The Scrolls

Posts Tagged ‘email’

Did you know?

I just thought I’d make a neighbourhood PSA (that’s public service announcement for those of you not “in the know”) that you no longer need any workarounds to access Hotmail e-mail from the client of your choice. For a long time I’d been using Hotmail Popper (free free version), until Hotmail recently changed how things work and it stopped working. From there, I switched to the Webmail/Hotmail plugins for Thunderbird which worked well for some time – until it stopped working for both of my Hotmail accounts. While trying to find a remedy for that situation, I discovered that you don’t even need a plugin because Hotmail actually does offer POP3 support – even though they keep telling me otherwise via annoying little announcements in my inbox.

Really, though, this is a good thing for a lot of people because Hotmail is such a popular provider. I just wish they hadn’t gone about it so “sneakily” so that people could actually know about it, you know?

Here’s how:

• POP server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)
• POP SSL required? Yes )This means check SSL on Thunderbird)
• User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
• Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live
• SMTP server: smtp.live.com (Port 25) {Note: If port 25 has been blocked in your network or by your ISP, you can set SMTP port to 587 with TLS or SSL Encryption depending on the client in use}
• Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)
• TLS/SSL required? Yes

Forward This!

Dear friends and family,
I would like to invite you to check out Snopes.com. Snopes investigates and debunks many popular urban legends such as the ones found in numerous e-mail forwards. In addition to this, Snopes investigates fraudulent and email scams that spread rapidly through inboxes all over the internet.

So whether it’s a dying girl, a Nigerian business proposal, a lost child or a super cool image (promised after your send to X amount of people), an unbelievable picture (which has undoubtedly been Photoshopped or a way to scam (“raise money for X cause”) money from Bill Gates, you can check its validity at Snopes.com. And if it’s not there yet? Submit it and let them figure it out.

Unfortunately, you cannot believe all you see, especially online. While some causes may tug at our heartstrings or we may see things that show the best (or worst) of people and want to get behind the cause, often the story is far from what really happened (like the game telephone) and forwards are well honed over time, becoming works of art. Even if a story has names, dates and addresses which may seem real, the people often do not exist or, if they do, have nothing to do with it.

So please, if you must forward, do so with prudence. For all our sakes, please.