It’s rare these days when I come across any app that makes me say, "Wow, now this is useful!" Yahoo’s Zimbra Desktop is one of them.

When it comes to email, there are many who prefer the convenience of web-based mail but wish there was a local application that looked and acted like a mail client. Zimbra Desktop is it. This software absolutely nails it in terms of friendliness, ease-of-use, convenience and everything in between.

First of all, it’s multi-platform. Windows, Mac or Linux. Any truly good application these days supports all three, and this does.

Second, it has support for multiple types of email:

Zimbra, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL Mail, two types of IMAP and POP.

It always pleases me when I see an offering by a major player like Yahoo! that is willing to support a competitor’s product like Hotmail or Gmail because it shows confidence in their own offering.

It should be noted however that only some Hotmail accounts are supported due to compatibility issues. Most will be, but if yours doesn’t connect, the software will explain why.

Third, look at this interface:

Slim, clean and super-easy. Look at the tabs on top. Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Documents and so on are all just a single click away. Folder support is easy too.

Oh, and speaking of which, did you ever want your Gmail account to have accessible "normal" folders like all other webmail does? It will when you use Zimbra. Simply add a folder via a connected Gmail account, and it will create nested folders that look and act just like normal ones – and yes they’re completely accessible via the regular Gmail interface as well.

Fourth, although this sounds a bit dopey I really dig it – a mail indicator icon in the taskbar in Windows when new mail arrives:

The yellow envelope is the new mail indicator. This seemingly insignificant feature is just so nice to have.

Fifth, yes it has multiple account support. In the screen shot above, look on the left sidebar. Your other accounts are listed at the bottom and can be accessed easily with a single click. If there is any new mail in accounts lists there, there is a small number in parentheses telling you how much new mail there is.

Sixth is the synchronization features. Using Yahoo Calendar and Contacts? It will sync seamlessly. Using Gmail’s version? It’ll sync that too.

It goes without saying that Yahoo! Mail users will appreciate Zimbra the most because it FINALLY brings a true native client to the desktop. This is Yahoo’s equivalent of Windows Live Mail and it does a fine job even though it’s beta software.

And yes, it’s beta. That means some things may go buggy from time to time. But in my use of it I’ve encountered no issues as of yet.

The way Zimbra works in Windows is by installing itself as a service. You will see a small red icon in your taskbar (when no new mail is present) like this:

This is not a bad thing whatsoever, because when the Zimbra client is minimized, it goes completely out of the way and shrinks to this little icon, which can be clicked to bring the client back up. In addition, it can be right-clicked to completely shut down the service.

Zimbra Desktop was definitely done right the first time. It is the only software I’ve seen that offers a true alternative to Windows Live Mail (especially if you don’t use Hotmail) and the feature set is just plain great.

Oh, one last note. This may be a frilly feature but still worth mentioning. It has 12 different themes you can use:

This is available via the Options tab.

Let’s say for example you want Zimbra to look like Gmail. You would choose "Zmail." This is what it looks like:

Looks pretty close to Gmail, doesn’t it?

Zimbra’s dev team really thought this product through.

As said at the top of this article, this is a product that accesses web-based mail but still retains the total look and feel of a local mail client – and has the very-super-awesome-cool sync features like Windows Live Mail does, so it isn’t an island unto itself whatsoever.

Two huge thumbs up for Zimbra Desktop. You’d be very hard pressed not to like this.

Note that this is for the web-based version of Hotmail. If you are using Hotmail with the Windows Live mail client, see this instead.

Hotmail does allow for the use of limited HTML in email signatures, and this does include the use of images as long as they are hosted in a public place.

All that’s required for you to do this is the following:

1. Use a free image hosting service and upload your image there.
2. Get the direct link to the image from the image hosting service.
3. Input this link into your signature using the HTML <img> tag.

Here’s how that’s done:

First, get your image. Use whatever image you want.

Second, host your image. For this example I will be using ImageShack because it has a super-friendly auto-resize feature. Simply check the box for "resize image" and select "100×75 avatar." This is absolutely perfect for signatures as it’s just the right size so it won’t annoy people you send mail to.

For my example I will use an image of a disgustingly ugly pair of dopey pants:

After you upload your image to ImageShack, you will see a screen for a "Direct link to image," like this:

Click the word "link" to the right of "Direct." You will then have the full direct link to the image in your address bar:

Leave this open for now because you’ll need to come back to it in a moment.

