I'm trying to convince a few friends to make the switch, and the main stumbling block is over forwarding. There are a few pay services, and I suppose one could pay for Hotmail POP and poll it. What are you using to escape?
Jason Adams
· 1 year ago
Excellent. The thought of all the spam you must deal with on hotmail has always made me cringe.
Nichlas
· 1 year ago
I wasn't aware that Hotmail could forward.. i think i have a load of friends ready to switch if that is the case!
Tom Clay
· 1 year ago
GMail also works with outlook.
Jamie
· 1 year ago
How do you forward email from your Hotmail address to your gmail? I need to figure this out.
Robert Scoble
· 1 year ago
Nichlas: I think I have a pro version of Hotmail, or something like that. Under my Hotmail options I have "forward email." Do you not have that option?
Francis
· 1 year ago
Why don't you just use, for example robert@scobleizer.com, and then you could forward it to wherever you wanted to without having to change email address every time.
Willem
· 1 year ago
Next step you will be looking at Google documents... Also read: Go stealth with Google Talk in Gmail at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=938. You can see who's online but we cannot see you :-(
Robert Scoble
· 1 year ago
Francis: Hotmail worked for me for 10 years. No need to change email address. Even now, I really don't need to change my email address cause Hotmail is forwarding to Gmail.
Setting up my own email domain? Requires paying someone and dealing with all that and making sure I pick someone who is good and keeps their service up.
Robert Scoble
· 1 year ago
Willem: I'm on Gtalk already. That's how I watch Twitter.
Nichlas
· 1 year ago
I'm not using hotmail myself, but i'll be sure to check next time i'm meeting a friend who are.
Maybe it's a new live mail think? it sure wasn't part of the old hotmail.
symbianguru
· 1 year ago
1. If you can POP your account, you can pull it into Gmail easily, and even send from that address with Gmail. I've currently got 4 different email addresses pulling into Gmail, and I can compose messages through there easily, as well.
2. Since you're rocking the N95, Scoble, you should check out the Gmail app. It won't notify you of new emails (Since it's a java app) but it's killer for reading and responding and organizing your mail. Even allows you to search through your old mail, right on your handset. www.gmail.com/app
Second the comment by Francis. You should use Google Apps for your Domain to make robert@scobelizer.com your address. You can use the Gmail interface to access this, or any POP/Imap client. I do this with the iPhone and it's great.
Then if 10 years from now we're all using Frebozz email, you can switch the backend without changing the public address.
Aaron
· 1 year ago
Robert you can have an email account Robert@scobleizer.com hosted by Hotmail or Gmail(they do all the email for your domain name) all you need is access to your domains a record. I have used both. I highly recommended it. And both are free.
Kiran
· 1 year ago
Kool Robert. Here is an awesome feature in Gmail that very few people know about..
Kiran: that's a great idea. Thanks Francis, I learn something every day.
neverness
· 1 year ago
@robert, it appears you've already got you're scobleizer domain, so it shouldn't be to much work to grab a free google apps account etc.
I can understand why you're making the switch, I also was a long time hotmail user untill they made the live switchover, which meant that I was actually left feeling like some second kind of user as it would constantly tell me that I wasn't able to use the full version because I wasn't using windows and internet explorer. I'm aware I'm a minority computer user as a linux user, but there's no need telling me I'm a minority as it seems most ther companies are perfectly able to provide me with a decent browsing experience without nagging me about the user or the operating system I'm using.
BTW, it seems that hotmail got progressively slower after they made the change to an all MS based infrastructure (either they didn't put in enough hardware or something else is happening there).
dbarefoot
· 1 year ago
Check out Mail Plane (http://mailplaneapp.com/). It's not perfect, but it takes Gmail out the browser and into an app, without faffing about with a full-on mail program. It's an interesting middle-ground, and I've been fairly happy using it for both our professional and personal accounts.
neverness
· 1 year ago
BTW, the gmail application on the N95 is a nice one for occasional checking you're gmail.
Gave up on Outlook years ago, and well hotmail never really appealed to me, too many mails I know I should have gotten but never got.
Jeff Bean
· 1 year ago
Will save you lots of time. Intuitively know whose address you are typing. And mobile Gmail is great. No comparison to hotmail.
francine hardaway
· 1 year ago
So proud of myself! I got there before the great Scobleizer. The mobile apps on the iPhone are unbelievable. And now you will be able to read your email like a river of news, so maybe you will read it :-)
Olav
· 1 year ago
The IT department is not there to install software on your computers. That's an usual mistake non-IT people use to make. It's like asking your plumber to wash you feet.
srikanth
· 1 year ago
It took these many years to realize this? I switched to gmail 3-4 years ago. I use hotmail on web where I must give email addresss.
