Hotmail users facing new e-mail woes (News)

E-MAIL caps are posing major problems for Hotmail users in Bahrain, it emerged yesterday.

However, Batelco said the source of the problem was Hotmail itself and claimed it had nothing to do with e-mail delays or excessive junk mail.

A spokesman said Hotmail was implementing new policies to control mail flow to its servers, saying the company now enforced limits on the number of e-mails sent to them.

He said once a certain limit was reached, Hotmail would not accept any new e-mail.

"This will cause lots of delays for customers sending to Hotmail," explained the Batelco spokesman.

"All their mail will stay in a queue and they will receive a 'mail delayed' warning."

He added that accounts sending large numbers of e-mails to Hotmail addresses meant the limit was reached faster.

"This problem of control mail policies is the same in MSN Mail domains like Hotmail, MSN and Live etcetera, as well as in Yahoo! Mail domains and AOL."

One user who asked to remain anonymous said he had been facing problems for six months.

"This problem is very common to all Hotmail users," said the 17-year-old student.

"My inbox is flooded with postmaster delivery notification error messages. I have resorted to using my Hotmail account only for messenger and using my Gmail account to send proper mails."

Bahrain University senior management student Fatima Al Shaikh said she had complained to Hotmail about the problem, but never got a response.

However, one user said he did not face the same problems with Hotmail that he experienced in Bahrain when abroad.

"I think this problem is more common in the Middle East as I don't face these problems when accessing my account in India," said Modern Mechanical and Electrical Company chief accountant and systems administrator Loyd D'Costa, 45.

"I do get a lot of delivery notification error messages. I've tried to ease the problem by downloading all my mails to my Outlook account.

"There is no problem when I communicate with fellow hotmail users, but when you try mailing someone with a Batelco account, it takes ages to be received.

"The problem is primarily due to the fact that there are controls in place here to check junk mail and it affects normal incoming or outgoing mails as well."

Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group

'Hotmail users facing new e-mail woes', Gulf Daily News, May 28, 2010, Jennifer Gnana

Cyber highway back in the Dark Ages?

If I have to name an invention of the last century that I can't do without, it would be broadband. Just how much I depend on high-speed Internet was brought to light when my connection was terminated a few months ago. I felt as though I had been deprived of food. I went to the nearest service provider and gave him an earful that he had no right to terminate my connection without notice and I wanted it back immediately. Needless to say, I got my connection only after a month. The reason given was that as I have no permanent address in India or documentation issued here, I can't get a post-paid connection. During my days of 'deprivation', I discovered that I could actually complete my study projects without the Internet and that too in record time! I also went back to reading books that I had forgotten. Ever since then, I've never felt the need to go online everyday or stay connected all the time. Cyber connectivity has made the world a smaller place, but it also has narrowed our social perspective. The omniscient Internet often gives the illusion that personal problems, world-wide crises, famines and droughts can all be solved with just a click. The growth of 'slacktivism' is perhaps one of the reasons why so little concrete action is undertaken anywhere. Facebook groups such as 'Feed a child with a click' and '9,999,999 fans and I will empty my bank to help Haiti' serve to embed people's sense of complacency. Many of us have at times wondered why inspiring actions and revolutions don't happen in our day. That maybe because all the potential revolutionaries of our time have been lost to the cyber world and being on our feet and getting our hands dirty is not attractive anymore. Our social relationships too have undergone change, with close friends and family being ignored in favour of considerable time 'friending' people online. The most appalling example is the recent case of the South Korean couple who let their three-month-old baby starve to death while they were busy helping their virtual daughter 'Anima' recover her memory and develop emotions, in an online game. That maybe an extreme case, but the Internet's contribution to the Information Age and the escapism from routine it provides, can't be ignored. I for one can't think of a better way to spend my seven-hour wait at the airport tomorrow than to burn the 1.2GB that's still left in my prepaid Internet balance. One of the things often spoken against the generation to which I belong is its demand for instantaneous results, as most teenagers would rather Ask Jeeves or visit Wikipedia for garbled truth, than take the pain of going to a library. I remember my history lecturer from the first semester lamenting the days before the Internet when she would pore over dusty volumes for reference. You may be called a Neanderthal today for doing that, but she gave us a rather strong lesson on using information with integrity. It was the last day of the term and she entered the class looking livid. We didn't have to wait for long to find out why, as she admonished the class for having indulged in mass plagiarism in the term projects. "I would have expected better of youngsters who are well-informed and know how to use almost any gadget," she said. "Do you know why the Dark Ages were called so? It's because people were content back then to accept what the rulers and the Church decreed. "They allowed themselves to remain ignorant and sold their intelligence to those lording over them. "You folk are no different, accepting everything that's on the Internet and downloading information that is served up for you, without questioning or reasoning it. "Do you realise that though you may be living in the Modern Age, your minds are still in the Dark Ages?" ¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still live here. Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing & Marketing Group 'Cyber highway back in the Dark Ages?', Gulf Daily News, March 12, 2010, Jennifer Gnana