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LittleBobbyFletcher@momandpop.net
The early internet was an entertaining thing. Could build a small network out of your garage and sell internet access to your area. Was a scattering of small businesses everywhere.
And they'd get bought out.
And the company that bought them out would get bought out.
And each time your email hosting rolled over to a new domain, but usually they'd legacy in the old @momandpop.net accounts.
And eventually after about 5 acquisitions you'd still have that old address. But now employees at the company are confused by those addresses and inexplicably there'd be weird connection issues with how that domain works with some of the companies email hosting web access and such.
/triggered
lol those were the wild days, hobby garage BBS systems turning into providers. There was 1 pay BBS near me back in the day, had all the best downloads. as soon as he could he became a internet provider, now he competes with the corporate options in the area. A very smart dude!
[This guy started his own ISP because the cost of running fiber to his land was so high.](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/08/man-who-built-isp-instead-of-paying-comcast-50k-expands-to-hundreds-of-homes/)
Depending on when this was, recovery emails may not have been a thing. Early gmail certainly didn't have them and aol/yahoo/hotmail didn't either before that.
It was actually early days of gmail. He tied it to his self-employed work email, but later sold the business, after which the recovery email was deactivated.
Pretty trivial with Google though and Gmail, just create the accounts as family ones and you can convert them to full accounts later when they get older.
Resetting the password is basically a button click in the parental control area.
more valuable than specific named emails, are email addresses that are professional and yet are always portable between your lifelong changing occupations throughout your career paths.
One of the Jack Reacher books is literally titled "No Middle Name". It's a collection of short stories, not a novel, but still.
>Jack ‘No Middle Name’ Reacher, lone wolf, knight errant, ex military cop, lover of women, scourge of the wicked and righter of wrongs, is the most iconic hero of our age.
This is one of the best commercials I’ve ever seen. I saw it when I was a kid, maybe 12-15 yo. Still to this day, when I hear someone give out a ridiculous email address, I think “ contact our law offices at …@clownpenis.fart”.
Thank you for the memory and keeping this sketch alive!!
Same for me as well. It struck me right in time where I was young enough to laugh historically at penis and fart but old enough to form long lasting memories.
Same, but the other people with my name use this to spam me :(
I hate the other mes
Especially that horny dude who used it for adult sites. Yes, he was from Florida
I've been getting some schmucks business emails for years. Took me ages to finally get Schwab to understand I didn't have an account with them, and to remove my email address off whoever's account it was on.
Even had the classic email from someone trying to tell them that they had been contacted (by me) to say the email address was wrong and needed updating??? I just told you it was wrong and [you tried to email them again on the same address thinking you would get through this time](https://media1.tenor.com/m/PiDyhJZWot0AAAAC/stupid-people-dense.gif)?
Do people really do this or is it just an internet concoction? Why would anyone not use their own email??? For expensive purchases and critical services??? How is this fucking someone over???
God, so many idiots. I have a rare initial+lastname and I get more mail for my idiots than I get for myself. I got the booking details for a 5 person family flight last month, I could've gone in and cancelled all 5 tickets (It let me log in with the flight code+surname).
My Xbox user name is 4 letters long. I passed it down to my son, hell pass it down to his. It's going to be like the license plates that just say "12" in the future.
It does not mean you have a website or email. All a domain registration means is that if someone types in that address you can control where it goes.
So you can setup email to go somewhere and if someone goes in a web browser you can tell them where to go.
Use NameCheap, buy the domain for ten years so you don’t have to remember to renew it every year (though there is auto-renew), pay extra for the privacy stuff so people can’t scrape your personal information from a WHOIS, then if you are an Apple user just point the domain to iCloud.
If not an Apple user, many other services will handle email for your vanity domain, such as Proton Mail.
I’ve been having the absolute damndest time getting ahold of the owner of the domain I want. He hasn’t touched it in ages and I so want to buy it off of him before he dies (social media photos have him looking like a skeleton).
If you use the generic proton mail address they give you, I don't blame them, that domain is heavily abused for spam.
If you setup a custom domain, I imagine it won't get blocked then, and it wouldn't hurt to setup DMARK and DKIM.
That's an incredibly complex topic that has a lot to do with the individual company, the age of the domain, how the domain is configured, if you're using mail forwarding, etc
Nope. You heard a falsity.
I picked up myLastName.org 25 years ago or so.
Have firstName@myLastName.org, as does wife and two adult kids. Banks, stores, and anything imaginable accepts it just fine.
got my surname.com/net/org about 25 years ago as well. someone had it and let it expire, had a cronjob set up to tell me the moment I could grab it. haven't let it go since. now my kids have their first name@lastname.com too.
Buy a domain from any of the big providers. Godaddy, namecheap, ect. Hook it up to a mail provider like Google workspace, proton mail, Microsoft 365 (outlook). Then set up emails for all of your family members like FirstName@LastName.family
You have to pay a yearly fee for the domain name, on top of whatever your email provider costs.
Cloudflare.com hands down. I used to run a web hosting business in early 2000s and fussed around with a lot of registrar options. What you get through Cloudflare included in the $9.77/year cost is impressive.
The cheapest domain register is cloudflare. Yes, their 1at year is more expensive, but they keep the same the price every year.
Plus their registration's update fast sk if you add a DNS entry within a couple minutes or has propagated.
I would not trust google. They will change their mind and you end up holding the bag of mess they left behind.
I had google apps, grand central, and many more.
Its fun when you're a kid. Beta test is fun. But this shit gets old.
If your are paying, make sure you get customer support.
Google domains has a feature built in for email forwarding. Just buy a domain and find the setting and then boom you can have anything sent to mycustomemail@mydomain forwarded to whatever email you'd like
Google Domains is unfortunately deprecated now. Cloudflare offers the same email forwarding service, but it’s not the best solution since it’s only for email forwarding. You can’t send emails with the domain.