Robert Scoble
· 1 year ago
srikanth: I've had a Gmail address for a long time, like you. I just never really felt impelled to totally switch over. Why? Cause I was addicted to Outlook.
Olav: when you work at some place with an excellent IT department they setup your computers, or, at minimum, make it so that you can rebuild your computers and get back to work in a few minutes. That's one thing I really miss about working at Microsoft: they make it super easy to maintain your computers.
Robert Scoble
· 1 year ago
francine: I always read all my email. It's answering it that's a pain in the behind.
Agreed that Gmail is better on the iPhone than Hotmail is. Way better.
I still prefer GMail to Zimbra but Zimbra has the whole almost desktop app replacement thing going for it, if that's your thing. I had considered using Zimbra as the front end for my GMail since you can add external accounts to manage with Zimbra but in the end I like the simplicity of GMail.
John Truong
· 1 year ago
Does Hotmail support IMAP? I used Gmail's web interface for a long time, but eventually I yearned to go back to using a full desktop app again. Gmail supports IMAP and it's great because I can access it from all kinds of fat mail clients on different platforms and all the mail stays on the server and accessible from everywhere.
Steven
· 1 year ago
John Truong: Hotmail supports an IMAP like connection over HTTP that you can only use in Outlook and Windows Live Mail.
Andrew Feinberg
· 1 year ago
Switched to GMail for my personal email when they got better integration with BlackBerry Internet, use a Hosted BES/Exchange/Entourage for my "work" email, and a BIS OWA "scrape" for my "day job" email. The nice thing is that it keeps all my appointments synched across all calendars, including google cal.
Between GMail's spam filtering for a 12+ year old email address, and Exchange's groupware capabilities while collaborating cross-country with Alex on CapitolValley, I think I've got the best of both worlds.
Simon Philp
· 1 year ago
I have had my hotmail account for many years and have to say that the spam filters over time have got alot better. I now get about 2 emails a week that get through the filters but it's easily corrected. I do like GMail but I am a sucker for a nice GUI and right now I think it's rather boring with a lot of sponsored ads. Having read some of the comments I didn't realise that gmail supported POP and IMAP protocols which is making me think again. Something I will put on my to do list.
Chris Tomkins
· 1 year ago
Hi Robert - I switched to GMail about 12 months ago and find it excellent, especially with the conversational threads and labels. The one major thing that sucks with GMail is the contacts manager/address book which is a bit basic and cannot be accessed by an API meaning you won't be able to sync with things like Plaxo. Judging by the fact that issue 25 which is requesting a contacts API on Google code is the most popular enhancement request by far I am not the only one. Could be time for you to write a blog posting on it and how it goes against OpenSocial and DataPortability, to kick them into action :)
Luke Gedeon
· 1 year ago
Cool!
Jean Moniatte
· 1 year ago
Just like some said just set up a free Google Aps account for your domain. That way you can much easier switch to another provider 5 years from now when Gmail is not the killer app amymore. Seriously.
fairmont
· 1 year ago
The new Yahoo mail is pretty impressive as well.
abutua
· 1 year ago
I hate Hotmail or Msn, because, for a lot of reasons, I always have to type the username and password twice. Once is never enough for the darn thing. I always type them correctly, and sometimes slowly too, but I still have to do it twice. Microsoft, or anything related to it, is pretty much built to piss off its users. I don't know why they wanna stop doing it. Oh, I guess it's because I'm using my Linux when I log in. Yes, I like Gmail too. I need to say "bye-bye" to Yahoo pretty soon.
Prokofy Neva
· 1 year ago
Why feed the Google people more stuff to search though, Robert, especially your private communications?
Why not use Yahoo, which does all those things you just said GMail does?
Email is boring
· 1 year ago
I have both GMail and Hotmail and both have advantages. I like how Hotmail makes organizing my mail easier. But I like I get more storage on GMail. I can use both in Outlook, which is great. I do like presence in Gmail directly integrated with other GMail users, whereas there are a few clicks with Hotmail. Overall, pros and cons to both. But email is boring. I wonder what the next big thing is, since email has become a utility anymore. Not sure that people care where you host your email when they send or receive from you...just that it works. Content is more important...so what's the next big transparent "free" step in email?
wilsonsway
· 1 year ago
@Prokofy Neva: I left Yahoo Mail Plus because they were blocking so many incoming emails in the name of spam prevention that I lost countless opportunities for work. They called it "gray-listing".
In essence, they would bounce all incoming email to see if it was authentic or something to that effect. The Techs explained it horribly.
