Those who have had an account with Hotmail since its early days know that there has rarely been a groundbreaking update until the year 2010 when Microsoft released some new Hotmail features for this generation. A Hotmail sign in shows that there have been major changes to the email features since Hotmail was rebranded as MSN Hotmail by its buyer – Microsoft.Hotmail started off as the hot item on the market but it is hard to understand why they sat on their laurels after the arrival of competition from its rivals, Yahoo Mail and Gmail. The new changes in the modern Hotmail email service are meant to improve the email panel by adding social media interaction tools and improving the filter system and document management. The current Hotmail panel has rich web 2.0 features that allow people to chat with friends online, add profile pictures and see status updates. You can see who is online as well as accept friend requests or add contacts.
There is no doubt that MSN Hotmail cannot afford to be left behind by its competitors in this age of fast changing technology and life styles. A Hotmail sign in should give the user a new experience that sets them apart from other email services. Many new users have trouble signing into their accounts as the latest web browsers like Firefox add more advanced security features to their frequently updated systems. Websites like MSN Hotmail are also focused on increasing security on their email systems, and thus as the technology increases, it brings its pros and cons in the process. A new feature might affect other features, and prevent them from working properly. It is no surprise to find that signing into Hotmail may not be as easy as before whenever new features are introduced. These Hotmail log in problems are not only attributed to new updates of the email service, but they are also caused by numerous other factors. Old and new Hotmail users alike have to learn more as the services become updated. Referring to outdated Help Sections for Hotmail might not help as the information will not work for new Hotmail versions.
MSN Hotmail is hot on the heels of speeding giants like Gmail neck on neck. You might have noticed that Hotmail is giving its users more storage space, increased spam control and improved interactions. These three aspects are very important. You might think email services should be offering less storage space as the number of email accounts increases, but this is not the case. There are new technologies that are being used like cloud computing that allow for expansion of space without increasing costs.Hotmail has millions of users worldwide, and Microsoft can effectively handle any expansion. The need for more space is more apparent today than ever before. With the popularity of social networking sites, people are sharing millions of files online today and uploading pictures on a daily basis. Open social is taking the internet by storm. You can imagine the amount of server space that is required to store the ever-increasing amount of data in the webspace.Only the best email services in the world can afford to provide free services to millions of people while boosting their servers as well. To maintain the servers alone on a monthly basis would require thousands of dollars, which would be footed by the users, but email companies like MSN Hotmail are offering their service free of charge to the masses. Not to mention that these popular email services like Hotmail are providing top notch service, that is by far better than most paid email services.
One of the major challenges facing email providers today is spam control. When Hotmail launched as MSN Hotmail, there were major improvements in the Hotmail features for fighting spam. There is no doubt that Hotmail has one of the most robust spam filter systems. This is a feature that has caused many people to switch to Hotmail.When you sign into Hotmail, you will rarely come across junk email that you did not solicit or subscribe to. The new Hotmail is a mean spam killing machine. Spam is as old as the internet, considering that the internet is a free space for every Jack and Jill. A lot of spam emanates from marketing efforts on the internet.Indeed, you cannot separate spam from internet marketing – bad marketing practices. A spammer is like an insurance agent who talks about his insurance products everywhere he goes, at work, in the church, at funerals, at a club, at sport events and at home. This is the kind of seller who goes around sticking promotional posters at each and every pin board in town, even at prohibited places. You can imagine what a nuisance this can be. Most email users hate spam, and the ability to beat spam is now a selling point for many email providers and online forums.Naturally,we want our email inbox to be filled with emails that we care about, emails that are important to us, and not littered with unsolicited email campaigns, fishing emails and scams. If you have been struggling with spam, then the new MSN Hotmail might be a solution you are looking for. The free Hotmail email service is as good as the paid the version. Most paid email services will charge you a monthly fee for spam protection and you might not like this if you are a small businessman.
Hotmail is keeping up with the new generation. This is evidenced by its cool social networking features on its email service. Conversations can be threaded and there are inbuilt chats that show your status online. A wide range of richly built multimedia is available and the interface has a cool web 2.0 design. Users can chat via mobile phone as well. Whether you have a Blackberry or Nokia cellphone, you can use your platform to chat on MSN Hotmail.These days, people will not take your website seriously if you do not have web 2.0 communication features. People are spending more time on the internet, chatting with their friends from home, while travelling or attending meetings. The need for instant messaging cannot be overemphasized for our fast paced and busy lifestyles. Microsoft Hotmail provides free chat services. You do not need any credit to chat with your contacts online.
While Hotmail social features are not so amazing because of a lack of real social features like news feeds and other Facebook-like features, the ability to share photos online and chat with friends are enough for most people. It is safe to say people do not need another Facebook.Email providers like Yahoo and Gmail have experimented with social features, but these have not taken off very well. Not many people use these features. For example, Yahoo has a social feature in the name of ‘Yahoo Pulse’ and Google has ‘Google Buzz’. You might have signed in and out of these two email services for many months without noticing any of these social features. Yahoo bought Xoopit to add social features into its services and Gmail makes use of Etacts.This suggests that pouring your investment in acquiring products that are not aligned with your core service might not be a good idea. Let Facebook be Facebook and Yahoo be Yahoo. When people think of Facebook, they think of social networking. When people think of Yahoo, they think of email.
Some tech observers fantasize about the future where email inboxes can be converted into applications. These observers suggest that email inboxes should be applications where messages are dynamically exchanged without opening more than one window on the browser. This would really be an interesting evolution for email services like MSN Hotmail.These tech observers claim that Hotmail may be going towards this direction in the future. The Hotmail Active View is a tip in this speculation. In this case, the U.S.P.S. tracking code becomes an application that contains messages. Basic edits for PowerPoint, Excel and Word docs will be supported and already Hotmail in conjunction with Facebook has launched an editing website DOCS.COM for online document management.
Microsoft has some added 6 unique and interesting features to Hotmail. The new Hotmail features are as follows:
1 – Exchange ActiveSync which works on mobile platforms
2 – A user can view all messages from a particular sender by clicking the name
3 – The Sweep feature that deletes all emails from a selected sender and blocks all future emails.
4 – A sidebar for Bing where users can add information from the internet. Pictures and Google Maps can also be added on the sidebar. The content that you add on the sidebar can be used in your emails.
5 – The ability to embed YouTube videos as well as videos from other sites like Hulu.
6 – A slideshow feature with rich media that creates slideshows of pictures from sent emails and Flickr.
