Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Unveils Outlook.com, Hotmail's Successor
New submitter faraway writes "Microsoft has just unveiled Outlook.com, the planned successor to Hotmail.com. It includes a lot of what you'd expect from email today, including storage (images, data), a calendar, integration with other Microsoft tools, and of course a clean UI. According to ZDNet, 'Outlook.com is integrated with Windows and Office, and can pull in Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and LinkedIn contacts. The new mail client has the Metro look and feel. And it is providing users with more granular control over which ads they see and where they see them.'"
Hopefully they didn't put the logout link 5 pixels below the account selector, as did the idiots who revamped Hotmail's UI.
Obvious shill is obvious. Why dont you and faraway do us a favor and remove yourselves from the site?
Is slashdot's reputation really that low that companies dont think we'll see through such a blatant attempt?
The new mail client has the Metro look and feel. And it is providing users with more granular control over which ads they see and where they see them.'"
Ads? What do ads have to do with email?
I notice that MS is using the success they've had with advertising on XBOX to transform their other projects into similiar Ad platforms. That is why the Metro interface looks like the XBox dashboard, so that it will be easier to slip advertisements in it. Outlook.com will be no different.
And it is providing users with more granular control over which ads they see and where they see them.'"
My local mail app doesn't show me ANY ads, it doesn't expose the contents of my email to data miners, it lets me instantly search email and compose new mail even if the network goes down, it doesn't lock me into proprietary solutions, and as a mail packrat it's let me take my mail collection with me as I move from system to system since 1984.
One thing always lacking in Outlook was search. It was there, but it was slow, and could never seem to find stuff I was looking for. I don't know if things are better in recent years with Outlook's search capabilities, but basic stuff I read around the web says it hasn't don't miss folders in Gmail because I can just search for it. And if I really want to file something in a specific place, I can use tags. I see a lot of people stumble around for a long time trying to find things in outlook, clicking through 20 different folders. On my desktop I use Thunderbird, which has really good search capabilities. Now I just have to get people to type relevant stuff in the message, so I can actually search for it. The biggest problem with search for stuff (or filtering for sorting into folders if you insist on folders) is that people don't put any useful information in the email. They'll just send a message with a subject that says "look at this" and attach a jpeg with a screenshot. Makes the email impossible to find 2 days later.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
No clippy, no thanks.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I actually like it. I know people, especially those on /., hate Metro, but the UI/UX is really clean and discover-able. Of course, that said, I won't be switching from gmail for this, but at least the few times I have to check my old hotmail account will no longer require the hideous hotmail UI.
I like the way Gmail implements their classification scheme, i.e. tagging, better than folders. With folders you're restricted to a tree structure but tagging allows you to classify an email in several categories by adding different tags.
What I ended up doing with my emails at work (in Outlook) was to put every old emails into a single folder to be able to use search.
English is not this
You mean to tell me that this account with no other posts, who has nothing bad to say about using an as-yet-unreleased product, lies about the competitors features, and also implies that the aforementioned competitors url (email with the first letter changed) is hard to remember is a shill?
I never would have guessed!
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Great. I didn't have enough problem trying to explain the difference between Outlook and Outlook Express to people. Now I need to also include Outlook.com in the "Yes, they're from Microsoft and named the same, but no they're not the same" conversation.
To the person who will inevitably point out that OE is discontinued, it's still on enough workstations out there that I still receive "Why won't my OFT work in 'Outlook'" support calls.
Hotmail's spam filtering is without a doubt the worst on the web. Obvious spam ends up in my Inbox, and legitimate mail ends up in the spam.
What's worse though is when it gets fooled into thinking that the email is part of a mailing list I've subscribed to and displays all the images automatically, making the spammer aware that my email address is valid.
Summation 2
... to snag that perfect e-mail address. Back in the days of hotmail, users would register addresses like surferdude@hotmail.com. Once gmail came around, they over-corrected and secured uber-professional addresses like firstname.m.lastname@gmail.com, which turn out to be pain to type into tiny phone keypads (or read aloud over the phone).
Two of my friends have already picked up first@outlook.com. Get 'em before they're gone!
Nice clean UI, easy to use and fairly fast. I think this could be a good one. Though I don't like the idea of an @outlook.com domain for email...
This is something Microsoft should have undertaken immediately after acquiring Hotmail. Microsoft has a strong brand with Outlook, and it makes total sense to be using that brand for their webmail offering.
Doing it at this time also makes sense. They're making a big push for a new user interface ("metro"), and this is one more place where they can integrate that interface, making it consistent across their offerings.
Of course, the devil is in the details. If they do it wrong, it will weaken their Outlook brand and push existing customers towards competitors. On the other hand, they're getting a ton of free publicity, so they have a chance to capitalize on the moment and steal market share.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, they don't have a good history of execution on things like this--most likely the new platform will be horrible, but they'll keep at it, and after a few generations, it will be a decent competitor, but that's three to five years out.
Seriously, cut this shit out. Every time an article with anything to do with Microsoft comes out, first post is from a new user and is full of praise. Nobody's buying it, so kindly cash your cheque from Redmond and fuck off
I so totally see someone applying for a job with some religious organization someday, and giving that as your reply-to e-mail address. Instant interview stopper.
Where I come from when someone calls you metro, they mean metrosexual, which basically means you're a girly lesbian trapped in a mans body.
providing users with more granular control over which ads they see and where they see them
How about "none" and "ever"?
This is why I pay for independent email hosting..
You mean to tell me that this account with no other posts, who has nothing bad to say about using an as-yet-unreleased product...
It is released, at least in the preview sense. I'm using it now (you can sign in with any Microsoft account, like an MSN or Passport one of old, in addition to the new outlook.com ones). Won't switch, but might make a new account for a junk address if I can get POP/SMTP access to it.
