This post sponsored by Outlook.com:

By now you may have heard that Microsoft is retiring it's Hotmail service and replacing it with the new Outlook.com. If you're in the market for a new email service or simply curious to see what other options are out there, head to www.Outlook.com to sign up for your free account.

If you're an existing Hotmail user you can upgrade your experience to
the new Outlook.com right now and rename your email address from
SteamPunk4Evar@hotmail.com to something that might look a little more
professional on your resume (like Your.Actual.Name@outlook.com). Don't
worry, you can keep your SteamPunk4Evar@hotmail.com address as an
alias.

Outlook.com is currently "in preview" meaning that the boffins who build the service are still fine tuning the experience and adding new features. One of the features currently being worked on is Skype integration. Very soon you'll be able to launch and receive Skype video calls from within your Outlook.com inbox. (more…)

This post sponsored by Outlook.com:

Imagine you have an account with a major free webmail provider. You log into your account via your web browser and notice ads in your inbox and when you read a message. Now imagine that these ads are displayed based on what you write in the email you send as well as the content of the emails you receive. Oh, and the ads are also influenced by the videos you watch, the stuff you search for and the files you upload while on your webmail providers network of sites and services.

Sound unlikely? In 2009, Carnegie Mellon researchers conducted a study about behavioral online advertising and nearly 60% of the participants didn't believe that email providers (like Gmail) could serve ads in this fashion. In fact, a third of the participants thought laws or consumer backlash would put an end to this kind of advertising before it even started.

Outlook.com doesn't force you to trade your privacy for a free webmail account. (more…)

This post sponsored by Outlook.com:

Go and look at your inbox right now. Go on, I'll wait. Done? Good. For the majority of you, over 80% of the email you receive is something called graymail. It's not spam, but it's also not higher priority messages from friends, family or colleagues that you're more likely to read and respond to. Newsletters, social updates and daily deals are all examples of graymail and left unattended they can take over your inbox pretty quickly.

Now here's a little secret; Microsoft didn't entirely build the recently released Outlook.com preview from scratch. Under the hood, Microsoft took the best tools and features originally developed for Hotmail – such as those designed to tackle graymail – and incorporated them into the new service. (more…)