| WL Hotmail's profileYour mail is here, come ...PhotosBlogLists | Help |
Your mail is here, come and get it!Web mail musings from the Windows Live Hotmail team
June 30 Get all your e-mail in one place!We are happy to announce that Hotmail customers in the US, Canada, and Brazil can now add other e-mail accounts to Hotmail!* No need to sign into multiple services to check all your messages on the web. Instead, you can see any POP-enabled e-mail account (including Yahoo! Mail (Plus), AOL Mail, and Gmail) right from your Hotmail account. You can put all of your messages together in your inbox or each e-mail account in its own folder, your choice. You can set this up in Hotmail in three simple steps: (1) Click Add an e-mail account on the left-hand side of the Hotmail inbox. (2) Type the e-mail address and password for your other account, and click Next. (3) Choose where you want the messages to go, and click Save. Note: In order for this to work, make sure POP has been turned on in the POP-enabled e-mail service you want to add (this could involve signing in to the service and changing your settings there). We hope this feature will help you simplify your digital life! Windows Live Hotmail Team * This feature was launched earlier this year in the UK, France, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Japan, and Germany, and was greeted with some very positive feedback. Today, customers in the US, Canada, and Brazil will see the feature for the first time. More countries will come later this year. June 26 MSN Web Messenger is retiringWith new web-based instant messaging (IM) now available from Windows Live Hotmail worldwide, we are preparing to retire MSN Web Messenger. The old MSN Web Messenger experience will end on June 30, 2009. With Hotmail’s new web-based IM, you can chat from your Hotmail inbox or contact list, instead of going to MSN Web Messenger (http://webmessenger.msn.com/). Go directly to the Windows Live People page (also known as “your contact list”) at http://people.live.com and sign into Messenger (orange arrow in the picture below) to continue instant messaging on the web with your Messenger friends. Instant messaging from Hotmail makes it easier to communicate and share in new ways in comparison to MSN Web Messenger. For example, our integration with the suite of other Windows Live services allows you to see when your Messenger friends are online while reading an e-mail and immediately start a chat to clarify something in your friend’s e-mail message. Give it a try! We hope that you’ll enjoy Hotmail’s web-based IM, the new version of Messenger on the web. Your Windows Live Hotmail Team June 22 See your calendar and search your contacts on the go with SMS for Windows LiveDo you ever find yourself scrambling to get the address for your child’s sporting event? Or needing to find a friend’s number so you can check when you’re meeting for lunch? You can now use text messaging on your mobile phone to see your upcoming events on Windows Live Calendar. You can also search your Windows Live contact list or add new contacts—all from your mobile phone. No mobile browser or data plan needed—if you can send and receive text messages on your mobile phone then you should check out SMS for Windows Live. To get started, just register your mobile number with Windows Live. (Don’t worry; this part is easy—there are detailed instructions at this end of this blog post). You’ll then send a text message (SMS) with a “command” to a shortcode:
Standard SMS messaging costs apply in both the US and UK. So your mobile operator will charge your normal rate for each text message you send and receive. There’s no additional charge from Microsoft. How to use the new SMS services After you’ve registered your phone number, and started the service, you’re ready to start sending commands. Below are all of the things you can do with SMS for Windows Live, along with the commands you’ll need to know. Check your calendar
Search your contacts
Check out all the cool stuff you can do with text messaging for Windows Live. To use SMS for Windows Live, you need to register your phone and start the service. Don’t worry, it’s simple. Here’s how you do it:
Tip: Save the text message sender as a contact in your mobile phone, so you’ll have it handy when you need it. Enjoy the new SMS for Windows Live services! June 17 MSN Calendar customers—come on over!
