Continuing from the Create An E-Mail Account section, and assuming you have Signed Out, I will now show you how to Sign In to Hotmail so you can use some of its e-mail functions.

The first thing you need to do is make sure you have the Main Internet Connection and "Are On The Internet" (see previous section) by opening an Internet Explorer window. Opening a new internet explorer window creates a new Extended Internet Connection to your Home Page (i.e. www.google.com). When your Home Page appears type www.hotmail.com into internet explorer's Address Bar edit box and then either click on the blue, right-arrow, GO button or press the ENTER keyboard key to continue.

Fig 1.0  Click on the blue, right-arrow, GO button to go to the website that is inside the Address Bar edit box

After clicking on the blue, right-arrow, GO button or pressing the ENTER keyboard key Internet Explorer disconnects its Extended Internet Connection from the current website (or webpage), i.e. your home page, and then makes a new Extended Internet Connection to the website (or webpage) you have typed into the Address Bar edit box (i.e. www.hotmail.com).

With the Hotmail website displayed in internet explorer's window, look to the right-side of that window and you should see the Sign-In to Hotmail segment.

Fig 1.1  Type in your E-Mail Address & Password and then click on the SIGN IN button to continue

Looking at the Sign In segment, you have two Edit Boxes to fill in. The first edit box is the WINDOWS LIVE ID edit box which requires your Windows Live ID (e-mail account's E-Mail Address) and the second edit box is the PASSWORD edit box which requires your e-mail account's E-Mail Password. These details were created in the previous registration section. In this example I am Signing-In (Logging-In) with the Windows Live ID yoingco2010@live.co.uk.

After filling in the WINDOWS LIVE ID and PASSWORD edit boxes there are two Tick (Check) Boxes to deal with. The first is the REMEMBER ME ON THIS COMPUTER tick box and the second is the REMEMBER MY PASSWORD tick box. REMEMBER ME ON THIS COMPUTER, when ticked, means you want this Hotmail (Windows Live ID) Sign-In webpage to automatically insert your Windows Live ID (e-mail account's E-Mail Address) into the WINDOWS LIVE ID edit box each time you want to sign-in. It does this by retrieving your Windows Live ID from the file it saves, on your computer, whenever you use the REMEMBER ME ON THIS COMPUTER option. The same applies when you use the REMEMBER MY PASSWORD option - Your password is saved onto your computer as a file but instead of filling in the PASSWORD edit box for you Hotmail automatically signs you in, so no need for you to sign in. This only works though if you do not sign-out and do not delete internet explorer's History.

When you have chosen which options to tick and/or untick, if any, click on the SIGN IN button to continue. If all goes well you will be taken to your E-Mail Account (Fig 1.4 below), otherwise you will probably see the following error message stating that the Windows Live ID and/or Password entered is/are incorrect.

Fig 1.2  The Windows Live ID and/or Password entered is/are incorrect

The above error message means you have not matched the Windows Live ID (E-Mail Address) and Password - One or both of them are incorrect. If you suspect the password is incorrect either retype it into the PASSWORD edit box or click on the FORGOT YOUR PASSWORD? link, underneath the PASSWORD edit box, to reset your password. And if you think the Windows Live ID (E-Mail Address) is incorrect, perhaps because the Domain Name should be hotmail.co.uk instead of live.co.uk, retype it into the WINDOWS LIVE ID edit box.

After clicking on the SIGN IN button (Fig 1.1 above) with the correct sign-in details you are then signed-in to your e-mail account where you can then read your new e-mail, create new e-mail, read e-mail, delete e-mail, send attachments and so on.

Fig 1.3  You are now signed-in (logged-in) to your new, free, e-mail account - Click on the INBOX link to continue

The first thing you will probably want to do, once signed-in, is click on the INBOX link (or GO TO INBOX link) to get inside the e-mail area of your e-mail account. This is where you can then read, create, delete and so on your e-mail. The e-mail account area itself is where you can change your password, manage folders and interact with the Hotmail services in general. In this example simply click on the INBOX link to continue.

An E-Mail is like a Letter. A Letter is made up of a Message (the Letter itself), an Envelope, a Stamp, a Name & Address and can have an item (i.e. a paper Photograph) enclosed as well. Whereas an E-Mail is made up of a Message (the Message itself), a Title & E-Mail Address and can have an item (i.e. a Photograph file) attached to it as well. Saying "I received a Letter today" means you received the whole thing inside one envelope, but saying "I received an E-Mail today" means you received the whole thing inside one electronic (data) file. Hence why you have to open the envelope in order to read the letter and why you have to click on an e-mail's title in order to read the message (see below).

