Receiving Gmails or 3rd Party email on your hotmail account

Most of us, who surfs internet, have few different emails account. I am, proudly, one of them. I have few emails account to separate its' usage on different purposes. One of account is being used to communicate with friends, while others for different matters.

Thumbs up to Microsoft Live Mail's team. Another great move. Hotmail now allows other emails account to be setup for retrieving and sending mails. This can be solely done on one of your hotmail account. Once you have configured the correct credential, you will be able to choose to download the emails to a new folder or existing inbox folder.

One of the account that I owned, but seldomly used, is this gmail account. I configured the account to forward any incoming emails to my hotmail accounts where I frequently logon (through my msn, where I can see new coming mails through the popup messenger's notice window). I have been rather satisfy with this approach thus far and no complaints with it. But with this new feature incorporated in Hotmail, it's awesome. I can even send email using that email's account. I dont need to logout Hotmail and login Gmail to reply any correspondent shall there be any.

I guess, I am more in love with Hotmail (or Live's mail).

P/S: One the side note, I still think Yahoo! mail sucks. They need us to subscribe to their paid service in order to get the mails to;
1. use POP/SMTP service
2. use forwarding mail feature

Seriously, with so much intense competition from others competitor, why don't they loosen those feature?

Google to acquire e-mail security specialist, Postini Inc

Google Inc. is buying e-mail security specialist Postini Inc. for $625 million, fortifying the Internet search leader's effort to sell online software services to corporate customers seeking alternatives to Microsoft Corp.'s long-dominant products.

The all-cash deal announced Monday is aimed at reassuring large businesses that have had qualms about entrusting Google to oversee their e-mail systems and other vital applications because of security concerns.

Google began selling companies a low-cost suite of online software that includes e-mail, calendaring and word processing in February, hoping to diversify its revenue beyond Internet advertising and perhaps siphon money away from Microsoft — one of its biggest rivals.

Microsoft is trying to challenge Google in the rapidly growing Internet ad market by drawing upon the cash that it has amassed from its market-leading Office suite of software applications and Windows operating system that controls most personal computers.

Google and other Internet companies are threatening Microsoft's stronghold by offering free or low-cost software applications that are hosted online so they don't have to be installed on the hard drives of individual computers.

Although Google says an average of about 1,000 small businesses sign up to use its software applications each day, security worries had become a "road block" to even wider acceptance, said Dave Girouard, the executive in charge of the company's push into the corporate market.

Google believes it will offer potential customers more peace of mind with Postini's added expertise. Formed in 1999, San Carlos-based Postini provides e-mail and instant messaging protection to about 35,000 customers with more than 10 million users. The list of Postini's customers include retailers Circuit City Stores Inc. and Dillard's Inc. as well as natural gas supplier Sempra Energy and Pulte Homes Inc.

Postini and Google formed a partnership in April, paving the way for the negotiations that culminated in the deal announced Monday. Postini executives said the privately held company has been profitable since 2004.

The sale represents a windfall for Postini's early investors, a list that includes Sun Microsystems Inc. and venture capital firms August Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Mobius Venture Capital and Summit Partners.

Only a small number of Postini's customers are among the more than 100,000 businesses already using Google's applications, Girouard said, creating a sales opportunity.

Although Postini will continue to be offered on a standalone basis, Google hopes to persuade Postini's customers to "test drive" the Google applications, Girouard said.

"This is a clear statement that we are very committed to this business," Girouard said.

It's unclear how many businesses are anteing up the $50-per-user annual fee that Google charges for the premium version of its online applications because management doesn't disclose the number. The company also offers a more basic version that is subsidized by ads instead of subscriptions.

Software licensing accounted for $36.5 million, or less than 1 percent, of Google's $3.66 billion in revenue during the first three months of this year.

Backed with nearly $12 billion in cash and a high-flying stock, Google has been on a bit of an acquisition spree during the past nine months as management tries to build upon the company's already considerable clout.

Postini represents Google's third largest purchase, ranking behind the company's $1.76 billion acquisition of online video pioneer YouTube late last year and an April agreement to buy online advertising service DoubleClick Inc. for $3.1 billion. The company also agreed in June to pay an undisclosed amount for FeedBurner Inc., a major channel for distributing information from blogs and podcasts.

The DoubleClick deal still must be approved by federal antitrust regulators who are examining whether Google's ownership would hinder competition in the rapidly growing Internet ad market.

The Postini acquisition isn't expected to face the same level of regulatory scrutiny. Google anticipates closing the deal before October.

Google shares rose to a new high of $548.74 Monday before falling back to end at $542.56, up $3.16.

Monday's stock gains appeared to have more do with optimism about Google's opportunity to expand upon its leadership in online advertising rather than enthusiasm about the Postini deal. Google's positioning prompted ThinkEquity Partners analyst Stewart Barry to raise his 12-month projection for the company's stock price to $700, up from $625 previously.

Serious Flaw in Google's free email service

A serious flaw is discovered in Google's free email service allowing hackers to steal users' entire contact lists.

To exploit the flaw, the hacker would add a piece of code to their website server, which in turn gave them access to the Gmail contacts of passing browsers, so long as they were also signed in to their Gmail account in another window.

The hacker could then add the stolen contacts to an email spam database, or sell them to other spammers.

Gmail, the third most popular free web-based email service, has been embraced by both personal and business users alike, largely because it allows for easy access to messages from any computer worldwide.

Google's security team appeared to have fixed the flaw within hours, but various subsequent reports suggested the fix didn't address the full extent of the issue.

Further, it is understood that spammers were exploiting the security hole for quite some time before it was discovered.

The simplest way to avoid being exposed is to sign out of Gmail when it is not in use.

News of the flaw came just days after another, separate Gmail security issue was revealed. From late December, some Gmail users - 60, according to Google - logged in to their accounts to find all of their emails and contacts had been automatically deleted.

User complaints soon flooded Google's Gmail support discussion board, but some of the lost data could not be retrieved.

Google was then forced to work with each affected user to help them restore their messages from any personal backups they may have made.

But it is not just Gmail security flaws that have been detrimental to Google's goodwill leading into 2007. It has also been accused of monopolistic behaviour, through listing its own products at the very top of search results for terms such as "calendar", "blog" and "photo sharing".

This practice is shared with other internet search providers such as Yahoo and Ask, but Google's actions in particular have caught the ire of internet users who expect the company to live up to its idealistic corporate motto - "Don't be evil".

Most notably, Blake Ross, a co-founder of the Firefox web browser, last week criticised Google in his blog, suggesting it had lost its moral compass.

Matt Cutts, head of Google's webspam team, responded to Mr Ross' claims on his own blog. Surprisingly, he agreed with many of Mr Ross' conclusions.

"I'd remove these tips or scale them way back by making sure that they are very relevant and targeted," Mr Cutts wrote.

Google also came under fire last month when it was accused of manipulating the results of its top 10 search term list, published yearly.

Google later clarified that the list was compiled based on changes in the most popular searches on a year-to-year basis. Generic and offensive terms were not included.

Technology industry commentators have suggested that, when combined, the relatively minor issues could have a profound effect on Google's public perception, which has remained largely untainted since the company's inception.

"This subtle shift in public attitude could signal a tidal wave of negativity down the road," said Michael Arrington, author of the popular TechCrunch blog.