The title of this post pays tribute to Tom Foremski’s post on SiliconValleyWatcher, a topic I’ll dig into another time.

As part of my own guidelines around websites, domain names and email addresses, you can never have too many. Having several domain names helps to protect your livelihood and your brand on the web, while having multiple email addresses to tie to those domains builds trust amongst your recipients. But what happens when you try to manage it all? Chaos. Ands lots of hair-pulling.

Before I finish this story, let’s start with how it begins. Earlier this week I Tweeted to my Twitter followers looking for a reliable, all-encompassing, web-based email client. My criteria was that the interface needed to be user-friendly, it HAD to be accessible from anywhere with an internet connection and it had to be able to handle lots of different email addresses effectively. And why was I looking for such an interface when I have Microsoft Outlook? BECAUSE.

The solution to my problem was suggested by @webboy, a local Des Moines Tweep I’ve met through the DM TweetUp events, and it was Google Apps. Google explains that Google Apps for your domain (GAFYD) bundles several “applications including Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar and Google Docs.” If you own your own domain, you can sign up for the FREE version of GAFYD and create a central organizing point for your business, school or organization.

I filled out my details and went to work right away with my SubtileCommunication domain. After firing up the GAFYD version of Gmail, all I had to do was load my various POP3 email accounts and I was up in running in under 15 minutes.

The process went very smoothly and I’d recommend Gooogle’s GAFYD product to anyone looking to consolidate their mess of email addresses into an easy-to-use, web-based client.

In addition to consolidating multiple email addresses into one central space online, GAFYD helps mobilize all of those old emails sitting in Outlook on your machine AND makes them searchable with Gmail’s inbox search feature (which blows Outlook Inbox search out of the water). What more could you ask for?

For more on GAFYD, check out the Technorati tag and Zoli’s Blog (which I used as a step-by-step guide for loading my archived mail into Gmail.)

Last night I hung out with the local social media crowd at the second Des Moines TweetUp. Sixteen Tweeps gathered at the Court Ave Brewing Company in downtown Des Moines and tried their best to put faces to avatars and Twitter handles. I had met a few of the guys before, but this event brought nearly triple the attendance of the first.

The full attendee list included: Mike Sansone @mikesansone, Nathan Wright @nathantwright, Andy Brudtkuhl @abrudtkuhl, Jake Kerber @jakekerber, Scott Phillips @scottatdrake, Brooke @brookenp, Chris Punke @chrispunke, Tim Fisher @timfisher, Rob Glazebrook @robbyg , Haley @haleyelizabeth, Chris Harris @charris1980, Robert Jensen @Jensenrf, Aaron Webb @webboy, Jeremy Harrington @jharr and George Christ @gchrist.

The TweetUp was a great way to expand my local network of social media and tech friends. I spent a good deal of time today trying to get my follower/following list straightened in Twitter after meeting all the new joinees. The insight, recommendations and feedback that I get from this group is reason enough to stay involved, but I envision my relationship with this group growing into something even more beneficial.

I’m already looking forward to the next event (which is rumored to be at Nathan’s new office space) and will post an update when the group comes up with a date.

UPDATE: Others are talking about this TweetUp too.