Open a new tab in your browser. This is done easily with CTRL+T.

Go to www.hotmail.com and login to your Hotmail account.

On the far right, click Options then More Options, like this:

Select Personal e-mail signature under Customize your mail, like this:

In the email signature editor, select Edit in HTML, like this:

In your email signature, type:

<img src="">

..like this:

Go back to your other tab where your ImageShack hosted image is. Highlight all the text in the address bar and press CTRL+C to copy.

Now go back to your email, click between the two quotes and press CTRL+V to paste.

It should look something like this when done:

Now click Edit in HTML and change back to Rich Text. Your image will now show in your signature. Click once after the image to see your blinking cursor, then type whatever text you want to appear.

Example:

When finished, click the Save button at bottom right.

At the top left of the next page, click Go to inbox to go back to your mail.

Click New to compose a new email.

You’ll see something like this:

..and that’s all there is to it.

A few quick end notes:

• If you’re thinking about using Flickr to host your email signature image, don’t. Having a direct-linked image with no link-back to Flickr is a violation of their community guidelines.
• Sometimes when loading your signature, the image may not show up instantly as it has to "call" it from another server every time it loads. This is usually just a very short pause since the image is small.
• Being that your image is hosted elsewhere, there is the chance that it will get deleted after a certain amount of time. This is easily remedied by simply re-uploading the image and re-editing your signature to reflect the new location. Be sure to save whatever image you use for your signature somewhere local (like a USB stick for example) just in case you have to do this.
• DO NOT direct-link from somebody else’s web site, because that’s just plain rude and it "steals" bandwidth. Either host it with a free image hosting service, put it on your own web site, or don’t do it all.
• No, those are not my pants.

Notes for Yahoo! Mail users:

I know this article is about Hotmail, but believe me, if there were a way to do this in Y! Mail, I’d happily instruct you how to do it. Y! Mail currently does not allow any HTML whatsoever in their email signatures, however, something in the back of my mind distinctly remembers that they used to allow it.. I’m pretty sure of that although I can’t prove it.

When Y! updated their mail system fairly recently, a few things in the mail signature section broke.

For example, if you try to insert an emoticon, which is a direct-use Y! feature, you get this lovely little message:

Yahoo evidently likes dangling the carrot for its mail users. The stationary (as in the last icon on the right in the signature editor) doesn’t work either, by the way. Gee, thanks Yahoo.

If you haven’t heard, everybody (like here, here and here in addition to a ton of other places) is talking how a Hotmail phishing attack happened and somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000+ account passwords were leaked.

Use Hotmail and think your account is compromised? Well, if you happen to be in European user and your account name started with an A or B, probably. You’ll know if you attempt to login and can’t. It should be noted Microsoft responded to this immediately and is in the process of restoring accounts.

What caused this fracas to occur in the first place? As the title of this article indicates, phishing. This means a ton of people were fooled into simply giving over their account information. Where did the phishing occur? Social media. It was not an internal Microsoft system fault.

You could simply blame the account leaks on dumb internet users, but the difference today compared to yesteryear is that we now have web sites that routinely require our permission to interconnect.

For example, if you have a Flickr account and use another web service that accesses it, what happens on first use is that you must grant permission for the other site to use it. After you authorize it, the secondary web site can access the original Flickr account.

This is not a bad thing, but what is bad is that we see these authorization notices often, and many just consider it normal and that you should do it. Add to this that in social media these authorization requests all roughly look the same, and you can see where this can pose a problem.

With that said:

• If there is any email that asks you for your email account information, don’t do it.
• If when using social media (such as Facebook, MySpace or otherwise) it asks you for your email account information, don’t do it.
• Only check your mail within the mail system itself and not via any third-party source.

If you use a Windows Live email address, that being any address that ends in @hotmail.com, @msn.com or @live.com, you can access the account right now in the Windows Live Mail client.

The immediate advantages of using WL Mail:

• No ads anywhere in the client
• No ads sent on outgoing mail
• Allows for local caching of mail for faster access and being able to read your mail offline
• Easier to attach files
• Faster than using the web interface

There are more but those are the biggies.

