Cox Communications

gibbons

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iRide
This is my second attempt at this post. The first one had so many swear words filtered it was unreadable.

[rant]
Cox Communications called today to inform me that my e-mail address would be changing.

"Really? You mean the one I've had for years? The one that's on about 100 accounts around the internet? The one I receive a couple hundred e-mails a day on? That one?"

"Yes sir, but we'll continue to forward from your current e-mail address for three months."

"Well, if you can forward mail for three months then you can forward it for the rest of my natural life. Right?"

"Well, I don't know. I don't think so. We're retiring that server."

"Retiring the server? What does that mean? Any kid in Jr. High could figure out how to do this. Hell, you guys are going to do it. Just keep forwarding my e-mail forever. Problem solved."

"They won't do that."

"Well, can I have the old domain name? I'll build my own mail server and forward it myself."

"Uh, I don't think so. What new address would you like."

"How about 'gibbons@cox.net'?"

"Let me check here...... Sorry. That one's already taken."

"OK. How about 'cox.****ing.sucks@cox.net'?"

"Uh. Well, I don't think so."

"Is it already taken?"

The conversation went down hill from there. Anyway, he's supposed to call me back tomorrow. I can't wait.
[/rant]
 
I feel your pain, after transitioning from home.net to att.net to comcast.net to whatever the heck happens next.net ...
 
I suppose that it would be in poor taste at this time to promote the availability of email addresses @ pilotsofamerica.com wouldn't it. ;)

But since Chip's on our management staff, I'll promote it anyway and say it was his idea for me to do it. ;)
 
Greebo said:
I suppose that it would be in poor taste at this time to promote the availability of email addresses @ pilotsofamerica.com wouldn't it. ;)

But since Chip's on our management staff, I'll promote it anyway and say it was his idea for me to do it. ;)

This is about when I and the rest of the people out there who own web hosting with email services sigh. Nothing could get better than what I want my email to be. I know what you mean though, I switched from AOL to Jason @ hpnpilot1200.org

AOL never had anything available. After you get the hang of Outlook, it's great. I've actually talked to people that only bought hosting for the sole purpose of email services.
 
I'm leaning towards something like this:
http://www.everyone.net/

My concern is that they own the domain name (apparently) so if I want to change hosts I've got a problem.

I can also have my local hosting company host my own domain with basic mail service - no browser access which I use a lot on the road. No spam filters, etc. Still, I'm in control of that one.

Any suggestions on who to use to host my own domain and e-mail?
 
gibbons said:
"Uh. Well, I don't think so."

"Is it already taken?"

The conversation went down hill from there.

LOL!

Now that is funny. Sorry Chip.

Len
 
Sorry to hear about your problem but enjoyed your tale ;) Sounds like gross incompetence and P**s Poor customer service! Several of my friends have established email addresses with their University Alumni association figuring that their domains should be around for a while...you could try that.

Good luck!
 
drhunt said:
Sorry to hear about your problem but enjoyed your tale ;) Sounds like gross incompetence and P**s Poor customer service! Several of my friends have established email addresses with their University Alumni association figuring that their domains should be around for a while...you could try that.
Good luck!
My University Alumni Association pays me an annual stipend to disavow all knowledge of the university and to never, ever admit they allowed me to graduate. Still, it's a thought. Good idea.
 
Chip, as you suspect, it is truly trivial to forward your email forever. It only requires setting up the DNS to send the mail to the new server and configuring the server to handle the mail and forward it to the new domain. A single rewrite rule would change not only "gibbons@cox.net" to "gibbons@whateverstoopidnametheywantnow.net" not only for you but for every other username in the old domain.

Provided they aren't other issues like not controlling both domains for some financial or contractual reason, doing this only requires competent system administrators, which is what they don't have.
 
Getting your own domain is probably the best idea if you value the address that much. The next best thing would be to go with a service like gmail or yahoo. They are not going anywhere or doing anything with their domain names anytime soon.

Definately stay away from ISP email addresses. They can get bought out, you can move, or 'retire servers' (lol that is a rediculous excuse) .. I'm sure i don't have to tell you this.

