So I opened my Windows Live Messenger and saw someone had emailed me at the Hotmail address attached to it. *rollseyes*. I don't know why people assume I use Hotmail just because I have an MSN account. I have a REAL email account from my ISP.

Anyway. So I click on the link to check the mail and Internet Explorer *puke* loads up. The next thing I know Kapsersky Antivirus is pitching a fit because of the the banner ads on the Hotmail site tried to drop a Trojan on me. The only thing I want dropping a Trojan on me is a man, and I don't like to be touched, so obviously I was doubly pissed off at this point.

So I cursed the walking security nightmare that is IE and decided to see if Thunderbird Email could be made to check Hotmail. And guess what? It can.

I almost had an accident at that revelation. If I smoked, I would have lit one up right then, let me tell you.

So anyway, this is how you get it to work. First, make sure you're running Thunderbird 2.0 or greater. Then go here, go to the download page and save (by right clicking) the webmail .xpi file and the .xpi files for whichever service you want to access on your hard drive where you can find it.

Then load Thunderbird, go to the View menu -> Extensions dialog, select "install" and install the two (or more) .xpi files you had saved on your hard drive. Restart Thunderbird.

Then go ahead and make a new email account; you'll notice that there is now the option to add a webmail account.

That's right. You just upgraded to first class.

Now you can check your webmail and send replies with your proper mail client, so people know where to reach you. Micro$s[BLEEP]t wishes its stuff was this expandable.

Go kick back and relax, you just earned yourself a break.