Hi everyone. I am new to web hosting and to this forum. I wonder if someone would take the time to explain what the difference are between pop mailboxes, virtual e-mail, and e-mail aliases. How are they used and what are the advantages of each. Also can e-mail from one's web site be forwarded to ones mainl mailbox and is that a good idea? Howcome some web hosts offer so many pop mail boxes and usually unlimited virtual e-mail? What can so many be used for? I am in the process of setting up a web site for my wife and am trying to learn as much as possible about it. Thanks

Welcome to the board.

"difference are between pop mailboxes, virtual e-mail, and e-mail aliases"

The difference is POP mail you can access from anywhere in the world, using any mail client.
Aliases just create names, that forward to another pop mailbox. Example:

You have a pop mailbox of dewwb@here.com, this means that any email sent to this email address will be stored on the server under the user "dewwb", only the user dewwb, with the correct login and pass will be available to view the emails that are stored on that username.

You could then setup aliases, dewwb559@here.com which "can" point to dewwb@here.com (or any other email address.) What this means is, any emails sent to dewwb559@here.com will be automatically "forwarded" to dewwb@here.com (or what ever email you specify) where they will be stored on the "dewwb" username, and not "dewwb559".

Therefore, you will only need to log in as dewwb@here.com to get emails for both dewwb and dewwb559.

There is no limit as to how many aliases can point to one email, you have have thousands, as they don't use no additional services.

Hope, this helps, if i'm wrong someone correct me!

cabalstudios: Thanks for the helpful information. One more question on this subject. What are catchall maiboxes and how do they work with the other two?
I have been reading the posts here trying to understand this web hosting thing. I found some discussions about the differences between pointing domains and re-directing domains and parking domains very helpful. I wonder if there are some resources either online or perhaps a book that might be helpful us newbies.

A catchall service allows you to accept a lot of emails. Basically, when I send a message to, for example, dewwb555555@here.com but that address is not registered, it is instead redirected to default@here.com. Basically, catchall "catchs" all the email sent to here.com if the address isn't registered. This is very good if you have a difficult to spell name, ie Dreckschmidt(@here.com), if someone mispells it, instead of the email being lost, you would get it @ default@here.com!

If you can understand this, you are a god!! :homer: If not, just ask and I will try to clarify.

BTW, good luck on your wife's webby!! :)