Choosing your email address

If you don’t have your email address assigned through work or a professional organization, you probably will be able to choose your own ‘net identity.

Here are some tips on choosing an email address that will serve you well!

• Don’t use anything personally identifiable in your email address, such as your full name, your last name, your date of birth (or birth year) or your location.
• Think about choosing a name that will last you — don’t call yourself “babyontheway” or “mamaof1” — because your status may soon change!
• Make careful use of numerals 0 and 1, and letters O, I and L. Why? They’re easy to confuse – you don’t want to spend all your time saying, “My email address is janet0 — that’s a zero, not a letter O — at whatever.com.”
• Consider buying yourself or your family a domain — your very own dot.com (or dot.net or dot.org) Internet address – and funneling all of your email through that site. For example, buy something with personal meaning, like HorseLovingFamily.org or TheWilsons.net, or something very abstract, like your name spelled backwards (sretrac.org). The big advantage is that as long as you own your domain, you can change your Internet service provider (ISP) as often as you like, but your main email address will always stay the same.

One more thing: email addresses don’t contain “www.” If you’re writing your email addy as [email protected], people won’t be able to reach you. The www refers to the “world wide web.”