The way a Hotmail account is configured in WL Mail by default is to download a copy of every mail in your account (and no that does not mean once downloaded it deletes from the web version.) This unfortunately includes the Junk and Deleted folders, so every time your perform a mail check, anything in those folders is downloaded as well.

You can easily configure Hotmail to download only the headers by simply right-clicking on the folder and choosing the appropriate option.

It’s as simple as this:

Pictured above is done by doing the following:

1. Right-click the Junk e-mail folder.
2. Hover over Synchronization settings.
3. Click Headers only.

What this will do is download just the header and not the actual message. You will see the subject line but the mail will not be downloaded unless you actually open it.

I suggest doing this for both the Junk and the Deleted Items folder, because when you delete something you obviously don’t want it locally cached. Don’t worry, your deleted mail will still be there on a server level for 30 days unless you specifically choose to empty the Deleted Items folder.

Any folder in your Windows Live mail account can be set to Headers Only. This may prove to be an advantage for those that have bandwidth caps imposed by their ISP, or a slow internet connection. Headers are nothing but very small files and download almost instantly.

The WL mail client has no ads anywhere in it. Using it in combination with the headers only option makes it one of the speediest mail systems you can use.

Quick questions answered

Does the Windows Live Mail client use IMAP for Windows Live accounts?

No. Windows Live mail uses a proprietary protocol by Microsoft called DeltaSync. It allows for two-way synchronization of mail/contacts/calendar/notes, so it in fact does a whole lot more than just mail.

If I have a folder set to headers only and I delete a mail, does it get moved to the Deleted Items folder even though I don’t have to re-download it?

Yes. The way in which it works is that the WL Mail client has seamless synchronization with the web-based version. When you delete a mail and then click the Sync button (or just wait until the client performs another mail check), what you do on a local level will be reflected exactly in the web-based version, and can be loaded the same way on either platform. Even if you did not read the mail and deleted it, it will still be moved to the appropriate location.

Is there any way I can turn off the reading pane so I don’t automatically download an email when I click on it?

Yes, you can turn off the reading pane. First it should be noted that the reading pane is by design disabled whenever viewing the Junk e-mail folder. So even if you have it enabled and go inside the Junk e-mail folder, it will turn itself off when in there. However if you want it off all the time, press ALT+V to bring up the View menu, then click Layout.

You will see this:

Simply uncheck the box for Show the reading pane, then click Apply then OK.

Will adjusting synchronization settings for my Windows Live account affect any other Live or other POP/IMAP accounts I have in WL Mail?

No. Whatever you adjust for sync settings will only affect that specific account. It does not "carry over" to others.

Are headers re-downloaded every time I start the WL Mail client?

Yes. WL Mail ordinarily performs a mail check (what it called a "Sync") on startup unless you configured it otherwise. Being that headers are so small in size this will not be a cause for concern.

Will choosing headers only for specific folders affect the way I search mail in WL Mail?

Yes. Any search performed in a folder you have set to headers only will only search to/from addresses and subject line, but not the body of the message since it isn’t downloaded locally at that point. To perform full searches that include the body of the message, you will have to have full synchronization or use the web-based version.

If I currently have a folder set to full synchronization and switch to headers only, are the local copies removed for the mail in that folder?

No. If you want to configure a Live account with headers only for everything, remove the account from WL Mail and re-add it. On first check of mail, stop the process (click "Sync" twice to see the window and hit the stop button), set all folders to headers only, then perform another sync.

Got another question about Live mail and the WL Mail client? Leave a comment and ask.

Some sites make it easy (more or less) to delete your account if you don’t feel like using it any longer. Others however make it exceedingly difficult.

Recently I was going thru my password manager and realized there were a ton of accounts I simply didn’t use anymore, so I figured I’d get rid of them. Some I was successful with, while others.. not so much.

Deleting a Gmail account

Google has their services set up in such a way where Gmail is a product attached to your primary Google account. For example, FeedBurner, Picasa Web Albums, Google Docs, Google Alerts and so on are all products.

You have a few options here. You can either delete just the Gmail account, or delete the Google account entirely.

• Go to https://www.google.com/accounts (and yes, the https must be present).
• After logging in, click the Edit link next to My products.
• If you want to delete Gmail alone, click Remove Gmail permanently.
• If you want to close the entire account, click Close account and delete all services and info associated with it.