You generally use the word E-Mail when expressing more than one e-mail ("I received some E-Mail today") and when talking about 1 received e-mail ("I received an E-Mail today"). This is the same as saying "I received some Post/Mail today" and "I received a Letter today". The word E-Mails is generally expressed as "I have recieved 3 E-Mails today, one with a Photo attached to it".

After clicking on the INBOX link you will be taken to the e-mail area of your e-mail account. It categorizes the main elements that make up your e-mail. For example. The first e-mail, which is from the Hotmail Staff, is categorized into the E-Mail Sender (Windows Live Hotmail Member Services), the E-Mail Title (Getting started with Windows Live Hotmail?) and the Date/Time the e-mail was sent (Yesterday). And the same categories are applied to every e-mail you recieve. It is Hotmail's format for categorizing your e-mail in other words.

To read (open) an e-mail's message you must first click on the e-mail's Title. In this example click on the title: Getting started with Windows Live Hotmail?. Doing so will open (display) the e-mail message (Fig 1.5 below), which is just a welcome message from the Hotmail Staff welcoming you to Windows Live Hotmail and showcasing Windows Live Hotmail features/offers.

Fig 1.4  The e-mail is has not been read yet, denoted by its Closed Envelope. Click on its Title to read its message.

You can see which e-mail messages have been read (opened) and which ones have not by looking at the envelope icon, to the left of each e-mail listing. In this example the Hotmail Staff welcome e-mail message has its envelope icon closed to denote it has not been read yet. Once you click on the e-mail's title, and therefore open the e-mail message, the envelope icon will change into an open-envelope icon upon returning to the INBOX.

Fig 1.5  You are now reading the Welcome e-mail message from the Hotmail Staff

There are two ways to delete e-mail. The first way is to click on the DELETE link when you are actually reading an e-mail's message. Doing so will delete that e-mail (its Message and any Attached Files) from your Inbox folder and send it to your Deleted folder. In this case, if you have another e-mail it will be displayed (opened/read) in place of the deleted e-mail. The second way is to tick each e-mail, you want deleted, from within the Inbox folder and then click on the DELETE link. This will delete all of those e-mails and put them into the Deleted folder.

Fig 2.0  Put a tick next to each e-mail you want deleting and then click on the DELETE link to continue

In the above example I have two new unopened/unread e-mails plus the original, opened/read, e-mail from the Hotmail Staff. I have ticked the tick box belonging to the top e-mail, titled Test2, and then clicked on the DELETE link to delete it. If I wanted to delete all three e-mails I would of ticked all three tick boxes. Clicking on the DELETE link only, without ticking at least one e-mail, will result in the following error message.

Fig 2.1  No E-Mails have been ticked - Click on OK to continue.

If you want to delete all of your e-mail in one go simply tick the top tick box, to the left of the SHOW ALL option and below the word INBOX, and then click on the DELETE link.

Fig 2.2  Tick the top tick box and then click on DELETE to delete every e-mail

When an e-mail is deleted it is put inside the Deleted folder, so that you can retrieve it if need be. Saying this however, there is a limited time (1 Day) before the contents of the Deleted folder is automatically deleted. So make sure a deleted e-mail has not been deleted by mistake. If it has you can retrieve it by going into (clicking on) the Deleted folder. From within the Deleted folder put a tick next to each e-mail you want to retrieve, click on the MOVE TO drop-down menu and then select the folder (menu-item) where you want your deleted e-mail moving to.

Fig 3.0  Click on the MOVE TO drop-down menu and then choose a Folder to move your deleted e-mail into

If you want to create a new folder, to put your important e-mail in to for example, follow these steps. Click on the blue NEW FOLDER link (located underneath the DELETED folder link), fill in the FOLDER NAME edit box that appears (Fig 4.1) and then click on the SAVE link.

Fig 4.0  Click on the NEW FOLDER link to create a new folder




Fig 4.1  Type a name for your new folder inside the FOLDER NAME edit box and then click on the SAVE link

In this example I have created a new folder called Important so that I can later move my important e-mail into it for safe keeping. After typing your folder name and clicking on the SAVE link, above the FOLDER NAME edit box, you are then taken to the Folder Management page where you get an overview of all your e-mail account folders.