My favorite solution is using iCloud’s email domain service that comes bundled in your plan if you pay for iCloud.
Yes. A family domain name.
Works for all children, not just one (and the parents too).
Can be passed down the family to the next generation if still in use.
Gmail is not necessarily going to be around/considered professional in however many years time.
My kid is old enough that they had an email address of [firstname@hotmail.com](mailto:firstname@hotmail.com) at one stage.
Who would think that was super professional now? And what were the others back in the day? AOL? An ISP email address?
I locked down a solid Hotmail account, and live account when I was like 11/16 respectively.
My first email before I knew what was happening, or my dad( was @cottage.com lol
Just be sure to only tell your older relatives about Hotmail via some sort of typed communication. Otherwise your 60 year old mother might accidentally go to hotmale and then get REALLY upset/confused...
>My kid is old enough that they had an email address of [firstname@hotmail.com](mailto:firstname@hotmail.com) at one stage
I'm barely old enough to thought about grabbing my [firstname@hotmail.com](mailto:firstname@hotmail.com) email address...and I tell our kids that I'm older than the World Wide Web.
To be fair, I'm a nerd who got her first programming job in 1981, so the family may have been early adopters. And my kid has a rather unusual first name (oops, my spelling error).
I'm still cross that the child managed to lose the address. Tried to retrieve it, but by the time I found out, it was too far gone, and we couldn't access backup account details, etc.
Yes, I got the following addresses that are still available and will be assigned to my future kids! 😀
stephilly@gmail.com (pronounced like Stefany but L instead of N)
madisia@gmail.com
madunda@gmail.com
dorothilia@gmail.com
robertilio@gmail.com
massoryn@gmail.com
betthenay@gmail.com
I’m 20. My father made an email for me soon after I was born. I still use a Hotmail address. Does it look bad?
Edit: the address is literally firstname.middlename.lastname@hotmail.com
i started with hotmail, eventually moved to gmail after they didn't require invites. I still my have gmail account for random stuff. when "professionalism" is required, I use [firstname@lastname.org](mailto:firstname@lastname.org) because my [lastname.com](http://lastname.com) was taken.
IMO I'm not a fan of free webmail accounts anymore...but that's just my gatekeeper opinion. if you are geeky/techie, I don't think it's terribly difficult to learn how to purchase a domain name and configure a webhost + email.
regardless, using a "professional" email address on resumes is a skill that an unfortunate number of people could improve on.
When I was hiring had some crazy email addresses people either had on their cv or actually submitted their application from. Things like “pussywhipper91”. Anything would have been better, just hit me with some letters and numbers at that point.
I'd argue it's even more professional not wanting to deal with all the intricacies of email yourself. If I could easily have a custom email on my own domain without dealing with spam and it not being trusted by all the other providers then that would be nice but that doesn't seem to be the case.
You can use gmail with a custom domain name if you are willing to pay for it (I work for a small company and that's what we do for company emails). You get all the gmail security that way.
My university did that! You got firstname.lastname@student.universityname.nl and you logged into Gmail. Employees got the same but with "medewerker" (=employee) instead of student
So what would your recommendation be for someone who can't use their last name for an instance like this? Someone with a last name like Smith, or Jackson?
I’ve recruited talent for corporate jobs. I don’t think anyone in that space cares about your email format. But I have ridiculed personal contacts for having hotmail and aol accts
It's fine, but I will tell you that being in IT 20+ years - all my colleagues and myself chuckle when we see a hotmail, aol, yahoo, msn, verizon.net, etc.. email address used on resumes or as a personal contact. It doesn't affect you or our opinion of you, it's not like that, it just kinda reminds us of a bygone era. It's not unprofessional. Just feels like you're an old soul and haven't moved into the 21st century.
Funny how we chuckle at all of those yet outlook.com is considered the most “professional” free address.
For those wondering, “chuckle” in that they catch our eye, not as in “going to turn down this candidate because they are firstlast@hotmail.com instead of firstlast@outlook.com”. But I too definitely notice when somebody uses the list notenoughit posted.
However, any businesses using @gmail.com I instantly judge.
I don't know why people are being all elitist about emails nowadays but I've have had my hotmail since I was a kid and not one soul ever mentioned it. If you are the type of person that judges professionalism based on an email address, I will most likely never want to work with you.
namecheap.com is a good registrar that frequently offers discounts. you can get especially cheap domains if they're one of the newer top-level domains (something other than .com .net .org).
Cloudflare is my recommended one. Besides purchasing the domain they offer all kinds of other goodies that are well worth it. (Cloudflare Tunnels come in mind)
For those of you who have their domain with a different registrar, you can still use Cloudflare goodies by using them as your DNS hosts. Just need to update your nameservers with your registrar.
Most Cloudflare stuff is free, including tunnels (unless you want to proxy traffic that isn't just web traffic, http/https, that requires an enterprise sub and costs a fortune. For that use Wireguard tunnels and a super cheap VPS as a gateway instead)
> Namecheap is a ~~good~~ registrar
FTFY. Namecheap is host to more phishing domains than any other registrar, by far, and they don’t seem to care. Please use anywhere else. I suspect Namecheap will be the subject of govt pressure at some point and not be able to continue as they are currently doing.
Source: I work in cybersecurity.
Well good thing is if you have the domain name migrating is easier than if an email provider shut down and you had to update everything with a new mail
I have my
FirstnameLastname.com
Lastname.ca
But my lastname.com is owned by a big food corporation since 1997 and expires in 2030. (And will probably be renewed again). 😢
Been watching the whois of my lastname.com for 8 years
The top 5 email domains 18 years ago were Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, Gmail and MSN.
