windows live mail outlook integration

Microsoft have released a plugin to sync both your contacts and email between Windows Live Mail and Outlook instead of/as well as using the web interface. This used to be paid for but is now free (you still have to pay if you want to sync calendars as well..). For those who find the web interface of Windows Live slowwwwww, this is great Maybe I’ll switch back from gmail now..

download it here

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After my previous post about Google losing its battle for the right to use the name “Gmail” in the UK and Germany, the European trademark office has now ruled that Google cannot register the trademark across Europe. Google however is standing firm and says it will continue to use the name Gmail in Europe (outside UK and Germany) as before.

Looking at the number of searches for gmail uk that comes to my blog looking at how to register a “gmail” address in the UK, there is plenty of confusion out there. Is it too late now for Google to rebrand gmail entirely? Everyone I know in the UK still refers to it as gmail..

If you are in the UK you can get a googlemail.com email address by going here - you may even be able to get a gmail address if you pretend you are outside the UK. No you cannot seem to get a gmail address by pretending to be outside the UK anymore.

Amazon are famous for their emails - people always open them and read them. Or so the theory goes. In the past year I have not been too impressed with Amazon’s supposedly relevant emails. I wondered whether this was down to them not trying any more or me having confused them

So it was with great interest I got several emails from Amazon which made me open them.

The first was an email from an author I have read consistently (Conn Iggulden) and as you can see on the right am in the process of reading another of his books. He is releasing a new book and Amazon thought it would be useful to draw my attention to it. Sure enough it made me open the email and look into it further.

The second may have been more luck than judgement due to its mainstream popularity - the launch of the 7th Harry Potter book. Having read all the previous ones it is a natural one to email me about. I think I can say I have bought all of them from Amazon in the past. I wonder however if they actually took the decision to send it to everyone? I doubt I will ever be able to find out if everyone received this email or a “select few”.

Finally not even an hour after the Harry Potter email I received another email from Amazon, this time about electronics. This was an awful email with lots of random products obviously hoping one would stick. I was emailed it because having recently bought a product from computer accessories, I might want to know about their computer peripherals range. I have already bought items from their peripheral section.. but maybe they do not have this information? in any case this email was poorly targeted from both a content and frequency perspective. The previous two emails (which were not even a week apart) along with this one meant I was beginning to get Amazon fatigue.

So did I unsubscribe? Not yet - clicking the opt out link takes you to their customer communications page which allows you to choose what you do or do not want to receive. Unfortunately this is not broken down by product type - I would ideally just like to receive book emails. Despite this I do love amazon - I remember in 2005(?) them having problems with deliveries near christmas. Last christmas having ordered a whole bunch of books, I wondered what would happen. They had obviously sorted things out as I got them delivered early. There is nothing like having something arrive early to make you feel positive towards a company. Doing the unexpected is definitely a plus!

as I was saying in my previous post - 67 feeds sis too many to keep track of within individual directories. Pruning off the deadwood removes about 5 feeds though so its not solving the problem

Cue: Attensa for Outlook - it has a river of news feature which in theory prioritises your posts according to what most interests you - so I presume it learns from how you interact with the feeds over time - seemingly to the post level. Nice idea - but not working on my system as yet (the river of news window stays empty ) - hopefully their support forum can help. I am using the beta version.

Alternatively:

If I can get an invite Touchstone sounds interesting.. similar thing but also expanded to your email.. its in alpha right now.

Or maybe Newsgator Inbox for Outlook - though im not sure if there is any prioritisation as yet?

The BBC are reporting that Google have had to rename Gmail in the UK to Google Mail due to a trademark dispute with Independent International Investment Research (IIIR) (they do not have the nicest of websites but anyhow). This is the second time this has happened, with Gmail not being able to be used by Google in Germany after a ruling in September. Did Google really not think to look beyond their own shores when they came up with a name? Or maybe they just thought that they could pay their way to using gmail elsewhere (surely not). Even with all their money, I cannot see Google choosing to waste time over such matters.

Either way, how long is it going to be before they rename all their mail services Google Mail? Over time, they are not going to want to maintain 2 different brands worldwide - they will surely merge them. Shareholder value and all that. On top of that, as was pointed out on the BBC, people were sending emails to the wrong domain because of this - hardly a benefit if users start to get confused. Better to get the pain over and done with now and change - they are of course still in beta so they could just launch under a new name. Not ideal.. but better than trying to change later.

[update] For those visitors looking for gmail in the UK - you can find it at either www.googlemail.com or www.gmail.com - note if you state you live in the UK you will get an email address @googlemail.com address.