Showing posts with label Hotmail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hotmail. Show all posts

Saturday, February 15, 2014

House Of Cards: Binge Watching



I never thought I'd do that. I never thought I'd binge watch, but that is exactly what I have been doing for the past few days. For as political as I am, my interest in House Of Cards comes from the tech, Netflix angle. Netflix is supposed to challenge the movie and TV industries at a most fundamental level, and it has with these episodes. I want more.

Washington, DC Is Officially OBSESSED With 'House Of Cards'
Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., who also appears in the video, won’t attend the premiere, but she said she does plan to binge-watch the series over the weekend...... With much of Washington snowed-in on Thursday, Cards fans inside the Beltway called for the early release of season two — but to no avail. “HBO made a brutal mistake by not timing the release of House of Cards with the snowstorm,” quipped Amanda Carpenter, an adviser to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
I finished the first 13 episodes of Season 1 Thursday just in time for the release of Season 2, pure coincidence. I only started two days before. No, I did not have a subscription. I have had Netflix subscription before, but I let it pass. They don't have enough movies in the purely digital section.

A few days back I got a free month trial with my Hotmail account. I knew my Hotmail account would amount to something. Just kidding. Today both Yahoo Mail and Hotmail are competitive to Gmail, Yahoo Mail for offering a terabyte of free space, and Hotmail for having a much cleaner experience than both. But when Gmail is your default email, and it is still very good, you don't switch. You use Yahoo Mail for Dropbox like storage. And, well, on Hotmail I have turned on and off the switches such that unless I have saved your email address in my address book, you can't even reach me.

Kevin Spacey Goes All House-of-Cards on Hollywood (Video)
Kevin Spacey gave what is perhaps the most cogent call to arms for the entertainment industry to please get with this Internet thing. ...... Francis Underwood — the political nightmare Spacey plays with glee — said in the first lines of “House of Cards,” as he mercy-strangles a dog, hurt badly by a car: “There are two kinds of pain. The sort of pain that makes you strong, or useless pain. The sort of pain that’s only suffering. I have no patience for useless things. Moments like this require someone who will act, do the unpleasant thing, the necessary thing.”
I lost some respect for House Of Cards and for Hollywood for the sex and murder. I mean, come on, don't insult my intelligence. In this day and age you can not be so close to being Secretary of State or Vice President and be flinging a young reporter - granted she is pretty - and not have anyone find out. You certainly can't kill - twice - and be Vice President. You can't kill when you are maybe only a day away from being sworn in. I mean, like Michael Corleone says in Godfather, "Who is being naive, Kay?" Presidents and Vice Presidents do get people killed, lots of them, but they don't get involved in petty murder.

I have personally been party to political events - and I am talking small events - that the following day made it into news, and the distortions have blown my mind. I have been like, I was there, I know all the details. And this news report is so off. So media has its prisms, and Hollywood has to have sex and murder. But then perhaps Hollywood knows how to keep people interested. You throw in the sex and the murder and people will watch. It is not Hollywood to be blamed. People get what they want. It is the masses, collectively speaking.




But then what respect House Of Cards lost with the sex and murder it gained by covering the political process well. The give and take on the Education Bill? I mean, wow. Very well done. Also, lifting the age of retirement by a few years. Kevin Spacey did it before America will. That makes this sci-fi. I guess there is such a thing as political sci-fi. We do say Political Science, don't we? At one point I was a Political Science major.

I grew up knowing Hindi movies were almost three hours, English movies were shorter - two hours. Well, this thing goes on and on, but it does because it needs to. When the treatment of the material is fair, the length does not matter. This is not a movie, yes, I know that. But then this is not television either. It is just video content. I, for one, would like numerous 30 minute movies. Of course online, preferably for free on YouTube, supported by ads, or 10 cents to watch for pay. If you did not turn a profit, it was because you could not get enough people to watch you, and that is fair.

And you thought Ashton Kutcher was the movie star who is also a tech entrepreneur. No, it's Kevin Spacey.

Kevin Spacey takes 26 hours to become President Of The United States, talk about a plot spoiler. Barack Obama has or will watch all 26 episodes. I will bet you a hundred dollars he will.



I believe The Mahabharata is over 100 episodes and way more complex a plot, way more gripping.



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Monday, June 24, 2013

Hotmail Has Come A Long Way


I have been aware of Microsoft's overhaul of its email service, but I only today tried to log in and use it. (I am a comfortable, happy user of Gmail) And, gosh, it is so impressive. It is a cleaner experience than Gmail. Although I don't see me switching. I still have my hotmail address from the late 1990s before Microsoft bought it. And it still works fine.

Yahoo Mail, on the other hand, continues to be confounding. It still is so very loaded. It is like having at least three different televisions on in your living room, at least two of which were turned on by others. I logged in there as well this morning. After trying to delete 25 messages at a time for over 30 minutes I gave up. Can I please have the option to delete all 12,000 messages in my inbox at once? Please? Maybe the feature exists, but with three televisions on, it is hard to figure out. With Hotmail on the other hand I was able to delete all 180 messages in the inbox at once. Okay, that is a hint. Yahoo's spam filter is sub par.
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Thursday, December 20, 2012

The Email Quagmire

What would a perfect email program be like? Right now that is anyone's guess. A good program would allow you to ignore all emails you don't mind ignoring.

