Google Apps is a fantastic tool. You can set up your own domain (yourdomain.com) to use Google Apps. For example, you can have you@yourdomain.com as your email with a Google Apps email (works and acts just like Gmail). You can access it at mail.yourdomain.com. You can still use your favorite email program to get your mail via POP or IMAP. While you're at it, you can set up Google Docs and Google Calendar to work on your domain. This video shows how to set up your domain (DNS settings, A records, MX records, CNAMES, etc.) to use Google Apps. Sounds complicated. Well, it is. Here goes!

Using Google Apps, you can now set up your MX records to use you@yourdomain.com directly in Gmail. This isn’t using POP to get your mail but telling mail that goes to your domain to basically use Google’s servers as your personal mail servers. Please note, this is NOT a regular Gmail account, but an email account (a domain even) that’s using Google Apps.