Microsoft has released a new version of its Hotmail with 2Gb of space, AJAX looking, blah, blah, blah. Here is how it looks by the way
1. First thing that I tried once I logged my self in is to use simple letters as shortcuts, well the same way we use shortcuts in Gmail, remember? "c" to compose a new mail, "n" for the next message, "p" for the previous message, and so on. Well Hotmail stays Hotmail no matter what – explicit shortcuts are NOT there
2. Second thing is I tried to resize my inbox with mail, you know, if they make it so lame by default, I thought maybe I can do that. Guess what… well you guessed right – can’t explicitly do that too
3. Then I clicked on that annoying huge "Windows Live" bar on top – got a completely empty screen with "http://www.getlive.com/" in my address bar. Hm.. annoying and empty – why?
4. Clicked on "full message view" in a preview panel – gave me a good message view, but I spent at least 5-6 seconds figuring out how to go back to normal view (I had to close the whole window) – explicit? Human Computer Interaction problem? How hard is it to put "back to normal view" or something like that?
5. Looked for labels, found them by logging to my Gmail, so.. no labels – is it patent by Google, or Hotmail is too cool for that?
Overall, it is much better than old Hotmail, but way far from being "Gmail compliant". Lots of colorful bars, ads, response time (I have a high speed connection), HCI (human computer interaction) principles used (and not used), etc.
I give it "C+". Well, yea – I am the user, means Hotmail is my student, and apparently Freshmen. So get to books Hotmail, and remember SIMPLICITY is the key – Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS), or is it not from Windows Bible? :)
Automatix2 now comes with Crossover Office Standard and Professional on Ubuntu 7.04 amd64 (which basically means you can run a ton of 32 bit windows software on Ubuntu 7.04 amd64). Also.. what really caught our attention of late was that, Michael Dell, Founder and CEO of Dell Inc., uses Automatix2 on 