The Hotmail Slideshow feature is a cool tool for photo sharing and it allows maximum sizes for attachments. The maximum size of images that can be attached in emails is about 10 Gigs. This is really a huge amount of data, thanks to cloud hosting on SkyDrive.When a person receives photos, they are supposed to click on the photo URLs.You do not need to be signed into Hotmail.The Silverlight application is required to see the pictures online in full animated form. If you do not have the Silverlight app installed, then you will see the pictures but not with the same quality. As an alternative, the photo recipient can directly download the attachments. If you are downloading the attachment, then you need to be logged in your email to download the pictures. You can invite friends and other people to tag the photos or upload their own photos. To sign in, they should use their Windows Live ID. Pictures are stored in SkyDrive cloud servers where they are deleted after 3 months from the date of posting. The storage period can be extended indefinitely, so you have control over the pictures.
Many people will save the pictures to their computer if they are worthwhile. However, for other pictures, many people will just view them once and forget them. After one three months, you would have totally forgotten about the emails. On MSN Hotmail, over 50% of attachments consist of pictures. If you want your attachments to stay indefinitely without extending the storage period, then this might not be a good option for you. Not everyone will be happy with the 3 months expiration period.
To take your social networking a step further with MSN Hotmail, you have to check out the new version of Windows Live Messenger. This product has not been widely featured, but it makes connecting on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace a very enjoyable experience. You can connect on these social networking sites from your Hotmail account or home page. Take a Hotmail Sign In today to start the experience.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
How to Begin Your Windows Live Hotmail Sign In.
This write-up takes you through the procedures for a Hotmail Sign In. Windows Live Hotmail is without doubt one of the most used email services in the world after Gmail and Yahoo.Newbies and even experienced users sometimes have a hard time signing into Hotmail.A tutorial with step-by-step instructions and screenshots is very helpful for those who are not familiar with Hotmail but not all problems can be solved with a tutorial. Users must be well versed with the new version of Windows Live Hotmail as these often come with updates of the older version.However, the Help Sections for the older versions of MSN Hotmail are still useful in many cases and you will find most answers to your problems.
Hotmail users should note that besides the familiar in-browser use of Hotmail, the email service can also be used with a number of applications, namely:
Hotmail for Outlook Express
Hotmail for Windows Live Mail
Hotmail for Windows Mail
Hotmail for Mozilla Thunderbird
Hotmail for Microsoft Outlook
The New Hotmail
Since the debut of Windows Live Hotmail in 2007, Microsoft has been introducing new features to Hotmail and giving the email service a competitive edge over Gmail. Although Gmail has been on an innovative streak, Hotmail has managed to hold its lead as the most popular e-mail service on planet earth. In this article, you will learn about the various web mail services and programs that are available on the newest version of Hotmail and how this email service has evolved over the last decade. In beginning your Hotmail Sign In, here is what you should know and do:
Create Your Hotmail Account:
First, you have to learn how to open a hotmail account. There are steps that are to be followed beginning with registration and choosing a username for your Hotmail account. The whole set-up process takes a little over six minutes considering that you are not encountering problems that are caused by your browser or server. Knowing how the Hotmail Sign Up works helps you to decide the preferred settings and options that you are presented with as you sign up. Some options may be apparent and others may require you to find them. For example, MSN offers the Hotmail Plus option that enables a user to view his/her emails without seeing adverts that are normally shown on the Hotmail interface.
Make a Hotmail Sign In:
After creating your Hotmail account with the preferred settings, you should sign into Hotmail.When sign into Hotmail, there are more settings and options that allow you to choose your preferences. One of the most important settings is the security settings for accessing your email on a public system. The Hotmail login tutorial takes you through the logging process and how to protect your email account from being hacked. If the basic tips do not help to solve your login problems, you should consult the detailed guide that provides in-depth information on Hotmail sign in issues as well as advanced settings for Hotmail login.
Hotmail Keyboard Shortcuts:
The latest Hotmail comes with a new feature that allows a user to open and browse emails without a mouse. This feature makes use of keyboard shortcuts for basic functions and it can be a time saver for those who do not like the mouse.However, this feature will not work for advanced functions. There are tutorials on how to use Hotmail keyboard shortcuts.
How to Configure Hotmail for Email Clients:
In using your Hotmail account, you would want to use your iphone or mobile phone to access your emails. The Mobile Mac Mail application is used for both iPod and iPhone.There are tutorials for setting up Hotmail on iPod or iPhone.
One change that can be observed by Hotmail users is that Windows Live Hotmail has the ability to act like a POP3 mail service. The older versions used an email protocol owned by Microsoft. In the old version, users were only able to access their emails through applications made by Microsoft e.g. Windows Live Mail, Windows Mail and Outlook Express.
The option for POP3 gives Hotmail users extra advantage because they can use any POP3 email client to access their emails.POP3 technology is used by many email services today. To configure your POP3 settings, you should go to the ‘Hotmail POP3 settings’. You will need to browse through the Hotmail IMAP settings tutorial to learn the limitations and how to properly configure the programs. As you know that technology is always changing, you should expect updates from the Hotmail technical support. Tutorials on how to deal with common problems are given and they should help you in your quest for solutions.
Millions of people are used to the free Hotmail service, but there is also the premium service known as Hotmail Plus that is provided with MSN Windows Live.Hotmail Plus comes with a lot of advantages – it is free from ads, offers more storage, allows sending of large files (up to 5Gigs), can filter a large number of approved senders and recipients simultaneously. All the things that you want clarified about Hotmail will be explained in the tutorials. The range of names that are given by Microsoft to describe their Hotmail products can be confusing by consulting the tutorials will make it easy for you. You should know that Hotmail is an entity that was acquired by Microsoft and as expected many things have changed including the names.
Reading your Hotmail mails:
Reading your emails is one of the things you should learn in the latest Hotmail.The new Windows Live Hotmail UI comes with a reading pane that can be customized to your preferences. Emails can be read in full view or summaries. There are tutorials that show you how to view hidden pictures and blocked content. Learn how to open Hotmail attachments as well as download them. Things like downloading or attaching a Hotmail file may look easy but there are people who will encounter problems because they have not read the latest guide. Features like a Hotmail Email Editor may need a detailed study for starters. The Hotmail Email Editor is used to create new e-mails as well as forward or reply to e-mails.
In the course of learning how to use Hotmail, you should also know how to delete Hotmail emails using the email deletion feature. When you delete your emails, you will find that you might need to recover them. It is possible to recover your deleted emails but you should be aware that Hotmail will permanently delete emails after a certain period. In this case, you cannot recover the emails once they are permanently deleted. The user will also learn about the easiest way to delete multiple emails or to delete emails one at a time.
Compose and send emails:
The next step in a Hotmail Sign In is to create email messages and send them. In this step, you would be required to use the Hotmail Email Editor. The Email Editor gives the user options for formatting the messages. At this stage, you should know how to send file attachments. There are important things to be considered concerning the attachment size for Hotmail files. A maximum total of 5 Gigs of files can be sent at once in one message, and these should be attached in maximum sizes of 25MB.This means in order to send 2.5 Gigs ,you should have 100 files (each 25MB) attached to the message. For those who want to stretch the limits, there are ways to send much bigger files in excess of 5 Gigs. More detailed analysis is provided for replying to and forwarding Hotmail emails.
