Aerial Photos at least 5 years old, mapping even older around here - judging by the progress on the street in which I've been resident for the last 3½ years

I couldn't give a toss what gloss they slap over the interface, how about they just have proper spam filtering?

I signed up for a mail address just to see how long before it got spam in, was a matter of hours before the flow started.

Mail accounts become unmanagable within months, its completely useless, but the moronic suits that run Microsoft now don't want too strong spam filters in case the advertisers complain.

There would be a very easy way to make hotmail relevant again: include a decent spam filter. I have a hotmail and a gmail account. Both receive a large amount of spam. With hotmail, 90% of that spam ends up in my inbox where I have to delete it. With gmail, 90% of it ends up in the 'spam' folder where it belongs.

Now what are the chances that this new flashy hotmail incarnation include a decent spam filter? More likely, it's full of unnecessary web 2.0 widgets that make it look swish and polished rather than useful.

All MS seem to achieve with their "updates" to Hotmail is to break bits of it. It's getting to the stage of not being good value for money despite being free. Got to go - need to set a forwarding address, a permanent vacation reply and reply to address in preparation for the next "update".

>"MS has been talking up the next version of its online email service as being faster and more sparkly than the cluckier site of yore."

ROFL :-)

Credit where it's due: for years, Windows Live has shown our area with reasonable accuracy. Google still thinks the interesting part of the world ends at the Forth (i.e. with Edinburgh).

This was an invitation to cheap quips for the less intelligent readers. It's the one with the tartan...

Until then, get used to being ignored.

As a .NET developer, I'm fine with the development tools. Server OSs are fine.

But desktop OS? Web content? Not interested. I'm concentrating on keeping my XP Media Center up and running, and visiting websites that don't change every 6 months because a new manager decides its time for a new direction.

Out in the midst of nowhere, (Shropshire actually), Google maps have my estate in 1999, and until very recently couldn't even be bothered with the same image resolution as the rest of the country gets.

At least Live maps show 2006, which is about as up to date as anything Microsoft puts out.

My hotmail inbox is filled with MS spam propaganda, like "new Live Spaces", "new Windows Live" et cetera. I use it only for MSN, and I don't give it anywhere, but it keeps getting this stupid Microsoft spam.

Lots more place names. If you're trying to work out the route of one of Frank Kingdon-Ward's plant hunting treks, MS's map is more useful than Google's.

Indeed, that's a great failing of Google Maps: the labelling of geographic features (e.g. mountain peaks) is poor to nonexistent, and the marking of watercourses so inconsistent as to be useless. Try working out the exact path of the Irradwaddy River, for example.

Or go to Oregon and note that the Illinois River which sweeps around the foot of Eight Dollar Mountain is unmarked on the terrain view. Useless!

Hmm, maybe the maps are a little out of date, if I zoom into my postcode it shows a guy in a loin cloth being chased by a wolly elephant.

I tried that with my postcode and the image showed a guy in a loincloth being chased by a tyranasaurusrex. Looks like Darwin was wrong after all and creationists were right.

Actually, aerial photography of my house only appears on Live Maps and not on Google. I also think Microsoft's maps are of general higher quality than Google's.

As for Hotmail spam filtering - I actually think their spam filtering is TOO strong - I often get a lot of false positives in my "Junk email" folder.

My update email ended up in the Junk Folder!