January, 2009:

Lycos Mail is shutting down

After several years of providing high quality email services to its users, Lycos is finally putting an end to its Lycos Mail operations. The Lycos Team forwarded the bad news to its loyal subscribers by sending copies of the company’s official statement to their individual email addresses.

Not saving important documents

Until the cut-off date, all Lycos Mail users may still log-on to their email accounts. They may still send messages, receive emails, organize files, store documents, and manage contacts using their Lycos Mail accounts. However, the company advises all existing Lycos Mail users to start cleaning up their inboxes by backing up their important files. According to the Lycos Team, the company will close all Lycos Mail accounts on the cut-off date. The contents of all Lycos Mail accounts, therefore, will be deleted as soon as the email accounts are closed.

Not forgetting paid accounts

Like most email service providers, Lycos Mail also offers additional paid options. If you are a paid subscriber of Lycos Mail, then you should not worry about your remaining balance because the Lycos Team promises to reimburse all remaining balances. All reimbursements will be sent to the bank account that you specified during your application.

Not attracting enough users

According to the official statement issued by the Lycos Team via email, the company has decided to discontinue its Lycos Mail operations because it’s no longer profitable. In recent years, Lycos Mail suffered heavy competition against more popularly known webmail services such as Gmail and Yahoo! Mail.

Lycos Mail will finally close its doors on February 15.

Microsoft Outlook is one of the oldest email applications around. In fact, Adam Smith was only 12 when Microsoft first introduced it. Now, at 23, Smith is introducing an email application that is set to revolutionize Microsoft’s personal information manager. Named Xobni (which is, obviously, “inbox” spelled backwards), the new email application that was developed by Smith promises two things: to make your Outlook searches faster and to make your email experience better.

Providing instant search results

The best thing about Xobni is that it is free for all. In fact, you can actually download the Xobni email application from the Xobni website (www.xobni.com) if you want to spruce up your Microsoft Outlook account. After it is downloaded from the website and installed in the computer, Xobni will automatically index all the emails found in your Microsoft Outlook account. This system allows you to easily search for the email addresses and phone numbers of the people in your contact list. You just have to type in the appropriate keywords and the corresponding information will be presented to you in a matter of seconds.

Linking social networking websites

Another impressive feature of Xobni is that it links your Microsoft Outlook account with your accounts in social networking websites. As a matter of fact, Xobni allows you to view your contacts’ status updates in Facebook and their profile photos in LinkedIn. If the people on your contact list are also Skype users, you may also give them a call by simply clicking on their names.

Phishing is one of the most common forms of email fraud today. Many email users have lost their passwords and their accounts to professional phishers because their email accounts are not as secured as they hoped. One way of protecting your Yahoo! Mail account from phishers is to create a sign-in seal, a secret message or personal image that helps you recognize the authenticity of the Yahoo! page that you are visiting.

Making a sign-in seal

To start making a sign-in seal, you have to click on the Create Your Sign-in Seal link that is found above the blank fields for your username and password. On the Yahoo! Sign-in Seal page, you are provided with two customization options: Create a text seal and Upload an image. If you chose the first option, you have to enter a short message for your computer. You can type any kind of message you want as long as it doesn’t exceed 21 characters or expose your password. But if you’d rather have an image as your sign-in seal, then you should pick the second option. Because it is called Upload an image, the second option requires you to upload the JPG or GIF file that you wish to use as your sign-in seal. Choose an image that is under 2MB in size so it could fit perfectly in the seal.

Customizing a sign-in seal

If you click on the Preview button at the bottom of the screen, the seal that you just made will appear on the sign-in box. The sign-in seal customization services that Yahoo! Mail offers, however, are not limited to the specification of the text or the selection of the image. In fact, you may also choose a sign-in color for your seal! To choose a sign-in color, you just have to click on the tiny dot below the color swatch of your choice. Click the Preview button again to determine whether the sign-in seal satisfies your preferences or not. If you are already satisfied with your work, you just have to click on the Save This Seal button to save the customization changes.