The next step is knowing how to display images / photos within your emails. As you will learn, adding photos in your messages is different from the normal attachment process (Windows file picker).In Windows Live Hotmail, you have to use a picture management add-on that enables you to organize, edit and pick selected pictures that will be re-sized and used for email messages. The pictures in your Hotmail message will be displayed as on a page within the content. This is different from an email attachment where you need to click a link to download or view the pictures.
The latest version of Windows Live Hotmail allows the user to add his/her signature beneath every message that is sent out. This is done automatically, so once you add your signature, the signature will be displayed beneath all the new emails that you compose. The tutorials for adding a signature to Hotmail take you through the whole process of inserting a signature and deleting your email signature. You can also send emails with or without a signature.
The process of sending emails is easy but you have to know what happens as you send the emails. You have many options to deal with your email sending. It is important to learn about how to recall emails, how to request email delivery confirmations and to find out if your emails were received and read. As you use Hotmail, you might encounter problems where emails are delayed or undelivered. You should be aware of these things and learn how to troubleshoot them.
Standard Folders – Hotmail
As soon as you make your Hotmail Sign In, you will notice that there are 5 folders on the latest Windows Live Hotmail.These folders are in-built and permanent. You cannot delete or rename them because they are integrated within the system for performing certain functions. Tutorials will show you how to use each of these folders and how they work. The 5 Hotmail folders are the:
Deleted folder: This contains emails that are deleted by the user. Emails that are deleted in the inbox are sent to this folder and the user has the time to decide whether to restore or permanently remove them. Deleted emails have a couple of months before they are permanently deleted. The deleted folder acts like a recycle / trash bin.
Sent folder: This folder contains all emails that you composed and sent. You can refer to this folder if you are searching for past email correspondence.
Drafts folder: This folder stores all messages you composed but never sent. You can keep all emails that you want to revise or proofread at a later date prior to sending them.
Spam folder (Junk Mail): The spam folder contains junk email. These are unsolicited emails or any other emails that have been marked as spam by the automatic filter. Any received email that you manually mark as spam will also be sent to this folder. Deleting an email from the spam folder permanently removes the email from the recycle bin.
Hotmail Inbox: This is the main box that contains all emails received. Messages that are marked as spam will bypass the inbox to the trash can.
Custom Folders – Hotmail
Standard folders cannot be renamed, modified or deleted.However, you can add your own custom folders. Custom folders help you to find your stuff quickly. For example, you can create a folder named ”movies” to track all your subscribed movie newsletters and updates. You can have another folder named “coupons” to track your subscribed coupon emails. Windows Live Hotmail allows you to set the filters or make your own rules so that emails can be automatically distributed to their appropriate folders.
Some of the things are very simple. Learn how to empty a folder, create a folder, delete a folder and rename it. The hotmail UI is intuitive.
Hotmail Contacts Management:
Like any other email service, Hotmail gives the user options to manage contacts. In order to effectively manage your contacts, you should put them in categories. When you have an email account, you get emails from many people e.g. customers, business partners, relatives and friends. It is also ideal to use your Hotmail contacts list as an online address book that can be accessed everywhere on the web.
Tutorials to manage your Windows Live Hotmail contacts will help you get started easily when you gain more contacts. A Hotmail account can have up to 5,000 contacts.
The next step in your Hotmail Sign In requires you to learn how to create new contacts, delete contacts, add contacts and edit contacts. There is the manual way of adding contacts, but if you have many contacts to add to your list, this can take a lot of your time. To save time, you can import your contacts automatically in one step from an external email application or address book. The import function also extracts contacts from another email service such as Yahoo or Gmail. The process is easy when you follow the tutorials. Now that you have all your contacts on your Hotmail account, you should learn how to export your Hotmail contacts to another account or email service.Often, you will have contacts that appear more than once in your Hotmail address list. You can solve this problem by merging or removing duplicate contacts.
Hotmail Contacts also comes with a feature create mailing lists also known as contact groups or distribution lists. This can be created from your Hotmail account. The Windows Live Team calls this feature the ‘contact categories’. Under a single contact category, you can create or add sub-groups. This can simply be done by giving a single “group name” to refer to the sub-groups. Tutorials are available to help you manage your Hotmail Contacts categories effectively.
Hotmail users should note that besides the familiar in-browser use of Hotmail, the email service can also be used with a number of applications, namely:
Hotmail for Outlook Express
Hotmail for Windows Live Mail
Hotmail for Windows Mail
Hotmail for Mozilla Thunderbird
Hotmail for Microsoft Outlook
The New Hotmail
Since the debut of Windows Live Hotmail in 2007, Microsoft has been introducing new features to Hotmail and giving the email service a competitive edge over Gmail. Although Gmail has been on an innovative streak, Hotmail has managed to hold its lead as the most popular e-mail service on planet earth. In this article, you will learn about the various web mail services and programs that are available on the newest version of Hotmail and how this email service has evolved over the last decade. In beginning your Hotmail Sign In, here is what you should know and do:
Create Your Hotmail Account:
First, you have to learn how to open a hotmail account. There are steps that are to be followed beginning with registration and choosing a username for your Hotmail account. The whole set-up process takes a little over six minutes considering that you are not encountering problems that are caused by your browser or server. Knowing how the Hotmail Sign Up works helps you to decide the preferred settings and options that you are presented with as you sign up. Some options may be apparent and others may require you to find them. For example, MSN offers the Hotmail Plus option that enables a user to view his/her emails without seeing adverts that are normally shown on the Hotmail interface.
Make a Hotmail Sign In:
After creating your Hotmail account with the preferred settings, you should sign into Hotmail.When sign into Hotmail, there are more settings and options that allow you to choose your preferences. One of the most important settings is the security settings for accessing your email on a public system. The Hotmail login tutorial takes you through the logging process and how to protect your email account from being hacked. If the basic tips do not help to solve your login problems, you should consult the detailed guide that provides in-depth information on Hotmail sign in issues as well as advanced settings for Hotmail login.
Hotmail Keyboard Shortcuts:
The latest Hotmail comes with a new feature that allows a user to open and browse emails without a mouse. This feature makes use of keyboard shortcuts for basic functions and it can be a time saver for those who do not like the mouse.However, this feature will not work for advanced functions. There are tutorials on how to use Hotmail keyboard shortcuts.
How to Configure Hotmail for Email Clients:
In using your Hotmail account, you would want to use your iphone or mobile phone to access your emails. The Mobile Mac Mail application is used for both iPod and iPhone.There are tutorials for setting up Hotmail on iPod or iPhone.