You can register a domain at http://godaddy.com/ for about $9/yr.. and then as someone above mentioned point it at a web hosting comany for a pretty decent price. I have a hosting business, but there are pleanty out there to choose from.

Then you also have the benefit of having a place to put photos on the web and what not.

Good luck .. and don't shoot the messenger when he calls ya back tomorrow ;)
 
You might try emailing jim AT gibbons.com and see if they'd be willing to forward your email for you.

Try whois gibbons.com

Joe at areeda dot com
 
Areeda said:
You might try emailing jim AT gibbons.com and see if they'd be willing to forward your email for you.
only if he is comfortable with the knowledge that they could easily intercept his emails... not to mention if they decide they don't want to forward anymore, he's in the same boat he is in now.
 
mmilano said:
only if he is comfortable with the knowledge that they could easily intercept his emails... not to mention if they decide they don't want to forward anymore, he's in the same boat he is in now.
TRUE! Thank you for adding the caveats I forgot! I forward for others with the same last name, don't keep the emails at all and it's good as long as I have the domain. Stupidly assumed others would do the same.

Joe
 
Amazingly enough, there is already a "ChipGibbons.com" registered to someone in Bainbridge, WA. Remarkable.
 
mmilano said:
Good luck .. and don't shoot the messenger when he calls ya back tomorrow ;)
You're so right. Actually, I asked him if he had personally had any input into this decision. He, of course, said no. So I told him that my upcoming spasm of profanity and hate talk wasn't directed at him personally. Perhaps he could deliver the message for me. He actually laughed at the suggestion of cox.****ing.sucks@cox.net.

On the way home today I was listening to NPR. They read a short essay by a woman who has ALS. She can't read her own essay (her sister did it), can't stand, can't roll over in bed when she wakes up at 2:00. After listening to it I wasn't so mad about my email address.

Perspective.
 
gibbons said:
This is my second attempt at this post. The first one had so many swear words filtered it was unreadable.

[rant]
Cox Communications called today to inform me that my e-mail address would be changing.

hotmail??!!


Been using it for a long time now. I also have a remailer that forwards to hotmail.
 
Chip:
Thanks for posting your rant. It, potentially, just saved me a lot of headache. I have a registered domain name with GoDaddy, but no website, yet. It's set up for auto annual renewal. So, about four months ago I got a call from a Texas man who wanted to talk about buying my domain name. His domain name is identical to mine, except that mine ends with the letter s. And the name of his company is exactly my domain name spelling; but when he went to get a domain name - same as his company - sorry, it was not available. He called me several times, but I'm not interested in selling the domain name.

Tonight, after reading your rant, I punched up my domain name at GoDaddy.com and got the message, ..............com is available. W-T-F?

It seems that my credit card was stolen quite a few months ago; a new account # was issued. However, when the GoDaddy system went to do the auto renewal the CC information they had on file didn't match; somehow I missed their communication, and the domain name became open. Through sheer fate, the fellow in Texas, http://www.distinctiveview.com, apparently didn't go back to keep checking or he could have registered it in the interim. But I have my original back, as of 7:20 Pacific Time. And the Texas fellow runs a heck of a lot bigger business than I ever did.
Thanks for the rant; I hope you get the problem resolved.

HR
 
If you just want email forwarding, there is no need to pay to have a web site hosted. There are several registrars who let you register a domain name with email forwarding for under $10/year. I am aware of www.cheap-domain-name-registrar.com (who I currently use) and www.active-domains.com. For $9.95 per year, I registered my domain name and forward email to my real ISP address. When I changed my ISP a few months ago, I simply updated the forwarding table to my new ISP address and did NOT have to notify anyone of the change. I'm allowed 250 unique email forwarding addresses, one of which can be a "catch all".
 
SCCutler said:
Amazingly enough, there is already a "ChipGibbons.com" registered to someone in Bainbridge, WA. Remarkable.
I'd Sue! It's theft identity. There can't be two Chip Gibbons in the world... Oh NO NO NO!
 