Over the coming months, we’ll be moving all data from existing MSN Calendar customers over to Windows Live Calendar. The move will be gradual, that is, not everyone will see their calendars change on the same day. If you’re just trying Windows Live Calendar for the first time, you may notice that while MSN Calendar already gave you easy scheduling of appointments, reminders, and calendar sharing, Windows Live Calendar gives you even more:
Here’s what you need to know for the move:
That’s it—we’ll do the rest. Note: Windows Live Calendar doesn’t currently support displaying attachments or sending reminders to a secondary e-mail address. See you on Windows Live Calendar! June 02 Continuing DAV protocol retirementAs technology has evolved, we’ve developed better ways to access email, and it’s important to us that we provide customers with the best, most efficient experience possible. Last year, customers asked us to postpone plans to retire the DAV protocol until more options were available. Now that these options (including the POP3 protocol) are available, we are ready to continue with the retirement of the DAV protocol. If you are using Microsoft Office Outlook, Outlook Express, or Entourage to view your Windows Live Hotmail, the DAV protocol retirement may affect you. Microsoft is changing the way these programs access Hotmail e-mail which will require you to take action. We’ll be sending a note to customers who are likely affected to remind them to take action. To continue to receive e-mail from your Hotmail account in your mail program, please select one of the alternative solutions below before September 1, 2009. After this date, new e-mail can only be delivered to your mail programs through the following alternative solutions. However, you can continue to view your e-mail via the web at http://mail.live.com or http://www.hotmail.com. If you use Microsoft Office Outlook to view Hotmail, you can download Office Outlook Connector for free to continue accessing your Hotmail within Outlook 2003 or 2007. If you’re using Outlook 2002, you will need to change the settings in your Outlook program. Click here to learn more. If you use Outlook Express to view Hotmail, you can choose to download Windows Live Mail (recommended) for free or change the settings on your program to access your Hotmail within Outlook Express. Click here to learn more about your options. If you use Entourage to view Hotmail, you will need to change the settings in your program to continue receiving Hotmail messages in Entourage. Click here to learn more. Don’t know what you’re using to view Hotmail? Have more questions? View the FAQ page or visit the Community Forum. Why is this happening? Outlook, Outlook Express, and Entourage use a legacy communications method (known as the DAV protocol) to access Hotmail. Because the DAV protocol is not optimally suited for programs to access large inboxes such as Hotmail, which now provides users ever-growing storage*, we have developed new alternatives that provide scalable and efficient access. Now that these alternatives are available to all Hotmail users, we are retiring the less efficient DAV protocol. Thank you for using Windows Live Hotmail.
Sincerely, Your Windows Live Hotmail Team *Assumes a reasonable growth rate May 21 Maintenance on Hotmail mobile browse serviceHotmail has temporarily shut down the service that lets customers access Hotmail through the browser on mobile phones via m.mail.live.com. We apologize for the inconvenience and will bring back the service shortly once maintenance has been completed. Update: We have completed maintenance on Hotmail’s mobile browse service in the majority of geographies. For the few remaining customers we are working to bring the service back in the near future. April 22 Customizing your Windows Live Calendar badgeMy last post talked about how to create a calendar badge. Assuming you’ve now created a cool new badge, you probably want to customize it so that it matches your website. You need to know a little basic HTML. Follow these steps to give your badge a new look: 1. First you need to decide what to show in your badge. The badge displays both the calendar grid and the event list by default. To show just the grid, add the query parameter “l=m” to the iframe tag. To show just the event list, add “l=a” instead. 2. Next you can choose the width of your badge. There are two choices: 141 pixels or 194 pixels. To make it 141 pixels, add the query parameter “w=n”; to go wider at 194 pixels, change it to “w=w”. 