Competition Hots Up Between Gmail and Hotmail

Yahoo still tops the charts of the free email service providers in North America, but the competition is getting stiffer as Microsoft gives Hotmail a makeover.

Google has been stealing a larger chunk of the market following its release of Google Docs that can be accessed directly from Gmail accounts and Gmail has been offering a much more advanced email system than the outdated Hotmail.  My only real complaint about Gmail is the delay sometimes experienced between emails being sent and being received  …..where do the emails hang-out in between?

New Hotmail has introduced similar one-click message filtering and anti-SPAM systems to match Gmail, but they’ve added some cool new features like viewing videos within the mailbox and uploading large photo collections to Skydrive, which can then be viewed in various formats or downloaded as ZIP files by people you invite.

Google still has the edge from my point of view, with the free Google Docs application, but later this year, Microsoft says it will be integrating some features from its brand new Office 2010 suite.  Which ones?

The more dependent we become on email, the less chance there is of people jumping ship.  It used to be really easy to change your email address and then notify other people of the change of address.  A mass email to everyone in the address book and that was it.  Nowadays, it’s normal to use email addresses to access online accounts.  These accounts all have to be updated manually ….at the moment.  There could be an opening there for a new service!

About a year ago I had to change my email address from a paid server that simply died.  I chose Gmail as my replacement and haven’t regretted that decision, but I really wouldn’t want to spend the time required changing that address again.  Some websites make it easy to change contact details, others are a real pain.

Helpful Tips

• Use a free email address (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo) to access all of your online accounts.
• Use paid and business email accounts only for contacts who can be accessed through a contact list or address book.
• Use Roboform password manager to store your online account information.  You can also store all manner of other security notes, personal notes, favourite URL’s etc.
• Remember to take a back-up copy of your password manager data!!  This is so incredibly important I will say it again – MAKE A BACK-UP OF YOUR STORED PASSWORD DATA.  You will usually find the passwords stored in file in ‘Documents’ (Windows Users).  If you fail to do this and your computer hard drive crashes, which they all do, then you will be really, really, really, REALLY, sorry!  I’ve heard lots of sob-stories.
• Purchase an external hard drive.  For the sake of paying the relatively low cost of an external hard drive (I recently paid less than $100 for a 750Gb drive) or even a tiny $5 flash drive, you will spend weeks trying to unravel the mess and reconnect with your accounts.  It will also hold a complete copy of your computer drive ready for re-installing if necessary.

Virtual Ecology – How it began.

Have you ever considered how much it actually costs you to go to work?

Whilst preparing and waiting for immigration to Canada, my wife and I had sold our home, packed up our belongings and were living in a trailer.  This temporary situation insinuated itself upon us as various world events conspired to keep us in Europe.  Whilst waiting for the bureaucratic wheels to grind a single revolution, we had to generate some money.

Being boss for so many years and running our own business, we were unused even to the concept of going out to work for someone else, but if that’s what it took to ride out the wave of red tape and indecision going on in the halls of immigration Canada, then that’s what we would do.

Our needs were small.  Extremely low rent on a cheap, but comfortable caravan (that’s a trailer to yow ‘mericans)  in the forest didn’t require the usual amount of maintenance, but we had no idea just how much money it would require simply to go to work!

First of all we needed another car.  The beaten up Isuzu we bought to move the trailer around was adequate, but definitely not economical.  It still required tax, insurance, fuel, maintenance and repairs, lots of repairs.  It would have to do though, as the economics of buying a third vehicle for an unknown period of use just wouldn’t add up.  We selected a tiny Nissan car for £800, plus the tax and insurance – another £400.  It was basic, but one of the cheapest cars to run in a country where the price digits on the fuel pump whirr round so quickly, they become a blur.   £1 per litre at the time was equivalent to about CDN$2.40/litre.  waaaaaH!

Next on the list of necessities for work came clothing.  My chosen temporary job as a heavy goods truck driver, required only work gloves and safety boots as special purchases, but I seemed to spend as much time in the launderette as I did at work and sitting around naked in the public launderette was beginning to earn me a reputation ….and a few unusual friends!  Lynne chose a communications role in a Government office as an income source, but it was a great deal more expensive on clothes!  Also, her daily journey took the best part of an hour each way on the phenomenally busy roads of SE England.

Being on call created another expense for me as a cell phone was required.  That meant that Lynne also had to have a cell phone so she would know where I was and if I was coming home that night.

It was nothing short of a major culture shock to dive into the world of employment.  Other ‘necessities’ quickly presented themselves:

Car radios x2 to tune in to the traffic reports for the monstrously hectic roads, narrowed and slowed by accidents every single day.

More clothes – as the seasons changed, so did the clothing requirement.  Most of our own clothing was locked up in storage, awaiting shipment to another continent.  The fact that we didn’t have access to our wardrobes simply emphasised how much clothing was required to do a specific job.  We already lived a frugal life as far as shelter was concerned and we could have saved some money by cutting expenditure down to an absolute bare minimum, but we chose to include comforts that most people would consider normal.

The expenses mounted to a point where we were simply breaking even.  We had set ourselves a goal of earning enough money to pay for our living expenses and extra money to assist with the big move.  At the end of each month though, we had at most, a few pounds to add to the savings account.

Here’s the clincher though: This is how the vast majority of people live!  Promotion in many jobs usually means a different set of standards.  Different clothes, different car, different lifestyle, all the while maintaining the status quo:  money coming in equals money going out.

Thankfully, our move to Canada finally leaped upon us and we gladly gave up our recently acquired chattels for a life on the edge of wilderness and reflecting upon our experience of going out to work, therein were sown the seeds of being a virtual associate or virtual assistant as the role is most often called.  Working for someone else, but never even stepping outside of the front door in order to do so.  Heaven.

Of course, the benefits of this lifestyle not only flow into the life of the VA, but into the coffers of the employer using the services of the VA and furthermore into the coffers of the environment.  The benefits are cumulative and long lasting for all concerned and it was this experience that finally gave birth to BGF or Bright Green Future Ltd.  I will cover these benefits in more detail in my next article.

For more information on how BGF can assist you, visit us at BrightGreenFuture.biz