My Set Up Part 1: Email

I am going to make a series of posts concerning how I set up my applications/and how I do what I do. Everything I describe I get without cost, unless you count google ads as a cost.

I use gmail. Gmail is hands down the best email client I have ever come across. For free, you get about two and a half gigabytes of storage, ridiculously effective spam protection, unlimited mail forwarding and all manner of nice little tricks and extras. The only bad part is that by dealing with e-mail entirely online you have no access if your isp goes down, or if (more rare) google experiences technical difficulties. You can alleviate this by fetching your mail from gmail (or any other online e-mail provider) with a program like thunderbird or outlook, which automatically fetch your e-mail and store it on your pc (among other things). The other bad part would be that Google would have access to all your private data.

I actually use two gmail accounts, john.jperkins@gmail.com and somethingelse@gmail.com (note, not my real address).

The reason I do this is s that I can direct people I know personally/professionally at the john address, whereas the somethingelse address is for gaming handles, forums ect. With corporations in particular taking a keen interest in the online activities of job applicants, I do not want to worry about what I am doing or whom I am associating with online and how it might look to a hiring corporation. Someone could still track my other activities down, it would just be more difficult (anyone who searches for john perkins without my e-mail address gets a shaman/economic hitman or a famous doctor). All mail is forwarded from the john address to the something else address, and I can even send mail I compose in the somethingelse address from the john address.