Deleting a Hotmail account

Microsoft is similar to Google in the respect that Hotmail is deemed a product attached to your Windows Live ID.

• Login to your Hotmail/MSN/Live account at http://login.live.com
• Click Close account
• You may be told that the system is unable to do it and that you have to "Close your Microsoft account". Go ahead and do it.

Is the Hotmail account truly closed at that point? No. The account will be treated as if you haven’t logged in for a few months. After a few days, all information will be removed, so I guess that’s the closest definition of "closed" you can get with a Windows Live ID.

Closing a Yahoo account

Yahoo makes it easy. Follow the steps here.

Closing an AIM account

I could not find a way to close an AOL/AIM account. After a Google search, it would appear the only way to "deactivate" one is to not login to it for six months. Not an elegant solution by any means, but it’s at least something.

Finding links to close other types of web accounts

All web services should make closing your account easy, but unfortunately they don’t. Everybody does it differently. But there are a few common threads.

• Names: It can be called "Close Account", "Remove Account", "Delete Account", "Terminate Account", etc.
• Links: I’ve seen several instances where the "Close My Account" link is black and non-underlined making it look like plain text when in fact it’s a link.
• FAQ: Try searching the FAQ for the web service you’re trying to close.
• Profile: Sometimes the link to close an account will be listed under "Profile".

If you cannot close the account, what do you do?

You will run into some instances where there is no way to close the account (like Identi.ca and AIM). Chances are the reason you want to close it out to begin with is to stop getting those stupid emails from the service. The easiest thing to do is to edit the profile and change it to use a throw-away address. Once done you won’t get anymore crap from them in your email.

Upfront full disclosure: I am not a Hotmail user. However, Hotmail users who also take advantage of Microsoft Outlook might want to grab the Microsoft Office Outlook Connector. This tool allows you to access and control your Hotmail data directly from Outlook 2003/2007:

With Microsoft Office Outlook Connector, you can use Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to access and manage your Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail or Microsoft Office Live Mail accounts, including e-mail messages, contacts and calendars for free!

This goes above and beyond the capabilities of POP and IMAP as you are able to control your contacts and calendar, which can be extremely useful.

So if you are a user of both, give this tool a try.

Situation: You’re up in the wee hours of the morning (around 1 or 2am) and find this oh-so cool YouTube video that you want to e-mail to your friends.

However if you send off the link at that time of the night everybody knows when you sent it. You are basically admitting to all “Yes, I was up at two in the morning doing stupid stuff on my computer.” Oh, the ridicule. Oh, the shame. Continued

Situation: You have a Gmail account and want to switch over to a Hotmail account – or – you want to do the exact reverse and switch from Hotmail to Gmail – and you want to keep all your existing mail.

This article will show you in detail how to do this – and you will be able to import all your existing mail with timestamps, sent mail and so on.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this article. Gold/Silver Membership required.

Modern day home computing is not as it once was. Not-so long ago it used to be that in order to bring the most potential out of your computer box you had to use proprietary software.

Any app that runs solely on a specific operating system is proprietary. And yes there’s still lots of this stuff out there.

For the past few years I have been slowly transitioning the stuff I do on the web to being as cloud-based as possible. You’ve heard the term "cloud computing" so much that it probably makes you sick to hear it at this point – but you have to do it if you expect to make smooth transitions in the future from computer to computer.

If you don’t start transitioning now it will be very painful and stressful to get it done later.

A plain English description

"OS-less" means to be able to do what you do on a computer without the need for any specific operating system.

Using myself as an example, here’s a few things I do:

For my photos I made the decision to push those all to Flickr. It’s web-based. I can access it on any computer using any OS.

For my e-mail I decided to switch over to Hotmail (or to be more specific, Windows Live Admin Center). Previous to that I used self-hosted IMAP and before that plain ol’ POP. I can get to my mail from anywhere on any computer using any OS in any web browser – and it’s all there. It’s backed up and readily accessible.

For important documents that I need to hang on to (and even the not-so important ones), I push those over to Google Docs. This acts as my backup that is just as accessible as my mail is. Once again it’s accessible on any computer/OS.

Are you still in the stone age?

