myEarthLink Portal Product Blog

Signing Out of Web Mail

2007-08-22T15:15:45Z

Web Mail users may have noticed that clicking the Sign Out link now directs you to the myEarthLink start page. If you're a myEarthLink user, you'll go to your personalized page. If you're not a myEarthLink user, you'll see the signed-out version of the start page.

The idea is to send you to a useful landing page, with weather, news headlines, favorite sites and such, so it's simpler to jump to whatever you want to do next. But if you prefer to go directly to the simple Web Mail sign-in page, it's easy to make the change.

Here's what you do:

Log in to WebMail, and click the "Preferences" link in the right-hand column
Click "Web Mail Options" under "Other Preferences"
Scroll down to "Sign-out Destination" at the bottom of the screen
Select "Web Mail sign-in page"
Click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page

For a heaping helping of other Web Mail tips, check out the Web Mail blog, from our resident Email Guy, John Foltz.

Introducing "Inline Reg"

2007-07-30T22:39:02Z

One common criticism of the classic start page is it takes some work to actually get started using it. When you arrive at the old start page and click to register, you end up going through three screens before you get back to the start page.

With the new myEarthLink, we wanted to speed the process up. So, last week, we launched a streamlined registration service, known affectionately among the team as "inline reg."

The basic idea of inline reg is pretty simple: Instead of going to a separate page to sign up for a new account, you can take care of everything directly from the start page. You work through this simple form, enter a security code to verify you're a human, and you're done!

In last week's release, we launched inline reg on a separate log-in screen, since we haven't yet released a version of the page that users without an account can see. We'll be launching this "signed-out" version of the page in the next few weeks.

Now Available: Curbside Pickup

2007-06-08T01:29:27Z

If there's something on your start page that bugs you, I have some good news. With today's release, you can now remove any of the features on the middle of the page (Email Preview, News & Updates, Entertainment and Shopping). If you change your mind, it's easy to add everything back again later.

To give one of these features the boot, mouse over the upper right-hand corner of the box. A trash can icon will show up. Click on the trash can, and the feature will vanish.

For example, if you wanted to remove the Entertainment feature, you would click on the trash can here:

After you click the trash can, Entertainment will disappear and a new link ("Entertainment") will appear at the bottom of the page, under the text "More myEarthLink Features (Click to add)." To add the feature to your page again, you would simply click on the word "Entertainment."

Note that you can also remove any of the sites in the Favorite Sites list on the left side of the page. This has been in place since we launched, but I've heard from a few of you who weren't sure how to got about removing a site. To ax something in this area, click "customize" at the top or bottom of the Favorite Sites box. You'll see a trash can icon next to every one of the sites.

Click the trash can next to a site to remove it from your list.

At this point, you can't chuck the features in the dock at the top of the page (weather, stocks, reminders, sports scores and internet security). But rest assured, we are planning to make these features removable as well, later this summer.

Graduating From Preview

2007-05-01T16:31:09Z

You'll see some changes on the new start page today. It's easy to miss one of the big ones, but it certainly means a lot to the portal team: after two months, we've removed the Preview label.

But what does this mean, other than a tweaked header?

Simply put, we've declared the page "ready for prime time." We feel that the start page is in good shape for you to use everyday, as a replacement for the old start page.

A few key factors went into this decision:

1. The new start page is stable. The two months of the Preview phase surfaced the major hiccups, and we've addressed them. Our expectation is that you can count on the new start page working well consistently, and that should be your expectation too. (If you do see problems, please email us to let us know).

2. We've had a good bit of time to hear from real, live, objective, opinionated users, which has helped us honestly evaluate what we've built. Many, many thanks to all of you who put the start page through its paces during the Preview phase and reported your impressions back to us. You've detailed your likes, dislikes, desires and expectations, and collectively, that feedback has been an extremely thorough report card. Keep it coming.

3. The core features are in place. There's much more coming down the pipe, but we feel that the start page has the functionality it needs to leave the Preview tag behind.

The major functionality addition that pushed us over the line was version 2 of the "News and Updates" feature. In the Preview stage, this area consisted of AP headlines from the myEarthLink news channel. In the new version, you can add local headlines, as on the classic start page, plus headlines from just about any major news source or blog you want. Check out this post to learn all about it.

We're excited to to graduate the start page from Preview, and we hope you're excited about the new tools. We are continuing to tweak the page and add features regularly, but at this point, the new page is ready for you. If you haven't already, we heartily encourage you to switch over.

You can make the switch by clicking the button that says "Click here to make the new myEarthLink your personal start page," just below the Stocks button. This will redirect the URL for your old start page, so that the new start page comes up automatically.

Choose Your News

2007-04-30T05:00:15Z

When it comes to news, it's clear that one size doesn't fit all, at least not perfectly. Many of you have asked to add specific national news sources to your start page, and just about everybody is eager to see what's going on in their own neighborhood. For a lot you, a big part of a start page being truly personalized is seeing content from the sources you like, about the subjects you're interested in.

If this sounds like you, I have some very good news. Today we launched a new version of the News area that lets you include just about any type of news you like.

[Note: We are rolling this feature out to users gradually over the course of the day. If you don't see the new version right now, please try again later. ]

When you first load up the start page, you'll still see AP news stories from the myEarthLink News Channel. But if you click the "Add/Edit Sources" link at the bottom left of the news area, you can fill up the 12 tabs with whatever you're interested in. Among other things, you can add:

- Headlines from a big national news provider, such as CNN on NPR
- New posts from leading blogs, such as Technorati or BoingBoing.
- Posts from a friend's personal blog
- Headlines about your hometown
- New posts from a variety of sources about a specific subject you're following

The only requirement is that the news provider has set up an RSS feed. RSS is a standard delivery system for Web content updates (such as news articles or blog posts), and most news providers, blogs and other major content Web sites have set up feeds. (If you want to learn more about how this works, check out Dave's introduction to RSS on Earthling or this handy video guide from CommonCraft.

]]> Finding and adding feeds is pretty straight-forward. First, click "Add/Edit Sources" at the bottom of the News area.

You'll see three options for adding new sources:

1. Browse through a catalog of feeds:

We've put together a collection of popular feeds to get you started. To find new feeds, click on a category in the left-hand column (say, Internet & Technology), and you'll see a list of sub-categories in the middle column (in this case, Technology News, Tech Weblogs, and Popular on the Web).

Click on one of the sub-categories, and you'll see a list of feeds. Click the "Add" button next to the one you want, and you'll see it pop up as a new tab.

To find local news through the catalog, choose "Local - US" or "Local- International." We've collected individual feeds related to many cities. To see a collection of headlines from multiple local sources, choose the first feed on the list. This will be a feed from Topix that aggregates headlines from multiple local sources for individual cities and zip codes.

2. Search

If you're more of a searcher than a browser, go straight to the search field below the catalog. Type in something that interests you (for example, "clowns" or "the mafia"), and you'll see a list of feeds related to that subject. Click the "Add" button on any feed, and it will show up as a new tab.

For any keyword search, you'll see a few "aggregation" feeds. These feeds are automated collections of headlines or updates from multiple sources that relate to the keyword.

- Photos of 'keyword' provided by Flickr is a collection of links to photos related to your keyword.
- Blog posts about 'keyword' provided by Technorati is a collection of recent blog posts related to your keyword.
- News about 'keyword' provided by Topix is a collection of news headlines related to your keyword.

You can also find local news by searching. Just enter the name of your city and state or your zip code, and you'll see a list of local interest feeds, as well the Topix feed that aggregates local headlines.

3. Enter a URL

If you already know what feed you want to add, you can just drop a URL into the search field. This can be the RSS feed URL itself (for example, http://feeds.gawker.com/lifehacker/excerpts.xml) or the main URL (for example http://lifehacker.com) or the domain name for the site (for example, lifehacker.com).

Some of the feed names will bit a bit long for the source tabs. To change the name for a source, just click the "rename" link to the left of the tab, while you're still in edit mode. You can type in a new shorter name (for example, change "SI.com - NCAA Basketball" to "NCAA on SI").

Once you've added the source or sources you want, click "close" to leave the edit mode. When you want to add more feeds later, click "Add/Edit Sources" and start over. If you run out of tabs (you have 14 to work with), you can remove one of your existing sources by clicking the trash can to the left of that tab.

That's it, in a nutshell. You still can't control the news itself, we're sorry to say, but now you can at least control who tells you about it.