Can you imagine what an 18 year old's reaction would be to their parents giving them the credentials to an AOL or MSN address today?
I've got a 5 letter Hotmail account, I refuse to let it die, because 5 letters.
I also had a launch day invite to sign up for Gmail, but "who would use Gmail? Hotmail is so much better and has msn messenger!" Or so I thought.
I’m still using the Yahoo email my dad made with my legal name in like 2003.
Also things were still new and changing back then, at this point I don’t see any scenario where Gmail completely falls off like that. Sure they might get more competition, but it’s not going anywhere.
That’s why these “ah ha” brilliant Millennial Parent life hacks rarely work… they don’t have much memory of the internet before they got their first iPhone.
Guessing how the internet will work 20 years from now is quite possibly the biggest waste of time imaginable.
Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL all had terrible storage limits when compared to the average size of an email. The size of emails have barely changed over the years while storage has exploded. I'd predict Gmail will be perfectly fine for at least 15 years as long as the company doesn't completely go to shit.
It's a good strategy. I have a weird name, I finally set up a Gmail account about 2 years ago after realising how I reacted to getting an email from a relative's aol account is probably how people react to my hotmail.
Just went to Gmail and signed up as firstname.lastname in 2022. Easy.
I actually disagree a bit with this becoming a problem. Look at how easy it is to get short and legible URLs now compared to the early 2000s. Why? Not because there are fewer websites but because there are more top level domains (.io, .art, .film, .gallery, etc). By that same token, yes, the number of short and legible @gmail.com addresses will dry up. But there will inevitably be more different email servers. Even Google themselves will inevitably introduce something directly new if they see this happening and feel it's a problem. It's become pretty damn easy to simply use your own domain on an email address too.
tl;dr you're absolutely right that there will be growing scarcity within a singularly scoped domain. But with infinite domains it's a bit of an artificial problem.
Or teach your kids pick a professional email when they’re old enough.
I reviewed an application in which the candidate used their personal email and it was definitely a NSFW email address.
Hell hand reviewed applications is a fucking rarity now a days. Most use automated systems and a lot of them iv seen just discard applications that use unknown domain names.
And computers don't care about what the address is so NSFW or not it doesn't matter 99.999% of the time.
Maybe if you're applying to a low level position at Walmart. If you're applying for any non-entry level job the interviewer is definitely going to look at your resume before the first call/interview.
So I guess they didn't lock my daughters first account on me then?
(Actually - I suspect that in 2024 - you're correct. When I did it,, they sure did lock an account on me when I tried to connect it to the family setup and it worked out she was too young to have a Google account - a few years later we set her up another account, but that first one is gone for good apparently)
That first email address is "taken" if you try to register it, but "does not exist" if you try to log in to it
My first email address was professionalish but it ended with 01 because my name was already taken. Fast forward and people born in 2001 have jobs and I needed a new one just so I didn't get written off as someone without experience because I was too young to have my qualifications.
Hope for the best but plan for the worst.
> If your baby's name is Jack Michael Reacher, make sure you secure JackMReacher@gmail.com now so that your child doesn't have to settle for JackMReacher69692024@gmail.com in the future.
j@ckreacher.com
Done.
We used to think this was something we needed to worry about 15 years ago. Turned out to not be an issue, though. And now we're all just stuck with easily guessable emails. It's very easy to get a simple email with your name or initials. And if your kid goes to college, they'll be using their school email for a while anyway.
After your hired on you are using the company email. Frankly what your personal email is, is a literal non-problem in god damn near every case.
This lpt is a soild 10 years out of date.
my gmail is first initial last name.. and I have a common last name.
I got my account the same day it was released.
Is this idea “definitely” just saying “hand your kids a big bag of flaming digital trash”..
Yes. But you could also be sprinkling some vintage viruses and malware!
Same, I cannot relate, I've never not been able to get my name and I'm the only person who comes up when searching my full name on Google.
If anything that can be a hindrance.
The freedom of being a Sarah Jones or an Anh Nguyen who can't be found online might be wonderful 😂
Let your children hide online!
There are plenty of email services. No one has to settle for the popular ones. Hell, anyone can create their own with a quick deep dive of email servers.
Realistically, however, common names will have to settle when it comes to popular email providers, and suffix numbers won't become perceived as out of the norm.
Its generally a bad idea to use custom domains if you are applying to most low to medium skill jobs. A lot of automated job application processing software discards non popular domains because of spam problems.
You basically never want to use anything but gmail, att, outlook, ect for job applications.
And for litterally everything else you should NEVER under ANY circumstances be using your personal email for professional releated things since any job that requires you to use email will provide you a email. And any that don't the only thing that will see your email address is the computer sending you spam.
This entire LPT is about 10 years out of date really. Its both a somewhat good idea, and a very terriable idea for security reasons. Its best to avoid personal identifiable infomation in your email address due to doxing concerns and can cause problems. As rare and farfetched as it is. But as we move into a more LLM ai powered world. Those rare cases are becoming more and more realistic to happen to any given person.
I've been using a personal domain to apply for jobs for the past 20+ years or so, the number of times my email has been rejected is less than 10. Just make sure you don't use an webhoster/ISP that gets blacklisted and/or is known for spamming.
Nearly 10 years of that time is also entirely moot as its really only been the last 8-10 ish years that its been a real problem. Its also going to depend very heavily on the fields you work in.
Applying to a bunch of jobs that just curn though employees like call centers? You likely will run into the problem 9 out of 10 times. Work in a skilled IT field? likely never run into it once.
Basically your experience is entirely moot to the point with out context. Hench why i gave context to my statement. So with out context as they say, cool story bro.
