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Preview of New MSN Hotmail
An anonymous reader writes "Here is a Preview of a new MSN Hotmail system, using AJAX. Currently in Beta testing." Most interesting is how the user interface more closely resembles a traditional local application. It's definitely a big step in that direction.
What I'm wondering is why it took them so long. XMLHttpRequest was invented for Exchange's web access back in the 90s, wasn't it? Why wasn't Microsoft first off the block with public AJAX webmail too?
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
.. and all Firefox users will get dumped into the old clunky interface.
Nevermind the fact that Google have proven it is trivial to make a useable dynamic interface work in most major browsers.
This next-generation kahuna interface makes extensive use of CSS, something IE totally sucks at. I would be interested to hear what the developers have to say about using CSS and these other technologies in IE and compared to Firefox. Pretty much every major web development house I know of develops on Firefox first, then hacks in the crap needed to make it run on IE. MS's team would obviously do it in reverse. I'd love to hear their comments on browser standards and IE 7's compliance with the standards that make this type of web application possible.
No free POP3 access? Then I don't care. And (not to sound like a billboard) if I'm going to pay X a year for an email address, I'd much rather pay about the same to godaddy for a domain and email account in which I have an entire domain at my disposal.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
All the screen-shots show a cluttered interface with giant, full-colored banners at the top and right side. Currently, the banners feature links to provide feedback for Hotmail beta. However, they're complete with cheesy stock photos of happy office people, so you get a good idea of how this app will look when MS starts selling this real estate for flash-based ads.
I switched to gmail a few months ago and it's taken me awhile to adjust to their tag and search paradigm. However, once I got over the illusion of control that comes from tediously sorting mail into folders and learned to rely on search for finding old messages, I became amazed by how much time I used to spend on administrative overhead for emailt. I find myself tagging fewer and fewer messages now. I just dump them into the archive, and seldom have more than five messages in my inbox. Finding old stuff with couple of search terms works beautifully, and replies I receive for ongoing conversations cause the entire conversation to re-appear in the inbox. It works very, very well. I read and respond to email faster as a result, also.
My biggest gripes with GMail is their poor contact management, but it's been worth the hassle. Also, they've yet to implement a couple of fundamental capabilities, like adding a 'mark as read' action to filters.
This way of dealing with email was hard to get used to, but turned out to be very liberating.
why not create a temp Hotmail account and sign up for a beta? I'd like to test the new beta with Firefox (and Adblock on) and post my results. It might work well...or not (primarily depending on which team was working on it).
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
When Microsoft treats users as novices they get slammed. When Apple treats users as novices they are heaped with praises.
The difference is that Microsoft seems to try and make sure people stay novices forever. Apple helps out novices but tries to help them learn new things as well.
One way this is evident is Microsoft changing more advanced portions of interfaces over time, so that an advanced users of one version of the OS (or Office) may have to learn how to do the same advanced thing again in the next release. Apple has been much better at taking an evolutionary approach to interfaces and thus letting people carry knowledge forward.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley