I guess I just don’t “get” the excitement about Gmail. It seems to me it’s just another webmail service with a higher storage limit than some. To me, owning a domain is the ultimate in email. I can have as many “addresses” as I want, so I rarely get spam. I just do something like “amazon@mydomain.com” – if a certain address starts getting spam, I just delete it. I never put my “main” email anywhere on the web or use it for anything commercial or for any list (I just would use thislist@mydomain.com) – so I get very little spam. My mail server is set up with SpamAssasin and I use my own filters. Really, I get about 2 or 3 spam emails a day, and have had this address for over 4 years. People find it hard to believe.
My mail server also has webmail, so I could check it from anywhere with just a browser, if I wished. So what is the attraction? Does Gmail do a good job at filtering spam?

I don’t know yet, Charles; I haven’t gotten any there yet. I use my own web-goddess.org domain much the same way you do, but I seem to have a much bigger spam problem with it. In fact, lately it hasn’t been spam so much as the f**king Windows viruses. I’m getting at least a dozen a day. And there really isn’t any way around that. As soon as a single one of your friends or family get infected, you’re screwed. That’s my experience, anyway.

I also had to turn off the “wildcard” option on my e-mail server because I’ve been the victim of spam attacks in the past. (My Roald Dahl site is even worse. I had to remove my address altogether and install a web form, which is currently down because the little bastards started stuffing THAT.) I *could* set up each address as I need it (amazon@web-goddess.org, etc.), but that’s a hassle and it’s always been much easier to just use khoward1@yahoo for all that crap. Then I just log in and clear it out periodically.

To be honest, I’m not sure what I’ll use Gmail for. I like Google and they do some pretty amazing things. At present, I like it because it’s a memorable address that I’m not ashamed to put on my resume. (“web-goddess”, though fun, doesn’t always look very “corporate”. And telling people my address has always been a pain: “web hyphen goddess… no, hyphen… you know, a dash… if you don’t put it in, you get porn…”) It’s so much nicer to just say “kris.howard@gmail.com”. I also used it on the weekend to transfer a pretty big file (6+MB) to a friend that might’ve been more difficult otherwise. And besides, it’s just in beta. They might have amazing things on store!

I think most people are attracted to anything done by Google. I guess a google email address is becoming a cool-kid must-have, Charles 🙂

i’d love to have a play with gmail and see what it’s like if there’s an invite going spare…. thanks!

I heard about that! Seems a bit silly, especially since they seem to be handing out the invites so freely. I’m guessing the official launch may happen soon. I won’t bother selling mine… It’s much more fun to gift them to people!

Speaking of… Kirsty and Yasmin, your invites have been sent!

thanks kris!

I’m not worried about infecting myself. I use a Mac, after all (she says smugly). It’s just that there are so many, and they’re all different so my normal Bayesian filter doesn’t catch them, and not only do I get the viruses themselves, but I also get the bounces from when they spoof my e-mail address, as well as concerned e-mails from friends “informing” me that I have a virus, when I don’t, and it drives me nuts, and why don’t you people all Switch already? 🙂

Actually I used to just leave everything on the server and use pine to read it, but OS X’s Mail.app is so pretty. I’m sure I could install SpamAssassin or make some more rules to cover more of the virus situations, but frankly I’m annoyed that I have to. And it hasn’t quite become unmanageable yet. I get a dozen or so viruses a day and a couple spams, all of which are quickly deleted. I just haven’t ever been bothered enough to put an ironclad solution in place.

But like I said, I’m not really using Gmail to replace my personal domain e-mail; I’m using it to replace my Yahoo e-mail, which fills with hundreds of spam a day.

Done, Mia! (I addressed it to “Lindsey Sinclair.” Is that your real name or is it a pseudonym?)

omigawd, there are 97 gmail auctions, that’s nutz.

me too!

neeeevermind, got one from someone else.. hehe

Thanks again Kris. It is scary fast to access gmail… I’m used to that couple of seconds of thinking with my yahoo account.