Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

[Feba]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

fuck underestimating it, I never bothered estimating it in the first place.


I just picked an arbitrary undisprovable standpoint and stood by it. I didn't even think it up, I have a list of them that work in almost any situation.

[Murphie]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

You've put me in mind of a few I can think of...

[Tsrwedge]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

This isn't the first time Microsoft has engaged in anticompetitive practices in web content delivery (theregister.co.uk).

Seriously, there's some history here (news.com).

They've paid for it before too (news.com).

[Malevolent]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

Easy steps to switch from a hotmail account if you're unhappy with it.

1. Send mass e-mail to all contacts saved letting them know you're switching to such' n 'such@gmail.com.

2. go over any automatically generated emails you recieve. If not important unsuscribe or not. You can always log back in every month to check out who's going to be crowned the next monthly "Looks cool in shades" person.

optional 3. or set up your forwarding ability.

[Feba]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

Malevolent: last I checked, Hotmail requires a rather substantial monthly payment for a forwarding function.

[Mhurron]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

The room for OS Zealots is over there ---->

MS updated hotmail, presumably to the same general interface as OWA. OWA has a premium and basic. Premium uses a whole lot of ActiveX and client side scripting that is not supported in every browser. Premium is only offered to those browsers that do support it (IE)

Basic is written to support significantly more. It doesn't have the ActiveX it doesn't have the non-standard DHTML. It is offered to every browser.

What we have here is MS not testing every damn browser on the planet (no one does) and offering the premium to what they know works.

When you don't use what is the most popular and therefore standard, stuff doesn't work and/or people are not motivated to see if it does. If people would get that through their heads they'd be much happier people.

[Feba]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

ActiveX and client side scripting that is not supported in every browser. Premium is only offered to those browsers that do support it (IE)

Except that this works on Firefox in Windows. So it has nothing to do with ActiveX.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

It is worth noting since this is the same kind of stunt that used to be pulled back in the browser wars with Netscape (and is the reason why most browsers now start their user-agent string with Mozilla), that it's not that difficult to make a free software browser lie about your platform. The article itself posts instructions on using a firefox plugin to do. While this is basically a stupid stunt to try to convince uninformed users that GNU/Linux is hard/bad/feature-poor, it's a really old, tired tactic that is incredibly easy to work around.

[Omniblast]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

Pro:
I look as a bonus to switch to a new e-mail address.

Less spam.

Well less spam until you start handing out your e-mail address to people and visit sites.
Con:
One thing too, when I switched my account over from one e-mail to another, I unfortunately signed in on my steam account with my old e-mail address, and for some stupid reason steam won't change your steam ID to reflect what your current e-mail is.

That -is- the most stupid reason to not be able to change your steam login id. I mean seriously, they specifically said to put your e-mail address in and when I did I was locked to that e-mail address as my steam login. sometimes I want to kick Steam in the pants, a Google number of times.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

That -is- the most stupid reason to not be able to change your steam login id. I mean seriously, they specifically said to put your e-mail address in and when I did I was locked to that e-mail address as my steam login. sometimes I want to kick Steam in the pants, a Google number of times.

That had better have been a play on words.

[Prons]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

Prons: First off, there's really nothing nerdy about using linux, there are plenty of people who know very little about computers that use linux, especially now with things like the linux computers Wal-Mart is selling, and things like the OLPC and EeePC and such.

Strange, because last I checked *nix was mainly for network administration and people who were really good at computers. Isn't that what it was made for? I don't know much about computers, so bare with me.

Second of all, if you had bothered to read, you'd notice he said that he's been using hotmail since before MS bought them out. Last I checked, that was nearly a decade ago, which would mean that he probably cannot leave that email address because it's simply too widely used. The amount of effort involved to change to a new address would probably be incredible.

Yeah well, gmail.

[Feba]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

Isn't that what it was made for?

No. Pretty much anything involving computers can and oftentimes is done using a UNIX-like system. Linux alone is used in some cell phones, desktop computers as I mentioned, TiVos, used to be used in Linksys home routers and is common in routers in general, some PDAs and similar devices (for example, Nokia's N800), and that's just a short list of things you could have in your home.

Nowadays, many distros of linux (and some other UNIX-like OSs I'm sure) are so easy to use that I honestly would find it easier to teach a new computer user how to use them than OS X. They can do pretty much everything a Windows computer can do that is beneficial, with the obvious exception of running Windows software. Still, most of this can be run in Wine, with the exception of some games (most single player games work fine in wine, network games and ones with copy protection can be more troublesome)

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Microsoft artificially limits hotmail usage on non-windows OS

Eh. PC games, with the exception of MMOs (and a few more special cases), are essentially dead.

There are three next-generation game consoles to choose from (and one last generation one which, last time I checked, was still doing at least as well as its successor): go there for games. ->