Do you want a personal domain, but have no clue about how to go about getting one? Having a domain allows you to control your email address in ways that are not possible when using a provider’s domain for email. “yourname@cox.net” can become “mail@yourname.com” and, because you own the new domain name, you can do things like “yourfirstname@yourname.com,” “yourspousesname@yourname.com,” or “becreative@yourname.com.”
But email is only the beginning. You can use the domain to publish your own website, host a weblog, create a photo album to share with friends and family, upload large files that cannot be attached to an email message that can be downloaded by someone you want to have it…
The reasons people get a domain name cannot be fully codified.
I promised to explain the process of getting a domain name a few weeks ago (see Domain Drama). To elucidate the process, I will review the procedure I used to assist someone to accomplish the tasks...
I discovered that the domain name she wanted was available to be registered. There are many places to get this information. I got it at the registrar where we purchased the domain name: www.godaddy.com. GoDaddy provides domain name registration at a very low price, $8.95 per year and I have found their service to be excellent and their user interface to be both powerful and easy to use. We just entered the domain name in the appropriate field at the GoDaddy homepage and discovered that it was available, so we registered it.
The next step was to get a host for the domain website and email server. I recommended 8-95.com (the company behind this hosting service is DixieSys). They have a very good hosting service for $3.95 per month. This plan requires that the user is at least somewhat technologically sophisticated--most people will be fine with it if they have someone like me to assist them if they have questions. The handholding hosting service there is a little more expensive, $8.95 per month. We surfed to www.8-95.com, filled out the forms and completed the purchase for the hosting service.
DixieSys sent an email message with information we used to surf back to GoDaddy and edit the registration to have the domain name point to the DixieSys servers.
We waited a couple of days, and then went back to DixieSys to configure an email account and publish a simple homepage to the account.
If you want your own domain name, give the process a try. It is fairly painless and I’m here if you need me.
Have fun!