One change that can be observed by Hotmail users is that Windows Live Hotmail has the ability to act like a POP3 mail service. The older versions used an email protocol owned by Microsoft. In the old version, users were only able to access their emails through applications made by Microsoft e.g. Windows Live Mail, Windows Mail and Outlook Express.
The option for POP3 gives Hotmail users extra advantage because they can use any POP3 email client to access their emails.POP3 technology is used by many email services today. To configure your POP3 settings, you should go to the ‘Hotmail POP3 settings’. You will need to browse through the Hotmail IMAP settings tutorial to learn the limitations and how to properly configure the programs. As you know that technology is always changing, you should expect updates from the Hotmail technical support. Tutorials on how to deal with common problems are given and they should help you in your quest for solutions.
Millions of people are used to the free Hotmail service, but there is also the premium service known as Hotmail Plus that is provided with MSN Windows Live.Hotmail Plus comes with a lot of advantages – it is free from ads, offers more storage, allows sending of large files (up to 5Gigs), can filter a large number of approved senders and recipients simultaneously. All the things that you want clarified about Hotmail will be explained in the tutorials. The range of names that are given by Microsoft to describe their Hotmail products can be confusing by consulting the tutorials will make it easy for you. You should know that Hotmail is an entity that was acquired by Microsoft and as expected many things have changed including the names.
Reading your Hotmail mails:
Reading your emails is one of the things you should learn in the latest Hotmail.The new Windows Live Hotmail UI comes with a reading pane that can be customized to your preferences. Emails can be read in full view or summaries. There are tutorials that show you how to view hidden pictures and blocked content. Learn how to open Hotmail attachments as well as download them. Things like downloading or attaching a Hotmail file may look easy but there are people who will encounter problems because they have not read the latest guide. Features like a Hotmail Email Editor may need a detailed study for starters. The Hotmail Email Editor is used to create new e-mails as well as forward or reply to e-mails.
In the course of learning how to use Hotmail, you should also know how to delete Hotmail emails using the email deletion feature. When you delete your emails, you will find that you might need to recover them. It is possible to recover your deleted emails but you should be aware that Hotmail will permanently delete emails after a certain period. In this case, you cannot recover the emails once they are permanently deleted. The user will also learn about the easiest way to delete multiple emails or to delete emails one at a time.
Compose and send emails:
The next step in a Hotmail Sign In is to create email messages and send them. In this step, you would be required to use the Hotmail Email Editor. The Email Editor gives the user options for formatting the messages. At this stage, you should know how to send file attachments. There are important things to be considered concerning the attachment size for Hotmail files. A maximum total of 5 Gigs of files can be sent at once in one message, and these should be attached in maximum sizes of 25MB.This means in order to send 2.5 Gigs ,you should have 100 files (each 25MB) attached to the message. For those who want to stretch the limits, there are ways to send much bigger files in excess of 5 Gigs. More detailed analysis is provided for replying to and forwarding Hotmail emails.
The next step is knowing how to display images / photos within your emails. As you will learn, adding photos in your messages is different from the normal attachment process (Windows file picker).In Windows Live Hotmail, you have to use a picture management add-on that enables you to organize, edit and pick selected pictures that will be re-sized and used for email messages. The pictures in your Hotmail message will be displayed as on a page within the content. This is different from an email attachment where you need to click a link to download or view the pictures.
The latest version of Windows Live Hotmail allows the user to add his/her signature beneath every message that is sent out. This is done automatically, so once you add your signature, the signature will be displayed beneath all the new emails that you compose. The tutorials for adding a signature to Hotmail take you through the whole process of inserting a signature and deleting your email signature. You can also send emails with or without a signature.
The process of sending emails is easy but you have to know what happens as you send the emails. You have many options to deal with your email sending. It is important to learn about how to recall emails, how to request email delivery confirmations and to find out if your emails were received and read. As you use Hotmail, you might encounter problems where emails are delayed or undelivered. You should be aware of these things and learn how to troubleshoot them.
Standard Folders – Hotmail
As soon as you make your Hotmail Sign In, you will notice that there are 5 folders on the latest Windows Live Hotmail.These folders are in-built and permanent. You cannot delete or rename them because they are integrated within the system for performing certain functions. Tutorials will show you how to use each of these folders and how they work. The 5 Hotmail folders are the:
Deleted folder: This contains emails that are deleted by the user. Emails that are deleted in the inbox are sent to this folder and the user has the time to decide whether to restore or permanently remove them. Deleted emails have a couple of months before they are permanently deleted. The deleted folder acts like a recycle / trash bin.
Sent folder: This folder contains all emails that you composed and sent. You can refer to this folder if you are searching for past email correspondence.
Drafts folder: This folder stores all messages you composed but never sent. You can keep all emails that you want to revise or proofread at a later date prior to sending them.
Spam folder (Junk Mail): The spam folder contains junk email. These are unsolicited emails or any other emails that have been marked as spam by the automatic filter. Any received email that you manually mark as spam will also be sent to this folder. Deleting an email from the spam folder permanently removes the email from the recycle bin.
Hotmail Inbox: This is the main box that contains all emails received. Messages that are marked as spam will bypass the inbox to the trash can.
Custom Folders – Hotmail
Standard folders cannot be renamed, modified or deleted.However, you can add your own custom folders. Custom folders help you to find your stuff quickly. For example, you can create a folder named ”movies” to track all your subscribed movie newsletters and updates. You can have another folder named “coupons” to track your subscribed coupon emails. Windows Live Hotmail allows you to set the filters or make your own rules so that emails can be automatically distributed to their appropriate folders.
Some of the things are very simple. Learn how to empty a folder, create a folder, delete a folder and rename it. The hotmail UI is intuitive.
Hotmail Contacts Management:
Like any other email service, Hotmail gives the user options to manage contacts. In order to effectively manage your contacts, you should put them in categories. When you have an email account, you get emails from many people e.g. customers, business partners, relatives and friends. It is also ideal to use your Hotmail contacts list as an online address book that can be accessed everywhere on the web.
Tutorials to manage your Windows Live Hotmail contacts will help you get started easily when you gain more contacts. A Hotmail account can have up to 5,000 contacts.
The next step in your Hotmail Sign In requires you to learn how to create new contacts, delete contacts, add contacts and edit contacts. There is the manual way of adding contacts, but if you have many contacts to add to your list, this can take a lot of your time. To save time, you can import your contacts automatically in one step from an external email application or address book. The import function also extracts contacts from another email service such as Yahoo or Gmail. The process is easy when you follow the tutorials. Now that you have all your contacts on your Hotmail account, you should learn how to export your Hotmail contacts to another account or email service.Often, you will have contacts that appear more than once in your Hotmail address list. You can solve this problem by merging or removing duplicate contacts.