R.Mo
You assume it was Redmond with the post, it could very well be a competitor reverse astroturfing.
Microsoft doesn't give two shits about slashdot, nor does any other tech company.
Exactly. The comment was way too obvious. Neckbeards are easily trolled.
Similes are like metaphors
You would have more influence if you actually had any history, anywhere. But you don't.
Why would I want to customize my advertisements, I like them unobtrusive. I doubt I could turn them off.
With tagging, who needs folders.
I doubt it will be faster than gmail, what with the extra javascript required for metro.
And who has trouble remembering their email address domain? Seriously?
And why would I want integration for my email.
And of course it's your honest opinion, you were most likely paid for this.
Seriously, just get out.
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
My guess it's someone's trolling/karma whoring experiment. Just check out this guy. Chimes in the first minute of the story about black-outs in India and proposes MS Research (link to MSR front page) has a solution, and it's likely wind power. Gets modded up and stays modded up for quite a long time.
Can't see any reason for this beyond checking how easy it is to manipulate /. mods.
The Magic 8 Ball says "Outlook not so good"
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
jesussucksdick@outlook.com is still available.
I can't find any mention of it, but does it include either IMAP or Exchange support? One of my complaints about Hotmail is that they still haven't provided any accessibility from software clients except through POP, and POP isn't really appropriate anymore for personal email addresses.
Really, IMO, they should be using the same connectors as Exchange so you can access the calendar and address book from software clients. It's not as though they're unfamiliar with the technology. I suppose they don't want to make a decent free email service, though, since it would cannibalize their more expensive services. I guess I'll just stick with Gmail.
If the domain is so good why does it redirect to a live.com domain ?
I quickly looked over the new Outlook.com service and I must say I'm quite impressed.
I just looked in the litter box today, and I must say, I'm quite impressed.
Everything is clear
That would be a first for MS! We have Outlook at work (the dedicated email program) and it's the worst email client I've ever used. You have to log into the webmail component to change your email password, the password criteria are different than the mainframe and network password criteria, there are limits to mailbox and message sizes (we never had that BS with Novell's client), and they just, as Microsoft always does, completely changed the webmail interface; they moved "change password" from "Options" to the uper right hand corner, with white on yellow text. What kind of moron designs that sort of idiocy?
it works fast and the UI looks great.
I simply don't believe you. Sometimes it takes hours for an email to get to me from down the damned hall, we never had that problem with Novell and I never saw that problem with any other email system, either.
By the way, which division of Microsoft do you work for? Marketing? Because since they switched to Outlook, I hear nothing but complaints at work.
Outlook.com is also an great domain name and easy to remember.
What is so easy to remember about "outlook" unless you've been using outlook and outlook express for years? Hotmail at least had the name "mail" in in. This change from hotmail to outlook seems utterly retarded to me.
I can't but recommend you to try it!
No fucking way.
Free Martian Whores!
As honest as opinion as can be bought.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I got a.grim@outlook.com so everyone will know what an optimist I am
When people don't put any useful information in their messages, you don't need to find those messages 2 days later. In fact, you may as well skip reading them the first time, and just file under "Miscellaneous".
I'm glad you are so worldly and know so much about me.
Hotmail had 8.5 million users when MS acquired... not bad for 1997. At the time, Hotmail may have been a stronger name than Outlook. At any rate, Outlook has generally been aimed at business users while Hotmail has been aimed at home users. But I agree that they still should have done this at least 10 years ago.
Don't worry, nobody that doesn't pay Microsoft will be able to read your email.
One thing worth noting about this whole Outlook.com land grab: The accounts you are signing up for are not email accounts, they are "Microsoft accounts." They are keyed to Microsoft's whole package of cloudy services, so when you login to Outlook.com, you're also logging into SkyDrive, Messenger, and whatever else gets provisioned for you. If it worries you how Google seems to follow you all around the web once you're logged in, well, this is the start of Microsoft doing it.
Breakfast served all day!
The service may be nice, or it might not be. That's not the point. The point is, the guy *was* obviously a shill. Microsoft does waste time here. This is not the exclusive enclave for hardcore linux geeks that you think it is.
You may not be one for conspiracies, but conspiracies abound where money is to be made. Maybe you're a shill for the shill.
It sounds like you have some pretty major implementation problems at work. Outlook is a long way from perfect, but it's certainly not the worst client I've ever used. I'll take it over GroupWise any day and it gives Thunderbird a run for its money on many fronts.
I personally hold a grudge to outlook for a different reason : back in 2007 it had refused for almost 10 years (don't know if it ended up accepting it) to follow a RFC that allowed to send an email with a crypto signature and public key attached in the header. I wanted to use a good crypto in my emails but because a signed email looked ugly in outlook and that many professional contacts were still using it, I chose to abandon the idea.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I work for one of the world's largest software vendors (not MS), and I know our PR/PM/Marketing folks do indeed care about Slashdot. They don't lose a great deal of sleep over it, true, but they are interested in what's said here about our products.
(And no, I don't work for any of those divisions--I'm in development/support.)
Hotmail is (and was) a stronger brand for free webmail than Outlook is. Most people who know Outlook as something other than "that crappy email client that comes with Windows?" probably aren't in the market for free webmail accounts.
to have a valid email that was not work related. Two reasons. 1. To sign up for downloads and other stuff on the internet. 2. To look for another job. I have had many work related emails since 1995, but the same my personal Hotmail account. I even have a short and easy username since I signed up so early in the HoTMaiL beta. I upgraded to a Plus account for a year or two, but then didn't seen the need after the free service caught up to my requirements. I have since setup another junk hotmail account for the original purpose of spam honeypot/junkmail collector.