Lawreston said:
Chip:
Thanks for posting your rant. It, potentially, just saved me a lot of headache. I have a registered domain name with GoDaddy, but no website, yet. It's set up for auto annual renewal. So, about four months ago I got a call from a Texas man who wanted to talk about buying my domain name. His domain name is identical to mine, except that mine ends with the letter s. And the name of his company is exactly my domain name spelling; but when he went to get a domain name - same as his company - sorry, it was not available. He called me several times, but I'm not interested in selling the domain name.

Tonight, after reading your rant, I punched up my domain name at GoDaddy.com and got the message, ..............com is available. W-T-F?

It seems that my credit card was stolen quite a few months ago; a new account # was issued. However, when the GoDaddy system went to do the auto renewal the CC information they had on file didn't match; somehow I missed their communication, and the domain name became open. Through sheer fate, the fellow in Texas, http://www.distinctiveview.com, apparently didn't go back to keep checking or he could have registered it in the interim. But I have my original back, as of 7:20 Pacific Time. And the Texas fellow runs a heck of a lot bigger business than I ever did.
Thanks for the rant; I hope you get the problem resolved.

HR
Don't assume you missed any communications. Even though they know exactly how to get to you, I doubt they even tried. The bill wasn't paid so they canceled the account. It happened to me and another lowcost domain dot com company with a corvette club name I had. Unfortunately for me, before I could straighten it out with all involved, it was taken by a car dealer in Austrailia.
Consider yourself lucky the other guy wasn't still trying.
 
Greebo said:
I suppose that it would be in poor taste at this time to promote the availability of email addresses @ pilotsofamerica.com wouldn't it. ;)

But since Chip's on our management staff, I'll promote it anyway and say it was his idea for me to do it. ;)

You beat me to it. That is the solution I used for the problem.

Plus the @PilotsOfAmerica.com address tells everyone something about you. Not to mention that it's just plain cool.
 
silver-eagle said:
Don't assume you missed any communications. Even though they know exactly how to get to you, I doubt they even tried. The bill wasn't paid so they canceled the account. It happened to me and another lowcost domain dot com company with a corvette club name I had. Unfortunately for me, before I could straighten it out with all involved, it was taken by a car dealer in Austrailia.
Consider yourself lucky the other guy wasn't still trying.

Yeah; well, this time the best deal was for 5 years, and with other "inclusions" in the current GoDaddy program I'm good to 2010; and with Privacy activated, the "Whois" search won't divulge any account information.

HR
 
My professional society (IEEE) offers e-mail aliases and I've had one for years. When we went from hom.net to ???.net to comcast.net it only took me a few moments on-line to change the forwarding instructions. I don't give out my real address (although it's easy to get) to avoid the confusion factor. Plus, IEEE automatically scans messages and attachments for viruses before forwarding and strips off infected content. A great service.
 
gibbons said:
I'm leaning towards something like this:
http://www.everyone.net/

My concern is that they own the domain name (apparently) so if I want to change hosts I've got a problem.

I can also have my local hosting company host my own domain with basic mail service - no browser access which I use a lot on the road. No spam filters, etc. Still, I'm in control of that one.

Any suggestions on who to use to host my own domain and e-mail?

What I have done is just use a Yahoo address. It never changes, and for $20 a year, I get POP3 + a bunch of other stuff. Even if I'm on the road, I can just jump on any public or private computer and check my mail. I can switch ISPs, even continents, and it still works well.
 
smigaldi said:
Why? Just curious. Its free, works with outlook express or web based.

Hotmail will give you LOTS of spam. Somebody at one point did an experiment - Opened up a hotmail account that was complete gibberish, like jklt32gfdsw8@hotmail.com or something like that - Basically, something that the spam engines that guess addresses would never pick.

Then, never used the account, never told anyone the address, etc. Went back six months later, and there were hundreds of spam messages. That means that M$ most likely sold the address list to spammers. Add in M$' usual disregard for security...

Ironically, going along with Harley's "oops-I-messed-up-my-domain-renewal" story - M$ forgot to re-register hotmail.com a couple of years ago. Some Linux geek noticed and paid their bill, and wouldn't even take reimbursement for it. Hilarious.

Getting your own domain is the way to go, though. Complete control.
 
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