well :)  i admire your moxie and effort you've been putting into this.  even if its not been working how you want it to, thats basically a pretty good introduction to the rites of passage of how it feels to try and get something running.. computers are not simple :)

imagine this: you're installing a new microwave in someones house, but that microwave is supposed to keep track of what everyone in the entire house hold ate, as well as take orders for each meal they're wanting, and what kind of sides, appetizers, etc, and then its supposed to be set up to cook all the food automatically and deliver it to their rooms...

thats a loose analogy, but una is about as complicated as this theorhetical microwave.

you definitely jumped into something thats more complicated than you initially thought, but that doesn't mean you wont get there, but it is currently showing you holes in stuff you'd need to learn to get the results you want, in this case the microwave you're trying to install (una is the microwave here), working and taking food orders for the household.  (the household are your site users past present or future.)   :)  

i know analogies are a bit irritating "just give me the straight dope! i want the answer!"  well, ha there are no straight answers unless the level of complexity in a problem has been reduced to 1-2 variables or items that may affect it..  like, it wont turn on, (well is it plugged in?)  okay then plug it in, yay!  OR - well shit, it's indeed plugged in,..  then this opens up about 5-7 different variables that are inbetween the power button and the users expectations (for the microwave to turn on), and then you have to troubleshoot the flow of logic between "i push da button and he turns on and i see the clock on the display on the microwave" and , all the ciruits and components inside the microwave that may or may not be installed improperly or configured improperly,  (in this case im referring to components of una).  

you are welcome to join my site and try and just enjoy being able to use una with the goal of looking at stuff and asking how it works, if thats helpful while you're learning more.

and as far as the email stuff goes, i got my email because i dont use gmail, hotmail yahoo or any of the major mail providers, i use my own..     which, means my email always works.  the major ones have a lot of hiccups in getting emails from websites that are not biggies, like facebook, or linkedin or so on,  this is a WHOLE nother world of soup though, and the peripheral words are things like, "blacklist" "whitelist" "dnsMasq" "iPerf" "sendmail" "spool"and well honestly mail is a pretty large rabbit-hole.  or more like hobbit den.

:)