Monthly Main Meeting Highlights
Welcome to the June 2011 Main Meeting
Tonight NineMSN returned with an update on Hotmail
Mikaela Lancaster, Head of Windows Live
and Mythili Thillainathan, Hotmail Production Manager
gave the group a good look at just how Microsoft’s old mail program has changed.
Some years ago Microsoft was forced to remove Outlook Express from their
operating system.
That prompted a re -think on the mail services they offered and the result
was a re-vamped Hotmail backed up by Windows Live communications software.
Now you don’t need to download the Windows Live programs to enjoy Hotmail
but they are designed to work together.
All about Windows
Live
Mikaela started the night with the details about the growth of Hotmail.
In Australia, it is twice the size of GMail and three times larger than Yahoo.
There are 8 billion messages 1.5 billion photos shared and 25 billion contacts stored on the servers.
A good part of this re-think focussed on overloaded inboxes and the fact that so many people were missing important e-mails in the welter of messages.
They also wanted to have better security and spam control. I know my first Hotmail address was a terror. I got loads of unsolicited invitations to buy any degree I needed. I get none of that in my new windows live address. Hotmail now has “sweep” to clean out your inbox.
Hotmail recognised that clients needed more than simple e-mails and more storage, along with connections to social media, photo sharing and the ability to chat.
Windows Hotmail and Live delivered all this.
After Mikaela finished her review, Mythili took the helm and we got “under the hood” of Hotmail with a real time demonstration.
Incoming mail arrives in the Inbox and Hotmail’s revamp started there. Sorting mail can be a real task, creating folders to arrange topics, sorting out senders, or trying to find that e-mail with the subscription details you received last September.
Traditionally e-mail clients sort by date, sender, and subject. Hotmail has built a sort bar which now adds sorting by contacts, social updates and groups. With a click, all your Facebook mail is sorted before you.
Hotmail has added Quick view to further help sort your mail by Flagged mail, Photos, and Office Documents.
Another neat view was conversations, which allows you to find topics in
those discussion e-mails with several replies on the same subject.
How
Conversations work
The real upgrade to Hotmail is SkyDrive. It was the reason for my return to Hotmail. SkyDrive is a huge 25 gigs of online storage. All Hotmail accounts now have access to SkyDrive and with SkyDrive came Microsoft Documents on line and Photo gallery software.
All about SkyDrive on Windows Live
Cut-down versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote are available online. A Hotmail user doesn’t have to have Office on their computer to use these applications. They can save the documents to their computer, share them with other users, and e-mail them. It is a great way to collaborate on a project with other SkyDrive users.
E-mailing photos was always a problem, especially as the photo size limits what can be sent. Now with SkyDrive sharing photos is as simple as sending a link to the photo folder on your SkyDrive. SkyDrive also gives you the power to create slide shows from those photos. The only problem is that the receiver must have Windows Silverlight to see anything on the SkyDrive, a problem brought home to me when my friend on his Mac laptop could not see the photos on the link I sent. Mythili demonstrated the power of SkyDrive with examples of photos she sent home.
Here is an example of a gallery from our November 2009 Christmas party
Sign up for Hotmail and you can have a choice of address if you like @ live @hotmail .com @ hotmail.com.au
The Raffle
Tonight, NineMSN donated two bags of goodies
The winners were Bill Parry
and Peter Sheldon
