Edson Reyes

Here's the simple plan:

• Step 1: Upgrade my free hotmail to Hotmail Plus 
• Step 2: Setup my iPhone to use Hotmail Plus Pop3

Step 1 was actually harder than i thought.  It wasn't hard actually upgrading, but it took forever to find the stinkin link.  I used google to search for the link, so I'm not sure if it was google hiding it, or if microsoft did a bad job at advertising their service.  Also, when i finally got to the link it never really mentioned pop3 as a feature.  I was hearing about the pop3 via various discussion boards.  At one point someone called it the "hidden" feature.  So I took the risk and went all in with $20.

Step 2 wasn't bad either.  There were some basic settings that i'll post below.  Pretty straight forward.  I was really suprised that it took the connection settings with no problems.

Now here's where the marriage goes wrong.  I click on Mail on my iPhone -- so far so good, I see my Hotmail account listed amongst others.  I click on my hotmail account -- so far so good, I see my Inbox sitting there.  I click on Inbox -- hmmm...empty...nothing appears....wait there's a mail, there's another, here it comes...it all works great!!!  I was estatic to see the mail flowing down.  A little closer look into my e-mail then revealed that it was grabbing my e-mail starting with my earliest in '04.  Mind you i have 5000+ e-mails in my hotmail account.  Don't ask why, cause i couldn't tell you why.  So now I'm at a point where my e-mail works, but I can't really read the e-mail i want to read.  It totally bites.

I am now attempting a workaround.  My theory on what's happening is that now that mail is going through Pop3, that all the e-mail is being treated as new/unread e-mail.  So i'm thinking the iPhone is treating unread as recent?  Maybe, possibly?  I've now setup my hotmail via pop3 in Outlook and it's downloading all of my e-mail as unread.  So from here I'm going to try to mark all the e-mail as read, and see how that affects the iPhone downloading my hotmail.  I have both fingers crossed!  Worst case scenario I can use outlook to do some despratley needed cleanup and filtering.

I'll update this blog post with my results (since it's going to take hours, days, maybe weeks to download all of my e-mail).

Here's the Windows Live Pop3 settings:

Account Information:
Name: John Smith (note: enter your own name)
Address: example@hotmail.com (note: enter your full Hotmail email address)
Description: Hotmail

Incoming Mail Server:
Host Name: pop3.live.com
User Name: example@hotmail.com (note: enter your full Hotmail email address)
Password: password (note: enter your Hotmail password)

Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP):
Host Name: smtp.live.com
User Name: example@hotmail.com (note: enter your full Hotmail email address)
Password: password (note: enter your Hotmail password)

Advanced Settings:
Incoming Uses SSL: On
Outgoing Uses SSL: On
Authentication: Password
Delete from Server: When removed from Inbox (or your preferred option)

Update - Great Success!

So what I did was setup Outlook on my desktop to use Hotmail and Pop3.  It took Outlook probably a couple hours to download 5000+ e-mails, which were all downloaded as unread messages.  A side affect was that after downloading each e-mail, the e-mailwas also deleted from the server.  So if/when i login to my hotmail via a web browser, I get 0 messages.  So now when I check my iPhone I'm only getting my new messages.   That's exactly what I wanted.  I did change some e-mail account settings in outlook so that it would leave e-mails on the server for 30 days.  I also setup my iPhone so it deletes e-mails on the server when I delete from my iPhone.

Update 2

For my scenario, there are some settings which I feel work best for me.  I'm using outlook as my main e-mail app and my iphone as a secondary e-mail app.  Therefore in Outlook, I changed the accounts settings on my hotmail so that it leaves a copy of the e-mail on the server but deletes it after 10 days.  This allows my iPhone to download 10 days worth of e-mail.  I also setup my iPhone to not delete on the server, I let outlook do that work.

Back in June 2007 I had some upgrades done to my house.  I wouldn't call it a full remodel because I really didn't re-structure any walls or anything like that.  The upgrades included:

• New Flooring (laminate downstairs, and bamboo on the stairs and upstairs)
• Some new appliances
• Some paint on the walls
• Tile work done around the fireplace
• New countertops
• Other small upgrades like sings, faucets, etc.. (maybe I shouldn't call it small because it actually is pretty expensive for these things).

I do come from an asian family, so I try to do things on the cheap.  Therefore, I enlisted the help of family members for a lot of things.  Here's my "give thanks" list and other notable credits. 

• My mom - she did small things like clean and paint, but more importantly she stayed at my place while all this was going on so I could go to work.  She also made sure we ate even if there wasn't a stove.
• Uncle Johnny - he helped with the demolition of the old floors, tiles, etc...  I'd usually get nervous at the thought of ripping up my house, but once i brought in my uncle, he went straight to work, so I had no choice.  Before I could even get nervous he was ripping off the counters.  I definatly needed that.  He helped with ripping off the counters, taking down the blinds, ripping out the old flooring including tiles, plumbing, etc... He's an awesome worker and has a lot of "know how".  I can't thank him enough!
• My cousin Jermine - he's a gym rat so his muscles came in handy when it was time to tear out the tile flooring.  If you saw him going at the tile with the hammer, you would have thought the tile flooring stole his girlfriend away, cause we was really going at it. 
• RJ's Hardwood FLoor & Tile - Roland (my bro n law) started this company.  I basically bought all the materials and they did the installation.  Both Roland and Eramus I think did a decent job on the floors and tiles.  If you're interested and in the Puget Sound area, they do Installation, repair, refinish, custom design, borders and Inlays.  Contact Roland at 360.471.0680.  Tell him Edson sent ya
• Evergreen Granite & Cabinet Supply - Ben Ye was my supplier for the countertops.  They were a decent value.  OVerally i'm happy with my countertops and for the price I paid.  They also supplied me with tiles that i needed.  425.423.9681
• Various shops i went to - Costco for the flooring.  Home Depot for paint, tools, and whatever else I needed.  I also got my appliances from them.  Overstock.com is where I got my sinks and faucets.

So now I present you with the pictures.  These are really just a random set of pictures my house before and after.

We finally made it to Costa Rica!  It was a long sleepless flight, but were finally at our destination.  So far my first impression (which is based on traveling from the airport to the Hostel Pangea) and memorable moments are

• Drinking at LAX airport.  Taking a drink everytime you hear Roxanne in the song Roxanne.
• The drive over reminded me of a mix of philippines and Mexico
• The taxi and shuttle drivers aren´t as aggressive as mexico
• The Ticas are pleasant to the eye
• Walking into my first Hostel reminded me of the movie Hostel
• Finally this damn keyboard that i´m typing on.  The arrangement is quite interesting, no symbols, shift keys, enter keys, backspace, where you expect it.  I´ll have to take a picture of it.  Here are some of the native keys `+´ç¬º

My first post on a crappy keyboard.  It´s making it quite difficult.  The good news is that Gibbs has his laptop, and Sanjeev has his camera.  So hopefully once we get that online i´ll be able to upload some visual aids.  Till the next post.

Over the weekend someone told me, it´s not about the desitnation it´s about the journey.  So let the journey begin...