Over the years I have been pleased with the updates Microsoft has implemented to Hotmail to varying degrees. I haven't seen any webmail offerings that compelling enough to leave my hotmail.com account. The current product serves my needs well enough FWIW, I plan to keep on using the account simply because it's so convenient and all my friends know the address. I don't care about the outlook.com domain name. Same way I didn't care about the msn.com domain name.
Who knows maybe someday it will be as cool as my Dad's arpa.net account.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
No, it's not obvious. It's speculation because someone praised a product from 'the enemy'.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
I don't know. During the internet bubble I had some business analyst colleagues who would post obvious crap like this on forums trying to pump up stocks. One of them made a post like this. Then another would reply with more of the same. They had no idea how ridiculous their posts looked.
Hello no IMAP/SMTP support goodbye
That's pretty awesome actually.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
With tagging, who needs folders.
Not everyone is down on the semantic labeling concept. Some people like plain old folders. For example my girlfriend switched back instantly from the new Gmail to the old one for that very reason. Now she's stuck with the new Gmail and hates it. Both are available depending on your preference in Outlook.
And who has trouble remembering their email address domain? Seriously?
Obviously he meant easy to remember for other people, not easy to remember for yourself.
And why would I want integration for my email.
I have all of my facebook contacts and their emails instantly available in my contacts list. If I want to email a friend, instead of hopping on facebook to find their email, it's right there. Very convenient.
Because of course, satan only knows most people have more than one email...
myname@passport.com
myname@hotmail.com
myname@live.com
myname@outlook.com
I now have 4 Microsoft e-mail/IM IDs that basically do the same thing but don't talk to each other unless I manually merge them, which doesn't always work.
Thanks a lot Gates and Ballmer... and then you wonder why Page and Brin ate your lunch.
I think he means "nothing bad to say about an unfinished product," as in someone with a balanced opinion on the issue should point out the positive points as well as the shortcomings. For example, the new site is completely unusable on Opera, and the calendar and skydrive still links back to the old hotmail view. These shortcomings will hopefully be fixed. Another shortcoming is to view a picture slideshow requires silverlight. This shortcoming will probably not be fixed.
And of course it's your honest opinion, you were most likely paid for this.
Seriously, just get out.
How far we have come where the marketing campaign for a new product of this scale involves paying someone a living wage to "go out to websites like slashdot and pretend to be a real person who is excited about this new project."
Good grief. FacePalm.
There are shills everywhere though... http://plasticmacca.blogspot.com/2012/04/confessions-of-ex-internet-shill.html
A google search will reveal many others. This is big business??!??!? I wonder if I could be a paid shill... it would have to be for something I actually liked though. Meh.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
On the login page it lets us know this is a "Preview of modern email from Microsoft". So are they admitting Hotmail/Livemail is a pile of shit and we are all suckers for using it?
Password change - So someone separated the authentication for the email from the LDAP / AD, require additional sign on? What kind of network admins do you have?
Takes hours to receive email - Sounds like a network configuration issue. Either that or the spam filtering is FUBAR. Again, sounds like network configuration. See your admin. File a complaint and get it in the resolution queue.
And make sure you are not working in offline mode.
Oh, and make sure the person down the hall didn't forget to actually send the message, rather than having it stick around in their Outbox waiting to send.
Folders are great. If someone doesn't like them then don't use them.
I guess Redmond's new business strategy is throw enough dirty pairs of underwear against the wall and something is bound to stick sooner or later...
More like an expansion. Microsoft has been following you around for a while now. Before the Microsoft Account there was Windows Live ID, and before that there was Passport and Wallet. This is just the next in line of tracking your movements between properties, now including the OS and Windows Marketplace.
Not everyone is down on the semantic labeling concept. Some people like plain old folders. For example my girlfriend switched back instantly from the new Gmail to the old one for that very reason.
I'm confused. Gmail has never had plain old folders. If anything they've improved the interface for people who prefer plain folders (like me) since adding the "Move to" menu in addition to the "Labels" menu.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Its not just praise, its a glowing recommendation. From a brand new account with two posts? FP posted the exact minute the article was posted? "A great domain name, and easy to remember" Really? Thats what makes it a pro service, that its got "brand recognition"? What slashdotter would recommend something based on branding!!! no one would!!!
Don't even get me started on their use of proper punctuation!! Look at all them commas!
are you really that naive?
he says the word great like 3 times. No one but advertisers, PHB's and marketers say the word great that many times. Not to mention superb. Who says that? someone siting in a microsoft corner office - that's who!
You can see where the marketeer tried to improvise the end there without getting the copy signed off on. Everybody wants to be creative! stick to the script marketdroid!
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
I use the Instant Search functionality for Outlook (uses "Windows Search" I believe). It completely indexes your email and attachments and I find email from several years back in only a few seconds. You can even search for tags with "categories:junk" or for specific things like "from:joe hasattachment:yes sent:2010". I believe that has been there since Outlook 2003, definitely with 2007.
Apple is similar in that it wants an "Apple ID" to get onto some of its weird online stuff.
really? works in firefox, chrome, and safari for me...and i would assume someone there has tried it in explore at some point, maybe when balmer was looking over their shoulder or something.
In fairness, twitter isn't usable in opera either because it is unable to process so many lines of non semi-colon delimited javascript statements.
Similes are like metaphors
With tagging, who needs folders.
Not everyone is down on the semantic labeling concept. Some people like plain old folders. For example my girlfriend switched back instantly from the new Gmail to the old one for that very reason. Now she's stuck with the new Gmail and hates it. Both are available depending on your preference in Outlook.
