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Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

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Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#161

Post by MartinCron »

sebtoast wrote: post #134
esharef wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of disagree. The UI is clean but things aren't where you expect them to be and it makes it confusing. For instance, I didn't know where to put the subject when I was sending my first email -- it's huge but it's weirdly placed and unintuitive. I also couldn't find the Send button at first because it's on the Nav bar -- not where I expected. I also agree with the post below re: branding. I went to "Help" to see…

Just wanted to say that you can use the ctrl+enter shortcut instead of pressing send, like in Outlook. You can also tab between "to:", "subject" and "body" parts of the email by just using tab (tab twice when finished entering email addresses). I much prefer using a keyboard than a mouse.

I switch between Outlook and Gmail and frequently find myself wondering why ctrl + enter doesn't work in Gmail.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#162

Post by ChuckMcM »

2arrs2ells wrote: post #102
robomartin wrote: post #66

I've been using Outlook by choice, well, forever. I won't bother listing all the reasons for this. It's powerful and it works well. And, if you are a programmer, you can go to town writing your own customizations with VBA. I use Yahoo Mail online for most of my personal stuff. Out of all the online email offerings out there I have found it to be the most "polished" (if I can use that term) and outlook-like. I tried G…

Gmail allows you to sign in to multiple accounts at the same time (in different tabs). I have two pinned tabs always open in Chrome - one for personal, one for business emails. Works incredibly well for me.

Except this only recently was made to work again (a year?) and it doesn't work across all Google properties. I agree that the new effort from Microsoft had no chance against the old gmail, against the current gmail the jury is still out :-).

What I find interesting is that its even a product. I know that sounds weird but bear with me for a moment.

Mail (the service) has changed hardly at all for a decade. You send an email, may be you attach a few files, you get the email. The biggest change was that you could send text that had been formatted with HTML so that it looked 'better' (not everyone agrees with this) than plain, monospaced text.

Its a bitch to monetize in any way except direct payment, and yet the Eudora's and other mail clients of the world have faded from memory.

Given the collective memory, is it time for mail as a service? You know you pay $12/year or something and it just works. Nobody futzes with the UI, the amount of space you get/use is entirely a function of what you're willing to pay.

The question I'm asking is this, "Have we collectively come to understand the intrinsic value of email?" If so is there a utility service business plan that makes sense now? I could certainly see how you might structure such a business.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#163

Post by 1010011010 »

robomartin wrote: post #66

I've been using Outlook by choice, well, forever. I won't bother listing all the reasons for this. It's powerful and it works well. And, if you are a programmer, you can go to town writing your own customizations with VBA. I use Yahoo Mail online for most of my personal stuff. Out of all the online email offerings out there I have found it to be the most "polished" (if I can use that term) and outlook-like. I tried G…

You're an email hipster.

Good point about the Google account bans, though. See also: Skydrive.

Bad point about mixing personal and business email in one window, though. That's a disaster waiting to happen.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#164

Post by MartinCron »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #50

Google is asleep at the wheel. This makes them look bad. Gmail blew the doors off every other webmail client when it launched 5 years ago but it's time for a rewrite. The fact that they used Gmail mobile as their "Gmail Offline" product in Chrome tells me that the current client can't be modernized. I only hope that is what the Sparrow guys are going to be working on, because Microsoft isn't the company you would exp…

it's time for a rewrite

That sent a shiver down my spine. Please, Google, don't rewrite gmail. Continue improving incrementally. Thanks.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#165

Post by MiguelHudnandez »

sebtoast wrote: post #147
dlikhten wrote: post #71

"Your password can't be longer than 16 characters." Well, it failed my test. Sorry. I never trust my emails to small hard to remember passwords. I rather trust them to very large easy to remember/type passwords. Like horses-functional-pickles Also their capcha, I cannot figure out it, i won't spend more than 2 minutes on capcha

Have you tried the audio version? It's even worse.

I tried the audio version because they kept putting "O" or zero in the captcha and it was too much of a guess. If a captcha is going to mangle characters, it must accept any of the possible valid options.

It's like they pursued test-driven development on the captcha but the only test was whether bots couldn't pass, not whether humans could pass it.

After only three attempts, it told me "You've reached the limit for number of attempts. These limits help us protect against spam from automated programs. You can try again later."