Hotmail Contacts also comes with a feature create mailing lists also known as contact groups or distribution lists. This can be created from your Hotmail account. The Windows Live Team calls this feature the ‘contact categories’. Under a single contact category, you can create or add sub-groups. This can simply be done by giving a single “group name” to refer to the sub-groups. Tutorials are available to help you manage your Hotmail Contacts categories effectively.
Hotmail Issues – Suggestions for Hotmail Features – What Users Think About Hotmail
MSN Hotmail may be unrolling its new features now and then, but what Hotmail features do Hotmail users want? Is Hotmail listening to people in the forums to find out the problems that many Hotmail users are facing? For instance, you might be searching the forums for a Hotmail Sign In tool that allows you quick access, instant photo sharing or logging into multiple Hotmail accounts at the same time on your browser. You might be facing Hotmail issues that never seem to be solved by the Microsoft team.It is interesting to note that email users often will suggest features that are available as well as unavailable on other email services. If you are a frequent or heavy Hotmail user, it makes sense that you would want the best features of the best email services on one platform. You might have three email accounts on Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail, but just because you use MSN Hotmail daily, you would want some of the great features from other email services to be on your Hotmail account as well. People choose specific email services for many reasons. If you have a Hotmail email address, it might be difficult to crossover to other email services because most of your important contacts are on Hotmail.However,you can still create different accounts and give your existing contacts your new email address. Some people will suggest original features that they think will be a good idea or very useful. As you use your Hotmail account every day, you might observe some tasks which you do regularly, which you think might be done better if there was an improved tool for that task. Yet others observe some tasks that may be an obstruction, annoying or quite useless. Whatever ideas you have for a perfect email service, the objective boils down to important factors such as simplicity, ease of use, speed, organization, looks, better communication, efficiency, capacity,access,security,control and other things.
User A and user B might have different requirements, for example, a small businessman and a social networking fan will have different requirements for the best email service. The same goes for a student and a project manager. A worker and an employer. One Hotmail user named Robert says that there are some features on Gmail that he would like to see on Hotmail. He says that he will be a longtime Gmail user because of this. The said features are the Gmail add-ons that allow a user to convert Word documents and Excel docs.Also, the ability to create multiple Gmail filters, for example, 750 filters is another thing that Robert likes about Gmail. Robert can apply those filters on MSN Hotmail as well, but time does not allow him to do that at the moment. Robert suggests that it will be difficult to switch all his business to MSN Hotmail considering that all his business and internet activities are connected to his Gmail address, for example, the websites that he has signed up with – all have the Gmail address as the login.
Liz Gannes wants some answers from Hotmail about their future plans. The Hotmail staff told her that they have plans for US users at least, so international users have to keep waiting. Hotmail’s plan is to attract AOL users.MSN Hotmail is providing the TrueSwitch service for full importing as well as importing from P.O.P. for users who wish to maintain their old addresses. Not to mention that Microsoft is planning to splash a huge amount of money in attracting customers, although the scale of the campaign will not be as big as Bing.The most effective way to attract customers for the long term is to make Hotmail a better email service. If the Microsoft team could work on this, then they would have a better platform to launch their marketing campaign. Today’s email users are technology savvy. Although most will not be familiar with the most technical details of how email works, they have an eye for high quality performance through experience with other email services. They are aware of the evolution of email products and modern expectations. It’s like a generation of old internet users who were used to slow dial-up internet speeds who are now exposed to extremely fast broadband speeds. Almost all internet users know how frustrating and annoying slow internet can be. The same principle applies to email services. People are continually comparing between MSN Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo. In their observations, they learn what one email service lacks and what the other has. They are on the lookout for updates and new products that have the potential to change their way of running business on email. Campaigns alone are not the means to an end. They are not the solution. They are just customer getters. What is the use getting customers who never return? The goal of any marketing campaign is to get loyal and happy customers. This begins by creating the best product and continually improving it. A few big companies are known to be innovators, otherwise they tend to recycle products, which they repackage to the public as new. As Liz says ‘the old becomes the new again’. If you like the MSN Hotmail service, what is your chance of switching to other services, and if you like your existing Gmail account, what is your chance of switching to the MSN Hotmail service?
Kevin Baggs envisions a Hotmail service that has no limit on the number of contacts you can have. It looks like Kevin is a social networking fan with an interest in making many friends and contacts. The limit for MSN Hotmail is 1,000 contacts and this is barely useful for any email list builder who expects over 5,000 contacts. Maybe the limit might be increased in future versions. You just have to keep waiting for new changes. Another Hotmail user Lance does not like the 1,000 contacts limit along with the Hotmail calendar sync function. Lance is a mobile phone user with a Windows Phone and he finds it unnecessary being redirected to AT & T and back to his iphone.
Mark does not believe that Hotmail has stayed for many years without an update, but it’s true that Hotmail has not had any major update until 2010.Updates might be made on technical issues, but we are talking about a major feature update that is both revolutionary and hot. Nothing hot has been coming from Hotmail for several years, and it looks like they have had a quiet existence while Gmail was busy on its toes, releasing updates and experimenting with new features. Who is not aware of Google Labs? Many will agree that they have not seen any Hotmail product that has been making waves until recently. Liz says the Microsoft team admits that they have not been making any up-to-date additions till lately.
Rich Spalding disputes the claim made by some writers that the new Hotmail lacks social features. Contrary to this, Hotmail has an array of social features that you can count. The writer seems to suggest that ‘news feeds’ such as those on Facebook, are a notable social feature, but it is not logical to conclude that a platform that lacks this feature has no social features. We can line up many people, and they will tell you many things that may rightly be called social features.Hotmail have always had social features in their old Windows Live display. There is a stream of contacts that you can share updates with on Facebook,Twitter and MySpace. However, users like Simon Mackie prefer something more upscaled.He is a fan of Office Web Apps – the idea of making an online application from a desktop application. Maybe Hotmail can get some ideas from the Microsoft Outlook 2010 web app that can be accessed online. Simon thinks it would take a lot of major innovations and changes to entice him to switch to the new Hotmail version. He laments the painful process of switching that is required when upgrading to the new version. This shows another technical aspect of Hotmail services that the MSN Hotmail team should pay attention to. Ease of use is an important aspect that users consider in a product. Switching over to a new version should not be a pain, as many people are very impatient nowadays. Many users will not have time to go through the cumbersome process of switching over and they will rather stay with what they are used to.
Mary says that Hotmail can be completely integrated with the latest Office Web Apps.You simply email a document, then click to open it in Office Web Apps.Integrating the app with Facebook Docs would also be ideal, but major technical changes to the code would have to be done to make this happen. Mary likes the Hotmail ‘Active Views’ and wants it to be implemented in Microsoft Outlook. This is yet another good idea coming from a Hotmail user. Taking a break from Microsoft Outlook at work to view an amazing slideshow of your online photos should be a great experience. You can easily preview the pictures that a friend has sent you by clicking the link. Mary thinks this would save a lot of time.