This is complete nonsense. If you like the idea of folders, then treat labels like folders. There is even a button that looks like a... *shock* FOLDER, and when you click it, it allows you to "move" any selected emails to a folder (label). Then if you want to find all the emails that you filed in any particular folder (label) you click on the appropriate folder name (label name). It works EXACTLY like folders, but with the added benefit that if you wish, you can apply multiple labels to your emails, so that is just like copying an email to multiple folders, except you don't have to actually copy it and any replies or forwards for that email are all kept together instead of being copied individually all over the place.
If someone can't figure out that labels can be used exactly like folders, then they have no business using the series of tubes we call the interwebs.
Yeah sounds like you're right. I don't really use gmail, as I have my own web accont, but her complaint was that her "folders were gone." On second thought it seems like she probably just couldn't find them.
The search in Outlook 2007 and 2010 is certainly better than Thunderbird's search, if that says anything.
Thanks for the sarcasm, snark, and general condescension which eclipse an otherwise valid point. You're a real asset to the Internet.
You can still use the Labels as folders. With Labs you can set them to have a parent/child relationship to look like traditional folders. The Outlook.com looks slick and they are including intergration to several sources. It should be really nice and I'm sure people will love it. It might be a good Grandma/non-techie solution. I am not giving up my gmail though.
I agree on all but one point you mention: tags.
I have no use for tags. I've a few folders where predefined sieve filters move new emails, and one big massive "Archives" folder, with years as subfolders.
Whenever I need to look for an old email, I just use the search tool. Couldn't get easier than that.
Try using labels as folders through IMAP. You can't. Deleting email actually removes the tag, and a few other unfriendly behaviours. Plus, the "All Mail" folder/label messes up syncronization a lot, since it duplicates all emails (again, through IMAP).
Not sure how much you get, but they have all my spam filtered out a heck'va lot better than hotmail. I swapped in 2005 and was getting pounded with spam. So I wonder how good their spam filters will be in the re-write.
It is better in Outlook 2010 but still not as good as GMail. In my case it displays some really odd behavior when I am searching for people's names. It will completely leave out emails that I know are in a given folder and from a particular person. It really does not make any sense.
Now that I think about it, the only real improvement is the search speed. It seems like they are building better indexes. Or maybe they're finally using all 8 cores and 12GB of RAM that I have. The results are still pretty sub-par. It is not as if I am trying to search the entire effin internet. I just need to find an email from two weeks ago that I know was sent to me by "firstname lastname"
Integrations with it's own products is it's main issue. Most users don't use MS's calendar/chat/etc, so integration with those adds little value.
Integration with XMPP means that people might consider using it, since they can still chat with their xmpp/gtalk contacts.
Integration with caldav means people will use their CURRENT calendar.
At the moment, it's either migrate EVERYTHING, or don't use it. Most people wan't bother.
I'd actually probably tell some friend that hates google to try it out if it had XMPP integrated, since it would mean I'd be able to chat with them more often.
It's obviously high from a marketing standpoint but they think the crowd's intellect is on par with Digg or Reddit :-P
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Dude most of that is configuration. Mailbox sizes are dictated by your Exchange administrators. Syncing your mainframe password with your Active Directory account has nothing to do with Exchange/Outlook. While you can use it to change your password, you should be doing it through the OS through either Ctrl-Alt-Delete or old school (like me) through the command line.
Wow, I actually tried this a few minutes.
The interface is horrible, most of the screen is generally unused, and fields (like where you write an email) have no border, so it's hard to tell where they end.
Plus, all mail is always html. No plain-text email. No option to disable this so-called-feature either, so users will only be able to send html-emails, to the annoyance of many recipients.
Time to update the spam filters from hotmail.com to outlook.com
That someone is someone who has never posted on any other slashdot story before, and who managed to get first post, posting in the same minute that the story went live.
That means that they joined, subscribed to get the preview of the story just to say how much they liked the outlook.com preview. Thats what they call dedication.
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
Microsoft is getting rid of @hotmail.com for new users. Outlook.com and live.com will be all u can choose from
Could it be unpaid fanbois? Is Microsoft the new Apple?
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
In Thunderbird, using IMAP, gmail's labels work flawlessly. the deleting thing is minor, and you can always just tell your client not to sync the 'all mail' 'folder'
You must be new here.
What kind of network admins do you have?
Not good ones, obviously.
See your admin. File a complaint and get it in the resolution queue.
I'm too close to retiring to worry about it. There are more than one network admin (thousands of employees) and they have one guy from each shop take care of stuff like password resets and the like.
But God, I'll be glad when I'm out of this place! I'd retire today if I could live on just the pension, but I only have 2 years before I'm eligible for SS.
Free Martian Whores!
Because of your shilling, I will never, ever try it. Take this message back to your boss - the astroturfing attempt backfired, and actually turned users away.
Astroturfer - "Sir, a new report is in. Anonymous Coward says he will never use the new Outlook because of our efforts"
Boss, obscured sitting in a high back arm chair, Dr. Claw style - "How.... disappointing..."
Boss slowly revolves in his arm chair, revealing himself to be.... LARRY PAGE *gasp!* - "...for Microsoft! Our plan is working perfectly! Mwahahahaha"
Foolishly, they allow outlook in the username. So...uh... have fun with that guys!
And law enforcement. And the NSA and the like. (But that goes without saying, of course.)
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
I didn't install it, I do database programming. Used to use NOMAD on the mainframe and loved it, now I'm stuck with (UGH!) Access on a PC.
Free Martian Whores!
According to www.zdnet.com (Win fanboys I know) if you even go there it will automatically cancel your hotmail and give you an outlook.com address without your consent and import everything. Once in you can't go back etc.
I use gmail now and have only 1 hotmail account active (from before it was acquired by Microsoft) for certain job postings. I will be sure not to check it out with me logged in with hotmail.
Just be forewarned!
http://saveie6.com/
But...But... Someone is WRONG on the Internet! this MUST be STOPPED!