Fig 4.2  The new folder, called Important, has been created

With your new folder created you can use the MOVE TO drop-down menu, within your INBOX, to move e-mails into that new folder. You do this by ticking one or more e-mails, as shown in Fig 2.0 above, and then click on the MOVE TO drop-down menu. From there select your new folder (i.e. Important) and your e-mails will be moved into that new folder....for safe keeping.

Fig 4.3  Move your e-mail into a new folder for safe keeping

To create an e-mail begin by clicking on the NEW link (located above the e-mails). This will take you to the Compose E-Mail section. From there. Fill in the necessary entries before clicking on the SEND button (explanations below).

Fig 5.0  Click on the NEW link to create an e-mail




Fig 5.1  The Compose E-Mail section - Click on the SHOW CC & BCC link....




Fig 5.2  ....to display the CC and BCC edit boxes

When the Compose E-Mail section appears (Fig 5.1 above) it does not display the CC and BCC edit boxes, simply because they are not used by everyone on a daily basis for example. Nevertheless. There may be times when you do want to use them. In which case you should click on the SHOW CC & BCC link, each time you want to use them, in order to display them (Fig 5.2 above). Here is an explanation of the Compose E-Mail elements.

From

The FROM Drop-Down Menu by default (normal behaviour) lists all the e-mail addresses associated with this e-mail account, which is usually only one - The e-mail address that was set up with this e-mail account (i.e. yoingco2010@live.co.uk). FROM tells the recipient (receiver) who this e-mail is From. If you want to add another e-mail address you can do so by clicking on the FROM drop-down menu and then click on the ADD AN E-MAIL ADDRESS menu-item - You are allowed to add up to five e-mail addresses but be warned! this is a long-winded process of verification.

To

The TO Edit Box requires at least one E-Mail Address, which is the e-mail address of the person you are writing TO. In this example TO christinetromley@live.co.uk. If you want to send the same email to more than one person simply press the SPACE BAR keyboard key or the Comma keyboard key to separate each e-mail address. For example. contactjohn@vistalessons.com(press , here)christinetromley@live.co.uk and so on. Each e-mail address within the TO edit box is given its own entry (box space).

Bc

The BC Edit Box is optional. When used, a copy of this e-mail will be sent as a Blind Copy to the e-mail address(es) that have been typed into the BC edit box. For example. If I typed contactjohn@vistalessons.com into the BC edit box a copy of this e-mail would be sent to both christinetromley@live.co.uk and contactjohn@vistalessons.com. christinetromley@live.co.uk would see/think she was the only one who was sent this email, because she would not know a copy was sent to contactjohn@vistalessons.com (she cannot see BC e-mail addresses), but contactjohn@vistalessons.com would see/know that he himself was sent a copy and that christinetromley@live.co.uk was also sent a copy (he can see TO e-mail addresses). If the CC edit box had been filled in (see below) both christinetromley@live.co.uk and contactjohn@vistalessons.com would be able to see the CC e-mail addresses as well.

Cc

The CC Edit Box is optional. When used, a copy of this e-mail will be sent as a Carbon (exact) Copy to the e-mail address(es) that have been typed into the CC edit box. For example. If I typed contactjohn@vistalessons.com into the CC edit box a copy of this e-mail would be sent to both christinetromley@live.co.uk and contactjohn@vistalessons.com. christinetromley@live.co.uk would see/know that I have sent a copy to contactjohn@vistalessons.com, and contactjohn@vistalessons.com would know that I have sent a copy to christinetromley@live.co.uk.

The only difference between BC and CC is that BC is sent Blindly, whereas CC can be seen by all. BC is good when you do not want the recipients to know each other and/or to know that a copy of the e-mail was sent to others.

Subject

The SUBJECT Edit Box requires a Title - Something to do with the nature of the e-mail. For example. If you were talking about a trip to Europe your title might be European Tour, Train Information, Itinerary or whatever.

Try not to send an e-mail with a Junk Mail type of Subject. For example. How are you, Hello John, You want to see this! and so on. These kinds of subjects (titles) are what Junk Mailers/Spammers use to attract you to their bad e-mails. So if you receive an e-mail with a subject like those I have just mentioned try to ignore it - If you do open it because it is from someone you know ask them not to use that kind of Junk Mailer/Spammer subject again and to identify themselves and/or their subject matter next time.

