Web geekery help needed

31 May 2011

I'm just about to set up a new website and buy the URL. Initially, the basic site will be a Wordpress based template while we get the rest of the company is setup so it comes with free hosting (or so i'm told), with the plan to buy or rent a server later this year and have a proper site built once we have stuff to sell.
At this point the idea is to also set up a section as a mail server which can be accessed from our laptops and iphones etc (i'll be getting someone more geeky than me to do all this lol

)
What i could do with knowing is...
a) is there a domain registrar company who provide free domain specific email handling as part of the registration cost at a reasonable rate? (ie, if i had swingingheaven.co.uk i could have mail@, meaty@ etc for the URL, not type of address, only need 3-5 addresses)- these need to be pop3 if possible to enable forwarding to etc.
b) is the idea of hosting the site and mail server with mobile access a fairly easy thing to do as i think we'll have more than enough spare capacity on the server?
c) is there anything i should look for to make sure the transition from email client to self hosting mail server is as easy as possible?
d) why is computer geekery still so bloody baffling after 25 years? :haha:

31 May 2011

Here's my quick and dirty (fnar) reply

Quote by meat2pleaseu
a) is there a domain registrar company who provide free domain specific email handling as part of the registration cost at a reasonable rate? (ie, if i had swingingheaven.co.uk i could have mail@, meaty@ etc for the URL, not type of address, only need 3-5 addresses)- these need to be pop3 if possible to enable forwarding to etc.

Best not to bother with anything that the Domain Registrar will give you (it's going to be shite), instead use a decent registrar (123-reg for example) and then use Google Apps for Domain (free for small/personal or Microsoft Office 365 (Free while in Beta, but small cost after, however LOTS of business centric features like SharePoint 2010 web hosting etc, lot's of big corporate sites including Microsoft's site is built on SharePoint Both have mobile push mail access, Google one uses the front end, and Office365 uses Outlook Web Access. Bigest difference is MS support you using Outlook full client, whereas that is only available in the pay for version of Google Apps.

Quote by meat2pleaseu
b) is the idea of hosting the site and mail server with mobile access a fairly easy thing to do as i think we'll have more than enough spare capacity on the server?

It's all html at the end of the day, just down to the Code, I host both on mine with no issues, heck if youfancy it you could even setup some web services and write Mobile App's for your system, still all just http requests.

Quote by meat2pleaseu
c) is there anything i should look for to make sure the transition from email client to self hosting mail server is as easy as possible?

Use one of the services above, no-one host's there own mail anymore if they have any sense, why bother with paying for backup MX server's etc, when Google/Microsoft already have FAR more capacity and redundancy than you could ever hope to have.

Quote by meat2pleaseu
d) why is computer geekery still so bloody baffling after 25 years?

Simple answer? Keeps us in a job smile

Anything else just shout

31 May 2011

Quote by apey_kinks
Here's my quick and dirty (fnar) reply
a) is there a domain registrar company who provide free domain specific email handling as part of the registration cost at a reasonable rate? (ie, if i had swingingheaven.co.uk i could have mail@, meaty@ etc for the URL, not type of address, only need 3-5 addresses)- these need to be pop3 if possible to enable forwarding to etc.

Best not to bother with anything that the Domain Registrar will give you (it's going to be shite), instead use a decent registrar (123-reg for example) and then use Google Apps for Domain (free for small/personal or Microsoft Office 365 (Free while in Beta, but small cost after, however LOTS of business centric features like SharePoint 2010 web hosting etc, lot's of big corporate sites including Microsoft's site is built on SharePoint

Quote by meat2pleaseu
b) is the idea of hosting the site and mail server with mobile access a fairly easy thing to do as i think we'll have more than enough spare capacity on the server?

It's all html at the end of the day, just down to the Code, I host both on mine with no issues, heck if youfancy it you could even setup some web services and write Mobile App's for your system, still all just http requests.

Quote by meat2pleaseu
c) is there anything i should look for to make sure the transition from email client to self hosting mail server is as easy as possible?

Use one of the services above, no-one host's there own mail anymore if they have any sense, why bother with paying for backup MX server's etc, when Google/Microsoft already have FAR more capacity and redundancy than you could ever hope to have.

Quote by meat2pleaseu
d) why is computer geekery still so bloody baffling after 25 years?

Simple answer? Keeps us in a job smile

Anything else just shout
You said it was going to be dirty and it was...you said the M word, Microsoft :scared: so i'll reply back with one....Mac :mrgreen:
Most of what we'll be doing, apart from the server probably, will be run from Macs. My partner hates Microsoft software and won't use it on his machine, but i don't mind as i found a copy of mac office 2007 in a box somewhere s,o i use Entourage at present.
The plan is to use Mac mail software and get iphones as its looks like the best option for tying various things together such as calenders and email, as we'll probably be all round the country in different locations if things go to plan. We use Macs as we both come from a design background and use various Apple only software for production.
I currently use 123 and have found i can host the temp site on the back of my current site, which should give me the email access i need to get things going and deliver it to multiple inboxes including my .
I still plan on running the proper site from our own server as it will make media management so much easier in the long run. So it looks like the main issue will be email integration? dunno

31 May 2011

You got mail meaty smile

31 May 2011

Quote by meat2pleaseu
Here's my quick and dirty (fnar) reply
a) is there a domain registrar company who provide free domain specific email handling as part of the registration cost at a reasonable rate? (ie, if i had swingingheaven.co.uk i could have mail@, meaty@ etc for the URL, not type of address, only need 3-5 addresses)- these need to be pop3 if possible to enable forwarding to etc.