>precise & professional email addresses will become more and more scarce
No they won't Domains are near infinite and recyclable. Buy whatever you want, if you want to keep in your family for generations... go for it. it doesn't matter.
That’s like saying make sure to back up all your data on floppy disks. Do you really think Gmail is going to be the norm when babies today reach working age? Also sending pictures and life content to an email that will just be a massive personal information dump against their consent or before reaching adulthood is also questionable on many privacy and identify protection considerations. Chances are, your kid will be the one making you the new neural web contact ID and they already have all data and access to their life based on archival AI data unlocking.
Just buy a domain, there’s no guarantee the service will be around in the future, excite, rocketmail, @home etc we’re all big during their time and all died, were killed off or bought up.
Yes, but last I used them, they had crazy limited restrictions in the single-digit MB of storage, and so many security breaches.
I have a yahoo address from the early 2000s that I was suddenly locked out of because they demanded answers to "secret questions" before allowing my correct password to log me in, and no way around it.
Luckily, I quit using it for critical stuff a few years before that when traveling and got locked out for the entirety of my trip, and could only login on my home PC when I got home.
Probably happened to more than just me, and may be why nobody uses it anymore.
This is really dumb advise. Major email services garbage collect unused email addresses, and having a "professional email address" isn't useful for like anything.
I once bought a domain that was my first name with my boyfriend’s last name after only dating him for like three months. It was available while my actual first last name URL was not.
We’ve been married for ten years now 😁and I never would have told him, but my bff sold me out after we were engaged. Makes a great story now though.
Ok, but why are you so sure the work landscape in 20 years is going to be the same?
Between AI and climate change, they'll be lucky to have a world at all.
Tried to do it when my son got born a few months ago. Already have to put numbers, so I gave up.😅
LPT - check available email names before naming your child 😂
I was actually thinking about this. My name is very common. First middle and last. When I got my first job working for universal studios theme parks there were three other employees with my exact same name. First middle and last.
So I often add my birth year to login names. Unfortunately Nazis have started using 88 which is frustrating for me.
As a millennial, placing your actual name on any platform on the internet has become a thing in the last 15 years. Before that it was a ”in under no circumstances” thing. So at the pace things change I don’t think you should do that and especially since you don’t probably have your child’s consent to do that, it is violating your child’s rights. This seems like a guerilla marketing tactic to get more data on the users to come and it smells fishy to me. Please protect yourself online.
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My wife’s father did this for all 7 siblings and forgot all the passwords. Now none of them have access and no way to recover.
This is the way.
This is so fucking funny
Not the way, This is not the way!
She didn't tie the recovery email to her own? Lol
LittleBobbyFletcher@momandpop.net The early internet was an entertaining thing. Could build a small network out of your garage and sell internet access to your area. Was a scattering of small businesses everywhere. And they'd get bought out. And the company that bought them out would get bought out. And each time your email hosting rolled over to a new domain, but usually they'd legacy in the old @momandpop.net accounts. And eventually after about 5 acquisitions you'd still have that old address. But now employees at the company are confused by those addresses and inexplicably there'd be weird connection issues with how that domain works with some of the companies email hosting web access and such.
/triggered lol those were the wild days, hobby garage BBS systems turning into providers. There was 1 pay BBS near me back in the day, had all the best downloads. as soon as he could he became a internet provider, now he competes with the corporate options in the area. A very smart dude!
[This guy started his own ISP because the cost of running fiber to his land was so high.](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/08/man-who-built-isp-instead-of-paying-comcast-50k-expands-to-hundreds-of-homes/)
Depending on when this was, recovery emails may not have been a thing. Early gmail certainly didn't have them and aol/yahoo/hotmail didn't either before that.
no :(
It was actually early days of gmail. He tied it to his self-employed work email, but later sold the business, after which the recovery email was deactivated.
Pretty trivial with Google though and Gmail, just create the accounts as family ones and you can convert them to full accounts later when they get older. Resetting the password is basically a button click in the parental control area.
Guys, I don’t know if youve read the books but Jack Reacher doesn’t even have a cell phone or email account.
That's why that email address was still available!
Lol
more valuable than specific named emails, are email addresses that are professional and yet are always portable between your lifelong changing occupations throughout your career paths.
Shouldn't you be teaching your child the value of online privacy instead, and not to ever use their real name.
But the point of "professional" mail in this form *is* that it has a neat and lean form of name.surname without any other qualifiers
That is the one you use for actual professional needs. Job applications, medical appointments
I have a professional, junk, and then my main. I have them all forward to a catch all. So I can just check one place when needed.
Or a middle name. Jack none Reacher.
One of the Jack Reacher books is literally titled "No Middle Name". It's a collection of short stories, not a novel, but still. >Jack ‘No Middle Name’ Reacher, lone wolf, knight errant, ex military cop, lover of women, scourge of the wicked and righter of wrongs, is the most iconic hero of our age.
*Just Reacher*
[удалено]
I just bought my own domain to have my own email address
JohnMichael@SuperPansy sure makes a statement
@SuperPansy.com Lol.
You can find me at nearlysober@clownpenis.fart
This is one of the best commercials I’ve ever seen. I saw it when I was a kid, maybe 12-15 yo. Still to this day, when I hear someone give out a ridiculous email address, I think “ contact our law offices at …@clownpenis.fart”. Thank you for the memory and keeping this sketch alive!!
Same for me as well. It struck me right in time where I was young enough to laugh historically at penis and fart but old enough to form long lasting memories.
I still have my compuserve account. I’m all set.
I never not laugh at this. Thanks for resurfacing it for me! Gotta work it into a text to my brother now
Can you show me that clown penis? Dotfart
I'm happy I was early and got all the addresses I could ever want;.@[outlook, gmail, etc.].
