Quick guide to domain names

Posted on May 10th, 2010 by Sacha Chua

Having your own domain name means being able to use the same e-mail address or website URL for as long as you like.

Here’s how to register a domain name, get it set up for e-mail, and point it to another website. These instructions assume you’re using Namecheap; adjust them if you’re using something else.

Pick a domain name register. I like NameCheap (affiliate link, 15% commission on first sale) because they’re reasonably priced and they aren’t a pain to work with. Open the domain name register’s site.
Enter the domain you want, and click on Search.
Pick which domains you’d like to register. Click on Add to Cart.
Put in your coupon code. NameCheap’s always running one promotion or another, so search for coupons.
Click on Express Checkout.
Create an account, or log in if you don’t already have one.
Choose your payment source, and go through the payment dialogs. You can skip anything you don’t understand. Use Namecheap’s DNS.

When you’re done with the registration process, sign in again if you need to.

Then you can set up e-mail forwarding and URL forwarding if you like.

If you use Gmail to send mail, you can send mail using your new e-mail address in the From: field. Check out these instructions: Adding a custom ‘From’ address.

You can do more with domain names than what I’ve described here, but that might require some geeking out. =)

More posts about: geek // 1 Comment »

Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7057

http://coevolving.com David Ing

Registering a domain name isn’t very expensive (on the scale of less than $10 per year).

One feature that I haven’t had to use — but became important to a colleague — was telephone support. The ability to actually get a human being on the phone makes a difference, when domains get messed up.

I had recommended Domains Made Easy to that colleague, and he was so happy that someone picked up the phone. Of course, none of us ever forget a password at the same time that we change addresses …. Most times, e-mail or web support works, but when it doesn’t, it generates more than a few dollars of effort.

On This Day...

2013: Monthly review: April 2013 — Last month, I wrote: April will be more about slowing down and following up, I think. But this is good. [...]
2012: Sketchnote workflow — I like sketching notes of books and presentations. It forces me to squeeze the information onto one page, and the [...]
2011: Rails: Paperclip needs attributes defined by attr_accessible, not just attr_accessor — I wanted to add uploaded files to the survey response model defined by the Surveyor gem. I’d gotten most of [...]
2009: Making things; Vogue 8020 — I’ve been writing a lot about sewing lately, which might surprise you if you came to this blog for tips [...]
2009: Weekly review: Week ending May 10, 2009 — From last week’s plans: Work: Merge development changes into release-4 Work: Build event calendar system Work: Get feedback on presenter guide Work: Attend speed [...]
2008: You have received a painting from Sacha —
2008: I need a faster web host — My site’s been slow for a while now – so slow that even I don’t have fun flipping through it. [...]
2006: Refreshed — Whenever I slow down and let the universe tell me what to do, it gives me back something amazing. I slept [...]
2006: Linux Caffe — I’m sitting in the Linux Caffe working over a wireless connection, having just polished off another cup of their excellent [...]
2006: Books at the Linux Caffe — I’ll be writing another blog post about the Linux Caffe, but here’s a list of the books they have along the [...]
2006: BBC World Documentary on free and open source software in developing countries — Seen on the Toronto Linux Users Group mailing list: http://www.apdip.net/news/fossdoc From the announcement: “Coming Soon: The Code Breakers Ã¢Â€Â“ a BBC World Documentary [...]
2006: Stretched — I’m starting to feel a little stretched. Too many nights with too little sleep, too many blog entries that are just [...]
2005: Colored index cards — I love posting my productivity ideas because every time I do so, I get comments suggesting even better ways to do [...]
2004: Etask: Gantt charts for Emacs — http://www.reneweichselbaum.com/etask.html Wow, pretty! I should check this out…
2003: Smartphone — - Developing apps for the Microsoft smartphone I wonder if I can use it with Linux… Would the ppp trick described at [...]

sacha chua living an awesome life