The audio captcha was so terrible that I recorded it to share with others. Oddly enough, when I played back my recording of it, it was easier to understand the "valid" words. That is very curious.

Oddly enough, I just reloaded the captcha page and it dropped me into an account and just won't let me send anything until I pass a captcha. I try every once in a while but any time I solve the captcha it gives me the rate-limiting message.

On a side note, they allowed me to sign in with my passport which does not have a Microsoft-provided e-mail address. The interface seems to presume it's responsible for my other e-mail address.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#166

Post by dredmorbius »

blhack wrote: post #110
rickmb wrote: post #72

We haven't instantly forgotten how Microsoft handles Skydrive, have we?: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4265086 I think I'll pass on putting my email through their systems. Although I have to admit this looks way better than GMail. I hope this inspires Google to do something about their interface design.

And I'm going to hope and pray that google stops screwing with their interface design. Gmail was perfect.

Good luck with that.

SAAS means you're vulnerable to vendor change with every pageload.

Though there are getting to be tools which allow you to reverse-engineer sites and design them how you want, but this is subject to a lot of churn keeping up with the SAAS vendor.

Still lovin' my mutt.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#167

Post by dredmorbius »

btilly wrote: post #63
yaix wrote: post #51

Nice UI, very light and simple, seems to be running fast even on my netbook. I guess I will start to use my 15 year old hotmail account again, good to finally have an alternative to Gmail. Only one thing: Microsoft, I know its really chiq and en-vogue nowadays to have some element with position:fixed; on every page, but please: don't! There is no reason whatsoever why I would want to see all the time the titlebar. I…

I hate position fixed stuff. I scroll a page, then have to scroll back a few lines because what I want to read next, instead of appearing next, is hidden under a titlebar that I really don't care about.

Stylish FTFW.

It's a pain maintaining override scripts for multiple sites, but pick your battles and you can make some positive improvements.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#168

Post by 1010011010 »

kmfrk wrote: post #156
rickmb wrote: post #72

We haven't instantly forgotten how Microsoft handles Skydrive, have we?: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4265086 I think I'll pass on putting my email through their systems. Although I have to admit this looks way better than GMail. I hope this inspires Google to do something about their interface design.

You needn't look any farther than Hotmail to grow wary of the merits of their new service. And there's the whole Skype brouhaha. Microsoft have an edge over Google in that they aren't perceived to be as morally bankrupt, when it comes to privacy and protecting their users (because they earn their money elsewhere), but with the Skype criticism, that may be subject to change. It's a nice flank of attack to use against…

Offering a contrary opinion: Microsoft is definitely morally bankrupt. I don't trust them at all.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#169

Post by robomartin »

1010011010 wrote: post #163
robomartin wrote: post #66

I've been using Outlook by choice, well, forever. I won't bother listing all the reasons for this. It's powerful and it works well. And, if you are a programmer, you can go to town writing your own customizations with VBA. I use Yahoo Mail online for most of my personal stuff. Out of all the online email offerings out there I have found it to be the most "polished" (if I can use that term) and outlook-like. I tried G…

You're an email hipster. Good point about the Google account bans, though. See also: Skydrive. Bad point about mixing personal and business email in one window, though. That's a disaster waiting to happen.

I don't think I said that I mix personal and business email in one window. Yes, that is a disaster waiting to happen.

No, the idea is to have tabs that you can organize based on the context you need. One tab would be personal. Another might emails from one business. The other might be setup for the other.

I wear a couple of hats, so, for example, I'd love to have a tab that's just "Business #1 Engineering" and a separate tab that's "Business #1 Business" and keep those "personalities" separate. My engineering email address is different from my business email address as I've found that this keeps the individual mailboxes cleaner overall. Just my preference. Doesn't make it right. I also have hundreds or rules and lots of VBA code in Outlook making sense out of the whole mess.

I wouldn't have been able to do what I've been doing over the last fifteen years without the level of programming and manipulation available in Outlook.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#170

Post by StavrosK »

danielweber wrote: post #133
2arrs2ells wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail allows you to sign in to multiple accounts at the same time (in different tabs). I have two pinned tabs always open in Chrome - one for personal, one for business emails. Works incredibly well for me.

How does this work? If I sign out in one tab, it signs me out in another tab, on Google Chrome. Just tested it.

Apart from Google's multiple signin, Chrome supports account profiles, so you can have two Chrome windows with completely different cookies, logins, everything.
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