The Domain

I had been wanting to get my own domain for a long time, but I didn't really have a good reason for one other than I thought it would be cool.  What finally gave me a good reason was a conversation that I had with some coworkers during lunch.

We were discussing email addresses and I commented that my old address mr.ben.bradley[at]gmail.com was creating some odd situations.  At the time that I had originally created it, I was in the process of seperating from the US Army and the title of "Mr." held a great deal of significance as it symbolized the fact that I would soon be a civillian.  Now, however, it just made me seem like kind of a jerk since I wasn't a teacher or anyone's boss.

I searched Google for a bit to find a professional and personal email address, but all the good names had already been taken.  Then I had a great idea - use my own domain with Google Apps email!  My first attempt was to register bradley.it with Dotster.com, but unfortunately I'm not Italian so that one went down the drain.  I was kind of flustered about the whole thing so I quickly searched for a suitable alternative and snatched up the first one I could find with Dotster which I now regret.

It had been my intention all along to set up Google Apps, but since Google couldn't supply me with a .it domain name I went with Dotster because I thought they could.  When that plan was shot down I didn't think to ditch Dotster and go with Google instead.  As a result I had to pay a bit extra in order to manage my DNS on top of the registration and I had to wait a few hours before nameservers were updated.  I realized that I hadn't taken the easy road AFTER I had already paid for the Dotster service.  It's kind of frusterating, but it's done.

Lesson #1 - Don't spend money when you're frusterated.  Spend a moment to think if there's a better, cheaper way before you click "Submit".