jason l colon

Free is good. Google has two hosted email solutions that offer great SPAM protection – Gmail and Google Hosted Apps. The fact that you, as a small business owner, can take advantage of Gmail and other Google apps using your own domain name is pretty powerful stuff.

SOLUTION ONE - Google Gmail Solution. Not a perfect solution. I’ll explain why in a minute. The Google SPAM filter worked extremely well during my tests. This is the easier of the two solutions to implement.

The following assumes that you have POP3 email server and account information for your domain.

How does it work?

1. Register for a Gmail account at Google.com.
2. Add you’re your POP3 email account to Gmail.
3. Gmail checks your email account and automatically filters SPAM and viruses.

What are the issues?

1. If you send a new POP3 email or reply back to a POP3 email using Gmail, Gmail adds the following to the ‘From:’ line: your_username@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it on behalf of Your Name [ you@yourname.tld This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ]A little sloppy. Not terrible.
2. In Gmail, you have two options for checking email with your POP3 email account.
   1. Download email to Gmail and delete it from your POP3 email server. Your email will no longer show up in your desktop email client. This will work fine if you plan to use Gmail as your mail client from now on.
   2. Leave a copy of the email on the POP3 email server. Your email will stay on the server and will be downloaded by your email client when you connect – SPAM and all!

SOLUTION TWO – Google Apps. Although this solution gets pretty technical, I highly recommend it. Feel free to drop me a line if you choose this option. I’ll do what I can to help you with the configuration. Basically, it involves you redirecting the email function from your current provider to Google. Your current provider may continue to host your website if you’d like. Google will take over your email hosting; most likely providing far superior SPAM and virus protection. This solution also eliminates both of the Solution One issues listed above.

Here’s the catch – Your current domain registrar must allow you to make the redirect changes to your existing domain.

Your registrar must allow you to make MX record changes to your DNS. Your MX (a.k.a. Email server) records must be updated to point to Google.com, NOT your current registrar. Other DNS entries for your website will remain intact.

DNS changes (including MX record updates) are typically done from an online control panel at your domain registrar.

Business, Email, Free Stuff, Technology apps, email hosting, free, gmail, google, hosting, spam solution

Need an Enterprise Search solution for your small business? Look no further!

Imagine a Google-like web interface with the ability to search your company’s shared network files.

IBM and Yahoo have teamed up to offer OmniFind – a free Enterprise Search tool specifically designed to meet the needs of small business.

OmniFind offers a painless, three-click installation and the ability to search up to 500,000 documents. Yahoo! has also integrated their Internet search capabilities allowing you to search both your enterprise and the web.

Click here to learn more and download the software.

Free Stuff, Technology enterprise search, free, ibm, yahoo