The New Yahoo! Mail

The new Yahoo! Mail has finally been released. The new user interface (UI) is really nice. Packed full of web 2.0 features. It really does bring more of a desktop UI experience to the user and its a great product.

Its a huge step forward but... let's be honest here... this is a face-lift on top of the same old mail engine. The back-end performing all the work hasn't changed in a long time. Still no support for IMAP. Still no support for the POP3 "LAST" command. And the SPAM filter on Yahoo seems to barely be working at all these days.

A question I've had on my mind for a long time is: why did it take so long for Yahoo to roll out what is basically nothing more than a reworked version of the Oddpost mail application that Yahoo bought in 2004? Don't companies buy other companies to get their products and bring the new product to market faster? It's faster to buy than to build? Microsoft lives by this practice.

I have to go with the service or product that gives me what I need and at the best cost (whether that be free or not). I really like the new Microsoft Live Mail UI, but even this product is nothing more than a face-lift... their back-end engine hasn't change either. And compared to Google an Yahoo, Microsoft is way behind the group with the features in their Live Mail offering. Right now Google Apps has what I'm looking for and its free. I'm happy to pay a low price for what I need, but free is always nice. Google lets me host my own domain on their mail servers, they have a decent UI and their SPAM filter is by far the best I've ever seen (its more than 99% accurate in my experience). Sure, Yahoo has Personal Address and the price is OK, but you only get 5 accounts and I have no idea whether they support aliases and whether the alias counts as one of the 5 accounts that you get. And on top of that, their SPAM filtering stinks (compared to Google).

Maybe some day I'll find the time to post a comparison chart of the features offered (and missing) in each of these products. I evaluate each of these products periodically in order to make sure I'm getting the best product, with the features I need, and at the best price. I recently switched from Yahoo to Google Apps and it looks like I'll be with Google for a while... unless Microsoft and Yahoo start moving a little faster with their feature offerings.

Get your Credit Report for Free

You've probably seen the advertisements on TV to get your credit report and credit score. Well, many times these companies want to charge you for this service and its simply not necessary to pay. You are allowed to get your credit report for free, once per year, from each of the 3 large credit bureaus. Check out www.annualcreditreport.com for more information. You can actually see and print your credit report right from this website. This is all for free and this website is the official site for all 3 credit bureaus. If you don't want to do it online you can call or write a letter - the information is on the website.

Opting-Out of all those Credit Card Offers

Do you get a lot of credit card offers in the mail? Are you sick of getting these offers? Well, you can do something about it. I did this a long time ago, but you need to do this every 5 years so I did it again just the other day. Check out the information on the Experian website about getting on the opt-out list for pre-approved credit and insurance offers. There is no cost and all it takes is a single phone call to 1 888 5OPTOUT (1 888 567 8688). This will remove you from the lists that the banks get from the credit bureaus so you will stop getting all those offers in the mail.

Direct Mail - Opting-Out

You've probably heard of opting-out of email lists, but have you ever heard of opting-out of direct mail marketing to your mailbox? You can get on the list of people that don't want to receive all those offers in your mailbox. Simply go to the Direct Marketing Association's website and use their online order form to opt-out of the junk mail. The cost is only a singe dollar ($1) and you will be on that list for 5 years. This will stop reputable companies from sending you so much junk mail, because only the large reputable companies actually check their mailing list against the opt-out list from the DMA. The smaller companies and home businesses don't do this, so you'll continue to get those mailings. But many of the catalogs and offers that you get from the big companies today will stop. I've done this in the past and can tell you that it helps reduce the junk mail in your mailbox. I'd noticed that I was getting more junk mail recently and realized that it has been over 5 years since I did the opt-out thing, so I needed to renew my opt-out status.