A problem with instant messaging is that it can be tough to get the same screen name on all services you use. Most people these days choose to employ the use of a multi-protocol instant messaging program such as Digsby, Trillian, Miranda, Adium or Pidgin, and having all those different names can be aggravating for others to remember. You can, however, use your email address as your screen name for just about every single IM service there is.

Before telling you how this is done per each service, there are a few things to bear in mind.

The email address you choose as your screen name must be one that you own and use regularly. In other words, don’t use your work email address.

Don’t use an email address that is "tied" to your ISP, because at some point in the future you may change ISPs.

Try to use an address that doesn’t have any dots, dashes or underscores in it. If you can’t do that, that’s understandable, but be aware that some IM services won’t permit usernames that contain characters like that.

How to register your email address as your screen name in..

MSN/Windows Live

1. Go to www.live.com.
2. Click the Sign in link at top right.
3. Click the Sign up button on the left.
4. The first field will be Use your e-mail address. Proceed from there.

AIM

1. Go to www.aim.com.
2. Click Get a screen name at top right.
3. Choose Use an existing email address as a Screen Name. Proceed from there.

Google Talk

This one takes a few hoops to jump thru to get this working, but can be done.

1. Go to www.google.com.
2. Click the Sign in link at top right.
3. Click Create an account now at bottom right.
4. Use your current email address as your screen name on the next page and continue sign-up.

The hoops you have to jump thru at this point are that after you’ve created your Google account, you will need to also create a Gmail account in order to use the Google Talk service. Once you’ve finished signing up, go to www.google.com/accounts and add in the Gmail service. Yes, you will have to create an Gmail account "on top of" your Google account, but both will be "tied" together afterward. Then people can start sending you instant messages via your Google Talk account.

Yahoo!

This IM service doesn’t allow the creation of accounts using your email address, however, being that MSN/Live accounts and Yahoo! accounts can interact with each other easily, all anybody has to do is send you messages to your MSN/Live account via the Yahoo! service and you will receive them, so the creation of an additional Yahoo! screen name isn’t necessary.

Advantages of using your email address as your screen name

1. It’s guaranteed to be available.

In order to use an email address as a screen name, it must be validated on sign-up by sending a confirmation email to that address. What this means is that the only person who could use your email address as a screen name is you, so it’s guaranteed to be available.

2. It eliminates a lot of confusion.

One screen name for all your IM services you use is mighty convenient. It’s also easy not only for you but for the people you chat with.

3. It makes it easy for people to know what your email address is.

Your email address is your screen name, so those you chat with don’t even have to remember what your email address is, because it’s already in their contact/buddy list.

Disadvantages of using your email address as your screen name

1. It makes it easy for people to know what your email address is.

Yes, this is listed as an advantage but it can serve to be a disadvantage, because maybe there’s certain folks you don’t want knowing your email address.

2. Slight possibility of confusion.

If your screen name is you@hotmail.com, and a contact wants to communicate with you over AIM, you may have to convince them, "Yes, that is my screen name. Seriously. It does work. It’s not just MSN/Live." People aren’t used to seeing a screen name as an email address.

3. You will have to tell everybody to switch over to your new IM screen name(s).

There’s no way around this unfortunately. However when you do get everybody to know your new screen names, it’s well worth it.

Why bother doing this at all?

Ultimately it’s the most convenient way to handle your email and IM communications. Everything is centralized around one screen name. The best part is that you don’t have to radically shift around anything. You can still use the same email and the same IM clients you’ve always used. The only thing changing here is your screen name and nothing else.

And as stated above, nobody on your buddy/contact list has to hunt for your email address. They know what it is right up front.

In fact, if you used this in concert with your social networking profiles (which all have the ability to find contacts by email address,) this even furthers the convenient use of your email address as your one screen name.

Who would have guessed that the email address was the best screen name all along?

For those of you who send emails as text messages to cell phones, you’re well aware that you have to a) send in plain text only and b) count your characters to make sure you don’t trip the 140-character limit.

