copies. (And if you feel your drives are compromised, there's an app for that too.) Back of the envelope assertion gleaned from research for an undergrad seminar presentation about impacts on various types of encrypted databases. If I'm to pay more than the minimum, I'm inclined to value security over functionality.

X < 300

Personal vanity emails really are a stepping stone to small businesshood, and these offerings reflect the high end of the spectrum. (I recall Joel Spolsky's advice on pricing for the customer tier you are targeting.) Maybe they offer the bells and whistles; I didn't bother looking. Swissmail and other foreign services ostentibly offer some safety from NSA arm twisting. But, NSA is directly responsible for (criminal) transmissions crossing our borders. Further, there's no safety from the equivalent bureaus of the countries along the spine between here and Switzerland. It also offers encrypted mail at 35 $/yr, but without the vanity domain. Parley must be some darknet messaging relay, because it charges based on number of contacts. Five are free, the price below is for unlimited. I'm almost loath to include it, but for the laugh.

And lo, there comes the refrain, Ye need not paye a bundle for letters. Host thyself from thine own pertard. That holds no fascination for me after my struggles to get a computer to host this site. The electricity bill may hike less than these vendors ask, but I will pay in personal time. If the server bites it, there's a full replacement cost. If the power goes out, I have no way to catch an unanticipated email before it dies. And the spam! When I made the mistake of putting my email on every blog post, my influx went from twenty to one hundred daily. I'll bet I didn't see half of it, courtesy of att. I noticed a templehost employee reply about their software stack (bottom of page). No thanks.

The secure linux mail setup here runs dovecot-courier-postfix-amavis-spamassassin-clamav-postgrey-saslauthd and a couple other things ;)

After selection, the next step involves using a local email client, especially if I were to use a privacy-emphasizing host. I've only tried a few. Inky looks nice, but couldn't connect. Mailbird is IMAP (ie connection rather than download oriented) only, so no. eM Client works so far and even found the right settings that I had left on outlook. I have yet to try thunderbird. Like gmail, it is this category's "nobody got fired for buying IBM." Mutt, a text only client, is available through cygwin (or a package when I use fedora) but I am loath to give up all shiny chrome. I'll levy an opinion after I use thunderbird.

As my primary goal is a vanity address, Zoho is the option I'll reach for. It is probably no less secure than my current host and promises no ads, unlike att. In a bit, when I earn more, I'll spring for thetemplehost and earn another libertarian merit badge.