HOTMAIL TIP S

HOTMAIL TIP SHEET

Email provides individuals with a quick and easy way to correspond with anyone possessing a computer and a connection to the Internet. Not only does email provide users with a convenient means for communicating via the World Wide Web, email programs also allow you to send digital photographs and other documents (like digital photographs, sound files, or a document created using Microsoft Word) as attachments. And this all occurs almost instantaneously, so there is no waiting for the postal service to transport your correspondence. This tip sheet discusses the Hotmail email program, which is available for free.

A Note About Space

Think about a written letter. It might be half a page long. It might be 20 pages long. One page requires a single sheet of

paper; the other will require 10 or more (depending on whether or not you write on both sides). These same two letters

composed as emails also require space, but, instead of paper, emails require disk space, which is measured in bytes. The longer your email, the more disk

Measuring Space in the Computer World

space you will need to save that message. As such, disk space is an important consideration. Some email programs (like Hotmail) cap the amount of content you can store (for example, Hotmail limits users to just over 7.5 GB of space).

Smallest unit = 1 byte 1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte (KB) 1000 KB = 1 megabyte (MB)

Hotmail, on the other hand, offers users unlimited space. This means that you never need to worry about your Inbox filling up. The chart to the right shows

1000 MB = 1 gigabyte (GB) 1000 GB = 1 terabyte (TB)

how disk space is measured.

A Note About Spam

The term `spam' refers to unwanted, unsolicited email (i.e. junk mail). If you only give out your email address to friends and family, you will probably never receive spam. If you use your email to purchase items online or to register for promotions or online services, you may end up receiving spam as some companies/organizations will sell email addresses to other companies and organizations. If you plan to do a lot of shopping online, it is suggested that you create a separate email account for shopping and only use your primary account for corresponding with friends and family.

Signing Up for Hotmail

1. Go to , look for the text that reads "Don't have a Windows Live ID?", and click the "Sign Up" button (note: Hotmail is part of Windows Live, which includes other tools not covered in this tip sheet)

2. You will now be asked to provide Hotmail with some personal information: Your desired Hotmail address (or username) must be unique; no other Hotmail user can have the same username as you (note: your username is the first part of your email address, e.g. username@) Your password does not need to be unique, but it should be difficult for others to guess o Good passwords include a mix of letters and numbers; better still, they include some uppercase and some lowercase letters Although the page you are looking at says that all of the information is required, you do not need to provide a mobile phone number (although it is recommended) You must provide an alternate email address or choose and answer a security question; if you ever forget your password, you will be able to reset it by answering the security question or by having a reset message sent to your alternate email address

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 The name you enter will display when you send a message to someone, so if you want your friends to know a message is from you, you should enter your actual first and last name

Select your country and ZIP code, and choose the appropriate gender (this will impact the type of advertising you see and the time stamp associated with your messages)

Use the dropdown menus to enter your birthday Fill in the word verification request (this is how Hotmail determines that you are a human, and not a

computer program, that's trying to set up an account) Uncheck the box below the word verification request if you don't want to receive promotional offers Click the "I accept" button at the bottom of the page 3. Once you've worked through the above steps, you will be re-directed to the Windows Live homepage. You can access your Hotmail account by clicking the "Hotmail" link near the top of the page, or the "Go to Inbox" link slightly below that (see the image to the right) If you would prefer to go directly to Hotmail after logging in, you

will need to adjust your settings as follows (you only need to do this once):

o Click your name in the upper right-hand corner of the screen o On the dropdown menu that appears, choose "Options" o Under the `Home' heading, click the "Customize Windows Live Home" link o Select the option that reads "Show me my inbox when I sign in" o Click the "Save" button o You can get back to your inbox by clicking the "Go to inbox" link along the left side of the page The rest of this tip sheet assumes you have made the above change!

Signing In

1. Once you have an account, go to 2. Enter your username and password in the appropriate fields 3. Click the "Sign in" button, or press the ENTER key on your keyboard

Your Inbox

After you sign in to Hotmail (and, again, the following assumes you made the settings change mentioned in Step 3 in the section "Signing Up for Hotmail" above), the first screen you will see is your Inbox. This is where any messages you have received will be displayed. Worth noting are the small icons that appear next to the sender's name and/or the subject line.