Best not to bother with anything that the Domain Registrar will give you (it's going to be shite), instead use a decent registrar (123-reg for example) and then use Google Apps for Domain (free for small/personal or Microsoft Office 365 (Free while in Beta, but small cost after, however LOTS of business centric features like SharePoint 2010 web hosting etc, lot's of big corporate sites including Microsoft's site is built on SharePoint

Quote by meat2pleaseu
b) is the idea of hosting the site and mail server with mobile access a fairly easy thing to do as i think we'll have more than enough spare capacity on the server?

It's all html at the end of the day, just down to the Code, I host both on mine with no issues, heck if youfancy it you could even setup some web services and write Mobile App's for your system, still all just http requests.

Quote by meat2pleaseu
c) is there anything i should look for to make sure the transition from email client to self hosting mail server is as easy as possible?

Use one of the services above, no-one host's there own mail anymore if they have any sense, why bother with paying for backup MX server's etc, when Google/Microsoft already have FAR more capacity and redundancy than you could ever hope to have.

Quote by meat2pleaseu
d) why is computer geekery still so bloody baffling after 25 years?

Simple answer? Keeps us in a job smile

Anything else just shout
You said it was going to be dirty and it was...you said the M word, Microsoft :scared: so i'll reply back with one....Mac :mrgreen:
Most of what we'll be doing, apart from the server probably, will be run from Macs. My partner hates Microsoft software and won't use it on his machine, but i don't mind as i found a copy of mac office 2007 in a box somewhere s,o i use Entourage at present.
The plan is to use Mac mail software and get iphones as its looks like the best option for tying various things together such as calenders and email, as we'll probably be all round the country in different locations if things go to plan. We use Macs as we both come from a design background and use various Apple only software for production.
I currently use 123 and have found i can host the temp site on the back of my current site, which should give me the email access i need to get things going and deliver it to multiple inboxes including my .
I still plan on running the proper site from our own server as it will make media management so much easier in the long run. So it looks like the main issue will be email integration? dunno

Mac's are dirty, but hey doesnt matter, honesly don't know why people have such a negative against one or the others products. Personaly I don't think Apple can write a piece of software to save their lives, but they make nice hardware. But hey.
Office365 isn't a piece of software it's a cloud service, as is google apps for domains.
if you need email access for iPhone's then Google or Microsoft are the way, as they both support Microsoft ActiveSync protocols (what the iPhone uses for sync, yes even Apple know how to license a good product) and they both sync todo/calendar/mail/chat etc.
Managing your own servers for a small (even medium to large) company is just plain daft IMPO, no-one does it nowadays as it's more headache/cost than is needed. For resilience you need multiple site/line/server solution, and that's expensive, something that others can quite happily handle for you for a tiny piece of the cost it will cost you to do.
I've done this stuff for many, many, many years and believe me, even we are starting to offload all our server hosting to other companies (or different parts of our own).
But whatever you feel is best for you, your money at the end of the day. But no matter what you think, cloud is the way forward, just look at Google S3 or Microsoft Azure, it host a LOT of the internet nowadays (ebay, amazon, microsoft, wordpress, twitter etc)

1 Jun 2011

Quote by apey_kinks
[
Office365 isn't a piece of software it's a cloud service, as is google apps for domains.
if you need email access for iPhone's then Google or Microsoft are the way, as they both support Microsoft ActiveSync protocols (what the iPhone uses for sync, yes even Apple know how to license a good product) and they both sync todo/calendar/mail/chat etc.
Managing your own servers for a small (even medium to large) company is just plain daft IMPO, no-one does it nowadays as it's more headache/cost than is needed. For resilience you need multiple site/line/server solution, and that's expensive, something that others can quite happily handle for you for a tiny piece of the cost it will cost you to do.
I've done this stuff for many, many, many years and believe me, even we are starting to offload all our server hosting to other companies (or different parts of our own).
But whatever you feel is best for you, your money at the end of the day. But no matter what you think, cloud is the way forward, just look at Google S3 or Microsoft Azure, it host a LOT of the internet nowadays (ebay, amazon, microsoft, wordpress, twitter etc)

Thanks for the info, this is exactly why i've asked the question as my pc knowledge is on a sort 'need to know' basis lol

I've done a bit more digging and it looks like i can host multiple sites with my current hosting service and i should have enough emails available by deleting old addresses set up as spam catchers.
As we'll have to have a server to run the business systems needed for service we're selling, i just thought it might make more sense to keep it all in one place, but if you do this every day and think its not the best way then i'm happy to go with that, even more so as the system manufacturers are totally redesigning the whole structure this year so things might have changed by the time we're ready to use it.
Thanks for the advice, i can at least get the ball rolling and get the company set up and trading for now- without any customers there won't be a server anyway :thumbup:

1 Jun 2011

try

for domain and hosting
hosting is only £4 a month with pop and smtp access (mail)
never down and i use them as they reliable and uk based
mail is easy to setup they give u full instructions