Back in the 1990s when the internet was young and naive, something called “e-mail” began to creep into our collective consciousness. I am usually not one to jump on a technological bandwagon immediately, choosing rather to observe its acceptance by others to gauge the likelihood of its staying power. For example, only recently have I been convinced of radio’s permanence.
That being said, I wasn’t the first to join the world of e-mail, but when I finally did almost fourteen years ago or so, I chose to set up my tent with the likes of Hotmail. For these many years, it has been a blissful existence where they have granted me access to instantly send a note to friends, family and business associates whenever I wanted to. As a result, the world was a smaller happier place.
However, Hotmail giveth and Hotmail taketh away. Two weeks ago, my blissful web existence was given quite a jolt when I tried to log in to my Hotmail only to be callously and digitally informed that I no longer could have access to my e-mail account with the excuse that it was perhaps hacked.
To further complicate matters, I was being asked a security question I have no remembrance of setting up, and as a secondary measure, I could contact them via a questionnaire in which I am to remember details of my account that I no longer can open. I filled this questionnaire out twice, only to have Hotmail continue to say they don’t believe that I am me.
Hotmail does not provide a phone number. They do not provide an e-mail address, nor a live internet chat system. So, what is a cartoonist to do? Well, here in my case I am letting the hundreds, perhaps even thousands of you to know of my struggle with this Microsoft product through my drawings and words. Treasured messages from family, important business e-mails, and not to mention my contact list are all locked behind whatever reason they have decided to bring my life to a screeching halt.
If one can’t depend on something as simple as an e-mail system, how can one ever be convinced to get a cell phone or to believe in the existence of Bill Gates? If the internet is no longer young and naive, then neither am I.
UPDATE: This issue did eventually get resolved. This post remains live, though, as a word of caution to you!
2 replies on “Hotmail? Or NOTmail?”
Laser light Morse code.
Got a third reply from Hotmail today (quite impersonal one at that – I doubt they are actually reading what I’ve written to them) telling me that my only recourse is to set up a new account because they still don’t think I am who I say I am. Why would any sane person set up a second account with them after they seem to have destroyed 14 years of history? I was thinking about it today. One of the many precious things I believe I have lost was saved correspondence I had with the late “Dennis the Menace” cartoonist Hank Ketcham. Sigh.
LOVE it!!! I mean it stinks of raw sewage for you, but love the style of the drawings…I guess you are stuck with semaphore or smoke signals…of course the smoke signals where you are would most likely be disregarded as another wildfire or just more smog — in which case, the semaphore wouldn’t even be seen. I guess you’re down to flare gun?