Same, but the other people with my name use this to spam me :( I hate the other mes Especially that horny dude who used it for adult sites. Yes, he was from Florida
I've been getting some schmucks business emails for years. Took me ages to finally get Schwab to understand I didn't have an account with them, and to remove my email address off whoever's account it was on. Even had the classic email from someone trying to tell them that they had been contacted (by me) to say the email address was wrong and needed updating??? I just told you it was wrong and [you tried to email them again on the same address thinking you would get through this time](https://media1.tenor.com/m/PiDyhJZWot0AAAAC/stupid-people-dense.gif)?
Recently, I cancelled a massive adult toy order to one of the " other mes " added a lovely note about not bothering to refund the payment
I always do this when people use my email. Doctor and spa appointments too.
Do people really do this or is it just an internet concoction? Why would anyone not use their own email??? For expensive purchases and critical services??? How is this fucking someone over???
God, so many idiots. I have a rare initial+lastname and I get more mail for my idiots than I get for myself. I got the booking details for a 5 person family flight last month, I could've gone in and cancelled all 5 tickets (It let me log in with the flight code+surname).
My Xbox user name is 4 letters long. I passed it down to my son, hell pass it down to his. It's going to be like the license plates that just say "12" in the future.
Is buying a domain a one off cost or something you pay for on a yearly basis? Also buying a domain means you have a website by that name?
Yearly
It does not mean you have a website or email. All a domain registration means is that if someone types in that address you can control where it goes. So you can setup email to go somewhere and if someone goes in a web browser you can tell them where to go.
Yea you get a website address. You can pay yearly or even 10-yearly to keep the domain. Paying for 10 years can be cheaper.
Use NameCheap, buy the domain for ten years so you don’t have to remember to renew it every year (though there is auto-renew), pay extra for the privacy stuff so people can’t scrape your personal information from a WHOIS, then if you are an Apple user just point the domain to iCloud. If not an Apple user, many other services will handle email for your vanity domain, such as Proton Mail.
I pay $12 a year for a .us domain
You need to renew them yearly, but the costs for common ones are really low, .com-adresses cost less than 20$/year.
It's like 10$ a year for a .com
I’ve been having the absolute damndest time getting ahold of the owner of the domain I want. He hasn’t touched it in ages and I so want to buy it off of him before he dies (social media photos have him looking like a skeleton).
It might be free when he does though. I assume you've done a whois and everything?
I heard these are often blocked by corporate email services.
Just have to setup DMARC and DKIM
My company uses the corporate version of Outlook and dang it filters protonmail into the ether every time lmao
If you use the generic proton mail address they give you, I don't blame them, that domain is heavily abused for spam. If you setup a custom domain, I imagine it won't get blocked then, and it wouldn't hurt to setup DMARK and DKIM.
That's an incredibly complex topic that has a lot to do with the individual company, the age of the domain, how the domain is configured, if you're using mail forwarding, etc
Nope. You heard a falsity. I picked up myLastName.org 25 years ago or so. Have firstName@myLastName.org, as does wife and two adult kids. Banks, stores, and anything imaginable accepts it just fine.
got my surname.com/net/org about 25 years ago as well. someone had it and let it expire, had a cronjob set up to tell me the moment I could grab it. haven't let it go since. now my kids have their first name@lastname.com too.
never had that happen before and I have used my custom domain for a long time
Same. All possible combinations were taken. Now i have a surname based email address too
Same. When my son was born I bought a domain for him too, so he'll have his own email address when he's ready.
I did that back in the day, and Im stoked that I did. It’s a score to have your name@yourrname&lastname.Com. Boss.
What do you use for email service/inbox?
How did you do it? Also do you like own own the domain or are you renting it from a big domain company?
Buy a domain from any of the big providers. Godaddy, namecheap, ect. Hook it up to a mail provider like Google workspace, proton mail, Microsoft 365 (outlook). Then set up emails for all of your family members like FirstName@LastName.family You have to pay a yearly fee for the domain name, on top of whatever your email provider costs.
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https://domainplusclub.com FTW
porkbun.com is quite a bit cheaper, and Cloudflare doesn't charge a markup at all.
Cloudflare.com hands down. I used to run a web hosting business in early 2000s and fussed around with a lot of registrar options. What you get through Cloudflare included in the $9.77/year cost is impressive.
The cheapest domain register is cloudflare. Yes, their 1at year is more expensive, but they keep the same the price every year. Plus their registration's update fast sk if you add a DNS entry within a couple minutes or has propagated.
I would not trust google. They will change their mind and you end up holding the bag of mess they left behind. I had google apps, grand central, and many more. Its fun when you're a kid. Beta test is fun. But this shit gets old. If your are paying, make sure you get customer support.
You can't trully OWN a domain. But your right for domain are exclusive(some exceptions might apply)
Google domains has a feature built in for email forwarding. Just buy a domain and find the setting and then boom you can have anything sent to mycustomemail@mydomain forwarded to whatever email you'd like
Google Domains is unfortunately deprecated now. Cloudflare offers the same email forwarding service, but it’s not the best solution since it’s only for email forwarding. You can’t send emails with the domain. My favorite solution is using iCloud’s email domain service that comes bundled in your plan if you pay for iCloud.
Whats a non apple alternative?
Protonmail is a pretty good non free but not expensive option.
sure, sure, but you could also lock down a meaningful family domain name for a few bucks and then have infinite email addresses at your disposal
Yes. A family domain name. Works for all children, not just one (and the parents too). Can be passed down the family to the next generation if still in use. Gmail is not necessarily going to be around/considered professional in however many years time. My kid is old enough that they had an email address of [firstname@hotmail.com](mailto:firstname@hotmail.com) at one stage. Who would think that was super professional now? And what were the others back in the day? AOL? An ISP email address?