Just like Craig's List is not one service, it is many services, email is the same way. Facebook is an email offshoot. You don't need to share photos over email anymore.

Asana doing task management takes a lot of load off email. Calendaring is another key function.

Character Limits In Email
Outlook.com: Microsoft's New Attempt At Email
Asana's Inbox: Work Email
Email Solutions


Startups Aim to Bring E-Mail Back to the Future
There hasn’t been a big shakeup since the release of Gmail in 2004, which brought threaded messages and a gigabyte of free message storage (an eye-popping amount at the time). By now, many of us are encountering so-called e-mail overload on PCs, smartphones, and tablets. And e-mail shows no sign of disappearing. ...... unlikely that we’ll see another large, independent e-mail service emerge anytime soon ... toting our Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail addresses around with us like cell-phone numbers. .... we’re trying to use it in ways that were never intended—as an organizer, for example, or to facilitate collaboration on group projects. .... Mailbox is trying to reimagine the in-box as a workflow tool ..... E-mail is based on two protocols, IMAP and POP, which are decades old and have never changed much. .... his service aims to bring context to communication—telling you what’s happening around you, who’s e-mailing you, how you’re connected, why they’re important. ..... small in-boxes, poor search, and a preponderance of spam. ...... Flow control: e-mail is always coming in, and we’re expected to be checking and responding to it at all times. ...... “Unfortunately, that’s not something you can fix with technology”
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Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Yahoo Mail Overhaul In The Offing

Image representing Yahoo! as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase
I do have a Yahoo Mail account. It is the one I never shut down. But it is not one I use. I do use it for Craig's List. But other than that.

I think I left after I'd click saying this is spam and emails from that same address would still show up.

'Age of Marissa' to kick in with Yahoo Mail overhaul?
Yahoo is readying "a major overhaul" of Yahoo Mail for December that will sport "a cleaner, 'more Gmail-like' design." .... Gmail saw 287.9 million unique worldwide visitors during the period, edging out Hotmail, which finished with 286.2 million unique visitors. Yahoo -- the once mighty e-mail power -- came in third with 281.7 million. ..... Yahoo, however, holds a comfortable lead in the United States with 76.7 million, compared to second-place Gmail with 69.1 million and third-place Hotmail with 35.5 million.
Along With New Homepage, Yahoo Also Set to Launch a “Gmail-Like” Email Reboot to Slow Gmail Gains
the latest iteration of Yahoo Mail will be released in early December, just after the new homepage is rolled out widely ..... has publicly committed the company to releasing innovative and mobile-focused products as a key differentiator
As Fantasy Football Servers Fumble on Game Day, Yahoo Rolls Out More Homepage Tests Ahead of December Launch
upwards of $350,000 for a prime placement for a day, rising in price depending on complexity. ..... Yahoo was going to veer toward a “mobile first” sensibility. “Yahoo will have to be a predominantly mobile company”
Marissa Mayer Makes Her Move at Yahoo!
At Friday's close of $17.26, the stock is up 20% from its 52-week low. ..... Mayer, who sources tell me is greatly respected in Silicon Valley, has a sort of Obama moment, if you will—in the '08 sense, not the '12 sense. Having taken a rather bad hand, she enjoys tremendous good will in her effort to restore hope to Yahoo! and engender change. ..... As powerful data centers churn out incredible computing power and analyze every single move a Web user makes on every fast new gizmo in their hands, it's time to be aggressive, Ms. Mayer.
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Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Outlook.com: Microsoft's New Attempt At Email

This move kind of surprised me. But it sure is a great move. It is a great attempt to bring the sexy back to the Microsoft brand name.

This quote below is from my first email in my Outlook.com inbox.
An experience with no compromises

Outlook.com is the first step in creating one complete experience for the next generation of communications. Email should be connected to your friends – whether they like to use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, or a combination. Email should let you get more done, faster – with immediate access to your inbox and tools that can automatically categorize, move, or delete messages you don't want. Email should be deeply integrated with other services – for Outlook.com, you'll find that Office Web Apps, SkyDrive, and, soon, Skype come built right in. And we hope you have already noticed our fast, beautiful user experience.


Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes
Webmail was first introduced with HoTMaiL in 1996. Back then, it was novel to have a personal email address you could keep for life - one that was totally independent from your business or internet service provider. Eight years later, Google introduced Gmail, which included 1 GB of storage and inbox search. And while Gmail and other webmail services like Hotmail have added some features since then, not much has fundamentally changed in webmail over the last 8 years ..... email represents 20% of the time we spend on smartphones, and is used extensively on tablets as well as PCs ..... the first email service that is connected to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and soon, Skype, to bring relevant context and communications to your email. .... 50% of the email in a typical inbox is newsletters and another 20% is social network updates.


It does look clean. But then I only have one email in the inbox, one from Microsoft itself. I am more likely to come for Skype and SkyDrive, also the Office apps. For now I think I will stick to my Gmail.

This puts Marissa Mayer under additional pressure. Yahoo also needs to reimagine its email.
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