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Goodbye, Hotmail.
再见，Hotmail。
Microsoft is giving its 16-year-old Web-email service a total overhaul and a new name. And the results are impressive.
微软（Microsoft）正对其拥有16年历史的网页电子邮件服务进行彻底改头换面，并给它起了个新名字。结果令人眼前一亮。
Starting this week, it will be called Outlook.com. This is part of a new Microsoft strategy to use 'Outlook' as the name for all its email offerings.
从本周开始，Hotmail将更名为Outlook.com。这是微软用“Outlook”命名其所有邮件服务的新战略的一部分。
I've been using a pre-release version of this new email service for the past seven days and it includes dozens of smart features that simplify the otherwise-exasperating process of managing your email inbox. Examples include optional one-click scheduled cleanups of mail that delete all but the last message you got from someone; a safe, built-in way to unsubscribe from newsletters; and easy methods for creating email sorting rules for new and old messages. I cut the number of emails in my inbox in half after the first day of using Outlook.com.
过去七天我一直在使用这款最新电子邮件服务的预发布版，其中包括数十种简化收件箱管理流程的智能功能，过去的收件箱管理可是够烦人的。举例来说，用户可以通过一键定期清理工具（scheduled cleanup）删除某个人发送的除最新邮件外的所有邮件；安全、嵌入式的电子报订阅取消方式；简便的设定新旧电子邮件的分类方式。第一天使用Outlook.com后，我把收件箱里的邮件数量减了一半。
The new Web-email service also incorporates social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, displaying profile photos and status updates alongside email messages. And yes, you'll have the option of getting a new, @Outlook.com address, though you can also opt to stick with your @hotmail.com address. Though Hotmail is still the leading Web email service world-wide with over 325 million users, according to comScore Inc., Yahoo and Google's Gmail dominate in the U.S.
这款新的网页电子邮件服务还整合了推特（Twitter）、Facebook和LinkedIn等社交网站，可以在用户打开邮件时显示发件人在这些网站的头像和状态更新。还有，用户还可以选择获取一个新的@Outlook.com地址，不过也可以继续使用@hotmail.com地址。据comScore Inc.统计，尽管Hotmail拥有超过3.25亿用户，在全球依然是领先的网页电子邮件服务，但雅虎（Yahoo）和谷歌（Google）的Gmail主导着美国市场。
This is just one of many dramatic moves at Microsoft this summer. The company is readying for the massive fall launch of Windows 8, which will historically meld the desktop PC and tablet operating systems in one place. It also just announced a new version of Office 2013, which updates the software program to work smarter with the Web. If that wasn't enough, in June the company announced its upcoming iPad challenger, Surface, which favors Apple's model of designing and manufacturing hardware in lieu of Microsoft's traditional software-only philosophy.
这只是微软今年夏天众多大动作的其中一个。微软正准备在秋季全面发布Windows 8，该系统将历史性地将台式个人电脑和平板电脑操作系统合二为一。微软还刚刚发布了新版 Office 2013，升级后的版本令软件在网页上运行更智能。不仅于此，微软还在6月份宣布即将推出挑战iPad的平板电脑Surface。这款平板电脑采用了与苹果类似的设计和硬件制造模式，摈弃了微软传统的软件至上哲学。
Not all of the features in Outlook.com will work as you expect. Only half of my email contacts' names appeared with profile photos automatically pulled in from Facebook. This was because those friends either weren't on Facebook or had registered for Facebook with an email other than the one they were using to communicate with me. I only saw a couple friends' Twitter updates. Facebook chat is also built in, but I rarely use this.
Outlook.com的这些功能并非都能如你想象的那样运行。我的邮件联系人中只有一半在显示时带有自动从Facebook抓取的资料头像。这是因为，这些好友有的没有注册Facebook，有的注册Facebook时用的不是和我来往的这个邮箱。我只看到了几位好友的推特更新。Facebook聊天也是内置的，但我很少用。
When Outlook.com's automatic linking to social networks did work, the result was magical. Dull, text-only contact names were suddenly enhanced by photos, some from people I didn't know were on Facebook.
在Outlook.com与社交网站的自动关联起作用时，效果是很神奇的。单调的纯文字联系人名字突然被图片美化了，有的人我都不知道他们在上Facebook。
I didn't have to leave email to see my friends' latest status updates. I could click a thumbs-up icon to 'like' the status right in Outlook.com, or click a word bubble to comment, though this sent me off to Facebook.com. If someone was registered on Facebook but we weren't friends, I saw that person's profile photo and a link to add the person as a friend. I did this with one of my longtime tennis teammates.