Anslem likes the “View All”Hotmail feature that enables a person to view all messages by clicking the name. He says you can also do the same kind of thing on Gmail to see all messages starting with recent conversations.
Omar supports the previous assertion that the modern Hotmail has social features contrary to what some writers claim. He claims both the old and new versions have social features, for example, the new MSN Hotmail has a feature called the Messenger Social that can be accessed on the Hotmail home page on the center and front soon after your Hotmail sign in. You can read about this social feature on WindowsLivePreview.com
Bob does not like the Hotmail user interface. He thinks the user interface needs an overhaul, and would want to see a social networking feature like Google Buzz in his email.
Another Hotmail User is interested in IMAP.The user observes that Hotmail has been too slow to catch up with the latest email systems. For example, he says MSN Hotmail began using POP only in 2008 when POP was already an obsolete technology a decade earlier (1998).The user notes that IMAP works perfectly in Gmail which uses both IMAP and POP.However, the user notes that the Gmail POP has problems. She attributes this to other factors such as corrupted messages and large attachments – e.g. videos that can cause POP problems. Because MSN Hotmail POP does not work properly most of the time, she resorts to the online Hotmail interface. The user suggests a solution (a desktop client) that allows her to receive all her emails in one place. She notes that Hotmail is still stuck in old technology that cannot provide the solutions to modern email users’ needs.
An interesting point of view comes from Ernesto who says Hotmail is better than Gmail. Ernesto says that Gmail loads more slowly when compared to MSN Hotmail.He likes the Hotmail user interface and thinks the Gmail User Interface is not attractive. For Ernesto, the availability of social networking tools and adding thousands of contacts is not so important to him. He does not use any external e-mail applications with the exception of Windows Live Mail. To Ernesto, MSN Hotmail is the best email service that loads faster and has everything that he is interested in. The most important observation that Ernesto says about Hotmail is that he has never got any spam on his Hotmail account.Hotmail wins the spam war hands down. The Gmail spam filter is not very effective, although it is much better than Yahoo.For Ernesto, a week hardly passes by without getting about 3 or so spam emails in his Gmail Account. He does not use Gmail frequently but spam finds a way into his inbox anyway. Ernesto does not think Hotmail is aged or behind with its updates. He observes that Gmail used to be the newest thing a couple of years ago, but not when Hotmail made its recent major updates that have allowed the company to pull ahead of Gmail.
A.T. does not like the way Hotmail handles pictures. He thinks it’s kind of stupid that the preview pictures are so small to clearly see them. This problem forces A.T. to download the pictures every time he wants to view them.Alternatively, he uses Silverlight to see the pictures clearly. This problem is making A.T. think about going back to Gmail. Agnes does not like the way the pictures are presented in the Hotmail slideshow and she is frustrated looking for a way to return the pictures to their previous state.
J.S. chimes in and supports the observations made by Agnes and A.T.He thinks the changes made by Hotmail in its new updates is affecting his productivity because there are a lot of things to learn. The new updates are too fancy and hard for average users to completely comprehend. If MSN Hotmail could have much simpler user-friendly interfaces, they would not be spending a lot of money trying to woo back their former users that have switched to other email services like Gmail. George says his friends are having problems with the photos that he sends. Do they have to go the long route, installing external applications like Silverlight to do a simple thing such as downloading a photo? MSN Hotmail should think about this every time millions of Hotmail users make a Hotmail Sign In each day.
MSN Hotmail Catches Up With Its Competitors – Hotmail Sign In
The last time you made your Hotmail sign in, you might have realized that the old uninspiring Hotmail user interface has changed. Microsoft released the most competitive Hotmail version of all in May 2010.The release was expected considering Hotmail’s dormant and almost passive existence within the last years. People had been wondering about the dearth of Hotmail for a long time and Microsoft had to do something about this since acquiring Hotmail for millions of dollars and changing the name to MSN Hotmail.Despite Hotmail’s almost passive existence in the past years, Hotmail still remains a brand name that is popular around the world due to the fact that Hotmail was among the leading pioneers in email service in the early days of the dot.com era. This is the biggest advantage that Hotmail has among its competitors, and it is the reason why they have a large following of people who still have hope in this email giant. Almost all people who had access to the internet during the dot.com era have a Hotmail email address and many people in the new generation are familiar with Hotmail.
In terms of features, MSN Hotmail still trails Gmail. In the US market, Hotmail is the second most popular email service after Yahoo. Users should not expect much from the new Hotmail features since the whole update is an overhaul rather than an innovation.Hotmail is simply trying to catch up with Google and Yahoo in this game, but they have a whole lot to learn. Gmail and Yahoo are already in their game, and they are experimenting with innovative features and carrying out beta tests every time and then. Any Hotmail user who has been using their accounts for a long time knows how much they have been yearning for changes in their old Hotmail UI.Many of these disappointed Hotmail users had no choice but switch to Hotmail’s competitors like Gmail and Yahoo whose applications are constantly updated. It is rare to find any Hotmail users who are fond of their old interface, once they discover what Gmail and Yahoo has to offer. While most Hotmail users are yearning for changes, many Gmail and Yahoo Users are averse to any complete overhaul of their user interfaces. As a result, the strategic teams at Gmail and Yahoo have been forced to give users a choice between the old and new beta interfaces.
The MSN Hotmail team has been smart in implementing major changes for the new Hotmail.It does not take an expert to notice that the changes have been painless. It is safe to assume that Hotmail users have been hungry for change for a long time, and thus they would welcome any changes, no matter how ineffective they are, as long as they sign in to a new and fresh user interface. In an effort to satisfy and woo back its millions of users, Hotmail seems to have implemented all the main features found in Yahoo and Gmail. They have also gone neck to neck with their competitors by matching the capabilities for data storage, social interaction and spam detection. The Hotmail UI also looks more web 2.0 and streamlined with features for social chatting, picture viewing, media sharing, email filtering and document editing. The new Hotmail UI is mobile enabled for the Blackberry, iPhone and cellphone.What a better way to begin an evolution. There is no better way to begin an evolution than providing the standard that your competitors are giving.
Other people might argue that the reason for Hotmail’s slow pace of change is because the entity is now owned by Microsoft. We all know that Microsoft is a big corporation and corporations are known to be slow in implementing changes. Any proposals for change have to pass through many boards and meetings before they are approved, and this may take many years. Microsoft is a company that is well known internationally for its Windows Operating System. While Windows is a good product, there has been a huge cry about Microsoft’s clearly bugged products like the first versions of Windows Vista. Many times, Microsoft has been forced to acknowledge that its development team made some errors on its side that even its software engineers did not understand. Errors and bugs are a normal thing in software development, but it is the technical support and response that matters most. It is fair to say Microsoft is too slow in its response to customer complaints. As a result, products like MSN Hotmail will stay a long time without any major improvements while users are languishing in their accounts.