Setting email to send in plain text in easy. In popular email providers such as Yahoo! Mail there is an option right at the top to change from Rich Text to Plain Text. In Windows Live Mail, when composing a new email you can tap your ALT key, then click Format then Plain text, like this:

When it comes to counting characters it must be done manually. This is a pain in the neck to do. However there are two utilities you can use to somewhat automate this process.

Word Count Plus for Firefox

Site: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4718

This particularly works best if using web-based mail. Type your message. Highlight the entire message using CTRL+A (select all). Then click the Word Count Plus icon. It counts the words. Then hover to see how many characters were used, like this:

This is quick, effective and it works. You see exactly how many characters are used so you don’t go over the 140-character limit when sending an email as a text message to a cell phone.

Important note: This obviously does not take into consideration email that adds in text advertisements to the tail of messages you send out. Gmail does not tag outgoing mails with ads nor does Yahoo – but Hotmail does when using in the browser (but not with Windows Live Mail client).

Notepad++

Site: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/

This is for those who don’t use Firefox but still want an easy way to count characters. Notepad++ is a text editor but it counts characters easily.

Open Notepad++. Type what you intend to send as an email in it. Press CTRL+A to select all.

Click TextFX, TextFX Tools, Word Count, like this:

A window will pop up after that:

What to pay attention to is the third line, Characters. That will tell you how many are in use. In this instance, I’m still okay because I’m at 137 which is just under 140.

Copy and paste your message from Notepad++ into your email and send.

Word Count Plus is obviously the easier of the two because it’s right in the browser and stays out of the way neatly when not using it. But for those using email programs, Notepad++ is just a quick hop to a text editor that counts characters quickly which for most people is faster than counting yourself.

When most people think of freely available email on the internet, three names comes to mind: Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail. While it’s true there are plenty of other free mail providers out there, it’s the "Big Three" that people use most.

However there’s a fourth that has been making some good waves, that being GMX.

Ordinarily the case is that whenever a web site other than the Big Three provide email, it’s not very feature-rich and is tacked on as an afterthought.

GMX on the other hand offers email that has some real forward thinking in it just like the other Big Three do.

The latest free offering within the GMX mail interface is the ability to connect directly to Facebook from your mail. Not only can you post status updates but also see your Facebook "wall" directly within GMX.

In addition to that, you can login directly to GMX mail using your Facebook account. This is very convenient because it means you can use one login to do two things at once:

(the top-right portion of the GMX.com web site)

If you are already logged into Facebook, going to GMX will auto-login to your GMX mail.

For existing GMX mail users, don’t worry you do not have to sign up a new GMX account. You can continue to use the same one you have all along.

Hotmail not so hot for you anymore?

Yahoo! Mail a bit too bloated?

Gmail screw-ups ruining your day?

Consider GMX. It’s got features that are actually useful and now has easy Facebook connectivity included.

The default email client that comes bundled with Ubuntu is Evolution. Make no mistake, this is a really good email client (arguably just as good as Mozilla Thunderbird that also runs under Ubuntu easily).

Setting up an IMAP-enabled Gmail account in Evolution is fairly straightforward as long as you know where to enter in the SSL stuff and other odds and ends. Watch the video below to see how it’s done.

Many webmail services absolutely do not allow downloading of email via POP and others only allow it if you upgrade to a paid account.

FreePOPs, on the other hand, will allow you to get your mail that way. And the cost is zero.

Before I instruct you how to do it, I’m going to mention a few things:

First, This software does not allow you to send mail, only receive. However you can use your ISPs SMTP server to still send mail. More on that later.

Second, once mail is downloaded, it deletes it off the server.

Third, FreePOPs does not have to be used if you use Gmail or Hotmail as both offer free POP access. And yes, Hotmail POP access is now free (this happened very recently).

What is FreePOPs?

It’s a standalone application that stays in your taskbar when running. It’s very light and does not slow down your computer whatsoever. It acts as the gateway of sorts to allow your email client of choice to download mail from your webmail account.

