Another Day in the Antz Farm

Recently, I have been toying with the beta release of Windows Live Mail desktop (8.0.1172). It’s a pretty neat application and I was quite surprise by it’s nifty features. It offers you to have a single view of all your email accounts, newsgroup, blog, RSS, calendaring features integration for a desktop consumer client which I think is pretty neat.

1. Email (you can click on all the images for expanded view)

> You can manage all your email accounts all from one application including Gmail. Plus you can also publish your email message as a blog entry via Windows Live Writer. It also comes with free junk mail filters too! However, in this current version, Live Mail Desktop doesn’t separate spam from your regular inbox or archive or labels.

2. RSS

> You can also follow up on all your fav RSS feeds from the same client. One caveat: Currently there is no OPML import feature

3. Calendar

> It’s great that an online calendar feature is integrated with in consumer client desktop software. However the transition between the Live look and feel and the old Hotmail calendar style (old skool ) can be streamlined better, hopefully in the next update.

Final Score: 6/10, the basic idea of a single view of one’s online communication features rocks but still some user experience issues like Gmail integration and OPML import still need to be resolved.