Yahoo! Mail Plus

I'm a Yahoo! Mail user and have been for years. When I'm between contracts, I always fall back to Yahoo! Mail. I've had Yahoo! Mail for so long, I get many of the perks of a paid account without having to pay for them. I'm grandfathered in most of the changes, and I get new things first. I've also had my Gmail Account since its inception, though I don't use it...I simply reserved my name for the day I choose to use it. That day is not today. Today, I signed up for a payed Yahoo! Mail (Plus) account.

I've begun using the Calendar function of Yahoo! which is turning out to be quite featured. At my client site, we use Exchange, and all our appointments are written to the Outlook Calendar. While nice to have, its a rather retarded attempt at full functionality. I often move things over to my Louts Notes calendar, simply for the option of having a reminder send a text message to my cell phone. I live and die by text reminders. But when I have no availability to Notes, I'm once again lost. What I need is something more intuitive than Outlook, and more accessible than Notes. I've found that in the Yahoo! calendar.

The Contacts within Yahoo! Mail are not without their limitations. I enjoy having my contacts on the web so that no matter where on this green Earth I am, I have access to them, and I like the predictive nature of the "To:" line reading directly from my Contacts. What I'd like to see is the ability to assign multiple email addresses to a single person.

I've also recently upgraded to Yahoo! Mail Beta. I initially shied away from this, as the entire interface was Java driven, and I try to minimize the amount of Java I use on my system, and my Yahoo! Mail is always open. I didn't move over to the Beta version because of the slick new interface, rather for better folder management via drag-and-drop. Unfortunately in both versions the only way to receive notifications of new mail without checking the page is by installing either the Yahoo! toolbar or running Yahoo! Messenger...I refuse to do either.

I'll also likely ramp-up my use of the web-based notepad. Windows notepad and vi are my two oft-used programs, but having these items online will assist me greatly by not having to log-in separately to my Solaris box, drax0r's server, or emailing myself text files.

But mostly I upgraded to get rid of those overly annoying advertisements. I HATE THEM. I'm on the 30-day trial period, and already my life is more calm with the ads gone.