It’s unusual for me to post so much tech stuff in one go, but a few things this week have got the focus of my attention.
Firstly, I have upgraded to Yahoo! Mail Plus. Most people might have assumed that being a web-type, I probably have my email system sorted down to a tee, but that is far from the truth. I have had my Yahoo! address from the first time I ever went onto the internet back in 1998 or sometime around then, and ever since have been reticent to change it because of the level of confusion it causes. I really don’t like it when people change their contact details, that’s why my phone number is what it is and has been since 2001, and I’m planning on keeping that way.
For a long time I have wanted to break the shackles of free mail, but there are just some conveniences that a third party webmail system provide that you just don’t get any other way. For example, I know my mail is constantly backed up, always accessible and is all in one place. The problem with free mail, especially Yahoo! Mail, is that you get silly little adverts along the bottom and your address doesn’t sound that professional either.
Over the years I’ve tried to create secondary email accounts. My main domain/work account has switched over so many times it is hard to keep track of where it is pointing, but as Yahoo! mail doesn’t allow you to assign your domain email addresses to your account it was never a satisfactory solution. That is, until now.
As you may or may not know, Yahoo! like Hotmail, is running a beta version of it’s new mail program. It’s like having Outlook or Mail running in a browser window, with full drag-and-drop for messages and attachments-upload-while-you-type. It’s really fantastic and really quite stable. I have been tres impressed.
The problem up until now is that it still sticks those silly little adverts on the ends of my email, I’m still stuck with a Yahoo! email address (albeit two now, they let us have a second one last year) and no domain attachment facility, unlike the lauded GMail service (send and receive your domain mail from your standard GMail inbox). But sometime recently they snuck this last feature into the lineup on their Plus package. So I signed up (£11.99 pa).
Finally, the adverts are gone, including the ones in my inbox. I have a full screen of pure message. The capacity has gone up to 2GB from 1GB, but this is of little concern as I keep my inbox pruned down to just the essentials. I now can send and receive not only from my Yahoo! address, so there are no lost messages, and I can confidently hand out my work email knowing that I only have to check one inbox from now on. I am very pleased, and don’t mind paying that small amount for the privilege.
All I want now is IMAP, and according to recent discoveries by other Y! Mail users, and also Apple’s announcement this week, I wouldn’t be surprised if it an option given to subscribers later this year. But even if it doesn’t happen, I’m still going to be happier with my mail than ever. The new interface is really leading the field in my opinion, and although Google has the edge with integration of all it’s other applications, I’d rather keep my Yahoo! Mail any day.
Secondly, I love this . What a brilliant idea; it’s funny nobody has tried this before. I’ve seen some unusual bastardisations of Mac Minis in the past, but this looks like great fun.
Finally, and not very tech related, I was incredibly annoyed this morning to find a book (the book was tech related) that Amazon had allocated me £2.32 to send, actually cost me £7.70 to send. I was not impressed.