It is just "live" email with a new front end, and domain name. :-/ Meh
https://blu002.mail.live.com/default.aspx
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Just used up all my points. Why was this modded flamebait? It's insightful.
That means that they joined, subscribed to get the preview of the story just to say how much they liked the outlook.com preview. Thats what they call dedication.
No asterisk next to the name, therefore not a subscriber. It is probably some Google or Apple fanboy with a subscriber account trying to convince the gullible that Microsoft actually sends people to shill on Slashdot.
Exactly.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Yeah, it's so much better to have an "Arrange by" button that leads to a dropdown menu instead of clickable column headings. Fucking retards.
Still, better than Gmail, which doesn't let you sort at all. But fuck, why is everyone so in love with change-for-the-sake-of-change? Some things are just RIGHT. Like sorting by clicking on column headings.
From the welcome email:
Along the way, if you've got any questions, comments, or concerns, please submit that feedback via the options menu in our header.
THERE IS NO OPTIONS MENU. If you mean "click the picture of the gear", then say "click the picture of the gear"!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The trillion tiny little fuck-ups by Microsoft are fully evident in this new service: I am not allowed to enter my mobile phone number because apparently "it is not suitable in my region". Right.
And I got immediately an alert that someone tried to use my account without authorization so I have to immediately change my password.
Some other localization issues and forcing me to use a language I don't want to use... oh well, thanks for reminding me of what piece of crap Microsoft products are (still).
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
You are required to pick a password of 16 characters or less - why? I blogged about maximum password length restrictions before, and I would like to hear a compelling reason why this is needed. Otherwise, I can only assume they are storing them in plaintext.
1) their CAPTCHA doesn't let humans in. I made at least ten tries, none was successful. Maybe with a bot I would succeed
2) no Android client app. I know it would hurt their WP7/8 sales, but both the mail offering and their sorry attempt at a phone OS have to prove themselves
What's more, multiple people apparently modded him up, and multiple people have modded the call-out posts (including the parent) down. Just lovely.
If someone can't figure out that labels can be used exactly like folders, then they have no business using the series of tubes we call the interwebs.
It's only in the last, what, 18 months? that labels could have parent/child relationships. I still have label names with slashes in them from when I used Gina Trapani's plugin that made the original gmail labels act like folders.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
It's not that I don't believe there are paid shills on the Internet, but you're linking to a blog of a guy who believes Paul McCartney is dead and has been replaced by a CIA agent. It's hardly a credible source.
Sometimes it takes hours for an email to get to me from down the damned hall, we never had that problem with Novell and I never saw that problem with any other email system, either.
email is not designed to be delivered within any specific timeframe (something all the "click the link in the email we just sent you to activate your account" services would do very good to remember) - if you want instant communication than use a proper IM.
as for domain name/brand recognition - I use fastmail.fm for my primary email account and while I am very happy with the service and functionality they provide it is kinda annoying that I have to spell out the domain name three times every time I give someone my email address (not living in an english-speaking country) - people are familiar with gmail.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com and 1-2 local email providers and would immediately recognize outlook (because they already associate it with email) but hvaing an unfamiliar domain name causes considerable unnecessary trouble as non-technical people (a) don't know how to spell it and (b) get confused about such a non-standard email address (omg it ends in ".fm" are you sure that is correct? or ymail.com which nobody understands when you pronounce it in English and which can't be pronounced in the local language). You don't realize how important having a known domain in your email address is until you don't have one.
Is Outlook really going to make emails more private? http://www.frequency.com/video/welcome-to-outlookcom/55654049/-/4-4189
Could it be unpaid fanbois? Is Microsoft the new Apple?
where can i get hold of the new iWindows? does it come with rounded corners?
stick to the script marketbot
ftfy
except linux has nothing to gain from fanbois, whereas apple and microsoft depend on it (except microsoft's oem enslavement gives it an edge over apple), which is why torvalds doesn't really give a crap if stallman eats toe jam, and why a lack of viral fanaticism has led to the dismal failure of multiple microsoft product lines
the bigger companies get, the more they tend to eventually gravitate towards linux, which i very much doubt has anything to do with fanbois
Apple is similar in that it wants an "Apple ID" to get onto some of its weird online stuff.
You mean like encryption key parties?
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Seem to remember this was a clause in Hotmail's T&C about 10 years ago.
No, like app stores, cloud storage, etc.
I just jumped oon there to see it myself, looks like hotmail mostly with some added features. what i did notice was a lack of ads.
its obvious that ms is finally using exchange to host and publish hotmail.
I hate the new Google Groups' GUI!! I can't stand it. I am back to using my old newsreaders (Tin, Pan, Mozilla's SeaMonkey, etc.).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
What labels don't do (and this drives me nuts in Google docs) is exclusions.
For example, apply a label. The item still appears in your main list.
Move something into a folder. The item no longer appears in your main list.
I've got a whole bunch of documents I work on with a non profit. I have them all labeled. Google Docs even goes as far as to show me a "folder" representing that label. But what I don't have is a view that shows me everything that's unlabeled. Maybe I forgot to tag one of those documents. Maybe I want to look at a list of my other docs that aren't associated with the non profit. These are use cases that are not supported by labels. (They could be, but it depends on the UI developers providing work-around solutions)
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
tl;dr: I wouldn't trust them.
Outlook.com - All the machine-lagging, fifteen-levels-of-nested-dialog-boxes crapness of Outlook. Now on the web! Yay \o/
Requiem for the American Dream
I don't want to learn how stuff works so everything needs to be adapted to work around me not knowing how to use it. Duh. No!
This is something Microsoft should have undertaken immediately after acquiring Hotmail. Microsoft has a strong brand with Outlook, and it makes total sense to be using that brand for their webmail offering.
Doing it at this time also makes sense.
[...]
