Having decided on a domain name we now need to check its availability before we can register it. All registrars that can register a .name domain name also have a facility for checking its availablity. So to check availablity of your domain name go to either any of .name registrars a complete list is available here: http://www.gnr.name/registrarlist.html

Before you Purchase

If you check on one or two of registrars above you will notice that there can be a great variance in price. The most logical choice is to choose cheapest. Before you choose you should be aware that on its own a domain name is not of much use so please read on.

Domain names-Email Addresses and Websites.

A domain name is an address. A domain name is not a mailbox or a website! Once you've purchased a domain name you need to link it to a website and/or mailbox. So when purchasing a domain name from a registrar you need to find out if it includes any of following in price or are they extra. a) website and/or email forwarding b) website hosting c) pop3 mailboxes and/or webmail.

To access email sent to your email address you will either need to forward that email to an existing address or have it sent directly to a mailbox. This was discussed in part 1 available at my websites see below.

Email Forwarding

This is same technique as is used in standard mail forwarding when you move house. Letters addressed to your old address are forwarded on to your new address. The main difference is that with normal mail forwarding is usually temporary (i.e. 3-6 months), whereas in email you could do it for as long as you want. So as an example my new lifetime email address is steve@lifetime.name and I have an existing hotmail account of stevelifetime@hotmail.com. I arrange that any email sent to steve@lifetime.name is forwarded on to stevelifetime@hotmail.com

Mailboxes

Email is stored on a email server in mailboxes. The mailbox is in effect physical storage equivalent to a physical mailbox for letters. The mailbox is in turn linked to an email address or addresses. It is very common to have email from multiple email addresses forwarded to a single mailbox for storage and access. The address is not mailbox and mailbox is not address, they are different. To read email in your mailbox you need to access mailbox using appropriate email software

POP3

Domain Names

A domain name is in effect an address. It can be address of a web site and can also address of a mailbox. The email address has general form mailbox@domain2.domain1 mailbox= name of mailbox e.g billg, billc domain2= 2nd level domain IBM, Microsoft, Dell domain1= tld e.g com, mil, gov When it comes to choosing a domain name then you are limited in choice for Top level domain (domain1) as they are pre-assigned by Internet authorities. However you have complete choice over second level (domain2) or third level domains; only restriction is that no one else has already chosen it.

Choosing a Domain Name Choosing a TLD

The first step is choosing a tld (top level domain). A complete list of available Tlds is given at http://www.techdictionary.com/domainlist.html, but most common ones are .com,. org, .net, .info and .country (i.e. uk, de etc) The Internet authorities have already pre-assigned a domain name for use by individuals -- .name. Here we are going to concentrate on using .name tld. However, just because .name tld is specially meant for individuals it doesn't mean that an individual cannot use any of other Tlds.