Author Topic: Personalised domain names - worth it?  (Read 3124 times)

CommuteTooFar

  • Inadequate Randonneur
Re: Personalised domain names - worth it?
« Reply #25 on: 28 August, 2021, 03:35:50 pm »
Yes instant messaging was on many mainframe computers.  Multics which started in the mid 1960s had SendMessage for instant messages to another user and SendMail to send anything you could make with your preferred text editor qx by default.


Afasoas

Re: Personalised domain names - worth it?
« Reply #26 on: 01 September, 2021, 09:28:48 am »
Definitely worth it. In hindsight, I would probably have a couple more and be a bit more organised, using them as follows:

myname.co.uk for email and hosting my personal website
myrandomdomain.blah for email to public mailing lists etc.
someotherrandomdomain.blah for services I host from home (primarily Nextcloud)
something.something for VPS running DNS/mail server/web server etc.

As it stands, the above is split across two domain names, myname.co.uk and something.blah.

I use an email alias for each organisation/business/institution I am forced to give an email address too. So when I receive spam to cisco@myname.co.uk, I know how my data got into the hands of the entity that leaked it.


robgul

  • Cycle:End-to-End webmaster
  • cyclist, Cytech accredited mechanic & woodworker
    • Cycle:End-to-End
Re: Personalised domain names - worth it?
« Reply #27 on: 01 September, 2021, 11:07:15 am »
Definitely worth it. In hindsight, I would probably have a couple more and be a bit more organised, using them as follows:

myname.co.uk for email and hosting my personal website
myrandomdomain.blah for email to public mailing lists etc.
someotherrandomdomain.blah for services I host from home (primarily Nextcloud)
something.something for VPS running DNS/mail server/web server etc.

As it stands, the above is split across two domain names, myname.co.uk and something.blah.

I use an email alias for each organisation/business/institution I am forced to give an email address too. So when I receive spam to cisco@myname.co.uk, I know how my data got into the hands of the entity that leaked it.

That's exactly what I've been doing for probably 20 years with 2 diferent domains - the offending/unwanted message senders can be  a) directed to a "sort it later" folder on my email client if I'm not sure, or b) blocked by the ISP or email client settings, or c) redirected to "piss-off@aol.com" and fired into the ether.

Works for me  :thumbsup:

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Personalised domain names - worth it?
« Reply #28 on: 01 September, 2021, 04:54:27 pm »
I found the description of Hotmail in that Oatmeal piece amusing. I had a Hotmail account in the 90s* (it was free so why not?). I've never owned a Compaq or used MySpace...

As what Gretchen McCulloch describes as an Old Internet Person, I find it mildly hilarious when Full Internet People talk about the heady days of Yahoo/MySpace/LiveJournal as if it were the dawn of time.  When the Post Internet People talk about them the way I might talk about UUCP or ARPANET, I just feel old.
Maybe this: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/31/747020219/our-language-is-evolving-because-internet?t=1630511612454
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Personalised domain names - worth it?
« Reply #29 on: 01 September, 2021, 08:42:54 pm »
I found the description of Hotmail in that Oatmeal piece amusing. I had a Hotmail account in the 90s* (it was free so why not?). I've never owned a Compaq or used MySpace...

As what Gretchen McCulloch describes as an Old Internet Person, I find it mildly hilarious when Full Internet People talk about the heady days of Yahoo/MySpace/LiveJournal as if it were the dawn of time.  When the Post Internet People talk about them the way I might talk about UUCP or ARPANET, I just feel old.

(I like these classifications of generations of internet users, because they aren't rigidly tied to chronological generations, especially at the Baby Boomer/GenX crossover, where people's experience of the internet is so variable.)

I don't think simply having a hotmail account was incriminating, as all the competent people had one too.  Mine mostly got used for diagnosing problems sending email to hotmail users, and possibly as an instant messenger account in the days when you needed all four to be able to talk to everyone.  Possibly a more useful distinction was whether hotmail users, on discovering that some email to them had been black-holed would understand that was hotmail's over-enthusiastic spam filtering, rather than insist that it must be a fault at $competent_ISP because they've never heard of them.

For 'Compaq' you could probably substitute any beige computer at this point.  Gateway 2000[1] and Packard Bell deserve honourable mention for horrendous low-end machines of the era.
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=post;quote=2654105;topic=120868.0;last_msg=2655204#

[1] Who would have sold more machines if they'd actually been a Fresian cow pattern, rather than Computer Beige.

Me too. I've been on he Internet since about 1990 (memory is hazy but well before the WWW) mainly because I have been a network professional for an unreasonably long time (SNET and ARCNET anyone ?)

I would challenge you over Compaq as cheap beige boxes though, They had the first mass market IBM compatible PC and there server line morphed into HP after the buyout and dominated the enterprise server market for years. Dell who really were a cheap home use PC startup are now one of their major competitors in the enterprise server space.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Re: Personalised domain names - worth it?
« Reply #30 on: 01 September, 2021, 10:00:22 pm »
and in other news, I have discovered today that all the photos of the children's activities I emailed to Mrs Nutty so she could upload to the school haven't been delivered.  The bcc to me have come through fine.  I am going to have to resort to SD card/USB stick/something her surface pro can accept and then walk upstairs.

thanks gmail and your over enthusiastic filters.  Another job for tomorrow.

Gattopardo

  • Lord of the sith
  • Overseaing the building of the death star
Re: Personalised domain names - worth it?
« Reply #31 on: 01 September, 2021, 10:02:53 pm »
Can some help me sort of a domain name so I can keep all my emails going to one place.

Re: Personalised domain names - worth it?
« Reply #32 on: 01 September, 2021, 10:07:24 pm »
I'm still using my Hotmail account. :demon: It's been my main email address forever and I can't be bothered changing it (my Hotmail username is the same as my domain name).

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Personalised domain names - worth it?
« Reply #33 on: 02 September, 2021, 10:22:01 am »
2. I can create lots of email addresses. Originally it was for each web site that demanded an email address.  This enabled me to find out who sold their email list.

I’ve long been aware that people do this, but I’ve never really understood why. What do you do with this information? Does the knowledge serve any useful purpose?
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Afasoas

Re: Personalised domain names - worth it?
« Reply #34 on: 02 September, 2021, 10:30:55 am »
2. I can create lots of email addresses. Originally it was for each web site that demanded an email address.  This enabled me to find out who sold their email list.

I’ve long been aware that people do this, but I’ve never really understood why. What do you do with this information? Does the knowledge serve any useful purpose?

Absolutely.
Email address leaked via data breach and subsequent spam?. No problem. I can remove the alias and my mail server will start rejecting it with "recipient unknown".

When I started getting spam arriving via the Cisco email alias, Cisco initially denied it. I wrote back to them and advised that they are the only entity that email address was disclosed to. They went back the drawing board and two weeks later I received an email back from them admitting they had shared my data with the company which leaked it. It is nice to have accountability.

It also makes it easier to create rules to automatically deliver mail to specific folders.

ian

Re: Personalised domain names - worth it?
« Reply #35 on: 02 September, 2021, 10:42:30 am »
I use one domain for capturing crap – so retailer websites etc. send to emails featuring that. I don't bother to do it individually, it's not worth the effort, but I can scan that inbox and dump stuff quickly.

I use the other for personal stuff that I want or need to read and it's effectively spam-free as a result.