Since moving to GMail, I've had no problems what so ever and use it's IMAP function. I also have my domain's email sent to GMail as well to take advantage of it's excellent spam killing abilities.
throk
· 1 year ago
Welcome to Gmail...
Bill
· 1 year ago
I think you should do something similar to what I do: forward e-mail from robert@scobleizer.com to your new Gmail account. In Gmail, change your account settings to make robert@scobleizer.com your default account. Then, all Gmail sent from your account will appear from your own domain.
Alternatively, you could go the Apps for your domain route, but at one point in time, the Gmail for that had slightly less functionality than the regular Gmail. That may be fixed by now, however.
RSchewe
· 1 year ago
Yeah, a key for me was free IMAP. It is nice to have everything synced nicely. Now it is actually functional.
The POP service was getting increasingly annoying. Accessing GMail via an e-mail client with POP access was pretty much useless.
jack
· 1 year ago
Welcome to Gmail.... wannabees
Adam
· 1 year ago
Am I the only person on the planet who is not a fan of Gmail?
urssanj00
· 1 year ago
gmail also supports Outlook. you can download your mails on your machine using outlook. check the settings option of your gmail account. i have configured my oulook to gmail, just i do send receive and all mails come into my local machine. i can check them any time, no need to be connected to net for that chillex.
Rico
· 1 year ago
good move, Robert! It's not only well integrated with the calendar.. hopefully they will continue to integrate it in nearly every product of google :)
... and you haven't had such a nice IMAP-integration with hotmail - have u? :)
Greetz from Switzerland.
Hisham Rana
· 1 year ago
I'll also throw in my $0.02 for Google Apps for your domain. It's very easy to do on a Wordpress site as you've seen with all the links posted above. The added benefit is that you can use IMAP so your email stays sync'd across your multiple computers and PDA/Phones. Let any of us know if you need any help setting it up.
Karthick
· 1 year ago
Ok now we need to update that video with Tim Ferris to how you use Gmail to speed process and keep inbox count minimum!
May i be privy enough to know what labels you use for your gmail and are you using outlook to retrieve your email now?
Robert Scoble
· 1 year ago
Karthick: I'm still working on that. I'm going to try to go to Gmail, instead of Outlook. I still am firing up Outlook, though.
g.thomas
· 1 year ago
Have used gmail since it started and love it. The only issue I wish they would fix is increasing the frequency with which it checks other email accounts, right now its almost hourly which is too long. Should be about 15mins...
oh2btigger
· 1 year ago
I've got a couple of gmail accounts. I still prefer the yahoo email account that I've had for 13 years. I like certain features gmail has a little better than yahoo, but it doesn't make me want to close my yahoo account.
Jeff
· 1 year ago
I have been using gmail for a while and I like it for its speed. I also still use my hotmail account. I started moving away from hotmail to gmail, but the more I used gmail, the more I found that I missed having folders and the ability to sort by a column heading (conversation, sender, date).
I thought the labels instead of folders idea was great at first, and I incorporated the concept into my Outlook 2007 setup. But I have found that there are still times when I want the ease of dragging and dropping an item into a folder...and conceptually a folder still means something to different to me than does a label.
So what do I use now? Windows Live Mail on the PC, which I like a lot, and Mail on the Mac (I have a Mac with Fusion running Leopard and Vista at home) to access both my gmail and hotmail accounts.
Netliving
· 1 year ago
Later but a good change ;)
Andrea Contino
· 1 year ago
Well, I did the opposite. After 3 years with Gmail, I dediced to go back to my Windows Live ID account. Well I waited for @live.com to do that.
The reason?
Spam.
Gmail, will be full of spam in 2 years, even if it has an excellent spam blocking, that folder is always full of shit :)
So i prefer to pay 19$ per year but to have a clean email box
Alfredo Octavio
· 1 year ago
This is where Microsoft Monopoly mentality fails in the market place. If they had concentrated in making all its products better and useful to everybody they wouldn't be in this situation. with music is even worse, they trapped their DRM into Windows, despite the growing number of consumers that were moving to Macs. Now DrM is disappearing and not a single one of their players have made a splash. If I could give them one single advice it would be this: Free your products from Windows dependency, make them work as good as your people can make them!
Charlie Barker
· 1 year ago
ZIMBRA rocks, it is fully Web 2.0 AJAX'd up to the max. It has 99.9% of the useful functionality Outlook offers. It has superfast indexed searching. It has Zimlets, cool little applets that take care of little task like hovering over a date to find out if you have any in your calendar for that day.
Daniel Goldman
· 1 year ago
I believe you have to login to Hotmail once a month to prevent them from disabling your account.
