Hotmail and Safari Go to Divorce Court

Getting into your Hotmail account via your Safari browser has been a bear lately. You type "hotmail" into the address bar and up comes a carousel of redirections until, finally, the hotmail page appears with the following message:

Windows Live ID is unavailable from this site for one of the following reasons:
• This site may be experiencing a problem.
• The site may not be a member of Windows Live ID.
You can:
• You can sign in or sign up at other Windows Live ID sites and services, or try again later at this site.

I have a feeling this problem came about because MAC thinks PC is a geek. You know, like in the MacIntosh commercials where MAC is embodied by the cool Generation-Y metrosexual whereas PC is a bespectacled nerd with a severe lack of social grace and a penchant for virus collecting.

What happens when a geek gets picked on? He launches a cyberwar, of course. Revenge is best served when right-brainers pound their keyboards in frustration. Now, I can't say if this bug is a problem that Microsoft created on purpose, but since this has been an ongoing problem for over a year, it doesn't appear to be anythng they plan to fix anytime soon.

So, what to do?

There are several options. You can get a new email account. A friend of mine came up with this option. She was so frustrated and angry that she was ready to give up an email address that she had for ten years.

That's a little hasty, in my opinion. I told her if she thinks logging into her hotmail via safari is a pain in the butt, wait until she has to update ten years of email contacts with a new email address. Headache galore? You bet.

So if your hotmail account isn't too old or is rarely used, dumping it wholesale may be for you. But if not, there are two other options you can try.

The first is to sign up for "Windows Live Hotmail." You can do this by simply looking to the left of the problem message posted above. Click the "sing up" button which will take you to a screen that gives you two sign up options, both of which are free. Choose "Windows Live Hotmail" and you will be directed straight into your hotmail account. The bug will be fixed for the most part. You may still experience a few problems with hotmail on safari but should be able to log into your mail much easier now.

The second option is to simply switch browsers. I use both safari and firefox. I only log into my hotmail account through firefox and have yet to experience any of the problems I've had with hotmail on safari.

Type "download firefox" (or whatever non-safari browser you may prefer) into a search engine. The first link that comes up will be to the mozilla home page. You can download firefox for free and it only takes a few minutes to complete.

Your hotmail issues should then be a thing of the past.