If you travel a lot, or use more than one computer (ex. one at work plus one at home), then web based email is a much more efficient way of getting your messages.
Rather than have each computer have a separate email account, I suggest you either:
- Use web based email as your only email, or
- Have your actual email account(s) automatically forward a copy to a web based email service. Then set the web based email account to have the “replyto” address listed as the main, non-web email account.
#1 above means you will get your email all in the same place no matter what computer you’re on. #2 will mean that you still have everyone email you at your main email address, but you can also access that incoming mail from any computer using your webmail which gets a copy of all incoming email. Further, if you happen to send mail from the webmail account it will always send to the main email address (which still forwards a copy to the webmail) so that your contacts only notice one email address, which eliminates the would-be confusion of your contacts having more than one email address for you.
As far as webmail goes, I have found Google’s GMAIL to be the best. Yahoo has a nice clone of OUTLOOK EXPRESS, but it uses more complex coding that kind of bogs down a bit.
That said, a recent new widget came out that makes Gmail even easier to use – Gmail redesigned. It requires that you are using the Firefox browser with the Stylish plugin installed. Once you have those requirements met, just go to download the new Gmail “style” here – scroll down to Install Options.
It looks like this:
The developers say It’s still a work in progress. I haven’t found any bugs, but if you want to delete the new layout, just click the “stylish” icon on the bottom right of Firefox, go to “manage styles” and delete it there.
It has added features above normal Gmail. Some of them make it easier to use in my opinion, and it also looks more sleek. 😉