You Are Now Free to Move About the Start Page

2007-04-04T18:56:30Z

We launched a new release of the Preview start page last night, with a big addition. Now you can reorder all the content in the middle of the page. For example, if you want news at the top of the page and your email preview at the bottom of the page, you can easily switch them around.

To drag a content box, click on the up/down arrow icon in the upper right corner of the box.

Hold down your mouse button, and drag the box up or down on the page. When you release your mouse button, the content box will land wherever you drop it.

If you're using Internet Explorer 7, you may run into a bug where two content boxes end up overlapping after you do some reordering. We're working on a fix for this one. In the meantime, you can get rid of the overlap by clicking the refresh button in your browser or clicking between tabs in one of the overlapping content boxes.

Update on Server Errors

2007-03-30T16:21:25Z

At the end of last week, our development team deployed a fix to address the server error issues a lot of you have been seeing.

After some keen detective work, the team zeroed in on issues related to connections from the start page to our database. The database is where we store all your personal settings, such as favorite stocks and cities you're tracking with the weather alert feature. The fix involved clearing up bugs in how the start page pulls from this database.

After hitting the page and every feature again and again all week, we're very happy to stamp "fixed" on this issue. But please let us know if you do hit a server error. You can post on this blog, or email us.

We are addressing a separate issue with the email preview feature. You may see this message when you come to the start page:

In the meantime, if you run into this issue, you can usually fix the problem by clicking the "Edit" link at the top of the email preview feature.

Preview Start Page Server Errors

2007-03-20T14:43:16Z

If you're using the new Preview start page regularly, you may have run into some error messages in the past few days.

When you go to preview.my.earthlink.net, the page may fail to load. Instead, you see a server error message, like this:

When the page does load, individual features on the page may fail to load. For example, when you click on the Stocks button in the alert dock, you might see this:

Our development team is working on the problem now, and we hope to have it corrected soon.

In the meantime, you can usually get the page and individual features working by reloading the page. Click the refresh button in your Web browser toolbar, or just type in "http://preview.my.earthlink.net"

I appreciate your patience as we work through these issues.

"When can I start using it?"/ "How do I get back?"

2007-03-19T16:57:16Z

A big thank you to everybody who emailed us feedback on the new start page Preview. Since we began promoting the Preview to a group of current start page users a few weeks ago, we've had almost a thousand comments land in our inboxes. The whole team greatly appreciates your feedback.

So far, the two most frequently asked questions have been "How do I get back to my old start page?" and "When can I start using the new start page?"

When we first launched the Preview, we set things up so that when you clicked the promotion to try the new Preview, your original start page would begin redirecting to the new Preview version. In other words, when you went to your start page, you would see the new version, not the old version.

Our thinking here was to set things up so that you could try the new start page without resetting your browser start page. We included a "Return to Old Start Page" link so that anybody who didn't want to start using the Preview version could get back to the existing start page.

A lot of you weren't expecting this automatic redirect, so we changed the set-up. Now, when you click the promotion from the classic start page, the new Preview start page opens in a new browser window. This way, you can easily switch back and forth between the existing start page and the new Preview start page.

If you are still being redirected -- that is, you see the new Preview start page come up when you go to my.earthlink.net, instead of your old start page -- it's simple to switch back. Click the "Return to Old Start Page" link, in the top right above the page, just above the big blue Search button. This will turn off the redirect from my.earthlink.net to preview.my.earthlink.net.

For all of you who want to know when they can start using the new version, the answer is "right now!" We are still actively working on the new start page and will be steadily adding new features, but it is now ready for permanent users. Just click on the "Click here to make myEarthLink Preview your new personal start page" message, near the top of the page, just below Weather and just above Email Preview.

Clicking on this link will redirect my.earthlink.net to preview.earthlink.net. So, if my.earthlink.net usually comes up whenever you open up your Internet Browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.), the new version of the start page will start coming up instead of the old version. You don't need to download anything or adjust anything in Total Access. Just click the link on the new start page, and you should be all set. If you change your mind later, you can click "Return to Old Start Page" to get the old start page back.

If you want to use both the old and the new start page at the same time, you can add http://preview.my.earthlink.net as a browser favorite/bookmark and continue to go to my.earthlink.net when you bring up your Web browser.

Thanks again for the helpful comments. Keep 'em coming!

Welcome!

