Fig 1.0 Click on the blue Right-Arrow (GO) button to go to the website that is inside the Address Bar edit box
| USING HOTMAIL |
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 click on the blue Right-Arrow (GO) button.
After clicking on the blue Right-Arrow (GO) button 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 the next thing to do is look to the right-side of the
window. There you will see the Sign In to Hotmail segment.
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 (User Name) and the second edit box is the PASSWORD Edit Box which requires your
Password. These details were created in the previous registration section. In this example I am Signing In with the
Windows Live ID yoingco2008@hotmail.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 Sign In webpage to automatically insert your Windows Live ID 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 un-tick, 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.
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 re-type 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 live.co.uk istead of hotmail.co.uk, re-type it into the
WINDOWS LIVE ID (E-Mail Address) edit box.
After clicking on the SIGN IN button (Fig 1.1 above) the following may appear just before you are taken into your e-mail
account. It is informing you that the sign in process may be taking too long and so gives you the option to revert to the,
quicker, Classic Hotmail interface. As said in the previous section, the Full version interface is ideal for Broadband
Internet users and the Classic version interface is ideal for P.A.Y.G Internet users. If you do think the Full version
interface is taking too long to load up simply click on the TRY THE CLASSIC VERSION link.
Regardless of which interface you are using, Classic or Full, click on the INBOX button to get inside the e-mail area of
your e-mail account where you can then read/create/delete/etc e-mails.
To read (open) an e-mail's message you must first click on the e-mail's Title. The first e-mail message you receive will be
from the Hotmail Staff, welcoming you to Hotmail and giving you tips/guidance. As well as showcasing Hotmail features/offers.
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 have to click on the email's title in order to read the message.
| DELETE E-MAIL |
There are two ways to delete e-mail. The first way is to click on the DELETE button 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 button. This will delete all of those e-mails and put them into the Deleted folder.
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 put a tick next to the top e-mail, titled E-Mail Test 2, and then clicked on the DELETE button to delete it. The tick box automatically appears when you hover over an e-mail. If I wanted to delete all three e-mails I would of put a tick next to each one of them. Clicking on the DELETE button only, without putting a tick next to at least one e-mail, will result in the following error message.
If you want to delete all of your e-mail in one go simply tick the top tick box, to the left of the Sort By.... drop-down menu, and then click on the DELETE button.
| RETREIVE DELETED E-MAIL |
When an e-mail is deleted it is put inside the Deleted folder, so that you can retreive 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 retreive it by going into (clicking on) the Deleted folder. From within the Deleted folder put a tick next to the e-mail's title, click on the MOVE TO drop-down menu and then select the folder (menu-item) where you want your deleted e-mail moving to.
| CREATE A FOLDER |
If you want to create a new folder simply click on the Down-Arrow part of the NEW drop-down menu, to see its options, and then select the FOLDER option (menu-item). From there, rename your New Folder to something more significant like Dont Delete, Important or whatever. After giving your New Folder a name press the ENTER keyboard key, or click anywhere inside the white space of the main window, to set the new folder's name.
|
|
|
With your new folder created you can use the MOVE TO drop-down menu to move e-mails into your 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-mail(s) will be moved into that new folder....for safe keeping.
| CREATE AN EMAIL |
To create an e-mail either click squarely on the NEW button (located above the Inbox folder) or click on the NEW button's drop-down menu and then select the MESSAGE menu-item. This will take you to the Compose E-Mail section.
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. 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 drop-down menu and then selecting ADD AN E-MAIL ADDRESS - You are allowed to add up to five e-mail addresses but be warned! this is a long-winded process of verification, etc.
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 contactjohn@yoingco.com. If you want to send to more than one person you must seperate each e-mail address with a comma (,). For example. contactjohn@yoingco.com,capili@hotmail.co.uk and so on.
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 capili@hotmail.co.uk into the BC edit box a copy of this e-mail would be sent to both contactjohn@yoingco.com and capili@hotmail.co.uk. contactjohn@yoingco.com would see/think he was the only one who was sent this email, because he would not know a copy was sent to capili@hotmail.co.uk, but capili@hotmail.co.uk would see/know that he himself was sent a copy and that contactjohn@yoingco.com was also sent a copy. If the CC edit box had been filled in (see below) both capili@hotmail.co.uk and contactjohn@yoingco.com would be able to see the CC e-mail address(es) 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 capili@hotmail.co.uk into the CC edit box a copy of this
e-mail would be sent to both contactjohn@yoingco.com and capili@hotmail.co.uk. contactjohn@yoingco.com would see/know that
I have sent a copy to capili@hotmail.co.uk, and capili@hotmail.co.uk would know that I have sent a copy to contactjohn@yoingco.com.
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 Europeon 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. For example. Instead of How are you why not 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 relavent 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 yoingco.com
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!!
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 ocassions 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 clicking 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 ADD CONTACT you will see a message stating Already A Contact, which should be interpreted as Now A Contact. Otherwise
you might mis-interpret this as the contact was aleady a contact, contact has been added to your contacts list before and
so on.
| REPLY TO AN EMAIL |
After reading an e-mail you can reply to it by clicking on the REPLY button, which will take you to the Reply section.
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. 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 - 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.
| ATTACH A FILE |
To attach a file to your email click on the ATTACH button's drop-down menu and then select the FILE menu-item (Fig 7.0 above). This will bring up a File Requester (Fig 7.1 below) that allows you to choose one file at a time to attach to your e-mail.
In this example I have navigated the file requester to my Europe 2007 sub-folder, a sub-folder inside my Pictures folder,
clicked on a Photograph file 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 a Circle Guage spinning around 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). It is very important that you wait for the Circle
Guage to finish because typing while your chosen file is being attached for example is not a good idea - You would be giving
Hotmail another task/process to do which might crash/freeze Hotmail if you are not careful.
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 button. If you need to remove (delete) an attached file, for
whatever reason(s), you can do so by clicking on the REMOVE button next to that attached file.
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.
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.
All HTM files in the yoingco.com folder and its sub-folders are (c) John White, August 3rd 2005 - 2008. All Rights Reserved. FREE Vista Helpline: Contact John