...they don't have a good history of execution on things like this--most likely the new platform will be horrible, but they'll keep at it
They'll keep at it, but it's as if they think everyone in the world is too stupid to remember how many times they'll fumble and reintroduce the same product with a different name every two years.
It continually amazes me when companies dump tons of money into acquiring a brand only to try their best to drive people away from using that brand rather than nurture the brand.
So which is it, Microsoft? Is it Hotmail, MSN, Live, or Outlook that you want me to think of when I want to check my e-mail? Going to Outlook.com redirects me to live.com to sign up. But, I don't use my "Windows Live ID" to login, I should now start calling it my "Microsoft account", even though I don't log in anywhere on microsoft.com with such a thing. Why not just give me a bing.com address? At least when people sent me mail there they would think of your other product.
Then again, this is the company that gave the same name to both a table and a tablet and spends marketing dollars to brand the sodas in their own cafeterias to educate their workforce on the names of their products.
Microsoft uses Burson Marsteller. They're very influential, and responsible for much of the big end of astrotuf and sock-puppetry.
http://www.jongreerconsulting.com/burson-marsteller-outed-as-microsofts-sock-puppet
http://www.prwatch.org/topics/public-relations/astroturf?page=6
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2012/07/19/microsoft-hires-burson-marsteller-ceo.html
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Whu? How are Apple involved?
Requiem for the American Dream
It's nice to see some variant of the Streisand Effect at work here. First post by a shill-account and the whole conversation up to this point has been arguing about why it's clear that the obvious shill is an obvious shill. Nice work <whichever-marketing-company-won-this-particular-contract>.
Requiem for the American Dream
Maybe now I can get a Microsoft email again, now that it's Outlook.com. Many years ago, my cat signed up for Hotmail, and used her real name and age, so when they came out with that "need to be 13 years old" restriction, they froze her account. The only way to unlock it would have been to use a credit card, but if I did that, she'd be logging on to Amazon with it and ordering cases of tuna, so no way.
(Although come to think of it, she's probably 13 years old by now; I'll have to check what year we got her.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The UI doesn't give any visual indication of what is static text and what is actually an active button. It looks very pretty, but it isn't very usable.
In addition, outlook.com leaks your identity all over the Internet.
Not recommended.
Not really a big surprise there....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Before the Microsoft Account there was Windows Live ID, and before that there was Passport and Wallet.
True. I'm not really sure there's much of a technical difference between Microsoft Account and Windows Live ID. But Microsoft really does seem to be expanding the role of the Microsoft Account considerably, leading up to the launch of Windows 8.
Picture a future in which your mom calls you up in a panic because all her vacation photos have disappeared. You calm her down, have her sit down at the computer, and you say, "OK, first off, make sure you're logged in to Microsoft..."
Breakfast served all day!
Am I supposed to call you a shill because you said something good about Outlook or am I supposed to login and give you a mod point because you were informative? Arghh! I don't know what to do!
You can do both, just make sure to call him a shill while logged out so as not to cancel your moderation. ~
Not quite true. I was at Microsoft 14+ years (ending 2008), and we did indeed read (and talk about) Slashdot. However, the rules not to reply to posts about MS were very strict, and I don't know of anyone who broke them. I actually had permission to post as "MSN Dude" for Microsoft on web search-related sites for a while, but I had to do it openly. So if someone from Microsoft were posting here, I expect that he/she would say so.
Of course, things might have changed . . .
--Greg
Microsoft Account is just a rebranded Live ID, which in turn is just a rebranded Microsoft Passport. There isn't anything next in line here, really, it's same old.
It's not that I don't believe there are paid shills on the Internet, but you're linking to a blog of a guy who believes Paul McCartney is dead and has been replaced by a CIA agent. It's hardly a credible source.
Honestly I didn't really look at what the rest of the site had.
There is something odd about that "confession" as it can be found verbatim on a number of other websites. So, on one hand it negates your concern about the Paul McCartney "issue" but on the other hand it seems to be spammed to several sites.
Not that the latter necessarily takes away validity...
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Mod parent up. This was fixed at the filesystem indexing level with Windows Search. Windows Search is unfortunately not installed by default in Windows 7. But after you install it, you will have fast searches not just in Outlook, but across any other folder on your filesystem that you choose to index.
Thanks for the sarcasm, snark, and general condescension which eclipse an otherwise valid point. You're a real asset to the Internet.
He was right and he did eclipse your point completely, the big difference is your point was so far from valid it could have been in a completely different universe.
Gmail's "tags" operate in the same fashion as Outlook's "folders" with one really, really big exception... I can have the same email in more than one tag. For example if I wanted to reference an email in regards to multiple technolgoies (I.E. "Nagios" and "Citrix") I can do this in Gmail but not in Outlook (it could only go in the "Nagios" _OR_ "Citrix" folder).
When I put a tag on an email, it puts it in a folder, when I remove a tag it removes it from that folder. The difference is just in the name.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I logged into Outlook.com to see what the deal is. Well, it's not terrible I guess, but what's the sudden fascination with hiding functions in plain site? Can there not be a button that actually resembles a button before you mouse over it? Even then, instead of an obvious button that pops up on mouseover, there a subtle change in color to denote you're on a clickable area. I feel like I have to methodically scan the mouse back and forth across the screen to discover stuff that's hiding.
Example: Bet you didn't even notice that the word 'Outlook' in the top left corner of the page is actually a menu... Why is this better than say spending a pixel and putting a border around the damn thing? It can't be because it looks better this way, because if they were trying to make things look good, they wouldn't have forced the UI team to recycle DOS Shell.
Totally agree. The OP is clearly a troll trying to incite Microsoft hatred by posing as a Microsoft shill. It's worked quite well.
In the holy words of Butt-head:
Uh... huh huh huh, he said cheque. Huh huh.