2007-02-28T14:21:10Z

Welcome to the myEarthLink Portal Product Blog! This blog is dedicated to the new myEarthLink personal start page, now available as a Preview release. As we add features and tweak functionality, we'll post updates here to let you know what we've added and what we're working on. We'll also be soliciting comments and ideas for new features here, to help us plan what we'll be adding down the road.

If you haven't checked out the new myEarthLink yet, click here to get the Preview. If you're logged on to the classic myEarthLink, your preferences should automatically transfer over to the new version. If you're logged out, you'll be able to log in with your existing username and password. If you're new to myEarthLink, you can set up a free user account here.

I know the first question for a lot of current myEarthLink users will be, "Why are you building a new start page in the first place?" In a nutshell, our mission is to make myEarthLink lighter, more adaptable and more intuitive. The primary feedback we get on the classic myEarthLink is that it feels cluttered. Our focus throughout the development process has been attacking this clutter, mainly by approaching the basic structure of the page in a radically different way.

If you turn on all the features on the classic start page, you end up with a very full plate. There are many useful things on the page, but it can take some time to find what you're looking for. And as you jump between features, you interact with each in a slightly different way. It's easy to feel overwhelmed.

In the new myEarthLink, we've addressed this problem in two major ways: First, we've grouped similar features into distinct areas. Second, we've built the page so that it surfaces content and functionality when you need it and then automatically hides it again when you don't need it.

]]> For instance, in the Favorite Sites area on the left side of the page, we've grouped links to handy reference sites and channels. You can bring up search tools for each site and channel -- the job finder tool, for example -- by clicking on the icon to the right of the site name. When you click on another Favorite Site search button, or anywhere else on the page, the job search tool disappears.

The "alert dock" at the top of the page works in a similar way. On the Weather button, you can see the temperature and conditions for your home town at a glance. You can click the button to get more details on current conditions or check the weather for other cities. This opens an on-page box, which disappears again when you click anywhere else on the page. You can check stocks, reminders, game scores, security alerts the same way.

In the middle of the page, we've grouped "content-centric" information together -- for example, this is where you'll see news headlines, a preview of new emails, your horoscope and new movie releases. To fit a lot of content into a small space, we've built on-page tabs. In the news area, for example, you can tab through top headlines, international news, U.S. news, etc. Without tabs, you would be able to see 7 headlines. With tabs, you can get to 56 headlines in the same amount of space.

We also wanted to give users the ability to incorporate a range of content and sites directly into the start page. In the Preview release, you can see this type of functionality in the Favorite Sites on the left side of the page. We've put together a list of pre-set Favorites to cover the basics -- booking travel, looking up a word, etc. -- but we know you'll have more sites you want to include too. To add another site -- say, Wikipedia -- just click on the "Customize" button at the bottom of the Favorite Sites bar. Enter the URL for the site ( http://www.wikipedia.org) and a name to show on the Favorite Sites button (Wikipedia). This new site will show up in your Favorite Sites list every time you visit the page. You can search the added site directly from the start page by clicking the icon to the right of the site name.

In the months ahead, we'll be steadily adding new functionality to the page and tweaking the experience. The biggest upcoming addition is the ability to add custom news feeds to the News area. You'll be able to add local news easily, as on the classic myEarthLink, but will also be able to go a step further. If you want U.S. news from CNN, you'll be able to make a tab for that. If you want to get new stories from Slashdot, then you can make a Slashdot tab. The options will be wide open, and won't be constrained to traditional news either. If you want updates from a friend's blog, you can dedicate a tab to that as well.

We also have more "dock alerts" coming down the pipe. Up next, look for an eBay dock alert, similar to the eBay update widget on the classic myEarthLink. If you're an eBayer, this will give you the ability to track auctions, straight from the start page. Look for a Traffic dock alert soon as well. You'll be able to plug in the route for your daily commute, and get a quick update on traffic jams.

Soon, you'll be able to see more of your custom preferences on the start page. We'll show your personalized TV listings for the day, based on how you've set up the TV listings tool here. You'll also be able to easily see where new movie releases are playing near you, and you'll be able to click straight to your myEarthLink Radio channels.

Finally, we're working on new ways to customize your page. You'll be able to move and remove more items on the page, such as the features in the alert dock area at the top of the page. We'll also be launching new design themes and color options later in the year, so you can spice your page up.

I hope you enjoy the new myEarthLink. Watch this space to track what we're working on and discuss what you would like to see next.