Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Software News

What are remote connection options?

Define the acronym DNS. Domain Name Service.
Which service is used to transfer Usenet newsgroup messages from a news server to a newsreader program? NNTP.
A hierarchical namespace is a basic database or list of names. True.
Which section of the fully qualified domain name represents the uppermost domain? Samuels.
Which option is used to view IP addresses that point to specific computers within a domain? Reverse Lookup Zones.


Microsoft to halt Hotmail access via Outlook Express
Vendor looks to nudge users toward its newer Windows Live Mail desktop client.
April 18, 2008 (Computerworld) In the latest death knell for Outlook Express,
Microsoft Corp. announced Thursday that it will turn off access to its Web-based Hotmail service from the desktop e-mail software at the end of June.
Outlook Express users who want to continue to access their Hotmail accounts offline after June 30 are being encouraged by Microsoft to
download its free Windows Live Mail software.
Users will still be able to use Outlook, the big brother of Outlook Express, to read their Hotmail messages offline, but they may have to first upgrade their
Outlook Connector synchronization software, according to information posted online today by Scott Hammer, a Microsoft e-mail support manager.
Hammer said that users of the paid Hotmail service will also still be able to use any other desktop e-mail client that is POP3-compliant, such as the open-source Thunderbird software.
Macintosh users, meanwhile, can continue using Microsoft's Entourage e-mail client for the Mac to access Hotmail, which is the second most popular Web mail service in the U.S. behind Yahoo Mail, according to market research firm HitWise Pty.
Outlook Express first appeared in 1997, when it was bundled with
Internet Explorer 4.0. At one point the most popular e-mail software for Windows users, the technology saw its usage start to decline after suffering major virus and malware problems early this decade. Microsoft's last update of the software, Outlook Express 6, was released in August 2004.
In a
blog post at Microsoft's e-mail technical support Web site, Hammer said that Microsoft is disabling the DAV e-mail protocol used by Outlook Express to download messages because it is too slow for the larger e-mail in-boxes now in use. For instance, the Windows Live service offers Hotmail users 5GB in-boxes free of charge.
Instead of DAV, Windows Live Mail uses a new technology called DeltaSync to replicate e-mail, contacts and other data between Hotmail and a user's PC. Microsoft said DeltaSync is faster because it only downloads new or modified messages and headers from the Hotmail server, whereas DAV downloaded everything. But, Hammer wrote, "the new protocol unfortunately is not supported by Outlook Express, and support would require too many changes to the Outlook Express software."
Released last November, Windows Live Mail is a successor to both Outlook Express and the
Windows Mail client that shipped with Windows Vista. New features above and beyond the improvements that were in Windows Mail include support for RSS feeds, improved photo-sharing and increased integration with other cloud-based Windows Live online services.
This reporter's main trepidation about moving to Windows Live Mail was how well it would import my existing Outlook Express messages and contacts. The experience was fine, though: After setup, Windows Live Mail automatically searched for and found the right folders. Importing more than 10,000 e-mails took about 15 minutes.

Microsoft Corp. has announced that it will stop using the web-based Hotmail service at the end of June. PC users who use hotmail will be able to access their mail, even offline, by downloading out look express. Mac users can continue to use Microsoft’s entourage. This is something I do not have to worry about because I am a BellSouth/AT@T user. So far my email service has worked fine with the exception of the one time where all of my messages were some how deleted. If any of the Hotmail users have problems with the shut down I guess I will feel sorry for them.

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