Over the years, the owners have changed. And the most recent change was the straw that broke the camel’s back. NETidendity (previously MailBank) was bought out by Tucows a couple years ago. You would think this would be a good development – a larger, more experienced company with more resources. Absolutely not the case here.

So, what’s wrong with this new system? For one, it has a lot of bugs, there’s an unacceptable amount of downtime, you don’t get much storage (only 250MB), you can’t request read/received receipts, support is nonexistent, horrible spam filtering and it lacks most of the functionality that free email providers like HotMail, Yahoo!, or GMail offer. All that, and prices were raised. It currently costs $20/yr for webmail and $30/yr for their “premium” service that gives you 1GB storage and lets you use an email client like Outlook.

The acquisition and subsequent outrage did receive a fair amount of attention when it first happened, but I don’t know how many people really jumped ship as was a common threat. I would have been among the first in the water if it were only that easy… Many of the people speaking out wanted to purchase their domain names from Tucows rather than put up with this ordeal any longer.

Having an email address for 10+ years gets you onto all kinds of lists, your family knows the address, your friends can find you easily, and you’re prime spam bait. I also made the mistake of using the email address for various business purposes over the years, so between logins for web sites, newsletter/feed subscriptions, and accepting PayPal payments, it’s going to take an enormous amount of time and effort to transfer over to another viable option.

I’ve been working on this for over a month now, probably since I last paid my yearly fee to lease the address. Every day I get something else in my Inbox that needs to be transferred elsewhere. I’m afraid that I may not get this task completed. Ever. Ideally, they would release the domain name, as they did in this case (perhaps a bad example), and I could obtain it for my family.

Now, some people may have all sorts of tips, from setting up email forwarding, using autoresponders, and even having GMail filter email between addresses. The problem I see with forwarding and autoresponders is that I don’t want spammers to be given an invitation to my new address(es). And, with the number of email addresses I have, I don’t have any desire to create new ones just for filtering.

One benefit of doing this manually is that I am able to better sort email between addresses depending on purpose. Family and friends will have my new personal address. Business will be conducted via another. And newsletters/feeds/etc. will go to free HotMail or GMail accounts that can be ditched if inundated with spam, but they tend to have decent spam protection. Perhaps the best thing to come from this is that I’ll be getting a fresh start and will save some money.

To tell you the truth, if it were equal to or better than say GMail, I’d continue to pay. Why? Because I’ve had it so long and it’s personal. GMail is outstanding, but it isn’t as personal. I guess they all have their flaws and quirks…

I’ll try to recreate the scenario without using the sociopathic text of the original email…

So, some idiot decided they needed to use their BBQ and went out to clean it, but heard a buzzing and thought, hey, lets kill some innocent critters, especially if they are good for the environment…

Instead of doing the right thing and calling a bee keeper or trying to move them away from your BBQ in a humane manner, let’s use some highly toxic death spray that will not only kill the bees, but also get all over the cooking apparatus.

A bug bomb, a rake, some tape. Hey look, I’m freakin’ MacGyver! Aren’t I cool…

The sound of the bees buzzing was sooo loud! They must be cheering my creativity and opposable thumbs. Look at how they fall to the ground, dazed by my incredible intelligence!

Wow, there are so many of them! I feel so powerful! Look at me, the all powerful Bee master!

Here’s another shot so you can see how high the pile of bees are, in case you weren’t already aware of how impressive I am as a human!

I don’t think you believe me. I am great! Look at all those bees I killed!

Gee, where do bees come from? Lets look under the BBQ to see…

That would be their home. That would be their former home. Mmmm… toxic honey!

Look, here’s a shot showing the dead bees and their former home. I’m so thoughtful…

After killing all those bees, I sure am hungry! How about I do the world a favor and eat some of this toxic honey…

Remember, karma’s a bitch!