Hello and thanks for all the wonderful posts that I am learning from. Just last night I thought I had my top 3 hosting preferences down but after reading for a few hours....NOW I AM TOTALLY CONFUSED!!!!!

Anyway, I am looking at a new top 3:
Aletia
Hosting Matters
FutureQuest

(any more help is always appreciated - I am a newbie)

My question is this. They offer anywhere from 5 POP3 Accounts to UNLIMITED! This is confusing me and I need to know if this is actually true.

When a host offerers this many accounts, does each acxcount actually offer recieve AND SEND or does the primary account work as the "door", so to speak? (one primary and the others are nothing more than forwarding accounts?)

In other words, could my son in another state use one of these email address as if it was his own ISP's for sending and recieving, totally separate from any of my activity through my site?

Also, one last question. I am looking to keep my site speed up. Many companies advertise they have the latest equipment, connected to a backbone, t3's and so on. How does one really find out the truth about the history of a server (host) without actually trying them first? Who are the good companies and if they are so good, why is it so hard to find them?

Thanks - the newbie,
Mike
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In order to find out about how the mail works for a specific company, you need to write that specific company, but on our servers it works like this and it should be pretty much a standard.

To create POP mail boxes you have an interface that allows you to create a user. First you make your son a user and tell the program whether he gets mail or ftp access or both. If it is both, he will get his own folder to ftp into and his own mail box.

Then you set his mail to go to his mail box. for example son@yourdomain.com goes to POP box son. You already set up his user ID and password when you made him a user account. Now he sets his mail reader to check the mail at yourdomain.com using his user ID and password and that's it.

There may be some variations and it may depend on which plan you choose etc., etc..

I think most hosting companies allow SMTP which is outgoing mail, but some dialups block port 25, which is the smtp. If you or his dial up blocks it, then he will have to use the dial-ups and they will provide that information.

As for finding a good company you just need to do what research you can and trust your instincts. Never believe unlimited bandwidth and unlimited diskspace. You can get unlimited POP boxes because it is actually limited by your diskspace. So you can have 1 or 1000, how much disk space do you have is more the question.

Good Luck,
Chris

I'd have to agree with Chris...the only way to really find out is to ask the host directly -- and specifically. Another great option is contacting other site owners (much like you're doing with this post) to see what they've got to say about it...especially site owners that are actually using the host you are considering.

I can say FutureQuest's POP email accounts are real POP Accounts that allow each one to send and receive email individually as they should. (I think I can say that? The forum rules are still vague to me as I see a lot of editing going on)

Truthfulness of the host's offering is a bit more difficult to figure out, as you've found. In this area I again would look toward other site owners as well as the longetivity of the host. Do they appear stable... do they have something to hide? How new are they? etc. etc. etc. Many hosts claim to offer multiple large high-speed lines yet fail to mention how many other hosts they are sharing those lines with or how much of the bandwidth flowing through them has actually been purchased by that particular host. (Many host imply they own the apartment complex rather than the fact that they simply live in one of the apartments).

Overall you're already on the right track. You're researching FIRST ... you already appear to be educating yourself and not as "TOTALLY CONFUSED" as you may think ;)