If you are still using Hotmail but would prefer to access your email from a desktop client, then you might be interested to know that Microsoft has released a connector that will allow you to send and receive Hotmail or Office Live Mail through Outlook 2003 or 2007.
This is especially helpful for those of us that maintain a hotmail account but don’t like to ever check it because we don’t use it all that often.
Installation
Make sure that Outlook is closed, and then download and install the Microsoft Office Outlook Connector. Open Outlook and you’ll immediately be prompted with the settings dialog.
Enter in your account details into this screen, and then close the dialog. You’ll be prompted to restart Outlook again.
Once you’ve restarted, you’ll now see your Hotmail account in the list of mail accounts, and you can send/receive to download your messages.
If you want to send email with the hotmail account, you’ll notice a new drop-down for Account, which will let you switch the account you are sending the email as.
Hopefully this will save you some of the pain of the slow-loading hotmail website.
Download Microsoft Office Outlook Connector from Microsoft.com