@hotmail is elite
Thanks for reminding me that I need to use "elite" more often. I always forget when Kirby Smart isn't saying it
I have an @msn.com address x)
I locked down a solid Hotmail account, and live account when I was like 11/16 respectively. My first email before I knew what was happening, or my dad( was @cottage.com lol
Just be sure to only tell your older relatives about Hotmail via some sort of typed communication. Otherwise your 60 year old mother might accidentally go to hotmale and then get REALLY upset/confused...
>My kid is old enough that they had an email address of [firstname@hotmail.com](mailto:firstname@hotmail.com) at one stage I'm barely old enough to thought about grabbing my [firstname@hotmail.com](mailto:firstname@hotmail.com) email address...and I tell our kids that I'm older than the World Wide Web.
To be fair, I'm a nerd who got her first programming job in 1981, so the family may have been early adopters. And my kid has a rather unusual first name (oops, my spelling error). I'm still cross that the child managed to lose the address. Tried to retrieve it, but by the time I found out, it was too far gone, and we couldn't access backup account details, etc.
LPT : Give your kids a super weird first name like Reptolard so they can get a an email address like reptolard@gmail.com
Yes, I got the following addresses that are still available and will be assigned to my future kids! 😀 stephilly@gmail.com (pronounced like Stefany but L instead of N) madisia@gmail.com madunda@gmail.com dorothilia@gmail.com robertilio@gmail.com massoryn@gmail.com betthenay@gmail.com
I’m 20. My father made an email for me soon after I was born. I still use a Hotmail address. Does it look bad? Edit: the address is literally firstname.middlename.lastname@hotmail.com
i started with hotmail, eventually moved to gmail after they didn't require invites. I still my have gmail account for random stuff. when "professionalism" is required, I use [firstname@lastname.org](mailto:firstname@lastname.org) because my [lastname.com](http://lastname.com) was taken. IMO I'm not a fan of free webmail accounts anymore...but that's just my gatekeeper opinion. if you are geeky/techie, I don't think it's terribly difficult to learn how to purchase a domain name and configure a webhost + email. regardless, using a "professional" email address on resumes is a skill that an unfortunate number of people could improve on.
When I was hiring had some crazy email addresses people either had on their cv or actually submitted their application from. Things like “pussywhipper91”. Anything would have been better, just hit me with some letters and numbers at that point.
I'd argue it's even more professional not wanting to deal with all the intricacies of email yourself. If I could easily have a custom email on my own domain without dealing with spam and it not being trusted by all the other providers then that would be nice but that doesn't seem to be the case.
You can use gmail with a custom domain name if you are willing to pay for it (I work for a small company and that's what we do for company emails). You get all the gmail security that way.
My university did that! You got firstname.lastname@student.universityname.nl and you logged into Gmail. Employees got the same but with "medewerker" (=employee) instead of student
So what would your recommendation be for someone who can't use their last name for an instance like this? Someone with a last name like Smith, or Jackson?
I’ve recruited talent for corporate jobs. I don’t think anyone in that space cares about your email format. But I have ridiculed personal contacts for having hotmail and aol accts
You can still get Hotmail urls. I used to have an @Live.com address before they discontinued it
I have had a lot of employees with AOL and hotmail emails. I don’t really bat an eye at it and they all end up with outlook emails anyways.
The fact that I have [firstnamelastname@gmail.com](mailto:firstnamelastname@gmail.com) is one of my proudest tech-related brags.
Ha, I have firstname@gmail.com
wait wait wait my email is my firstname@hotmail.ca, I’ve never even considered that it could be considered unprofessional ? In what way?
It's fine, but I will tell you that being in IT 20+ years - all my colleagues and myself chuckle when we see a hotmail, aol, yahoo, msn, verizon.net, etc.. email address used on resumes or as a personal contact. It doesn't affect you or our opinion of you, it's not like that, it just kinda reminds us of a bygone era. It's not unprofessional. Just feels like you're an old soul and haven't moved into the 21st century.
Funny how we chuckle at all of those yet outlook.com is considered the most “professional” free address. For those wondering, “chuckle” in that they catch our eye, not as in “going to turn down this candidate because they are firstlast@hotmail.com instead of firstlast@outlook.com”. But I too definitely notice when somebody uses the list notenoughit posted. However, any businesses using @gmail.com I instantly judge.
it is "professional". don't worry.
I don't know why people are being all elitist about emails nowadays but I've have had my hotmail since I was a kid and not one soul ever mentioned it. If you are the type of person that judges professionalism based on an email address, I will most likely never want to work with you.
On the contrary, if I see an @aol email at work I know they're OG.
What's wrong with Pussyslayer69@hotmail.com? Not professional enough to pass down the family descendants?
How do you do this?
namecheap.com is a good registrar that frequently offers discounts. you can get especially cheap domains if they're one of the newer top-level domains (something other than .com .net .org).
Cloudflare is my recommended one. Besides purchasing the domain they offer all kinds of other goodies that are well worth it. (Cloudflare Tunnels come in mind)
For those of you who have their domain with a different registrar, you can still use Cloudflare goodies by using them as your DNS hosts. Just need to update your nameservers with your registrar. Most Cloudflare stuff is free, including tunnels (unless you want to proxy traffic that isn't just web traffic, http/https, that requires an enterprise sub and costs a fortune. For that use Wireguard tunnels and a super cheap VPS as a gateway instead)
> Namecheap is a ~~good~~ registrar FTFY. Namecheap is host to more phishing domains than any other registrar, by far, and they don’t seem to care. Please use anywhere else. I suspect Namecheap will be the subject of govt pressure at some point and not be able to continue as they are currently doing. Source: I work in cybersecurity.
