I’ve kind of left this until the very end as I knew accessing my mail would be pretty straight forward. Webmail would always be an option if not, but I’ve configured other mail client in other Linux VM’s so knew this would be fine.
I have 4 e-mail addresses, or which I really only use 2. The 2 I don’t really use are iCloud.com (I actually used me.com long before iCloud) and Gmail.com. I still receive some mail into both, so have them configured but don’t send anything. The 2 I use are both hosted by Pickaweb on my own domains – aw1.co.uk and the one you’re viewing this on apeconsulting.co.uk.
In the very early days of my internet use and when changing ISP was a fairly regular occurrence, I realised having a domain name and a fixed e-mail address (whoever the ISP was) would be a great idea. Fortunately at the time (1999), an ISP called FreeNetName offered a free domain when you used their dial-up service. I know now that registering a domain is very simple, but at the time this was an easy option. I wanted something short and snappy that was easy to type and didn’t need explaining, so went for my initials and the number 1 (you couldn’t, and still can’t I believe) register a domain with 2 letters, or at least not unless you’re very special! I got the first part right (it’s easy to type) but you pretty much always have to say “A, W, 1, as in the number 1” so missed the mark on the second!
apeconsulting.co.uk is my company domain and was registered and hosted by Pickaweb, who I’ve used and been happy with for previous domains. aw1 was actually moved across to Pickaweb when FreeNetName (who became MadAsAFish) closed earlier in 2016. My domain outlasted them!
Anyway, setting these up was painless (having done it so many times, I can remember almost everything but the passwords – where is 1Password again!) other than iCloud where I forgot one yet again that I have 2FA configured and need an app-specific password.
Calendars proved more of a problem, and as all mine are in iCloud I suspect there might not be a simple solution. ownCloud had a calendar that can be shared, so if I switched from macOS this would be an option and I already have a few configured (for work projects) so I’m not going to spend any time setting up in eOS for the time being. Gmail would also be another option, and I might find myself drawn more to Google if I ever said goodbye to Apple.
So I now have eOS configured and doing pretty much everything I’d hoped when I started this last week. I’ve been lucky with time this weekend, as my partner and daughter have been away together, so I’ve had plenty of time to play.
The whole process had been great fun, and adding a blog into the equation as been quite therapeutic. It’s like I’ve had someone with me on the journey, even though I know the only person reading this is ME!
Maybe I’ll publish some links to this blog on some of the forums I frequent (MacRumors, FreeNAS, Plex) and see if anyone else might find the information useful. I know I’ve found others blogs to be incredibly valuable in terms of building my knowledge, so perhaps I’ll try and share some love.
You might stumble across this one day, and find nothing posted beyond this, but I’ve enjoyed typing out some ramblings so I might find some other, less geeky things to blog about in the future.
Who knows?
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