Daddy recently decided that his junk email address was finally filled with too much junk mail to deal with. He went searching for a new email address to use whenever he gets asked for one on various websites. We all do this, right? I have two junk email addresses and two real ones.
Anyway, Daddy had one heck of a time coming up with a user name that wasn't already taken. It literally took him all afternoon and he finally ended up with a user's name that had his first name spelled forwards and his last name spelled backwards. That, apparently, was not already taken. Go figure.
After going through that he mentioned that we should make email accounts for the kids. At first I thought it was crazy, but he has a point. There are so many email accounts out there that it's nearly impossible to get one that has any resemblance to a real name yet simple enough that people would actually remember it.
I guess that's one benefit of giving Ellie a nickname that we didn't think of. She probably won't have a hard time finding user names that have not already been taken. Even so, we signed her up. She now has a gmail account. She's set to go. I've emailed both myself and Daddy from her account with password information so hopefully it doesn't end up that we are the ones who took the user name from her but can't remember her password. Wouldn't that be funny?
7 comments:
I got my own domain name. Then I could set up whatever email address I wanted.
Of course, I'm a geek who's been managing internet email for nearly 20 years. So, running a mailserver is not that big a deal for me. If you're not a geek, you could get google to host your email for you.
The only thing is, the domain name and the hosting costs money. I pay about $30/year for my domain name. And I think google charges $50/year for hosting email. It's not terribly expensive ($6/mo) but it's a lot more than free.
This actually gives me an idea. One of my fears with giving my kids email, is giving the entire world an easy way to communicate with them. But for me, running my own email server, I can easily lock it down and monitor what they're doing.
I wonder if it would make sense to create an email service targeted at kids, but set up in such a way that a parent could easily monitor all communication to/from their child.
I could offer a free version (ad sponsored) and a for charge version (no ads). Hmm....
(BTW: this is *my* idea. If anyone else takes it, I'm going to be mad!)
It turns out, I'm WAAY not as brilliant as I thought.
You might also try this.
Hahaha... your comments made me laugh. With your first one I was like "Wow! What a fantastic idea! I wonder if he'll really pursue it!" And then the other two just made me laugh.
Thanks for the suggestions. I'll have to keep them in mind in the future.
I think this is a great idea! If I knew exactly what I'd be naming my kids I'd do it now. Luckily I do pay for a website and they could always use that. Might give me a little leverage over the content too. Great post and great info MJH.
Wow I have never thought of that...good point! Although LOL I probably would forget the password and accidently delete it.
Yeah, that's why I emailed both me and my husband the login and password. I wonder, though, if accounts go away after a period of not being used. I guess I'll find out.
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