If you’re still using apps that are OS-proprietary and local to your computer only, you run the risk of losing all the data you have without warning. Let’s say for the moment you’re really good at backing things up routinely. What if your hard drive fails and the backup doesn’t work? What then? You basically curse and swear, then realize you lost it all and start from zero.

Nobody wants that to happen.

And what happens when you buy a new computer? Do you really want to go thru the process of reinstalling all your apps all over again, configuring them and wasting hours of time when all you want to do is just get going?

Of course you don’t.

Is it possible to go completely OS-less?

Not at present. However you can move over a significant chunk of what you do to cloud territory now. The more you move out there, the better.

Get your docs, photos and e-mail out in the cloud

No matter how much of an old fuddy-duddy you are (as in the type who positively refuses to try anything different), bear in mind the transition is stupidly easy to do for docs, photos and mail.

Docs

Google Docs is still your best bet. Get an account and upload them. Don’t worry, they’re all private uploads unless you specifically enable a share-out option (which is off by default).

Photos

If you use Flickr, get Windows Live Photo Gallery (Windows), Flickr Desktop Organizer (Linux) or Flickr Uploadr (Windows, Mac). Get a Flickr account and start uploading.

If you use Picasa, the Picasa client is well known to be super-awesome and super-easy to use. Works in Windows, Mac or Linux. Uploads stuff easily. It’s a no-brainer.

E-Mail

This is the one people fear the most – especially those who use POP and are under the impression it would be absolutely impossible to move hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of mails to another account.

Your two best bets are Gmail and Hotmail – and yes you can move all your mail over to either.

The short version of how to do it:

All modern e-mail clients support multiple e-mail accounts.

With Gmail, you can set up the new account alongside the old POP account in Outlook Express, Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Apple Mail or any number of other clients that support IMAP.

With Hotmail, you use the Windows Live Mail client. It will easily import all your old mail from Outlook or Outlook Express. Then you set up your Hotmail account alongside your POP account.

No matter which method you choose, once you have the multiple accounts set up you just drag and drop the mail from the old to the new. All the timestamps are saved and nothing is lost. Everything is moved over including the sent mail, attachments and so on. Furthermore the mail is instantly accessible on the web as well as in the client at that point via hotmail.com or gmail.com depending on which you chose.

Once done you no longer have to rely on your computer to send, retrieve and store your mail. All of it is in the cloud, backed up and accessible at any time. You can also still use the mail client if you feel like it. You can get to your mail either way when you push it to the cloud.

The long version of how to do it:

I go into grotesque detail on how to do this and it would take way too long to explain here – so watch for another article on it soon!

I am telling you now – start transitioning to the cloud

Said honestly, don’t put this off. You’ve got your docs, you’ve got your mail and if you take photos, those are most likely local to your computer box as well. Push this stuff out to the cloud (that being the internet).

You can continue (obviously) to perform local backups, but when (not if) the time comes that you get a new computer, the painful process of moving everything over will be so much less painful when you realize you can just open up a browser and get to everything – instantly.

Yes it’s true that there will be things you simply can’t push to the cloud (yet), but for the stuff you can get out there – do it.

Do it if for no other reason to have a secondary or tertiary free backup. The price is nice and all it costs is a small amount of your time.

There’s a reason I used the odd-cased HoTMaiL in the title because that’s the way it was originally written out. You’ll notice the capital letters are HTML. Hotmail was spelled that way many moons ago to really drive home the fact it was HTML (meaning web) based mail.

Microsoft this week decided to roll out the new-and-improved interface across the rest (if not all) of Windows Live Mail accounts, and this obviously includes Hotmail.

Some people like it while others don’t like or outright hate it. You can put me in the camp of people that genuinely do like it because it goes back to the way Hotmail used to be – simple and fast.

The single largest complaint I’ve seen about the new Windows Live Mail interface is that people say it’s "boring" and that the previous interface was "just fine".

Not true.

The previous interface was no less "boring" than the new one and was so chock full of bloat that it made it a chore to use. While it’s true there are some things I miss (the "check mail" button and several icons are gone), the speed more than makes up for it. I don’t remember Hotmail being this fast since the early 2000s.

E-Mail is not supposed to be "exciting" to use. You want exciting and a super-cool animated in-your-face interface? Go play a video game; stay out of my e-mail.

