So e-mail for our domains is now handled by Gmail; the switch was a simple matter of changing MX records and adding existing users of cosmicbuddha.com email to the Gmail for Domains web panel.

The way I was using my cosmicbuddha.com e-mail before was simply to have it forwarded to my Gmail account, and archived on my webhost's mail server.

The way I will use it now is the same, except that my cosmicbuddha.com account is also hosted on the Gmail server.

This should reduce some stress on my webhost's mail server, which is theoretically a good thing since it should reduce their costs, if even by a minute/insignificat amount. It is in my interest for them to benefit, because I pay for their services. You could counter that I have traded this benefit for security, but that doesn't really worry me - if you want to keep something secret, don't mention it in e-mail at all; it is that simple. Whether it is Google or some other party that wants your secrets, they are not safe in your e-mail. Period.

One practical issue I have regards Spam filtering. Spam from my cosmicbuddha.com account seems to be getting caught at that address and not forwarded to my gmail.com address. This means that in order to catch any false positives, I will have to log into the cosmicbuddha.com account and dig through the spam bucket.

The truth is, I can't be bothered to do that - it takes too much time and is aggravating to see how many different ways spammers can spell any given prescription medication. However, in the past couple years of using Gmail, I have only had a couple false positives, so I figure I can live with that.

The greatest benefit, of course, is that we now get to use the Gmail interface for all of our e-mail, and this beats the hell out of old, tired webmail programs like Horde, NeoMail, and Squirrel Mail provided by many webhosts. And all of our mail archives are now hosted on Google's supermagneticgoliath cluster, so I feel secure there and bask in the joy of native Google searchability as well. All in all, I feel Google is providing a wonderful service here.

[/end verbal fellatio]

I have applied for the Gmail beta for domains for cosmicbuddha.com. I hope it comes through. Gmail is the killer web app as far as I'm concerned.

I recently switched hosting providers for this site and chose Dreamhost. The biggest complaint I have about them so far is that their webmail app, Squirrel Mail, is crippled for the sake of stability of all Dreamhost users, and as a consequence, does not support the languages my users need most besides English: Thai and Japanese. This is a deal breaker as far as using our cosmicbuddha.com e-mail goes, because in addition to POP and IMAP accounts, we really need the webmail option. So I set everybody's cosmicbuddha e-mail accounts to forward to their Gmail accounts (while still maintaining archives on our mail server), and we have been testing this configuration for about a month now.

I'm actually very happy with it - I could go the extra step and set the reply to (or even Send as) field for my Gmail account to j(at)cosmicbuddha.com, but this hasn't been necessary (and I for some reason think of it as a bit dishonest or misrepresentative).

So a native Gmail account matched to our own domain name is the next logical step in the evolution of this system, and I hope we are accepted for the beta testing.

...............

I just felt like writing about shit no one else is interested in today.

BIG MAN is one of the first landmarks you should memorize in Osaka, and I learned this the hard way ten years ago when somebody told me to meet them there later.

I was all like, "what big man?" Everyone within a two kilometer radius spontaneously combusted in laughter at the country boy chawing on a rice stalk, with cow shit caked on his boots, driving his daddy's tractor.

So yeah, this is me giving props where they're deserved.