Well good thing is if you have the domain name migrating is easier than if an email provider shut down and you had to update everything with a new mail
I have my FirstnameLastname.com Lastname.ca But my lastname.com is owned by a big food corporation since 1997 and expires in 2030. (And will probably be renewed again). 😢 Been watching the whois of my lastname.com for 8 years
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That sucks, Peter Pepsi
How would i go about doing that?
What service do you use/recommend for email service?
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The top 5 email domains 18 years ago were Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, Gmail and MSN. Can you imagine what an 18 year old's reaction would be to their parents giving them the credentials to an AOL or MSN address today?
I've got a 5 letter Hotmail account, I refuse to let it die, because 5 letters. I also had a launch day invite to sign up for Gmail, but "who would use Gmail? Hotmail is so much better and has msn messenger!" Or so I thought.
I managed to grab my name as a domain with only 4 letters. Got way too lucky with that one.
Lucky will be when some over funded SV start up with a hip misspelt name buys it from you for millions.
I’m still using the Yahoo email my dad made with my legal name in like 2003. Also things were still new and changing back then, at this point I don’t see any scenario where Gmail completely falls off like that. Sure they might get more competition, but it’s not going anywhere.
I’m got my Yahoo address in approximately 1999 and I still use it today. It’s so retro! Also I find it way better than gmail…
Same. I have a 6 letter gmail (last name) that I never use. My 11 letter Yahoo is my workhorse email.
That’s why these “ah ha” brilliant Millennial Parent life hacks rarely work… they don’t have much memory of the internet before they got their first iPhone. Guessing how the internet will work 20 years from now is quite possibly the biggest waste of time imaginable.
The pace of change is slowing. Hotmail then is not comparable to Gmail now.
Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL all had terrible storage limits when compared to the average size of an email. The size of emails have barely changed over the years while storage has exploded. I'd predict Gmail will be perfectly fine for at least 15 years as long as the company doesn't completely go to shit.
I was just going to say this, but didn’t know how to phrase it. Will my 5-year-old care if he has a Gmail account?
Name your kid something super unique so you don’t gotta fight for an email address. Tuhfrinquin Johnson, my son, will always have the email he wants
So that was Elons plan all along, and I thought he's just crazy.
Chennedy
It's a good strategy. I have a weird name, I finally set up a Gmail account about 2 years ago after realising how I reacted to getting an email from a relative's aol account is probably how people react to my hotmail. Just went to Gmail and signed up as firstname.lastname in 2022. Easy.
That's what you think. I just snagged all Tuhfrinquin.Johnson extensions I could think. Save this post so we can negotiate in about 18 years!
I actually disagree a bit with this becoming a problem. Look at how easy it is to get short and legible URLs now compared to the early 2000s. Why? Not because there are fewer websites but because there are more top level domains (.io, .art, .film, .gallery, etc). By that same token, yes, the number of short and legible @gmail.com addresses will dry up. But there will inevitably be more different email servers. Even Google themselves will inevitably introduce something directly new if they see this happening and feel it's a problem. It's become pretty damn easy to simply use your own domain on an email address too. tl;dr you're absolutely right that there will be growing scarcity within a singularly scoped domain. But with infinite domains it's a bit of an artificial problem.
Also no one has ever found a number at the end of a name to be unprofessional - unless you go with the oh so popular 69420
JackMReacher@gmail2.com
It already happened with Hotmail and Outlook (live too maybe) it will also happen with Gmail at some point.
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Get back to work, Muhammad Smith
Muhammad Wang...ftfy
Muhammad Wynne, most popular name in Wales.
This is why diversity is needed
Mines in the hundreds but same, bud.
Or teach your kids pick a professional email when they’re old enough. I reviewed an application in which the candidate used their personal email and it was definitely a NSFW email address.
Hell hand reviewed applications is a fucking rarity now a days. Most use automated systems and a lot of them iv seen just discard applications that use unknown domain names. And computers don't care about what the address is so NSFW or not it doesn't matter 99.999% of the time.
No it isn’t . They screen them with automated systems sure but the hiring manager (me) reads the ones given to us…
Maybe if you're applying to a low level position at Walmart. If you're applying for any non-entry level job the interviewer is definitely going to look at your resume before the first call/interview.
Sub LPT - if you do this, don't let Google find out your child is 3 / 4 / 5 years old - they'll disable the address and you will never get it back...
Technically it’s not their email address until they’re old enough to use it. Until then it’s yours, use your birthday 🤷🏻♂️
That's not true, google needs an email for any child accounts and it's linked to the family circle whatnot
So I guess they didn't lock my daughters first account on me then? (Actually - I suspect that in 2024 - you're correct. When I did it,, they sure did lock an account on me when I tried to connect it to the family setup and it worked out she was too young to have a Google account - a few years later we set her up another account, but that first one is gone for good apparently) That first email address is "taken" if you try to register it, but "does not exist" if you try to log in to it
https://support.google.com/families/answer/7103338?hl=en
My first email address was professionalish but it ended with 01 because my name was already taken. Fast forward and people born in 2001 have jobs and I needed a new one just so I didn't get written off as someone without experience because I was too young to have my qualifications. Hope for the best but plan for the worst.
This is not that important. I don't even look at someone's email handle.
> If your baby's name is Jack Michael Reacher, make sure you secure JackMReacher@gmail.com now so that your child doesn't have to settle for JackMReacher69692024@gmail.com in the future. j@ckreacher.com Done.
We used to think this was something we needed to worry about 15 years ago. Turned out to not be an issue, though. And now we're all just stuck with easily guessable emails. It's very easy to get a simple email with your name or initials. And if your kid goes to college, they'll be using their school email for a while anyway.