How many different types of webmail is supported?

A ton of them.

Does it work in Windows / OS X / Linux?

Yes.

How does it work?

Here’s an example using a Yahoo Mail account and the Windows Live Mail email client:

Step 1. Download, install and run FreePOPs.

In Windows this will place a small icon in your taskbar next to the clock to let you know it’s running.

Step 2. Add/Configure the email account in Windows Live Mail

Click "Add Account" in WLmail.

Enter in the information on the first screen like this (using your Yahoo Mail account obviously), and make sure to tick "Manually configure server settings for e-mail account" at the bottom:

On the next screen, set your incoming mail server as localhost, your port as 2000 and your Login ID as your Yahoo ID.

For the outgoing server, use your ISP’s SMTP server. If you don’t know what this is, go to your ISP’s home page and look up the information on how to configure a mail account as if you were using one of their email addresses. The SMTP (outgoing) server should be listed in plain sight there.

Looks like this:

Click Next then Finish when done.

When you send/receive for the first time, you may be prompted to use your full Yahoo email address. If you are, enter it as shown below using your Yahoo ID.

If all goes well you will start downloading your mail immediately!

Is FreePOPs updated routinely when mail services change?

Yes. The webmail modules used in FreePOPs are actively developed so when changes occur, you can simply download the latest module to get free POP access to your email.

Do I have to use Windows Live Mail for this to work?

No. You can use any mail client. All of them support POP by default. You can use Outlook Express, Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Apple Mail, Evolution or whatever mail client you like.

You may remember me stating in the past that I have an aversion to e-mail signatures. Well, I found something that is the sure-fire cure to those overly long e-mail sigs.

And that’s Krunchd (pronounced as it looks, "crunched").

I created a Krunchd page http://krunchd.com/menga. I included the all the social networks I participate in, my web site and so on. It was stupidly easy to do and only took a few minutes to set up.

Once you have your Krunchd URL you’ll receive an e-mail where you can add/remove/modify anything on your Krunchd page. So if you happen to join up with a new social network or have other blogs you author, etc., this can come in really handy.

Krunchd is especially handy as an e-mail address signature. As you know, you can’t modify e-mails you’ve already sent. Once you’ve sent them, that’s the way they are for life. But with a Krunchd link in the signature, any time someone clicks on it, your most up-to-date information is present.

Very cool, very easy, very useful.

Check it out at www.krunchd.com.

Situation: You’re up in the wee hours of the morning (around 1 or 2am) and find this oh-so cool YouTube video that you want to e-mail to your friends.

However if you send off the link at that time of the night everybody knows when you sent it. You are basically admitting to all “Yes, I was up at two in the morning doing stupid stuff on my computer.” Oh, the ridicule. Oh, the shame. Continued

Y’know ordinarily I don’t crown the title of "best" to any particular application because there’s usually something better. However, this… THIS… is the best mail backup I’ve ever used.

KLS Mail Backup is free and it will backup your mail so easily it’s a wonder someone didn’t write something this good sooner.

Observe:

Not only will KLS backup your mail, but it does the Address books, certificates, saved passwords/forms (which you can uncheck for security reasons if you want) and a whole bunch of other stuff.

In addition, it will backup from Microsoft Outlook Express, Seamonkey/Mozilla, Windows Live Mail and/or Mozilla Thunderbird.

Talk about cool.

Even better: It’s not just backup – it will restore mail back to a client as well.

When you run this thing, it will gather all you tell to get and pack it up nice and neat into a single ZIP file. After that you can toss the file on a CD or flash drive.

It literally doesn’t get any easier than this.

Note to Hotmail users: Now you have a way of easily backing up all the mail in your account. Just use the Windows Live Mail client to download all your Hotmail locally, run KLS and ta-da – it’s all backed up!

For Gmail users: You can do the same thing. Just use the mail client of your choice to download via POP and back up the mail.

THIS is how mail backups should work. Easy, simple, effective.

I give this app two huge thumbs up.

