Any other computer geeks out there?

[smokie]

Not sure if anyone here will know this.

I own my own domain (let's call it www.smokiesdomain.com) through an American company. Each year I have to pay about $20 to renew it. I can host a small web site on their server, but I don't, or I can redirect my url to a server of my choice (which I have done in the past and would like to do again, to manage my TiVo remotely - so when I browse to www.smokiesdomain, up comes my TiVo management screen)).

An additional service they do for free is email forwarding, based on thte same domain name. So I can use [anything]@smokiesdomain as an email address, which makes my email address independent of ISP - that is, I don't have to notify everyone of changes of email address if I change ISP. I can also direct different names @smokiesdomain.com to be forwarded to different addresses.

The email side is the best part of having my own domain name as it is easily memorable.

I've had a couple of issues with the American provider which have usually resulted in a long international phone call paying a fortune to listen to call centre music which I already own.

Does anyone know of a reliable UK company which provides the same services? Or a different way of achieving the same thing? I know some of you here have your own web sites. There seem to be hundreds doing it but a recommendation would be useful.

[SmithA]

Hi Smokie

I for my sins use easynic.com part of easyspace.com. I know people are going to start shouting that they are cr*p and to be honest a couple of months ago they were and i was looking to move the 20 or so domains i have with them but i found they offered free set up of sub domains (things like lemans.smokiesdomain ca.somkiesdomain) which is very useful for me and when i looked at other companies like fasthosts this was not an option. You can also route your email (mx records) direct to and email server on the end of a dsl line. Not 100% sure these guys will do what you want but they may be worth a look.

Andy

PS. anyone know of a fair priced web based business card odering system?

[jpchenet]

Smokie

I use www.1and1.co.uk for all my domain registrations. All self administered over the web and I've never had any problems with them. I've got something like 50 domains with them now!

.co.uk domains are £1.99 per year (payable two years in advance)
.com domains are £8.99 per year (payable yearly in advance)
Both prices are plus VAT.

You get the same email forwarding as you have now, and domian forwarding.

One thing to note, the domain forwarding is free and with no banners. Some ISP's will give you free forwarding but only with a banner ad for their own services. To remove their ad you have to pay a fee.

[Stu]

www.streamlinenet.co.uk  (which I think a Mr Cutler uses) seems a good price.

[Russ]

Smokie

I use www.1and1.co.uk for all my domain registrations. All self administered over the web and I've never had any problems with them. I've got something like 50 domains with them now!

I also use 1&1 for my (cheap plug) Bunky Chollox footy team site. Never had any trouble, each player has a <Name>@BunkyChollox.com email address and we also have the .co.uk domain for good measure.

The site is actually hosted with Wanadoo but that doesn't show in the browser address bar.