One of the widely accepted Microsoft products is Doc WebApps.Doc WebApps is an internet application that enables people to edit their Microsoft documents in Hotmail without opening a new window. In the new Hotmail, Microsoft did not only implement the common features offered by their competitors, but they also introduced cool features of their own. For example, Slideshow is an innovative application that allows photo attachments and online pictures from Flickr to be viewed. You can also embed videos in your email messages. Users can embed YouTube, Justin.TV and Hulu videos. The Hotmail UI features a Bing sidebar where users can add various types of media and content such as images, web links, and clip art. Most Hotmail users will be pleased with the anti-spam features in the new version of Hotmail.There are settings for automatically deleting and blocking unsolicited emails from selected senders. The biggest time saver is a feature that enables a one-click view of all messages for a chosen sender.
While all these features are a good sign of things to come from MSN Hotmail, there are some features that some people will not like. One such feature is the time limit that has been imposed for storing pictures in your Hotmail account. All pictures in your email attachments and messages have a maximum lifespan of 3 months. After the expiry date, the pictures will be deleted from the cloud server unless you extend the expiry date. On a good note, the maximum size for pictures that can be sent in your Hotmail account is 10 Gigs. This is a plus for Hotmail users who do not like the comparatively smaller limits for sending files in Gmail and Yahoo, with 25MB and 20MB respectively. The ability to send mega size files will keep attract many email users who like sending big files. It is rare to find email companies who provide free services for sending large files.Hotmail may make inroads in this market that is dominated by paid email providers.
In terms of features, MSN Hotmail still trails Gmail. In the US market, Hotmail is the second most popular email service after Yahoo. Users should not expect much from the new Hotmail features since the whole update is an overhaul rather than an innovation.Hotmail is simply trying to catch up with Google and Yahoo in this game, but they have a whole lot to learn. Gmail and Yahoo are already in their game, and they are experimenting with innovative features and carrying out beta tests every time and then. Any Hotmail user who has been using their accounts for a long time knows how much they have been yearning for changes in their old Hotmail UI.Many of these disappointed Hotmail users had no choice but switch to Hotmail’s competitors like Gmail and Yahoo whose applications are constantly updated. It is rare to find any Hotmail users who are fond of their old interface, once they discover what Gmail and Yahoo has to offer. While most Hotmail users are yearning for changes, many Gmail and Yahoo Users are averse to any complete overhaul of their user interfaces. As a result, the strategic teams at Gmail and Yahoo have been forced to give users a choice between the old and new beta interfaces.
The MSN Hotmail team has been smart in implementing major changes for the new Hotmail.It does not take an expert to notice that the changes have been painless. It is safe to assume that Hotmail users have been hungry for change for a long time, and thus they would welcome any changes, no matter how ineffective they are, as long as they sign in to a new and fresh user interface. In an effort to satisfy and woo back its millions of users, Hotmail seems to have implemented all the main features found in Yahoo and Gmail. They have also gone neck to neck with their competitors by matching the capabilities for data storage, social interaction and spam detection. The Hotmail UI also looks more web 2.0 and streamlined with features for social chatting, picture viewing, media sharing, email filtering and document editing. The new Hotmail UI is mobile enabled for the Blackberry, iPhone and cellphone.What a better way to begin an evolution. There is no better way to begin an evolution than providing the standard that your competitors are giving.
Other people might argue that the reason for Hotmail’s slow pace of change is because the entity is now owned by Microsoft. We all know that Microsoft is a big corporation and corporations are known to be slow in implementing changes. Any proposals for change have to pass through many boards and meetings before they are approved, and this may take many years. Microsoft is a company that is well known internationally for its Windows Operating System. While Windows is a good product, there has been a huge cry about Microsoft’s clearly bugged products like the first versions of Windows Vista. Many times, Microsoft has been forced to acknowledge that its development team made some errors on its side that even its software engineers did not understand. Errors and bugs are a normal thing in software development, but it is the technical support and response that matters most. It is fair to say Microsoft is too slow in its response to customer complaints. As a result, products like MSN Hotmail will stay a long time without any major improvements while users are languishing in their accounts.
One of the widely accepted Microsoft products is Doc WebApps.Doc WebApps is an internet application that enables people to edit their Microsoft documents in Hotmail without opening a new window. In the new Hotmail, Microsoft did not only implement the common features offered by their competitors, but they also introduced cool features of their own. For example, Slideshow is an innovative application that allows photo attachments and online pictures from Flickr to be viewed. You can also embed videos in your email messages. Users can embed YouTube, Justin.TV and Hulu videos. The Hotmail UI features a Bing sidebar where users can add various types of media and content such as images, web links, and clip art. Most Hotmail users will be pleased with the anti-spam features in the new version of Hotmail.There are settings for automatically deleting and blocking unsolicited emails from selected senders. The biggest time saver is a feature that enables a one-click view of all messages for a chosen sender.
While all these features are a good sign of things to come from MSN Hotmail, there are some features that some people will not like. One such feature is the time limit that has been imposed for storing pictures in your Hotmail account. All pictures in your email attachments and messages have a maximum lifespan of 3 months. After the expiry date, the pictures will be deleted from the cloud server unless you extend the expiry date. On a good note, the maximum size for pictures that can be sent in your Hotmail account is 10 Gigs. This is a plus for Hotmail users who do not like the comparatively smaller limits for sending files in Gmail and Yahoo, with 25MB and 20MB respectively. The ability to send mega size files will keep attract many email users who like sending big files. It is rare to find email companies who provide free services for sending large files.Hotmail may make inroads in this market that is dominated by paid email providers.
Microsoft Presents the New Hotmail Wave 4 – Hotmail vs. Gmail
Microsoft unveiled a new-look Hotmail named Hotmail Wave 4 by its engineers. If you are one of the millions of people who makes a Hotmail sign in from your browser every morning, then you already know what Hotmail Wave 4 looks and feels like. Millions of people have been waiting for the day when Microsoft will give a magic touch to the old and weary Hotmail interface. Thanks to the never-ending competition and innovation from Google, Microsoft has been feeling the heat. The company has been forced to shape up or ship out from the email service game, and they seem to have opted for the former. Microsoft has definitely been forced to shape up or else Google might have opened a huge gap that would have stolen millions of disgruntled Hotmail users. Before the debut of MSN Hotmail Wave 4, Gmail has been providing unique features being developed in Google Labs. Microsoft has not only caught up with the latest features that are found in Gmail, but they have taken a step further in advancing or modifying some of the features.
