Yahoo! Mail Blog, UK and Ireland

In my last post, I think I suggested that summer had finally arrived. I think I need to re-examine that suggestion, as we’ve been having what I would consider very autumnal weather this week.

Looking at the weather module on my Mail homepage it looks like it’s shaping up to be a nice weekend – at least in London where I live. Which brings up a question that my colleague Tim and I are arguing (well sort of) about: What’s considered hot.

I would argue that with the exception of April, and a smattering of days, this summer has been down right chilly. While I’m always putting on an extra jumper, Tim is always complaining about how hot it is and walking around in t-shirts and flip-flops.

I’d like to get your opinion and test out a new polling feature for the blog… Hot or Not? (c’mon, I mean the temperature) Vote below.

Have a great bank holiday weekend.
Andrew – Yahoo! Mail Beta Team

Sun, sand and surf. How on earth are you going to check your email when on holiday? I figure you probably fall into one of 2 categories:

You are either:

1. No work, no computers, no technology. You want to get away from it all and not be contactable. But if you’re going to be off globe-trotting around the world or just lazing on the beach for two to three weeks, why don’t you let your friends and family know that you’re away. Just use the “Holiday Response” in the Options menu of Yahoo Mail and respond to everyone when you get back. And now that you have unlimited storage, you don’t have to worry about pesky limits again.

or…

2. An email junkie. You’re so connected that you check your mail everyday whether from your laptop, your friends’ laptop, a cyber-café or the hotel lobby. You just can’t go a day without checking your email.

Mail just got mobile
If you fall into the #2 camp, why don’t you take your mail with you? Use your mobile phone to check your mail. It’s easy and free (of course your provider might charge you for internet access). You can check it out if you have a WAP compatible mobile phone. Just type http://uk.m.yahoo.com into your phone’s browser and you can get your email, contacts, and even Yahoo! Messenger.

For a more enhanced experience, why not try Yahoo! Go. It’s a feature rich java application that makes it easy and fun to access the Internet. If you’re a true email junkie, then Yahoo! Go is for you. Check it out. All your emails are there when you want them. Email is automatically pushed to your phone and syncs with your Web account (for example: delete a message on your mobile and it is reflected on Webmail).

Believe it or not, I’m a #1 kind of guy.
Have a great summer!!
Andrew – Yahoo! Mail Beta Team

I don’t know about you, but my decision on what to wear to work usually involves looking out the window and maybe sticking a hand outside to judge the temperature. Needless to say, that’s not proven to be too successful at predicting what’s to come, especially since London’s weather changes so frequently.

Checking the weather just got a whole lot easier
Perhaps you’ve noticed in the upper right corner of your Yahoo! Mail Beta welcome page, there’s a new area that shows you the weather. It looks a bit like this:

Brrrr!! It’s cold outside. The location displayed is taken directly from your Yahoo! location preference.

Change locations
As for me, I’m more of a warm weather person. And I’m thinking about going on holiday soon. So let’s go ahead and check what’s happening (weather wise) in some possible holiday destinations. Go ahead and click the triangle next to the city name:

Maldives?!? I can dream can’t I? So you’re not going to see those red circles, they’re just for illustration. But this is what you can do with the weather module.

1. It’s that triangle that pulls up the menu you see above.
2. Enter the town or city and country or a postcode into this box and click “Go”.
3. This will override your default location and set the location in #2 to be your default location. The next time you log into mail this is the location that will show in the weather module.
4. Shows you your default location, in case you forgot what you did in step 3.

So now you have your mail and weather all in one place. What more could you ask for?

Andrew – Yahoo! Mail Beta Team