Essentially I'm marking to-do items with stars. Everything else either gets a quick archive, or I write the reply and then save it as a draft and send it later.
Ben
· 1 year ago
Shame on you. Gmail messes everything up.
David Ward
· 1 year ago
I'm still trying to figure out how you're forwarding your Hotmail to Gmail Robert. I've been a Google Apps/Gmail user for a long time but I finally convinced my wife to switch from Hotmail to Gmail after buying her a Blackberry Curve. Her Hotmail account has a forward feature but it will only forward to a Hotmail, MSN, Live or Live Custom Domains. I'd really like to figure this out...
Mailplane on the Mac is great: http://mailplaneapp.com/ Nice feature is that they have a family license ... so everybody in the Scoble Mansion can move to Gmail. Greetings!
meichelina
· 1 year ago
some gmail accounts have been attacked, any tips to protect our accounts??? http://adiestudio.com
syamsulariff.com
· 1 year ago
oh..u just switching? hm..u will miss your hotmail and outlook features :P
Erwood
· 1 year ago
Hey Robert, what do you do for the zillions of emails you had on your hotmail account?
Is there an easy way to fwd them on gmail?
Danny
· 1 year ago
I'm exactly the same, in that I've had a gmail account for years, and been thinking about making the switch for that long as well. (I've been on hotmail for over 10 years now so it's hard to leave!)
I'm wondering if the lack of folder is an issue. Right now I get my email sorted into folders as it comes in. I know you can label things on gmail, but it still goes into your inbox. With hotmail, mail I get from mailing lists, or comments on my blog, go to separate folders. When there's something in my inbox, I know it's a message for me that I need to read.
Any thoughts from a recent convert?
Michael Walsh
· 1 year ago
Hi Robert, I use Google Apps for domains but there is one serious thing that may keep you away from it (and stick with gmail).
Google Apps is a generation or two behind the gmail interface. There are no useful things that come with the new interface, like coloured labels, etc... So if you want new and shiney, stick with vanilla Gmail.com.
Steven
· 1 year ago
David Ward: you probably need to pay for Hotmail Plus. Then you get POP functionality and can add the account to Gmail.
Danny: you can use filters to auto-archive certain messages, so they'll skip your inbox. I suggest to open a Gmail account and check the features. If you don't like it, you can always cancel it later.
Brock
· 1 year ago
Looks like you switched to gmail just in time. Hotmail has been down all day.
Emre
· 1 year ago
Yes you can forward Hotmail from options screen, but read this:
"You're only able to forward mail to a custom domain or an e-mail address that ends in hotmail.com, msn.com, or live.com. Please try again"
Steve Banfield
· 1 year ago
Robert,
How are you going to use Gmail on mobile devices? Are you going to try and get it working on your N95? Given some of the limitations of Gmail's IMAP will that work for you?
It's mobile access that's kept me from making the switch.
Robert Scoble
· 1 year ago
Steve: it works great on my iPhone.
Emre: funny, Hotmail is forwarding just fine to gmail.com on my account.
Anthony
· 1 year ago
@34 You must have seen this by now for managing your contacts:
Welcome to July 2004. I can't believe anyone (let alone a huge time technology blogger like yourself) is using anything other than GMail (and a LookOut user to boot? I'm sure you'll be happy you made the switch).
Wade
· 1 year ago
Why pin yourself with a gmail.com address? Anyway, switching the other way works too.
All Comments
Also read: Go stealth with Google Talk in Gmail at
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=938. You can see who's online but we cannot see you :-(
Setting up my own email domain? Requires paying someone and dealing with all that and making sure I pick someone who is good and keeps their service up.
Maybe it's a new live mail think? it sure wasn't part of the old hotmail.
2. Since you're rocking the N95, Scoble, you should check out the Gmail app. It won't notify you of new emails (Since it's a java app) but it's killer for reading and responding and organizing your mail. Even allows you to search through your old mail, right on your handset. www.gmail.com/app
Then if 10 years from now we're all using Frebozz email, you can switch the backend without changing the public address.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/1-awesome-gmail-ti...
I can understand why you're making the switch, I also was a long time hotmail user untill they made the live switchover, which meant that I was actually left feeling like some second kind of user as it would constantly tell me that I wasn't able to use the full version because I wasn't using windows and internet explorer. I'm aware I'm a minority computer user as a linux user, but there's no need telling me I'm a minority as it seems most ther companies are perfectly able to provide me with a decent browsing experience without nagging me about the user or the operating system I'm using.
BTW, it seems that hotmail got progressively slower after they made the change to an all MS based infrastructure (either they didn't put in enough hardware or something else is happening there).