Instead of using How are you for example why not use John, its been Ages. You going to McJohn's NightClub tomorrow?. Then in the message you elaborate on the details for the NightClub meeting and how come it has been Ages. The point here is that the subject was personal by mentioning a meeting at a local NightClub - A Junk Mailer/Spammer should not be this personal. If they are you should report this to your ISP and/or to a governing Internet authority as this type of junk e-mail would/should be a matter of concern.

Note well. Some ISP's do not like to receive an e-mail without a Subject - They may think the e-mail is Junk Mail or a Virus and not send the e-mail any further. They might even send you an error message saying so (i.e. "E-Mail had no Subject"...."Could not process this e-mail"). So always give your e-mail a subject.

Message

The MESSAGE Edit Box requires a Message, realistically with at least one word inside it. Normally though the message should be in the form of a small note or a letter.

Note well. Just the same as the Subject, some ISP's do not like to receive an e-mail without a Message - They may think the e-mail is Junk Mail or a Virus and not send the e-mail any further. They might even send you an error message saying so (i.e. "E-Mail had no Message"...."Could not process this e-mail"). So always give your e-mail a message.


When you have filled in the relevant edit boxes (TO, SUBJECT and MESSAGE) the last thing to do is click on the SEND button (Fig 5.2 above) to actually send the e-mail to Hotmail's E-Mail Server (Hotmail's E-Mail Computer) for processing. You will know if the e-mail was processed properly, and therefore forwarded on to the recipient's E-Mail Server (i.e. the live.co.uk E-Mail Server) for further processing, because you will see the following message/acknowledgement from Hotmail. Whether or not the e-mail is successfully processed to the stage where it reaches the recipients Inbox is a different story!!

Fig 5.3  The e-mail was successfully sent to the recipient's E-Mail Server, for further processing.

The above message/acknowledgement only means the e-mail was successfully sent to the recipient's E-Mail Server, as explained above. Whether or not the e-mail was classed as a Virus or Junk Mail depends on Hotmail's and the recipient's E-Mail Servers. More specifically on their Filtering methods. If all goes well the recipient should find the e-mail in their Inbox within 24 hours, depending on the processing time. Sometimes an e-mail can arrive in a recipient's Inbox within minutes of the sender sending the e-mail, but on other occasions an e-mail can take up to 24 hours to arrive for example. Especially if an E-Mail Server is too busy.

If you want to add the recipient's e-mail address to your Contacts List you can do so by filling in the FIRST NAME and LAST NAME edit boxes and then click on the ADD CONTACT button. If you then want to add more information about the contact (recipient) you can do so by clicking on the CONTACTS folder and then use its functions to add more information like the recipient's House Address, Telephone Number and so on. After clicking on the ADD CONTACT button you will be sent back to the INBOX folder.

Note. Some e-mail accounts, such as Hotmail e-mail accounts, now require a 'first time only' human verification when sending out your very first e-mail. This is a Human Identifier Code verification process whereby you have to enter special characters into a verification edit box before your first and subsequent e-mails are allowed to be sent.

Fig 6.0  Click on the MARK AS SAFE link first, only if you know the e-mail to be safe, and then click on the REPLY link to continue

After reading an e-mail you can reply to it by clicking on the REPLY link, which will take you to the Reply section (below). One thing you might want to do before that though is click on the blue MARK AS SAFE link, if it is available, in the FROM heading. An e-mail can be marked as unsafe by default if it is using an unknown e-mail address (not in your Contacts List) and/or has certain elements inside it that Hotmail feels could be Junk and/or a threat/danger. If you do not mark this type of e-mail as safe the reply will not contain the original e-mail message (this e-mail's message). So click on the MARK AS SAFE link first, only if you know the e-mail to be safe (i.e. it is from a friend), and then click on the REPLY link to continue.

Fig 6.1  Compose (Write) your reply e-mail and then click on the SEND link to send it

You reply to an e-mail in the same way as you send an e-mail. The only differences are that the Subject edit box is automatically filled in with RE: plus the original sender's subject and the Message edit box is automatically filled in with the original sender's message (only if the e-mail is marked as safe by you or automatically by Hotmail). These filled in differences, which can be edited, can serve as a reminder as to what you and the sender were previously talking about - You may have to scroll down the message edit box in order to see the complete message.

A copy of all sent messages are stored inside the SENT folder by default - A reply is classed as a sent message, so if you need a copy of a reply for evidence/receipt purposes for example look inside the SENT folder.