我不用退出邮件就能看到好友最新的状态更新。我可以点击一个拇指朝上图标就能在Outlook.com上“赞”好友的状态，也可以点击泡泡图标进行评论，不过这样会将我导向Facebook.com。如果某个人注册了Facebook但我们不是好友，我会看到那个人的资料头像，以及加他为好友的链接。我和我的一位认识很久的网球队友就是这样联系上的。
The overall look of Outlook.com is much cleaner and more refined compared to Hotmail. Fonts are larger and easier to read, and it has built-in, playful animations that made me want to send emails: Each time I hit Send, the whole message appeared to instantly shrink and be sent off away from me.
与Hotmail相比，Outlook.com的整体外观更简洁更精致。字体变大了，更方便阅读，而且还有好玩的内置动画能激起我发邮件的欲望：每次我点击“发送”的时候，整个邮件似乎立刻缩小然后被发送出去。
Rather than cramming Mail, People, Calendar and SkyDrive (Microsoft's cloud storage service) into one screen, Outlook.com lets you toggle between these categories using four large tiles. And these tiles only appear when you tap a drop-down arrow, so they don't take up space on your screen.
Outlook.com没有把邮件（Mail）、联系人（People）、日历（Calendar）和SkyDrive（微软的云储存服务）都挤在一个屏幕上，而是做成四个方块，让用户可以自由选择。只有点击顶部的下拉箭头这些方块才出现，因此不会占用屏幕空间。
The old Hotmail did a nice job handling photos. Outlook.com takes that a step further by seamlessly integrating SkyDrive. When I attached photos to emails, a message appeared in the composing screen prompting me to, instead, share the photos via SkyDrive, which sends thumbnail images in emails and links friends to the Web to see actual images, rather than clogging my friends' inboxes with big attachments.
原来的Hotmail在处理图片方面做得不错。Outlook.com通过与SkyDrive无缝整合又更进了一步。给邮件添加附件时，撰写邮件的屏幕会出现一个提示信息让我通过SkyDrive分享这些图片，SkyDrive会在邮件中发送缩略图，并将好友链接至网页查看原始图片，而不会把大的附件塞满好友的邮箱。
Also in this email-composing screen, I could name the new SkyDrive folder that would hold my photos. People who received these emails were delighted, like my sister, who said it was easy to scroll through images-and she loved that there wasn't a complicated sign-in.
在撰写邮件的屏幕上，我还可以命名一个储存图片的SkyDrive新文件夹。收到这些邮件的人都很高兴，就像我妹妹一样，她说很容易就能上下滚动图片，还有一点她也很喜欢，就是没有复杂的登录过程。
But what if you use another Web mail service and all of your friends already know that address and email you there? Outlook.com is only too happy to import your contacts from other services, and it offers a way to receive email from other accounts. You can also send mail from Outlook.com on behalf of your other accounts, like Gmail. Outlook.com is technically in a 'preview' stage, but Microsoft said it will remove the 'on behalf of' later this year and just send emails as if they were from your other account.
但如果你用的是别的网页邮件服务，而你所有的好友都已经知道你的那个邮箱并给那个地址发邮件怎么办？Outlook.com巴不得从其他服务导入你的联系人呢，而且用户还可以通过其他账户收取邮件。用户还可以在Outlook.com“代表”Gmail等其他账户发邮件。Outlook.com在技术层面上还在“预览”阶段，但微软说将会在今年晚些时候去掉“代表”功能，到时邮件看起来就像是从其他账户发出的。
Outlook.com doesn't have a smart way of automatically sorting important emails, like Google's Gmail Priority Inbox, which is my favorite feature in Gmail.
Outlook.com没有像Gmail的“优先收件箱”（Priority Inbox）那样自动整理重要邮件的智能功能，“优先收件箱”是我最喜欢的Gmail的一项功能。
Microsoft's new Outlook.com looks elegant and has a remarkably user-friendly interface. If you're overwhelmed by a cluttered inbox, want a better way to sort emails or need an easier way to share photos and files, Outlook.com is a winner.
微软新推出的Outlook.com有着优雅的外观和极其友好的用户界面。如果你受不了杂乱的收件箱，想要一个更好的整理邮件的方法，或想要更便捷地分享照片和文件，那么选择Outlook.com肯定没错。