Microsoft is now the first of the big three (Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail) to roll out a single interface and stick to it. Yahoo! Mail allows for a "Classic Mode" and Gmail an "Older version" option. The reason? Because the current-generation interfaces are too bloated. Microsoft was doing the same thing with their own "classic mode" as well – but with the new interface that is no longer the case.

Since using the new interface with Hotmail I can honestly that yes, this is truly new and improved. You can read things easier, it loads faster, the learning curve is minimal and most of all – it acts like a cloud-based app is supposed to act like.

Google and Yahoo! are officially going to have to start playing catch-up at this point.

Some of you out there who use Hotmail might have seen this today:

(click image for full size)

The reason I say some is because this is a gradual roll-out of the updated Windows Live Hotmail service. If you use this e-mail, you will see this upgrade possibly today, tomorrow, next week, etc. But it will eventually happen.

The bad sense of humor comes from the ² at the bottom of the above splash page, which states:

We’ve designed Windows Live Hotmail storage to grow with you, but at a reasonable pace. That means you should have plenty of storage unless you suddenly want to store the planet Jupiter on Hotmail, in which case we’ll send you a nice e-mail asking you to please not try to store planets on Windows Live Hotmail (although gradual storage of moons and asteroids is ok).

"..gradual storage of moons and asteroids"?

Um.. yeah. Thanks, Microsoft.

Anyway, the new interface is notably better. All of it can be seen in this screen shot:

(click image for full size)

Here’s what has changed:

1. Easier management of recipients

Each recipient in To, Cc or Bcc is now surrounded by a border with a small X so it’s easy to add/remove people from a mail. Very nice.

2. Ability to change from Rich Text/HTML/Plain Text at whim.

I am VERY happy this is now here, particularly with the plain text option. In addition, plain text now looks like plain text with the use of a monospaced font.

3. Less icons

Icons were removed to speed up the interface. I don’t like this because they were nice to have.

4. Arrows removed from Junk/Deleted, "Empty" link now present

There used to be a small "swish" arrow next to Junk and Deleted to empty those folders but those are gone now. Instead, when you click on those folders there’s an "Empty" button above the e-mail list. I’m not sure if I like this or not.

5. Ability to set priority on e-mail when composing

The red exclamation point icon means "high", the blue down arrow means "low".

And we’ve still got no way to filter by priority when searching/listing mail.

You can set it and send it, but can’t filter/sort by it.

Ugh.

6. Ability to select themes

This is a crappy feature because there are less color options. I use the Silver theme in the old Hotmail. In the new Hotmail you’ve got 8 crappy theme choices. No customization whatsoever other than what MS gives you.

Bleah.

~ ~ ~

This is about all I could spot for the time being unless there were other things I missed.

Overall, yes – it is faster and better. Even though the themes suck, the plain text option with monospaced font more than makes up for it because that’s a function I’ve been wanting in Hotmail for a really long time.

GMX is "Global Mail Exchange", found at www.gmx.com. This is a free e-mail service chock full of features and goodies that, said honestly, surprised me at how good it is.

A few of the features:

• Ability to choose an address ending in gmx.com, gmx.us or gmx.co.uk.
• Can import mail over from several popular e-mail services including Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, AOL Mail and a ton of others.
• You can add up to 10 additional GMX mail accounts right from within your primary account, all with separate e-mail signatures.
• Has autoresponder and forwarder capability.
• Has the ability to delete mail on a schedule. You can create a custom folder and instruct GMX to "Delete mails after [this] many days". Very, very trick.
• Full right-clickability inside the interface.
• 5GB storage

When I say I was surprised at how good this mail is, I meant it. Absolutely none of the other webmail providers have everything GMX has.

Check this out:

Above: When I right-click an e-mail, look at how many commands are assigned to literal keyboard shortcuts (that work). In addition, look at all the options I have. I can blacklist/whitelist/filter/spam/move all from just this menu.

You’re probably saying to yourself "Wow, looks just like an e-mail client". You’re right, it does – and GMX does it right.

Above: In the options panel you get way more control compared to the other guys…

GMX is really fast and has tons of good names still available, but what surprises me more than anything else is how GMX was literally able to produce a truly kick-ass webmail that obliterates everyone else in the functionality department.

This is the first webmail I’ve seen besides Yahoo! Mail that truly feels like a local e-mail client – with the speed of one.

In addition to that, it’s stupidly easy to use.

