If you had read my previous post, then you’ll know that Google just added the IMAP functionality into Gmail. You can refer to the help section in Gmail to learn how to configure your mail client to work with the IMAP service. Unfortunately, there is no step-by-step guide for Windows Live Mail Desktop. But why Windows Live Mail? The reason is because Windows Live Mail is the only application that you can use with your Hotmail account in Vista. And Outlook Express has been replaced by Windows Mail, which is not compatible with Hotmail.
Before you start configuring the client, you need to enable the IMAP in your Gmail settings.
Step 1: Go to settings
Step 2: Click “Forwarding and POP/IMAP”
Step 3: Go to IMAP access and select “Enable IMAP”
Step 4: Click the “Saves Changes” button to save the settings.
Now you can go to your Windows Live Mail to configure it with the IMAP.
Step 1: Click on the “Show Menu” button located at the top-right
Step 2: Go to Tools -> Accounts. An “Accounts” window will pop up.
Step 3: Click “Add”.
Step 4: Select “Email Account” and click next.
Step 5: Fill in the details. In the name field, you can put the name that you like to appear in your email when you can send an email. The email address is your full Gmail address. Uncheck the “Automatically determine my login ID” option. The login ID is your full Gmail address. Check the “Manually configure server settings for email account” option. Click next.
Step 6: You can copy the following settings. In the drop down box, select IMAP.
Incoming Server Information:
Incoming server: imap.gmail.com
Port: 993
Check the “This server requires a secure connection (SSL) option.
Select “Log on using clear text authentication”.
Outgoing Server Information:
Outgoing Server: smtp.gmail.com
Port: 465
Check the “This server requires a secure connection (SSL)” option.
Check the “My outgoing server requires authentication” option.
If you have a lot of emails in your Gmail, it will take some take for the client to download the list of emails.
That’s it! Now you can start using your Windows Live Mail to read your Gmail email!
Update 28/02/2009: If you want to remove duplicated folders, such as the Junk Mail/Sent Mail, you can follow the instruction here. Thanks to James for the info!
Some of us might be waited for this for a long time (but not me :p), Google finally added the IMAP functionality in Gmail! So, what exactly is IMAP and why is everyone are so excited about it? IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. It is one of the two protocols that most mail client support. Another more common and widely used protocol is POP (Post Office Protocol). But why people prefer IMAP over POP? The reason is because POP will download a copy of your email when you retrieve your mail using an email client. The email will still available in the server even though you deleted it from your client (ie: Outlook Express, Outlook) However, this is dependent on your mail server provider. For example, Gmail allow you to change the setting of POP. You can choose to either archive, delete or keep a copy (in the mail server) after you download your email to your client. But with IMAP, the client will synchronize with the mail server. So, if you mark you email as read, it will also be reflected in the mail server. You can also check the explanation/advantage of IMAP in the Gmail help page over 
Yay! The new version of WordPress (2.3) support tagging! It is much easier to tag a post than to categorize them. I never use tagging in WordPress before, so I’m not sure how it works with wordpress. Usually, visitor can filter the post by tag, which is good. It is also better for Search Engine Optimization (SOE). Will have to wait and see whether this will increase my blog traffic or not! xD
