Email woes - Recent Apple convert seeks help

[npessoa]

As the owner of a PC laptop for several years, I got a 20-inch iMac in November and haven't looked back since. I am, however, still getting acquainted with all of Apple's sleek applications, and unlike my friends who refer to their vehicles as their "iCars" and read MacRumors on a daily basis, I haven't got everything sync-ed up (on my computer) yet the way I want it.

My question is about email (and calendars, to an extent, but mostly email). I've searched for old threads relating to this, but haven't found much that answered my questions.

I've had the same university-assigned email address (and webmail) for the last 10 years, and I upgrade to something different. I would have done it sooner, but it's been hard to tear myself away because of the familiarity and ease of using the webmail (which was Horde). Plus, EVERYONE has this email address so transitioning to a new one will be a pain.

I am a professional musician and have my own website/domain. The problem is, I haven't found the perfect email solution. There are a lot of options, like Gmail, MobileMe, Fusemail, etc., but they each seem to have their quirks. Gmail's functionality seems the best, but I do not want to go with them because of the privacy/data-mining issues. And MobileMe...well, it seems like a great idea but from what I've read here, it's sketchy at best.

I also find that as I'm getting more and more calls from clients, I'm driving myself crazy trying to update events in iCal and my old-school (paper) planner. It would be great to have a calendar that automatically syncs that I could access online.

Right now I've got webmail set up through my website hosting plan, but that's a pain, because it's one more mailbox to check separately, and I'm trying to minimize that.

So here's my question: how do you have your email set up?

This is what I'm looking for:

• can be used with my personal domain (NOT @me.com)
• something where I can have webmail and integrate it with something on my desktop (I'm not even using my Mail application yet)
• iCal syncing would be great, plus a way to store contacts
• IMAP so I can access it from my phone

Thanks in advance!

 

[r.j.s]

I think Gmail will do all of those, the only one I'm unsure of is the personal domain.

I have Google Calendar sync to my Blackberry and iCal, and Gmail can be used with Mail.app.

 

[npessoa]

Gmail

Yes, but I'm wary of the fact that Gmail scans and archives messages for keywords that can enhance their search results. It's not that I have extremely sensitive information in my emails, but I really don't want all my personal email information stored and indexed for who knows what.

 

[Mr. Owl]

Based on your requirements there, I think the best fits are MobileMe (man, I hate that name) and gmail.

I have and use both, and both fit a lot of the needs you mentioned. My MM account is the one I use most - it has been relatively stable since they botched the transition over to MM.

You can use your personal domain with MobileMe webpages, but your email address will still be @me.com. I don't know about the gmail one.

Boils down to whether you'd rather be more secure and TOTALLY integrated with the OS (MM) and pay $100 per year, or whether free, not as integrated, and potentially data-mined is preferable to you.

 

[npessoa]

Mm

I don't mind the $99 cost, considering one of the other providers I'd looked at (@Mail, an Ajax-based hosted webmail) was $480 a year. That is way too much.

The dealbreaker for me is the @me email address. Until they fix it so that you can use your domain name, it's a no-go. Other than that (and the massive complaints people on the forums seem to have about its reliability), it seems like the perfect app.

I know Mail can download messages from Yahoo, Gmail, etc. - but can you also reply with aliases (i.e., username[at]domain.com)? There's a way to configure Gmail with your personal domain but some people have had issues with headers saying "on behalf of."

 

[GroovyLinuxGuy]

I use a combination of both. I have my personal domain on mobile me and my mail is sent to a gmail account for my personal domain (ei myname@mypersonaldomainname.com). I used to run my own mail server, but found that the spam filters on gmail were much better. I have had no issues with the "on behalf of" problem that you mentioned. I signed up for google apps and actually bought my personal domain while I was doing this. Obviously you don't have to use all of the Google apps products, but having google index my mail for advertising is a small price to pay for letting them have the headache of running my mail server.

I am actually thinking of moving my business mail over to google as well, again just because it's less of a hassle...