Gave up on Outlook years ago, and well hotmail never really appealed to me, too many mails I know I should have gotten but never got.
Olav: when you work at some place with an excellent IT department they setup your computers, or, at minimum, make it so that you can rebuild your computers and get back to work in a few minutes. That's one thing I really miss about working at Microsoft: they make it super easy to maintain your computers.
Agreed that Gmail is better on the iPhone than Hotmail is. Way better.
I still prefer GMail to Zimbra but Zimbra has the whole almost desktop app replacement thing going for it, if that's your thing. I had considered using Zimbra as the front end for my GMail since you can add external accounts to manage with Zimbra but in the end I like the simplicity of GMail.
Between GMail's spam filtering for a 12+ year old email address, and Exchange's groupware capabilities while collaborating cross-country with Alex on CapitolValley, I think I've got the best of both worlds.
I do like GMail but I am a sucker for a nice GUI and right now I think it's rather boring with a lot of sponsored ads.
Having read some of the comments I didn't realise that gmail supported POP and IMAP protocols which is making me think again. Something I will put on my to do list.
Why not use Yahoo, which does all those things you just said GMail does?
In essence, they would bounce all incoming email to see if it was authentic or something to that effect. The Techs explained it horribly.
Since moving to GMail, I've had no problems what so ever and use it's IMAP function. I also have my domain's email sent to GMail as well to take advantage of it's excellent spam killing abilities.
Alternatively, you could go the Apps for your domain route, but at one point in time, the Gmail for that had slightly less functionality than the regular Gmail. That may be fixed by now, however.
The POP service was getting increasingly annoying. Accessing GMail via an e-mail client with POP access was pretty much useless.
i have configured my oulook to gmail, just i do send receive and all mails come into my local machine. i can check them any time, no need to be connected to net for that chillex.
... and you haven't had such a nice IMAP-integration with hotmail - have u? :)
Greetz from Switzerland.
May i be privy enough to know what labels you use for your gmail and are you using outlook to retrieve your email now?
I thought the labels instead of folders idea was great at first, and I incorporated the concept into my Outlook 2007 setup. But I have found that there are still times when I want the ease of dragging and dropping an item into a folder...and conceptually a folder still means something to different to me than does a label.
So what do I use now? Windows Live Mail on the PC, which I like a lot, and Mail on the Mac (I have a Mac with Fusion running Leopard and Vista at home) to access both my gmail and hotmail accounts.
The reason?
Spam.
Gmail, will be full of spam in 2 years, even if it has an excellent spam blocking, that folder is always full of shit :)
So i prefer to pay 19$ per year but to have a clean email box
It has 99.9% of the useful functionality Outlook offers.
It has superfast indexed searching.
It has Zimlets, cool little applets that take care of little task like hovering over a date to find out if you have any in your calendar for that day.
http://putthingsoff.com/index.php/inbox-heaven/
Essentially I'm marking to-do items with stars. Everything else either gets a quick archive, or I write the reply and then save it as a draft and send it later.
Nice feature is that they have a family license ... so everybody in the Scoble Mansion can move to Gmail. Greetings!
any tips to protect our accounts??? http://adiestudio.com
hm..u will miss your hotmail and outlook features :P
what do you do for the zillions of emails you had on your hotmail account?
Is there an easy way to fwd them on gmail?
I'm wondering if the lack of folder is an issue. Right now I get my email sorted into folders as it comes in. I know you can label things on gmail, but it still goes into your inbox. With hotmail, mail I get from mailing lists, or comments on my blog, go to separate folders. When there's something in my inbox, I know it's a message for me that I need to read.
Any thoughts from a recent convert?
I use Google Apps for domains but there is one serious thing that may keep you away from it (and stick with gmail).
Google Apps is a generation or two behind the gmail interface. There are no useful things that come with the new interface, like coloured labels, etc... So if you want new and shiney, stick with vanilla Gmail.com.
Erwood: moving messages from Hotmail to Gmail: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/01/import...
Danny: you can use filters to auto-archive certain messages, so they'll skip your inbox. I suggest to open a Gmail account and check the features. If you don't like it, you can always cancel it later.
"You're only able to forward mail to a custom domain or an e-mail address that ends in hotmail.com, msn.com, or live.com. Please try again"
How are you going to use Gmail on mobile devices? Are you going to try and get it working on your N95? Given some of the limitations of Gmail's IMAP will that work for you?
It's mobile access that's kept me from making the switch.
Emre: funny, Hotmail is forwarding just fine to gmail.com on my account.
http://googledataapis.blogspot.com/2008/03/3-2-...
(http://www.waded.org/archives/switching-from-gm...)