Of course, the devil is in the details. If they do it wrong, it will weaken their Outlook brand and push existing customers towards competitors.
What competitors? IBM/Lotus? Seriously, the groupware / enterprise email market is pretty much dominated by Microsoft already.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Your post started at moderation level 1, which combined with your high UID indicates that youve been on the site for all of about 15 minutes. If you had been on longer and actually garnered some karma-- like basically anyone who has been here in excess of 15 minutes-- you would start at +2.
Your post also appeared within about 25 seconds of the submission, and was a classic mix of praise for MS and jabs at Gmail, when pretty much everyone recognizes that gmail is and always has been far superior to hotmail in any of its incarnations.
Seriously, how dumb do you think we are?
For the record, for all to see-- lest anyone think that shills arent real.
H105's profile:
2 posts, and the following achievements:
(0) Days Read in a Row 2012-08-01
Posted a Comment 2012-07-31
Had a Comment Modded Up 2012-07-31
Yea dude, you joined today and posted 30 seconds after this article was posted, but its totally not a paid opinion!
We have Outlook/Exchange at my client, too. It crashes a lot. Not sure why. But that's basically irrelevant. I don't think there's much, if any, connection between Outlook desktop software and outlook.com. A buddy of mine works on webmail at MS, so I suppose I could ask him if I really gave a fuck, which I do not.
Regarding outlook.com, I did have a quick look at it. Seems decent enough. Interface is less busy than hotmail. I didn't get to test it much because I'm on my work computer, and I only use hotmail for fetlife-related emails. Not, in the strictest sense, workplace-appropriate.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
But God, I'll be glad when I'm out of this place! I'd retire today if I could live on just the pension, but I only have 2 years before I'm eligible for SS.
Pension? What's a pension?
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I doubt it will be faster than gmail, what with the extra javascript required for metro.
Uh, what? "Metro" is a design language; in the various OS incarnations, it certainly has a fair amount that one might use JavaScript to approximate on a website, but that's not particularly key to the "Metro" language. It essentially embraces very minimalist design; bright, solid colors; typography over iconography. None of that requires any JavaScript at all. In fact, it requires a fairly minimal amount of CSS, at least by its nature.
Gmail is itself fairly JavaScript heavy: it is a single-page web app which offloads a lot of interaction to asynchronous requests and a fairly comprehensive client-side UI implementation. From playing around a little with Outlook.com, I can tell that it has a lot of similar features (in terms of UI/UX implementation), but I sincerely doubt it's heavier in JS than Gmail is, at least not substantially.
And who has trouble remembering their email address domain? Seriously?
I would wager many people, possibly most. Too many people refer to "their" Internet as "the Google" and other silliness for me to believe otherwise. The whole concept of "address" or "domain" is conceptually challenging for many, many people. That said, I don't think "Outlook.com" is a particularly memorable email domain for these people, it's far more likely Gmail succeeds there.
And why would I want integration for my email.
For most purposes, I certainly wouldn't. But since Gmail has been so successful, its integration with Gchat (Jabber) has been a boon for getting some of my technophobe friends to use chat. It really depends what your workflow is, but I'd imagine for the people who like the Facewitters and Twatbooks, the integration will be a boon for them as well.
Well said.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Could it be unpaid fanbois? Is Microsoft the new Apple?
I think this is more likely. There are a lot of people that have built their livelihoods around microsoft, and are understandably agitated about the downwards direction Balmer's taken them over the last 10 years.
That was a fun read, but even if I could pretend it wasn't decorated with red flags (weird conspiracy theory intro, Illuminati references, weird references to unfamiliar alphabet soup, insinuation of a Zionist conspiracy), the story isn't very plausible, and actually lacks some of the hallmarks you'd expect if it were really true. There's a great deal of detail at the front, but as the conclusion comes rushing along it lacks any sort of detail about the fallout, the cultish stop-loss. Would such a shady organization just let this person go, to tell the world? And ultimately the story is fanciful, what you might expect from a dramatization; the world is far more banal than that.
MICROSOFT. Rebrand Hotmail as Outlook.com to fill users with warm happy thoughts of Monday morning 9am at the office.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
He was right and he did eclipse your point completely
No, his snark completely eclipses his valid point. As in, I've already conceded the point so why are you still going on about it? You've said exactly the same thing.
Thankfully Gmail has a fantastically powerful search engine. if you don't have too many labels, you can do a search of
-label:{label1 label2 label3...}
note the dash "-" at the front of that.
and just replace "label1" etc with all your labels. But if you have a lot of labels, I can see that being cumbersome. Alternatively, if you want to search for emails from a specific person, or regarding a specific topic, just do a regular search, or use targetted keywords. Setting up filters to automatically apply labels to emails with certain triggers, such as being from a specific person, or containing a specific keyword means that few to none will fall through the cracks in the future.
Another suggestion would be to always use the "move to" button instead of the "label" button so that once a label is applied, emails are moved out of the inbox, and they are only moved out of the inbox once an email has been labelled.
I understand your point, but I think there are enough tools provided that it shouldn't be a deal breaker.
You can see my reply to Dynedain above for reference, but simply put, there are two buttons for labels, one is a "move to" button, and the other is a "label" button. The "move to" button will apply the label you choose and then archive the email. The label button simply applies the label and leaves the email right where it is.
So if you want the emails moved (archived) when you apply the label, just use the "move to" button. If there are emails that you happen to have labelled but they are still in your inbox, simply archive them. That will leave all the emails that you have yet to apply labels to in your inbox.
And if you are looking for archived emails without labels, as I said to Dynedain, the tools are there to find them, but if you are diligent in how you use the "move to" and "label" buttons, it shouldn't be an issue.