3. You can also choose the height of the event list. There are four different heights to choose from: a. For a short event list (shows one event): Add “h=s” b. For medium (3 events): Add “h=m” c. For medium-tall (5 events): Add “h=mt” d. For tall (7 events): Add “h=t” The number of events shown is approximate. The size of the badge’s calendar grid is not affected by the height of the event list. 4. Now it’s time to give your badge some color. There are six colors in the badge that you can change: Generate the HTML color IDs for your six colors and then pass them in a query parameter, making sure to leave out the “#” that is normally part of the color code. It should look like this: c=<backgroundColorId>|<borderColorId>|<textColorId>|<alternateTextColorId>|<linkColorId>|<selectionColorId> Note: We only accept the three or six-digit numeric color codes, not the color names. Finally, the iframe itself has dimensions and borders that can only be controlled by your page’s code. You’ll need to set the iframe’s size so that your badge will fit. Also, give it a frame border of 0 and set scrolling to “no”. You can do this with straight HTML or a combination of HTML and CSS. Let’s put this all together in an example. We’ll create a tall, wide badge with both the calendar grid and event list. We’ll make the background white and the borders and main text black. We’ll give it gray alternate text, lavender links, and a bluish day selection highlight. Substitute in your own user code and calendar name (see this post for how to get those), and your badge’s iframe tag will look like this: <iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="194" height="692" src="http://calendar.live.com/calendar/badgeif.aspx?pid=p&user=<userCode>&cal=<calendarName>&h=t&w=w&l=ma&c=ffffff|000000|000000|cccccc|9999ff|ddeeff" /> That’s all there is to it. Happy customizing! -Evan April 20 Web IM is here!We’re happy to announce that Windows Live Hotmail is integrating instant messaging capabilities within its web interface. With this functionality, you can get your email and IM all in one place! This feature lets you IM your Windows Live Messenger contacts from within your Hotmail inbox or People page without having to switch over to the Messenger client.
The feature arrives today in Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and the US, and joins countries that rolled out web messenger last month (France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the UK). Not in your geography yet? We will be rolling web-based messenger to more locations in the coming months.
Send an instant message from anywhere – With this new feature, you’ll now have instant messaging capabilities when you use a public or otherwise shared computer, without having to download a client program. Already logged in to Messenger elsewhere? Not a problem -- you have the option to sign-in (or sign-out) from Hotmail through the “Messenger” drop down menu even if you are signed into the client elsewhere.
Start a chat easily and immediately – See something interesting in an email? Or confused about a friend’s response? Start a chat instantly with your friend. Inside an email, simply click on the presence indicator next to the sender’s name to start a chat. A window will pop up displaying your chat conversation and allowing you to instant message while viewing your email.
All your contacts in one place – You can chat with any of the Windows Live Messenger contacts in your People page (click “People” in the Windows Live header). Or, from the “Messenger” drop down in the top right corner, you can click “view Messenger contacts”. Once you’re on your contact list, click on a person’s picture and select “Send an Instant Message”.
We hope you’re as excited as we are about the new integrated instant messaging feature within Hotmail. Try it out soon and let us know your thoughts!
Your Windows Live Hotmail Team
April 09 Your inbox is safe Some of you experienced an unusual message when you signed into Windows
Live Hotmail on Thursday evening (PST) that said “You don’t have an
inbox…yet.” Rest assured that your email is safe! The incorrect message
was caused by a networking issue that we encountered while doing
routine maintenance. We have corrected the problem and you should be
able to access your Hotmail account at this time. We apologize for any
inconvenience that was caused by this issue, and we thank you for using
Hotmail. March 23 Get Hotmail OfflineWindows Live Mail is a free mail program that allows customers to access e-mail accounts like Windows Live Hotmail. It has similar functionality to Windows Mail and Outlook Express in that it syncs your e-mail when you’re connected to the internet, yet allows you to access your downloaded e-mail when you’re not online. Windows Live Mail works well with Windows Live Hotmail and also integrates well with other Windows Live services. It offers: · Offline mail · Send/receive mail from multiple accounts in one place - Hotmail accounts or POP and IMAP mail accounts (like Gmail or Yahoo! Plus) · Rich photo-sharing capabilities · Integration with Desktop Search · Safety tools (anti-phishing, anti-spam features) · Integration with Windows Live services including Windows Live Spaces · RSS feed aggregation · Built-in calendar view that can access your Windows Live Calendar
Learn about the newest features released from beta in December or try it now!
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|