Fig 7.0  Click on the ATTACHMENT Paper Clip icon or on the ATTACHMENTS link to continue

To attach a file to your email click on the ATTACHMENTS link, or on the Paper Clip icon (Fig 7.0 above), to bring up the OPEN File Requester (Fig 7.1 below) that allows you to choose one file at a time to attach to your e-mail.

Fig 7.1  Select one file and then click on the OPEN button to continue

In this example I have navigated the file requester to my PICTURES folder, clicked on a Photograph file called IMG_1158.jpg and then clicked on the OPEN button. Your chosen file can come from any source that allows storage. Meaning, the file could come from a CD, a Flash (Memory) Drive, inside the DOCUMENTS folder and so on.

After clicking on the OPEN button the file requester closes and returns you back to the Compose E-Mail section (Fig 7.2 below) where you will then see the green progress (uploading status) guage filling up. Wait until your chosen file has been scanned (i.e. for viruses) and then uploaded to the Hotmail E-Mail Server (attached to your e-mail) before clicking any other buttons/links or typing anything. Otherwise you will be giving Hotmail another task/process to do which might crash/freeze Hotmail if you are not careful. So wait for the green progress guage to fill up, in other words.

Fig 7.2  Wait for the green progress guage to fill up or click on CANCEL (x) to cancel the attachment process (file upload)

The speed of an upload depends on the speed of your Extended Internet Connection. For example. If you have two Extended Internet Connections open. One to the Hotmail website (www.hotmail.com) and one to the BBC website (www.bbc.co.uk). Depending on the amount of content (i.e. text and pictures) each website had to display (download from their servers/computers to your Internet Explorer) could mean that the Hotmail website is faster than the BBC website, purely because the BBC website has more content to display. However. If there is a connection problem with Hotmail for example, such as too many people connecting to www.hotmail.com in order to read (download) their email, your Extended Internet Connection to Hotmail could suffer in terms of speed due to the new number of people now connected to Hotmail.

This is because those newly connected people would now be sharing, with you, the Hotmail server and more importantly its resources (i.e. its Memory and Hard Drive space). In other words. Each time you make an Extended Internet Connection to a website you are using a piece of that website's server/computer, as is everyone else, therefore too many Extended Internet Connections to that website can cause it to become slow or shutdown altogether. Hence error messages such as "Page Could Not Be Displayed", "Server Not Responding" and so on.

Once your chosen file has been attached (uploaded to the Hotmail E-Mail Server) you can then fill in the TO, SUBJECT and MESSAGE edit boxes as normal before clicking on the SEND link. If you need to remove (delete) an attached file, for whatever reason(s), you can do so by clicking on the X next to that attached file's file size.

Fig 7.3  Click on the SEND link to send the e-mail, with your chosen file(s) attached to it.

A good reason for not filling out the TO, SUBJECT and more importantly the MESSAGE edit box before all of your chosen files have been attached is because of the crash/freeze factor explained above. It is not very nice to have spent 30 minutes for example writing out your message only for the Attach File process to crash/freeze the Computer/Hotmail. Freezing normally occurs when you are impatient. For example. You have a massive photograph file being attached, but because you are impatient you do other things with Hotmail and/or the Computer that cause one or both to crash/freeze - because one or both have been given too much work to do and so too many resources (i.e. memory and graphics) are being used.

Your impatience is slowing everything down. Another thing to do is keep your attached files small - Get yourself a Photo Resizer program or use the one that came with your printer/scanner to reduce the size of your photo files. This will allow you to send (attach) more photo files. The same applies to files in general - Try and make them as small as possible. You should also consider ZIPping (compressing) large groups of files.

These last two sections have shown you how to create a Free Hotmail E-Mail Account and how to use that account in a general/basic way. However. To understand more about E-Mailing, What an e-mail actually is and What you can do with the E-Mail Client (program) called Windows Mail I advise you to read the Windows Mail category.

Regardless of which company you get your free e-mail account from they are all more or less the same when it comes to setup. In other words. They all ask basic questions, similar to the Hotmail questions, in order to create your free e-mail account. And while many companies tend to adopt their own look and feel to the account (i.e. the way you sign-in to your account, the way you manipulate your e-mail and so on) these companies also tend to follow the giant companies such as Hotmail and Yahoo in terms of features and usage, in order to make life easy and compatible.

Microsoft product screen shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation.  As stated here by the Microsoft Corporation.