Get it here: http://www.kls-soft.com/klsbackup/mailb_index.php

It’s easy enough to forward one e-mail address to another. However it’s a different story when it comes to migrating a domain-based e-mail address.

• You have a domain, www.example.com.
• You have a hosted e-mail address, you@example.com.
• You want to keep your domain host where it is, but host your e-mail elsewhere (such as Google Apps or Windows Live Admin Center).

The biggest problem when doing this is that you don’t want to lose any mail after the migration has taken place. During the transition some mail will be delivered to your old mail host and some to the new.

There is a way to do this so you don’t lose any mail. Read on to find out how.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this article. Gold/Silver Membership required.

You have a Gmail account but want to switch to another one. Most people do this when they want to set up a “business” Gmail account or simply because they found an Gmail e-mail name they like better.

You could enable POP on the old account and retrieve the mail in the new Gmail account that way, but then the timestamps get all reset to “new” and the Sent Mail gets all screwed up.

Is there a way to migrate from one Gmail account to another while retaining all proper timestamps and Sent Mail?

Yes there is and this article will explain exactly how to do it.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this article. Gold/Silver Membership required.

You heard all the wonderful things I said about cloud computing in the last article, and I mentioned that the transition process – while easy – takes a bit to explain how it’s done.

This article explains how it’s done in easy-to-understand terms.

We’ll be using Outlook Express 6 as our example. There are many who use this program as it comes free with Windows XP and feel that they’re stuck with it. No, you’re not. You can migrate all your mail over to Gmail or Hotmail easily. All it takes is a minimal amount of setup and a small amount of your time.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this article. Gold/Silver Membership required.

Modern day home computing is not as it once was. Not-so long ago it used to be that in order to bring the most potential out of your computer box you had to use proprietary software.

Any app that runs solely on a specific operating system is proprietary. And yes there’s still lots of this stuff out there.

For the past few years I have been slowly transitioning the stuff I do on the web to being as cloud-based as possible. You’ve heard the term "cloud computing" so much that it probably makes you sick to hear it at this point – but you have to do it if you expect to make smooth transitions in the future from computer to computer.

If you don’t start transitioning now it will be very painful and stressful to get it done later.

A plain English description

"OS-less" means to be able to do what you do on a computer without the need for any specific operating system.

Using myself as an example, here’s a few things I do:

For my photos I made the decision to push those all to Flickr. It’s web-based. I can access it on any computer using any OS.

For my e-mail I decided to switch over to Hotmail (or to be more specific, Windows Live Admin Center). Previous to that I used self-hosted IMAP and before that plain ol’ POP. I can get to my mail from anywhere on any computer using any OS in any web browser – and it’s all there. It’s backed up and readily accessible.

For important documents that I need to hang on to (and even the not-so important ones), I push those over to Google Docs. This acts as my backup that is just as accessible as my mail is. Once again it’s accessible on any computer/OS.

Are you still in the stone age?

If you’re still using apps that are OS-proprietary and local to your computer only, you run the risk of losing all the data you have without warning. Let’s say for the moment you’re really good at backing things up routinely. What if your hard drive fails and the backup doesn’t work? What then? You basically curse and swear, then realize you lost it all and start from zero.

Nobody wants that to happen.

And what happens when you buy a new computer? Do you really want to go thru the process of reinstalling all your apps all over again, configuring them and wasting hours of time when all you want to do is just get going?

Of course you don’t.

Is it possible to go completely OS-less?

Not at present. However you can move over a significant chunk of what you do to cloud territory now. The more you move out there, the better.

Get your docs, photos and e-mail out in the cloud

No matter how much of an old fuddy-duddy you are (as in the type who positively refuses to try anything different), bear in mind the transition is stupidly easy to do for docs, photos and mail.

Docs

Google Docs is still your best bet. Get an account and upload them. Don’t worry, they’re all private uploads unless you specifically enable a share-out option (which is off by default).

