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If you have got your own domain name, then there are quite a few things that you can do with it to make your life a little easier. This page gives you some ideas.
This page presumes that you already have a web site and basic email functionality.
If you need to know what a domain name is, then a non technical explanation can be found on Internic's web site. (opens new window).

Multiple Email Addresses

You have probably setup a email address for yourself, and probably one for the family. However there is no limit on how many you can have. Most ISPs and hosting companies will give you multiple POP3 accounts, so why not use them. The popular email applications can check multiple accounts quite easily. You could use these other accounts for things like:

• Shopping
  Shopping online at a vendor that you don't recognise or haven't used before? Why not have a shopping email address that you use when signing up. You could even go as far as to have a unique address for each vendor, that is an alias of your main shopping address. If one of those addresses gets compromised and starts getting spam, then just delete it. For example:
  shopping @<your domain>.com is the primary account and you have amazon @<your domain>.com, bestbuy @<your domain>.com, ebay @<your domain>.com as aliases to that account.
• Email Lists and Usenet
  If you subscribe to email lists, post to discussion based boards, then have an email address for those lists @<your domain>.com
  Similarly, you should probably use a different address that has been modified for posting to news groups, however it still might be a good idea to have a separate email address for those postings so that you can control who has your primary address.
• Domain Registration Address
  The email address that you registered your domain name with is available to the outside world and will start to attract spam. Therefore have a dedicated address that you check frequently domains @<your domain>.com for example and change the contact details on your domain to that.
  Use a similar tactic for webmaster and contact addresses that you put on your web site. Use a form to send emails to your genuine address.
• Job Hunting
  Looking for another job? Have a dedicated address for that, especially if posting your CV to the job seekers boards. That way you can track where people get your email address from.
• Personal Email address for your office email.
  If you have lots of email newsletters and other such information going to your office email address, which you like to take with you to a new job, it can be a bind to unsubscribe and then resubscribe at the new address. Why not just subscribe an address on your own domain instead - office @<yourdomain>.com for example. Then when you change jobs, all you have to do is change your forwarding address. Similarly, give the address out to personal contacts to email you in the office.
• Email Address for Other Devices.
  If you are fortunate enough to have a mobile phone or pager with an email address attached, you could setup an address on your domain for it. Instead of 123456789 @<mobilephoneco>.com you could have mobile @<yourdomain>.com
• Black Holes
  If your email host supports lists with external addresses on them, and no members, then you have a black hole. When one of your addresses from the above list becomes compromised, add the address as an alias to the black hole list. Any emails to that address will then disappear as they are distributed to an address with no members. You should experiment with this idea before putting it in to practise to ensure that it doesn't cause problems on your host email system.

Dynamic DNS

If you are broadband, then you could use your domain name to host a Dynamic DNS address. Most of the Dynamic DNS providers support this feature, which simply involves you changing your name servers to them. Once changed, you can create your own hosts e.g. "home.<your domain>.com" or "office.<your domain>.com".
In addition, this would allow you to host your own servers at home, using addresses that are different from your public address.
For example, while www.<your domain>.com is your public web site, you could have a private web site at http://home.<your domain>.com

More information on Dynamic DNS can be found here.

Add Your Own Hosts

You can also add your own hosts to your domain. For example, if you frequently connect to another machine on the Internet via it's IP address alone, then you could add a host within your own domain using that address. It would save entering the IP address each time.

Name Servers - Caution

Some hosting providers will want you to change your domain name's Name Servers to them. This shouldn't cause a problem, but by changing the name server away from your registrar, all email forwarding with them will be lost. You will have to configure email forwarding options with your web host. You still have control over the domain name - so when you want to change your host, all you need to do is contact your registrar and get the name servers changed.

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