Chiclanagir

Is there an it wizard out there. I have my email address with hotmail and stupidly signed up for Beta Live. Now I cannot access any of my emails or my contacts and cannot revert back. On the blog site it says to sign into account and then go into options next to the help button!!!!!!!!! What options button!!!!! It doesn't exist. Has anyone any ideas I am desperate as I can't even go and get a new address as I will not be able to send it to my contacts!

Nige

Have no idea about what the Beta Live does but firstly your addresses and messages on HOTMAIL are not stored on your own computer but on another computer (or server) somewhere in the big wide world. So you can access your HOTMAIL from any computer connected to the internet. It does not need any software loaded on your own PC.
It sounds to me as though there is a 'glitch' to the downloading of the Beta ("beta" is basically a test programme available to those wanting to test it ) software. Maybe your other PC programs are not compatible. I don't know.

If you look at this page on the HOTMAIL Beta site, it tells you how to Switch back to Hotmail. Read this web page thoroughly and try again?

http://spaces.msn.com/mail-support/blog/cns!A41CEE528F101345!232.entry

Chiclanagir

Hi Nige
Thanks for that but did try that Beta support blog site - useless as you had to press the options button but on the Live site there was no options button to press. However, problem is now solved by going into a different browser which could support the programme. Have wasted nearly a day on this! Computers who'd have them!

kevray

I am so glad you took the plunge and tried the beta live test, I was tempted but was not brave enough, Guess Microsoft have done a half job again, wish they would use British software engineers, they can really programme, small neat and tidy progs that work when you buy them,
So sorry you had a wasted day, just put it down to experience and NEVER download a beta software pack till you know someone who has it running ok.
Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing
Best regards
Kevray

CharlieBangor

Hi Glynis,

try the following site

www.mail2web.com

you can pick up and send emails from any domain via the web

Cheers

Nige

I personally cannot recommend this web site. I can however recommend GMAIL. This is Google's answer to providing a really useful web mail programme. I think Microsoft has been fired into action because of Google's Mail programme and are trying to introduce overdue improvements to Hotmail. GMAIL has everything that Hotmail has but is better. Am not sure if you can sign up to GMAIL yet or whether you need an 'invitation'. It has been around for almost one year.

CharlieBangor

What, you dont recommend "mail2web" or "hotmail" ?

Nige

Correct. And I do find that FIREFOX is a more user friendly browser. It has many 'add ons' that make surfing easier. And this is another competitor developer to Microsoft that has introduced something that has made the great giant introduce and test it's new IE 7 Beta. I think I will tread very warily before even thinking of downloading IE 7 !

kevray

Have to agree, I only use Mozilla Firefox, seems more stable plus I like the bells and whistles.
What about Opera ? I find it too slow and not all webs can be viewed correctly

yogayogi

The various email services mentioned are all Okish.

BUT if you want a top quality one look at FASTMAIL.FM.
This is head & shoulders, chest & knees better than all the opposition.

I suffered Hotmail for years (well everyone had my address) before beating the inertia and changing.

FASTMAIL doesn't have ads, doesn't take three mouse clicks to do every task, doesn't have slow-up-everything graphics. It does have easy use with lots of powerful features, a range of levels from free to pricey (the paid options mean it has to be good or no-one uses it, the free level means they get economies of scale), a range of 40 domain names to choose from etc etc.
It's also so fast & friendly you don't need Thunderbird (the best off-line alternative compared with Opera or Outlook).

Do yourselves a favour & leave the 20th century emailers behind.

Oh and swop your anti-virus to AVAST! (free) - excellent & much less overhead.

YY

Unexpat

"Taglines" on the free option is a euphemism for ads - they have to finance "free" somehow ...

That aside, I am not a fan of using any form of public webmail, as (over time) there is just too much sensitive information stored in places I know little about.

I barely trust my ISP (Telefonica) and I certainly don't trust their transparent proxy-cache which they claim to have got rid of, but is very much still there.

Always make sure you have a secure connection (https:// etc.) when handing out credit card details and the like over the net! Avoid sending sensitive info over E-mail unless you are using encryption. Be careful of message board PMs ... they are not as private or personal as the name implies.

Bob

mail2web is great, nice little features...but doesn't help with hotmail unless you hare the premium content because you don't get free pop access on hotmail anymore...neither with yahoo or excite, gmail is one of the few that give pop mail access free..for now.

yogayogi

and FASTMAIL - 2 POP accounts on free version.
But without the ads!

YY

yogayogi

I do agree with you about security - good advice. I should have mentioned Fastmail is (at your choice and at no cost) encrypted - you just access your account using https://www.fastmail.fm instead of http://


But I have to disagree with you over equating taglines with ads. Look at any Hotmail (and most others) page and there are up to 3 colour graphic ads cluttering up part of your page. Not to mention suppliers graphics logos. These all make it harder to see your mail and they slow up the system.

A tagline (one ore two lines of text after the end of your message, typically promoting the email service) doesn't clutter up your mail or make it run slower.
If you look closely you'll see taglines on almost all free emailers (such as those discussed here)

Taglines do identify your messages as domestic rather than professional.
But business mail usually ends with many lines of disclaimers anyway!

YY

- tagline - I used to be indecisive; but now I'm just not sure.

Nige

GMAIL has no TAG on it's messages. But you can add your own signature if you want. I particularly like the way you can do a 'Google' type search through all your stored messages and it will instantly bring old messages up. Useful for forgetful people. I have 2707 MB of potential storage on my GMAIL and am only using 2 % of it as try to delete stuff ! The SPAM filter is pretty good too -I have all the pleading letteres from Nigeria filtered out along with virtually all the 'phishing' type emails from various financial institutions .
I use GMAIL as a stand alone web mail and have GMAIL Notifier in my Task bar so whenever a new message comes in I am alerted.