PC Mechanic, New Article

Need Advanced Disposable Email Address Control? Use 33mail

Posted: 21 Mar 2011 03:00 AM PDT

There are several ways in which one can create and quickly use a disposable email address.

Plus addressing

Plus addressing is where you append a plus (+) to your email username and add other characters of your choice. If for example your email address is example@gmail.com, you can use example+MadeUpName@gmail.com and it will work.

Aliases

Hotmail offers this for free and Yahoo! Mail charges for it with a Plus subscription. This is where you have another completely separate email address alias to the primary account. The advantage of an alias over plus addressing is that your primary email address username isn’t displayed.

Forwarding addresses using your own domain

If you have your own dot-com/net/org, even the cheapest web host provider allows you to create infinite forwarding addresses from your domain (ex: make-up-a-name@your-domain.site) to your primary email address. Granted, it’s not free, but it works great.

Enter 33mail

Over the years there have been more than a few email alias services that have come and go, but one that stands out more than the rest is 33mail.

Compared to other ways of using email aliases, 33mail has advanced features that are genuinely useful, but before I get into that, how 33mail works is like this:

1. Create a 33mail account and pick a username.

2. Any time you want to use an alias, make one up on the spot. If your username is example, you could use capnkirk@example.33mail.com, mrspock@example.33mail.com, scotty@example.33mail.com and so on. You get the idea. The only thing that has to remain the same each time is what happens after the @.

3. There is no step 3. That’s it.

What makes 33mail different however is what you can do with your aliases aside from just receiving messages from them. In the 33mail "Manage Aliases" panel, you have the ability to block or unblock certain aliases, check to see which are the most used out of the aliases you use (very handy if you use many), and the bandwidth used per each alias. These are features not seen in any other email alias service.

Is there any downside?

Only one. There is a limit to how much email bandwidth can be used per month. If you receive a lot of emails to your aliases that contain file attachments, you’ll use up the monthly bandwidth quickly. But if you only receive emails where the bulk of them are just text, you won’t have to worry about it.

If you do run into a bandwidth limit on 33mail’s servers, there is a Premium Account option which costs $12 a year. Considering Yahoo! Mail charges $19.99 a year to get the same feature, and Hotmail only allows for 5 aliases a year, 33mail’s price is a fair deal for what it is.

Is 33mail reliable?

I have no idea as I just recently found out about the service. My suggestion is that if you think 33mail is a good idea, test the service for a week or so to see if mail does deliver properly for you. From my small tests it appeared to work without issue, but I have no long-term data using the 33mail service.

You can check out 33mail at www.33mail.com.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Need Advanced Disposable Email Address Control? Use 33mail

Use The AROUND Function In Google Searches To Narrow Your Results

Posted: 20 Mar 2011 05:00 AM PDT

I read an interesting article the other day on Gizmo’s Freeware regarding the undocumented Google search function, AROUND. This function allows you to specify a tolerance of words in between keywords. Usage is simple, just add this function in between your search terms:

AROUND(x) [where X is the maximum number of words which can appear between your two search keywords]

For example, searching "John Doe" (with quotes) will search for the literal string match of "John Doe", but it would not return results about "John A Doe" or "John Allen Doe", etc. This is where you can use the AROUND function. Searching:

John AROUND(1) Doe

Tells the search engine to return results where there are 1 or fewer words between "John" and "Doe". I can see this being useful for searching by phrases or error messages which you may not know verbatim.

The AROUND function is definitely a nice function to know about, so keep in mind the next time you are trying to weed out some irrelevant search results.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Use The AROUND Function In Google Searches To Narrow Your Results