One of the most talked about topics on vldForum is email. Many of the questions related to email problems are not always easy to pin point. Is it a problem with vldPersonals or is it a problem with your email server? I bet in 99% of the cases, it is related to your email server.

When you signed up for a hosting package, it  includes an email server to take care of your website email tasks. If your hosting package is a shared server, it could be your email problems are related to someone who resides on your shared host IP address that you inherited at no fault of your own. Also, hosts don't always provide the best spam filters for your inbox.

If you think you are having email problems with your host, one option to consider is to change your email server to google servers. You get fast email service and a great spam filter  for FREE. 

The following video shows you how to sign up and change your MX records on your server for google. In this case, my host is hostmonster. Instructions for your host may be slightly different but the following is a good guide since most hosts follow very similar instructions. While watching the video, recommend pausing the video to read the instructions if they pass by too quickly.

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If you need to sign up for google apps click this link:

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html

Once you have you changed your MX records to google apps, don't forget the following:

1. Update your vldPersonal script to reflect the new email address (it will be a gmail address created by google apps).

2. If you have more than one domain, you do NOT have to create a new google app account for each domain. You can add a new domain to your primary google apps account as an alias.

3. Firefox has a great add on you can use for checking your email in google apps

4. If you have outlook express you can also configure it to use google apps.

Note the above 4 points are not that difficult to do. If you do make google apps your email server and need further help, let me know.

Now that google apps is setup as my email server, I will show you how I use with vldPersonals in screen shots below.

To log in to google apps use the following URL:

https://www.google.com/a/filipina-lady.net/ (replace filipina-lady.net with your URL)

Note: if you watched the above video, when you signed up for google apps, it asked you what domain you wanted to use. Hence, you will now use that domain when you login to your google apps (note: there is a firefox addon that makes logging in faster - I will show you in screen shot).

I should of explained better in the image below why you would want to use an alias. If you have more than one domain, you do NOT have to create an account for each domain. Instead you can add an alias domain to your primary account so all your domains use one account as their email server. There is nothing stopping your from creating a new google apps account for each domain, but the less accounts I have to remember the better.

You can also setup your outlook express to use google apps. I did not cover at this time. If you use firefox and add the add on for managing google apps, you may never need to use outlook express again. However, if someone really wants to use outlook express, let me know and I will explain the settings when time permits.

Last edited by db3204 (2009-07-29 19:11:29)