Outlook.com Very cool. Very free.

Okay, I know that it’s been around for a few years, but I have just discovered it. And it’s all due to my mother-in-law. You see, she’s coming to visit us soon and she wants to be able to use her own email anywhere. The question for her (and therefore, for me) was how to put something together that would be simple and easy for her to use and accessible anytime, anywhere. Then it hit me…

Outlook.com is a full on, online, Microsoft Office tool. And it’s free! Tools include Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Calendar, People (contacts) and OneDrive. And it’s free!

“Okay, mom-in-law” I said to her over the phone, “Open a browser and go to www.outlook.com. From there, just follow the instructions to create your own account.” (very simple instructions here) After creating her account, she set up her email account quickly and hassle free. She would now be able to access her email from any computer anywhere in the world. Including my house. I did help her to import her contacts list from her original Outlook (which was also very easy) so that she would have access to it online as well. No sweat.

I then showed her how to access the other tools. She’ll be using Word mostly. And what’s great about that is she can store any file she creates online using OneDrive. That’s right! OneDrive gives you up to 15GB storage space for free! You can get another 5GB of space by inviting your friends to sign up (like here)

And did I mention that all this is phreakin’ free?

She was delighted and excited that she would be able to keep up with her email. I was delighted and excited that she would be able to keep up with her email without bugging me.

There are even phone apps you can use for email (very simple instructions here). That’s a project I think I’ll wait till she gets home to start on with her. :-)