Google Apps - Still use Gmail with something @ you dot com

Clearly from my excessive posts about Gmail, I love it.  I frequently here complaints from people who cannot get the email address they want.  As a test I tried, glawrence at gmail.com, glawrence 1 at gmail.com etc. even glawrence 776 at gmail.com was taken!

Most people have never heard of Google Apps.  Google Apps is Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, all customized for your private domain (the part after the @).  Now my email address is anything-I-want at glawrence dot ca, and I can still use Gmail.  My blog will soon be at http://www.glawrence.ca just FYI.  I registered my domain from www.blacksun.ca for $25.00/year, much cheaper then I expected.  You can find some that are cheaper like www.netfirms.ca, but I can't speak for their customer service.  Blacksun.ca has been great, if you email them the instructions Google gives you when you sign up, they take care of the rest.

Here's a link to Google Apps standard edition: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html

The standard edition is free, and provides the same 7gb of space Gmail currently does.  They try to keep the standard edition relatively under the radar because they charge $50/year/user for the business edition.

Google Apps is a great way to be able to use Gmail with your custom domain.  Go to http://www.blacksun.ca/domain.html and find out if the domain you want is already taken.  Post in the comments if you want me to post a step-by-step guide to setting it up.

Good luck getting the email address you always wanted!