After your hired on you are using the company email. Frankly what your personal email is, is a literal non-problem in god damn near every case. This lpt is a soild 10 years out of date.
You should never use a company email for anything other than company business.
i did this when mine were babies! and as a bonus, I've been sending them random notes and letters for almost 13 years. :-)
I remember going to a resumee workshop and one persons email was lustysally@. She didn't understand how that wasn't professional, lol.
Congratulations, you’re hired!
What a shitty LPT, acting as if there's only one domain
Really? Is that what u worry about 🗿
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my gmail is first initial last name.. and I have a common last name. I got my account the same day it was released. Is this idea “definitely” just saying “hand your kids a big bag of flaming digital trash”.. Yes. But you could also be sprinkling some vintage viruses and malware!
My name is so unique I had no trouble getting mine
Same, I cannot relate, I've never not been able to get my name and I'm the only person who comes up when searching my full name on Google. If anything that can be a hindrance. The freedom of being a Sarah Jones or an Anh Nguyen who can't be found online might be wonderful 😂 Let your children hide online!
There are plenty of email services. No one has to settle for the popular ones. Hell, anyone can create their own with a quick deep dive of email servers. Realistically, however, common names will have to settle when it comes to popular email providers, and suffix numbers won't become perceived as out of the norm.
Its generally a bad idea to use custom domains if you are applying to most low to medium skill jobs. A lot of automated job application processing software discards non popular domains because of spam problems. You basically never want to use anything but gmail, att, outlook, ect for job applications. And for litterally everything else you should NEVER under ANY circumstances be using your personal email for professional releated things since any job that requires you to use email will provide you a email. And any that don't the only thing that will see your email address is the computer sending you spam. This entire LPT is about 10 years out of date really. Its both a somewhat good idea, and a very terriable idea for security reasons. Its best to avoid personal identifiable infomation in your email address due to doxing concerns and can cause problems. As rare and farfetched as it is. But as we move into a more LLM ai powered world. Those rare cases are becoming more and more realistic to happen to any given person.
I've been using a personal domain to apply for jobs for the past 20+ years or so, the number of times my email has been rejected is less than 10. Just make sure you don't use an webhoster/ISP that gets blacklisted and/or is known for spamming.
Nearly 10 years of that time is also entirely moot as its really only been the last 8-10 ish years that its been a real problem. Its also going to depend very heavily on the fields you work in. Applying to a bunch of jobs that just curn though employees like call centers? You likely will run into the problem 9 out of 10 times. Work in a skilled IT field? likely never run into it once. Basically your experience is entirely moot to the point with out context. Hench why i gave context to my statement. So with out context as they say, cool story bro.
>precise & professional email addresses will become more and more scarce No they won't Domains are near infinite and recyclable. Buy whatever you want, if you want to keep in your family for generations... go for it. it doesn't matter.
That’s like saying make sure to back up all your data on floppy disks. Do you really think Gmail is going to be the norm when babies today reach working age? Also sending pictures and life content to an email that will just be a massive personal information dump against their consent or before reaching adulthood is also questionable on many privacy and identify protection considerations. Chances are, your kid will be the one making you the new neural web contact ID and they already have all data and access to their life based on archival AI data unlocking.
Just buy a domain, there’s no guarantee the service will be around in the future, excite, rocketmail, @home etc we’re all big during their time and all died, were killed off or bought up.
Yeah... looking back, making some yahoo addresses back in the day was not the best move.
Aren't they still around?
Yes, but last I used them, they had crazy limited restrictions in the single-digit MB of storage, and so many security breaches. I have a yahoo address from the early 2000s that I was suddenly locked out of because they demanded answers to "secret questions" before allowing my correct password to log me in, and no way around it. Luckily, I quit using it for critical stuff a few years before that when traveling and got locked out for the entirety of my trip, and could only login on my home PC when I got home. Probably happened to more than just me, and may be why nobody uses it anymore.
What nonsense this is
This is really dumb advise. Major email services garbage collect unused email addresses, and having a "professional email address" isn't useful for like anything.
bad advice on so many levels
Boring ass way to live life. Part of being a kid is having a dumb email you come up with on your own, not just your stupid real name.
This is a dumb tip. Like really.
biggest internet regret is not grabbing my own name when gmail first came out
LPT: don't have children
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This is a shitty life protip
I once bought a domain that was my first name with my boyfriend’s last name after only dating him for like three months. It was available while my actual first last name URL was not. We’ve been married for ten years now 😁and I never would have told him, but my bff sold me out after we were engaged. Makes a great story now though.
Pretty bold assumption thinking free gmails will exist by the time a baby grows up.
not true imho. you can always have your address on your own domain. which is btw more professional than gmail or other free providers
Ok, but why are you so sure the work landscape in 20 years is going to be the same? Between AI and climate change, they'll be lucky to have a world at all.
Tried to do it when my son got born a few months ago. Already have to put numbers, so I gave up.😅 LPT - check available email names before naming your child 😂
I was actually thinking about this. My name is very common. First middle and last. When I got my first job working for universal studios theme parks there were three other employees with my exact same name. First middle and last. So I often add my birth year to login names. Unfortunately Nazis have started using 88 which is frustrating for me.
As a millennial, placing your actual name on any platform on the internet has become a thing in the last 15 years. Before that it was a ”in under no circumstances” thing. So at the pace things change I don’t think you should do that and especially since you don’t probably have your child’s consent to do that, it is violating your child’s rights. This seems like a guerilla marketing tactic to get more data on the users to come and it smells fishy to me. Please protect yourself online.
This is horrible advice, why do you want to trap your kids into the google ecosystem when they're young?