Photos

If you use Flickr, get Windows Live Photo Gallery (Windows), Flickr Desktop Organizer (Linux) or Flickr Uploadr (Windows, Mac). Get a Flickr account and start uploading.

If you use Picasa, the Picasa client is well known to be super-awesome and super-easy to use. Works in Windows, Mac or Linux. Uploads stuff easily. It’s a no-brainer.

E-Mail

This is the one people fear the most – especially those who use POP and are under the impression it would be absolutely impossible to move hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of mails to another account.

Your two best bets are Gmail and Hotmail – and yes you can move all your mail over to either.

The short version of how to do it:

All modern e-mail clients support multiple e-mail accounts.

With Gmail, you can set up the new account alongside the old POP account in Outlook Express, Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Apple Mail or any number of other clients that support IMAP.

With Hotmail, you use the Windows Live Mail client. It will easily import all your old mail from Outlook or Outlook Express. Then you set up your Hotmail account alongside your POP account.

No matter which method you choose, once you have the multiple accounts set up you just drag and drop the mail from the old to the new. All the timestamps are saved and nothing is lost. Everything is moved over including the sent mail, attachments and so on. Furthermore the mail is instantly accessible on the web as well as in the client at that point via hotmail.com or gmail.com depending on which you chose.

Once done you no longer have to rely on your computer to send, retrieve and store your mail. All of it is in the cloud, backed up and accessible at any time. You can also still use the mail client if you feel like it. You can get to your mail either way when you push it to the cloud.

The long version of how to do it:

I go into grotesque detail on how to do this and it would take way too long to explain here – so watch for another article on it soon!

I am telling you now – start transitioning to the cloud

Said honestly, don’t put this off. You’ve got your docs, you’ve got your mail and if you take photos, those are most likely local to your computer box as well. Push this stuff out to the cloud (that being the internet).

You can continue (obviously) to perform local backups, but when (not if) the time comes that you get a new computer, the painful process of moving everything over will be so much less painful when you realize you can just open up a browser and get to everything – instantly.

Yes it’s true that there will be things you simply can’t push to the cloud (yet), but for the stuff you can get out there – do it.

Do it if for no other reason to have a secondary or tertiary free backup. The price is nice and all it costs is a small amount of your time.

This series is dedicated to specific e-mail providers on the internet. In this installment, the service provider concentrated on will be Google’s Gmail.

Gmail, launched in March 2004, has grown to be one of the most-used free e-mail services on the internet. While it doesn’t have a large of a userbase as Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail, it’s still a force to be reckoned with.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this article. Gold/Silver Membership required.

This series is dedicated to specific e-mail providers on the internet. In this installment, the service provider concentrated on will be Google’s Gmail.

Gmail, launched in March 2004, has grown to be one of the most-used free e-mail services on the internet. While it doesn’t have a large of a userbase as Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail, it’s still a force to be reckoned with.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this article. Gold/Silver Membership required.

Most people will see the title of this article and think "Um… forwarding an e-mail is like the easiest thing in the world. How could you possibly do it wrong?"

Trust me there’s a right way and a wrong way.

I am very much against anyone forwarding me jokes and/or chain letters in e-mail. However there are some people you will make exceptions for (usually friends, family members, or your girlfriend).

Here’s the wrong way to forward an e-mail using just one e-mail sent to me as an example:

1. It freakin’ huge.

Yes, this is an e-mail that’s 5MB in size.

2. It’s been forward a ba-zillion times.

Note the subject line above.

3. When you open it, you have to click on it again to open it further.

This is because it was forwarded as an attachment and not inline.

4. Upon opening it, you discover it’s the same e-mail repeated 5 (or more) times over.

Note the scrollbar for the attachments at the far right. This e-mail literally has the same crapola repeated more than 5+ times. This is why it’s such a huge e-mail. I’m betting it was originally less than 500k.

Commence facepalm here.

Don’t forward e-mails to people like that.

And if you ever encounter anyone who trashes your inbox with these, forward this article to them and say "Hey, I found something that was written just for you!"

Hopefully they’ll understand.