Choose Your Own Email Address (another.com)

Member Name: kenjohn

Product:	another.com
Date:	13/11/03 (1131 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: NO SPAM. , NO SPAM. , NO SPAM.

Disadvantages: It isn't free (bah!)

~ ~ In the six years or so since I got wired to the old World Wide Web I?ve had dozens of email addresses, with all sorts of different email providers.
In common with most folks, I suppose my first was with Outlook Express, the free email service from Microsoft that seems to come packaged with every Microsoft Windows system.

~ ~ Then I began to discover sites like Yahoo, Lycos, and Hotmail, and opened new free email accounts with them. But they all had one big fault in common. That?s right; you guessed it! The bane of everyone who uses emails life. SPAM!!!
I?d open up my inbox, and the page would suddenly be literally flooded with messages from all over the planet, offering me all sorts of weird and wonderful services, from penis enlargement cream to millions of pounds if I would only let them use my bank account to transfer money from Nigeria/Turkey/Afghanistan or wherever.

~ ~ Now the mad cabbie wasn?t born yesterday, and even as an Internet ?novice? had the nonce to realise that nothing in this life comes for free, and all such Spam emails were immediately deleted.
But after a while, and after I had accidentally deleted a few genuine emails from friends or business associates, this Spam rubbish really started to get up my nose.
I did have a good email service for a while, with ?Ireland.com?, the website of the Irish Times newspaper, but then they stopped offering the service free, and charging ludicrous sums of money to even access their website. (Even for someone who writes for the newspaper on the odd occasion! Sod that for a lark!)

~ ~ So I began to hunt around for another free email provider, where I wouldn?t be constantly bombarded with unsolicited mails.
Quite how I came across the site I?m reviewing here, ?another.com?, I can?t honestly remember. I get the feeling it was as a result of reading an opinion here at Ciao, (or over at dooyoo) but I can?t say with complete certainty.
What I *CAN* state with cert
ainty is that I am now a very happy and contented wee mad cabbie, because I have now been a subscriber to another.com for just over a year, and in all that time could count the number of unsolicited emails I?ve received on the fingers of one hand.

~ ~ You did read that correctly, by the way. I did say ?subscriber?.
Because although another.com do offer you a month?s free trial of their email service, after your month is up they require you to pay them £23.95 to continue using the service for the following year.
What initially attracted me to another.com was the fact that you can actually create your own exclusive email address.
They have literally thousands to choose from, and you are bound to find one that either tickles your fancy or relates to your business or profession.
As a subscriber, you can create up to 21 different email addresses, that you can use for different purposes.
So I have an email addy that I use for personal friends and family, another that I use for any journalism work, and one that I use for my taxi and trade union contacts.

~ ~ Here?s just a wee selection of some of the email addresses that you can choose from.

inmyopinion.co.uk (there?s a good one for all us writers!)

the-names-bond.co.uk (any James Bond fans out there?)

capitalist.co.uk (for all you would be entrepreneurs)

chainsmoker.co.uk (cough, cough)

OK. That?ll do. I think you?ve probably got my drift.
There?s an ?A to Z? and a search facility so you can trawl through all the available names at your leisure. And as I said, there are thousands to choose from.

~ ~ Once your emails start to arrive in your inbox, you can create loads of different folders to store them in. A wee drop down box allows you to select at a click what folder you want to despatch them to, and, of course, you always have the option to delete them if you think they are in any way dodgy.
You can also set up a Spam fi
lter, which will automatically send any designated emails directly to a Spam folder.
I (so far) haven?t had to bother with this, because I simply don?t get any Spam with this email provider.
One little quirk though, that I?ll mention in passing. For some weird and wonderful reason that I can?t for the life of me figure out, anytime ?jillmurphy? sends me an email, it somehow ends up being automatically sent to the Spam folder! (Does ?oor Jilly? lead some sort of secret life as a mad Spammer that I don?t know anything about?? Heh, heh)
You can store up to 10Mb of emails in your folders, and if for any reason this isn?t enough for you then for an extra £12.50, you can add another 10Mb of storage.
You also have the option to opt for 20Mb of email storage when you take out or renew your subscription, at an initial cost of £29.95

~ ~ Another useful facility that I use is the file store.
Here you can store up to 5Mb of files, and it?s very handy to be able to send any attachments you receive here. You can then scan them with whatever virus checker you use before you open them, just in case it contains one of those nasty wee viruses that seem to be forever doing the rounds using email.
You have all the other usual facilities that you get with most email providers.
There?s an address book for storing all the email addys of your contacts, and here you can simply click on their name (or names for multiple emails) and be taken directly to the ?compose an email? box.
Another section that is useful is the ?overview?. Here you will be told how much of your storage facility you have used up, and how many active email addresses you are currently using.
A tiny wee box at the top of the page keeps you updated with how many days you have left until your subscription expires. This is useful, as I would have most likely have forgotten to renew mine on time about a month or so ago if it hadn?t been for this.

~ ~ If any of you are mad w
ebsite designers, then for an extra £15 per year, you can have an ?exclusive domain? registered using whatever name you choose.
Again, like the email addresses there are thousands to choose from, or you can create your own.
I don?t use this facility, for the simple reason that my knowledge of HTML could easily fit on the back of a stamp. (with room to spare)

~ ~ I?m not going to describe the site layout and home page in detail, as anybody who?s interested enough can simply go and take a wee look for themselves. You know the old saying; a picture is better than a thousand words.
One thing I will mention is the page colour.
You can select what background colour you want your inbox to be, or, if you?re like me and like being surprised, you can set this to ?random selection?, and get a different coloured page every time you log on. (it?s fun)
You won?t be bombarded with on-page advertising either. There area few banner ads right enough, but they?re not particularly intrusive, and you don?t get any of those damn pop-ups.

~ ~ I believe that in the past, another.com. was a totally free email provider, but this was before I joined the site.
Anyways, as I said earlier, I don?t believe you get much for ?free? in this life, and no doubt when they were offering a free service, you were paying for it in other ways. (loads of advertising?!)
Personally, I?m more than happy to pay them my £23.95 a year to live a happy and Spam-free existence. You can pay your subscription on-line by credit or debit card, or if you don't have a card, by cheque or postal order through the post.
If you like the sound of it, then go and try out their one month?s free trial.
Recommended by the mad cabbie.

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Copyright KenJ

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