For the record, I apologize for the sarcasm, snark, and general condescension. However, that said, I still don't see how your post which I originally replied to makes sense. You said that your girlfriend switched to the old Gmail from the new one because she liked folders instead of labels. This doesn't make sense as Gmail has used labels instead of folders since its inception. It was only after some people complained that they wanted folders instead that Google added the "move to" button in addition to the "label" button, so I'm not sure what it is that your girlfriend liked before and now has lost since only new features have been added, with no functionality removed.
So I stand behind my point (to which I acknowledge you have conceded) and I apologize for my tone.
While you can use it to change your password, you should be doing it through the OS through either Ctrl-Alt-Delete or old school (like me) through the command line.
The way they have it (obviously mis-)configured you not only can't change the email password anywhere but webmail, it doesn't even have the same parameters as the network password.
Who trained the administrators? My guess is they're MSCEs.
Free Martian Whores!
I said this in reply to another but I don't use Gmail and was only going off what my girlfriend told me. My only thought is that the new UI either obliterated her labels or just moved them to a place she couldn't find, probably under the "More" accordion.
email is not designed to be delivered within any specific timeframe (something all the "click the link in the email we just sent you to activate your account" services would do very good to remember) - if you want instant communication than use a proper IM.
Maybe email was never designed to be instant, but I've never seen any email message take more than two or three minutes to get to the recipient.
Free Martian Whores!
There was an article a while back on /. about how much time people spend sorting their email into folders. The basic gist of it was that there are two different types of people when it comes to email inboxes. One type, the type that spends time manually moving everything into folders, is doing it because they use their inbox as a sort of to-do list. The act of moving a message into a folder is their way of marking the message done.
For these types of people, the label approach is useless.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Alas, most of you don't have the benefit of a union and now no longer have pensions, paid vacations, and have to work more than 40 hours a week without overtime pay. It's sad.
Free Martian Whores!
Alas, most of you don't have the benefit of a union and now no longer have pensions, paid vacations, and have to work more than 40 hours a week without overtime pay. It's sad.
I don't have paid vacations, but I also don't have to work unpaid overtime. Seems fair to me.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
that doesn't make sense though, since applying a label and then archiving the email, or doing it in one step by using the "move to" button, is the EXACT same as moving the email into a folder, except it isn't physically located in some folder. A folder is essentially a completely inflexible label. You are saying that an email belongs to this label and this label only when you put it in a folder. Using labels instead of folders allows you to have ALL the functionality of folders, but with the ADDED functionality that an email can exist in multiple folders/labels at the same time.
If you want to use your inbox as a to-do list, well, leave emails in your inbox until the item is complete, and then when it is complete, archive it. Labels actually HELP in this regard, because you can label something so that its context is easily identifiable, but it can still exist in your inbox until it is complete, at which point you archive it. With folders, you can't sort in this same way while things are in your inbox. You have to move it out of your inbox in order to sort it into a folder so that it has context, such as moving it into a project folder. I can label my emails as being associated with a particular project, and keeping it focused in the inbox as an item that needs to be taken care of using the label method. This is not possible with folders.
Your list of labels is on the left, just like a list of folders would be in any other mail program. When you click on a label title it gives you all the emails with that label, which is the exact same as clicking on a folder name and seeing all the email that is located in that folder.
You haven't demonstrated any functionality that folders have and labels lack.
I wonder. All the Hotmail users would probably be migrated over to this new system, but who else? The masses use Facebook. People here have their own email solutions. Others who still prefer webmail are on either Gmail or Yahoo, and at this stage have had their accounts for easily 8 years or more and are accustomed to how they work. Regular folk are not the sort to try out something new just because.
And seriously, this is nothing like how new and clean and different GMail was when it launched in 2004.
So when neither the masses nor the technical folk are interested, just who will it be? Maybe we'll get our viagra spam from outlook.com instead of hotmail.com.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
You added a key new step there. Archiving is the same thing as moving something into a folder.
Labels by themselves are not (see my previous Google Docs example). Relying on labels exclusively requires new UI features to support certain types of workflows.
Give me Labels in addition to my folders and I'm happy to use them. Give me labels exclusively instead of folders and I'm not going to be happy. I limit my use of Google Docs precisely because this label issue prevents me from seeing what I feel is important when I first login to my documents.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
WoW! That was so quick. Well, there is no doubt that Microsoft is best at marketing its products and services. After capturing a considerable chunk of HyperV's and Cloud computing market from its great rivalry VMware. Now Microsoft's 800 pound gorilla is ready to compete Google in this email client industry. The new features are cool, and worth switching back to MS's re-branded Hotmail (which is Outlook.com). Also Here's a nice blog explaining how and why Microsoft will dominate Hypervisors, VDI, Cloud & more in 2012: http://www.dincloud.com/blog/why-Microsoft-for-virtualization-explained If anyone is planning to write a blog or an article on how or why Microsoft will dominate this email hosting industry, please keep me posted. Thanks.
I like the alias feature myself. I don't have the time to completely check out the site now, but I will get around to it within the next few days.
Pigskin-Referee
Linux: Yesterday's technology, tomorrow
Yes, why not? Microsoft has done a lot of dumb shit in the past. What makes you think they have stopped doing dumb shit?
Clever signature text goes here.
Or you are another Microsoft employee trying to convince people that Microsoft didn't get caught red-handed doing immoral stuff.. again.
Clever signature text goes here.
Not one of the above given.
Will my 1996 Hotmail address continue to collect spam?
Will the 'integration' work with my domestic Linux machines?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
dude, nobody likes you. you're a douchebag, and you're repetitive garbage isn't even worth reading
Nope, no step added. See where I continued my sentence by saying "or doing it in one step by using the "move to" button"
yeah, same thing as folders.
You still haven't shown anything that folders can do that labels can't.