The most prominent features that have been adapted by Hotmail Wave 4 are the threaded conversations feature, the modified email search box and the extremely large storage capacities supplied by the cloud hosting servers. The cloud servers for Hotmail have multiplied its file storage allocation to 10 Gigs per user per email attachment sent. If you are familiar with email attachments, you will realize that most free services allow attachments up to 25Mb.For larger attachments, you would have to upgrade to paid services or look for special email providers that provide this service. By allowing mega-sized attachments, Hotmail has taken a huge edge over Gmail.Hotmail also beats Google hands down in anti-spam features.Hotmail inboxes are perpetually clean and free from spam. A look at the new user interface shows that efforts have been made to provide a simple user-friendly UI with a few images and buttons. A user has to click links to navigate around, which is quite easy.Hotmail Wave 4 goes a step further by adding side view bar that allows media to be played by clicking the links in the messages. Microsoft also decided to push its new technology – SilverLight, by integrating it with the picture viewing feature. In order to watch or view the media, you have to install SilverLight, much like installing Adobe Flash or HTML5.Hotmail manages the photo attachments sent to you in a fantastic way. The pictures are automatically converted into a picture album when you view them.
The icing on the cake is Hotmail’s tool for editing Microsoft Word/Excel docs on the fly in your inbox. This means you can quickly edit the files online without downloading them to your desktop, then send the files in the same window of your email. Both the original and edited versions are stored online in Hotmail’s cloud servers and these are transferred to their recipients by sending a link. Unlike other email providers who show Ads in your email, Hotmail gives you the option to remove Ads by paying $19.95 every year.
Most people know Hotmail, but they do not how the email service was started.Hotmail was started in 1996 by Jurvetson as a free service. There were many other email services at that time, but Hotmail was the hottest product at the time with a user-friendly interface and very reliable. The popular email service was then bought by Microsoft for $400 million.Hotmail has grown substantially in terms of the number of users worldwide, but its user interface has been left untouched until May 2010 when it was completely overhauled. Despite this, Hotmail has remained at the top with an estimated 400 million user’s worldwide.However, in the USA, Hotmail takes the second spot after Yahoo Mail and Google is quickly closing the gap at No.3.
As the Microsoft team says, one of the best features of Hotmail Wave 4 is its ability to automatically archive and delete newletters.You simply set Hotmail to archive or delete emails from certain senders. Other modern features in Hotmail include the sharing of docs, photos and attachments. You can even share your content with people who do not have a Hotmail account.
Hotmail vs. Gmail
In order to show what Hotmail Wave 4 has to offer, Microsoft prepared a comparison chart that allows users to compare each of the 9 features provided by Hotmail and Gmail. As you can see from the chart below (Hotmail vs. Gmail):
1. Hotmail provides unlimited storage. Gmail is limited.
2. Hotmail provides a maximum of 50MB per attachment compared to Gmail’s 25MB.
3. Hotmail allows a maximum of 10Gig for total attachments per message compared to Gmail’ 25MB.
4. Hotmail gives the user an option to enable threaded conversations. Gmail does not provide an option. Your conversations are always threaded.
5. Both Hotmail and Gmail are chat enabled.
6. Both Hotmail and Gmail allow mobile browsing.
7. Both Hotmail and Gmail allow mobile sync.
8. Both Hotmail and Gmail allow email forwarding.
9. Bothe Hotmail and Gmail allow flagging of messages
The most prominent features that have been adapted by Hotmail Wave 4 are the threaded conversations feature, the modified email search box and the extremely large storage capacities supplied by the cloud hosting servers. The cloud servers for Hotmail have multiplied its file storage allocation to 10 Gigs per user per email attachment sent. If you are familiar with email attachments, you will realize that most free services allow attachments up to 25Mb.For larger attachments, you would have to upgrade to paid services or look for special email providers that provide this service. By allowing mega-sized attachments, Hotmail has taken a huge edge over Gmail.Hotmail also beats Google hands down in anti-spam features.Hotmail inboxes are perpetually clean and free from spam. A look at the new user interface shows that efforts have been made to provide a simple user-friendly UI with a few images and buttons. A user has to click links to navigate around, which is quite easy.Hotmail Wave 4 goes a step further by adding side view bar that allows media to be played by clicking the links in the messages. Microsoft also decided to push its new technology – SilverLight, by integrating it with the picture viewing feature. In order to watch or view the media, you have to install SilverLight, much like installing Adobe Flash or HTML5.Hotmail manages the photo attachments sent to you in a fantastic way. The pictures are automatically converted into a picture album when you view them.
The icing on the cake is Hotmail’s tool for editing Microsoft Word/Excel docs on the fly in your inbox. This means you can quickly edit the files online without downloading them to your desktop, then send the files in the same window of your email. Both the original and edited versions are stored online in Hotmail’s cloud servers and these are transferred to their recipients by sending a link. Unlike other email providers who show Ads in your email, Hotmail gives you the option to remove Ads by paying $19.95 every year.
Most people know Hotmail, but they do not how the email service was started.Hotmail was started in 1996 by Jurvetson as a free service. There were many other email services at that time, but Hotmail was the hottest product at the time with a user-friendly interface and very reliable. The popular email service was then bought by Microsoft for $400 million.Hotmail has grown substantially in terms of the number of users worldwide, but its user interface has been left untouched until May 2010 when it was completely overhauled. Despite this, Hotmail has remained at the top with an estimated 400 million user’s worldwide.However, in the USA, Hotmail takes the second spot after Yahoo Mail and Google is quickly closing the gap at No.3.
As the Microsoft team says, one of the best features of Hotmail Wave 4 is its ability to automatically archive and delete newletters.You simply set Hotmail to archive or delete emails from certain senders. Other modern features in Hotmail include the sharing of docs, photos and attachments. You can even share your content with people who do not have a Hotmail account.
Hotmail vs. Gmail
In order to show what Hotmail Wave 4 has to offer, Microsoft prepared a comparison chart that allows users to compare each of the 9 features provided by Hotmail and Gmail. As you can see from the chart below (Hotmail vs. Gmail):
1. Hotmail provides unlimited storage. Gmail is limited.
2. Hotmail provides a maximum of 50MB per attachment compared to Gmail’s 25MB.
3. Hotmail allows a maximum of 10Gig for total attachments per message compared to Gmail’ 25MB.
4. Hotmail gives the user an option to enable threaded conversations. Gmail does not provide an option. Your conversations are always threaded.
5. Both Hotmail and Gmail are chat enabled.
6. Both Hotmail and Gmail allow mobile browsing.
7. Both Hotmail and Gmail allow mobile sync.
8. Both Hotmail and Gmail allow email forwarding.
9. Bothe Hotmail and Gmail allow flagging of messages
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