The checkbox is used to select a message (or messages) so that another task can be performed--like, deleting messages, moving messages to a folder, and more. For example, if you want to delete a message from your Inbox, check the box to the left of the message, then click the "Delete" button above the list of messages.

If a green shield appears (as does in the image above), then the message is from someone you've designated as a "trusted sender". A sealed, yellow envelope (again, see the above image) indicates that the message is new and has not been read; however, if the envelope is white and the top flap appears to have been opened, then the message has been opened and read at some point in the past. If you have replied to or forwarded a message, then an arrow will appear on top of the opened envelope image (a purple arrow for a message you've replied to, and a blue arrow for a message you've forwarded to someone else). The flag next to the subject line can be clicked to mark a message as important. When you click the

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arrow, it will turn red (click a second time to "unflag" a message). Messages flagged as important always appear at the top of the list of messages in your Inbox regardless of when you received them.

Sending an Email

There are two main reasons for using email: 1) to send messages, and 2) to reply to messages. Let's start with sending email messages. Toward the top-right corner of the page is a small link that reads "New". Find this link, and ready to compose your first message. Follow these steps:

1. Click the "New" link

You will now be looking at the compose message screen. Note that there are three boxes: the long box next to `To:', the long box next to `Subject:', and a large box that takes up most of the screen (let's call this the `Body' box).

2. Type the email address of your recipient in the `To:' box If this is the first time you are sending the recipient an email message, you will need to type in the recipient's entire email address (e.g. recipient@) If you have emailed the recipient in the past, you can simply type in the first few letters of the recipient's first or last name, or the recipient's email address (this will prompt Hotmail to search your account's built-in address book for matching names/addresses and to suggest recipient email addresses); when this list appears, click on the appropriate suggestion to have Hotmail fill in the rest of recipient's email address in the `To' box

3. Enter a short statement in the `Subject' box that indicates the topic/purpose of your message 4. Compose your message in the large `Body' box 5. Click the `Send' link near the top-right corner of the screen

If you decide after composing your message that you don't actually want to send it, you can either click the "Save draft" button to save a draft version of your email, or you can click the "Cancel" button to get rid of the message.

You should be re-directed back to your Inbox. If you aren't, click "Inbox" from among the list of options along the left side of the screen.

Reading Email Messages from Others

Sometimes we're not the ones who initiate an email conversation; sometimes an acquaintance, colleague, or family member contacts us. When this happens, a new message will appear in your Inbox. When looking at messages in your Inbox, click on the name of the sender or the subject of the message to open the message. Once the message is open, read through it. You now have six options:

1. You can log out of your account; if you do this, the message will remain in your Inbox 2. You can return to your Inbox by clicking the "Inbox" option along the left side of the screen; if you do this, the

message will remain in your Inbox 3. If you have created folders (more information later in this tip sheet), then you can drag the message to a folder; this

will remove the message from your Inbox, store it in the folder, and make it easy to access 4. You can delete the message by clicking the "Delete" link, which is displayed among a horizontal row of links near

the top of the screen; this will move the message to your Deleted folder, where it will be deleted permanently after a few days

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5. You can forward the message on to another person by clicking the small downward-pointing arrow next to the "Reply" button near the top-right corner of the box displaying the message you're reading, and choosing the "Forward" option; you will then have to enter the email address of the person to whom you want to forward the message, and click "Send"

6. You can reply to the message by clicking the "Reply" button near the top-right corner of the box displaying the message you're reading

Replying to an Email

If you choose to reply to a message, start by clicking the "Reply" button near the top-right corner of the box displaying the message you're reading. This will take you to a screen that looks exactly like the screen you see when composing a new message; however, you will see the sender's email address in the `To:' box, the subject in the `Subject:' box, and the original message (along with information about the sender) in the large `Body' box that takes up most of the screen. All you need to do at this point is type your reply and click the "Send" button; however, you can, if you want, edit the subject line.