You seriously need to check out GMX. Even if you don’t want another e-mail account, get one anyway and try it.

I signed up two of them.

Thanks for the tip, Drew!

If you use Hotmail there are several ways to check your mail.

1. Physically login to mail.live.com or hotmail.com and check manually.
2. Use the Windows Live Mail e-mail client. Minimize when not in use and you’ll see a system tray notification when new mails arrive (identical to the way Outlook Express worked).
3. Use the Windows Live Messenger and watch for a notification. Unfortunately you have to have that software open (meaning not minimized) just to see if there’s any new mail or not. For example, if a mail was sent to you 30 minutes ago and you weren’t at your computer, you didn’t see the "toaster" pop-up notification, so you have to physically open the client just to see if mail is there.

Is there a better way to do this?

Yes.

You can use aMSN as a Hotmail notifier (much like the Gmail notifier).

What aMSN does (aside from being a Windows Live/MSN alternative messenger):

When aMSN checks your mail and you have a new message, it puts a nice small envelope icon in the system tray – with a sound notification and a toaster pop-up. When you click the envelope, it opens up your browser (even if it’s Firefox or Opera), logs in to Hotmail and goes straight to the message.

When you read the message, the envelope goes away unless there’s more new mail.

Aside from using the Windows Live Mail client, this is the fastest, easiest and most useful way to check your Hotmail account for new mail.

"But I don’t use Windows Live messaging…"

If you don’t feel like using it, just set yourself to "Appear Offline" mode. Done deal. It still checks the mail which is what counts.

In both Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail (but not Gmail) there is the option of using a "Blocked sender" list.

In Hotmail: Options Panel / Safe and blocked senders

In Yahoo! Mail: Options Panel / Block addresses

What is a Blocked list? It’s a friendly term for a blacklist.

More than likely you were already aware of this feature but there are more than a few that don’t truly understand how this feature works.

If you add an e-mail address to your blacklist…

Will e-mails received from that address go to your "Trash" folder? No.

Will e-mails received from that address go to your "Spam" folder? No.

What happens is that upon receive the e-mail is deleted and you never see it, period. It will be absolutely nowhere in your e-mail no matter where you look – and that’s the whole point.

Will the person you blacklist ever be aware of this?

No. The mail sent will still be received by the server, but will be deleted instantly upon arrival and never get to your inbox (or anywhere else in your e-mail).

In instant messaging, when you block someone they are aware of it because there are many ways to check someone’s online status via profile pages. When you block someone on IM, that someone just checks your profile page, sees you’re online and knows he’s been blocked at that point.

This isn’t the case with e-mail. When you blacklist someone, that someone can send mails until his fingers fall off and it doesn’t matter because you’ll never receive them. Ever. And there’s no way the person on the blacklist will ever know he’s been blacklisted by you (not unless you tell him).

Gmail doesn’t have this feature?

No. The closest equivalent is to set up a filter. You can enable the filter so that "If a mail is received from [this e-mail address], delete it." The problem is that it goes straight to the "Trash" to where you could still go in there and view it if you wanted to (temptation rises…)

Is blacklisting a spam prevention feature?

No. Spam filters and blacklists are two separate things. You have complete control over your blacklist whereas with spam filters this is controlled by the mail provider itself.

Blacklisting ensures that once you add an address (or several or just block out a whole range), you will absolutely never receive mails from it ever again.

This is written for the benefit of those who use the Hotmail webmail service. If your e-mail address ends in @msn.com, @live.com or @hotmail.com or you use Windows Live Domains, this applies to you.

POP-based Hotmail is not available in the free version at the time of this writing and I’ll say that right up front. You need to flip over $19.95 a year to get that feature currently. Yes, this turns off a lot of people (considering Gmail offers the same ability for free) but if you want the POP you gotta do it.

So let’s say you go ahead and do that. What are the server names you need to use to get to the goods?

This is what they are:

POP3 incoming server: pop3.live.com
Secure required: Yes
Port: 995

SMTP outgoing server: smtp.live.com
Secure required: No
Port: 25

How to login: Use your Windows Live ID (i.e. your e-mail address) and your existing mail password.

Will POP access ever be available in the free version?

Microsoft has said they "have plans" to do so. So watch for it. For now, you have to pay for POP if you use Hotmail.