The day of reckoning is here, Hotmail users, after six weeks of migrating 150 petabytes (150 million GBs) of data to the Outlook.com email view. Don't start weeping just yet; your Hotmail address remains the same, you'll just see and experience Outlook's revamped interface.
Read on for the new features to expect as you move from Hotmail's old platform.
Skype, meet email inbox. Inbox, this is Skype, your new partner in communication crime. After an overhaul to make the Outlook.com email service better at managing the beast that is electronic mail, Microsoft has revealed one more way streamline online talk tools, with Skype integration right in the inbox.
Unlike Gmail's all-in-one video chat using Google Hangout, Skype on Outlook will require a one-time installation of a Skype web plug-in. Once downloaded, contacts from your existing Skype account can be merged with the Microsoft account. Search for contacts to call, then select the Call function from their contact card and opt for either a video or audio call; fairly intuitive and similar to how Gmail users can connect with friends.
Skype is rolling out to the UK now, and will be added to US accounts in the coming months. Facebook users have been chatting with Skype for some time now, but are you more likely to use the service when it's within your inbox?
Though just announced July 2012, Microsoft's new non-Hotmail email service, Outlook.com, has already grown to 60 million users and is ready for the wild world of nonbeta. Beginning today and progressing over the next several weeks, Hotmail's current hundreds of millions users will start to see their email experience switch to Outlook's web-based email platform. Hotmail addresses won't be changing, but what will be is the way Hotmailers interact with email.
From a solution to "sweep" out inbox clutter to social-media syncing, read on for what to expect in the new Hotmail/Outlook.com look.
iTunes can automatically transfer calendar data stored in your iCal, Entourage, Microsoft Outlook or Palm Desktop so that you have all of your important dates with you any place you bring your iPod. I thought I would never use this, but I actually ran into an old friend at the gym and was able to look up a date we met up for dinner on my iPod. It may have been the geekiest move of my life, but it worked!
For tips on how to enable syncing of your other calendars, just read more