Attaching a File to an Email

Email allows you to do more than simply send messages; you can also send files--like digital photos, documents, and music files. If you need to include a file with your email, click the "New" button and write your email as you normally would. When you're ready to attach the file, look for the `Attachments' link just below the Subject box. Click the link, browse to the file on your computer, then double-click the file to attach it to the email. It may take a few seconds to upload. Once the upload process is complete, the file will be attached and listed just below the Subject box. Note: to the right of the attachment is an `X'. If you decide you don't want to include the attachment, simply click the `X' to remove it.

You cannot upload attachments larger than 25 MB in Hotmail. If you have a file to send that is larger than 25 MB, you will need to find another way to send that file.

Viewing/Downloading a File from an Email You've Received

If you receive an email that contains a file attachment, you will first want to verify that you know and trust the sender. If you do not, you should not open or download the attachment; it might contain a virus. If, however, you know and trust the sender, you will probably want to do one of two things: open the file to view it, or download and save the file to your computer.

When you receive an email containing an attachment, the attached file(s) will be listed above the text of the message. To the right of the name of the file you will see a number indicating the size of the file, a link labeled "View online", and a link labeled "Download". If you click "View online", Hotmail will open the document in a new browser tab (Note: that documents created using Microsoft Office products like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint will be displayed using the corresponding Microsoft Web App program, i.e. Word Web App, Excel Web App, etc.). If you click "Download", you will be prompted to choose where you want to save the file on your computer. Once you have designated where you want to save the file (and potentially renamed the file), click the "Save" button. You can now use Windows Explorer to navigate to the file on your computer and open it.

Using Folders to Organize Emails

Folders are the primary means of organizing messages in Hotmail. Sure, you could delete every message after you've read them or leave them in your Inbox, but given the fact that Hotmail offers unlimited storage space, why not hold on to the important messages and do so in a way that keeps your Inbox from getting cluttered? That's where folders come in. Here's

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an example: you pay some of your bills online (e.g. your gas bill), and you want to keep a record of the receipts for your payments. But rather than allow those receipts to get buried in Inbox, why not create a folder called "Gas Bill" and store all of the emailed payment receipts in that folder?

The thing is: creating folders and moving messages from your Inbox to specific folders is easy. The following describes the process for creating folders and for moving messages from you Inbox to a folder (or from some other folder to another):

1. In the list of locations along the left side of the screen, click the blue link labeled "New folder" 2. Type the name of your folder 3. Press the ENTER key on your keyboard

To move a message from one folder to another (for example, from your Inbox to the hypothetical "Gas Bill folder mention above), you have two options:

Option 1: Click "Inbox" (or the appropriate folder name) from among the list of options along the left side of the screen, click on the message you want to move and hold the mouse button down, then drag the message to the destination folder listed along the left side of the screen so that the point of the mouse is directly over the name of the destination folder, and release the mouse button.

Option 2: Open the message you want to move, click the "Move to" link that is listed among the list of options displayed above the message, then click on the destination folder listed on the dropdown menu that appears.

To view the contents of a folder, simply click the folder name listed along the left side of the screen.

Searching for Messages

The easiest way to find a message from among those saved in all locations in your Hotmail account is to use the "Search email" box that appears near the top-right corner of the screen. Simply type in a contact's name, a contact's email address, or a keyword, and click the "Search Mail" button. Hotmail will then display all messages in your account that meet the search criteria.

Populating Your Address Book

Hotmail will automatically save the email address of anyone you email in your Contacts folder (some folks refer to this feature as an "address book"). You can also manually add individuals to your Contacts.

1. Click the "Contacts" link just below the Hotmail logo 2. Click the "New Contact" button along the left side of the screen 3. Add as much information for that contact as you would like (you should at least type in the name and email

address) 4. Click the `Save' button

If you have recently switched from another email provider to Hotmail, you can import contacts into your Hotmail account from that older account. To do so, click the "More" button along the top of the list of Contacts, then choose "Import". Next, click the "Learn more" link in the pop-up window, and follow the instructions to import your contacts into Hotmail.

Settings

Click your name in the top right corner of the screen to display a short dropdown menu. Choose "Options" at the bottom of that list. You will be directed to a page that displays a number of features that can be customized. Explore and enjoy!

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