Often a user’s worst enemy when it comes to security is their own self, provided they employ weak passwords and allow their email account to become hacked. Hotmail is out to protect its users from hurting themselves with two new features that it announced today: A feature that allows users to quickly report a friend’s account as hacked, and a tool that will block users from employing common passwords. The first feature is actually somewhat intelligent, and will allow people who receive suspicious email from a friend to report the sending account as hacked....

Five years is a long time in the technology world. Ten years is a millenia. Fifteen years is roughly an infinite amount of time. Today, Hotmail turned fifteen, a real accomplishment. What is perhaps even more impressive is that Hotmail is still thelargest webmail provider in the world. To see a product still on top after fifteen years in technology is almost unheard of. We here at TNWmicrosoft are negative on Hotmail as it pales in comparison to other market offerings, especially Gmail, but it is impossible to say that the product is not immensely popular....

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and that means you are about to spend far too much money trying to remind your significant other why they fell in love with you in the first place, or placating yourself as to why you are single. Whatever the case, email remains an important tool in every business setting, and that combined with the upcoming social holiday means that some awkward situations are on the horizon....

If you’ve not yet usedHotPadsthe you’re truly missing out. Not only is it one of the most impressive housing finders we’ve used, it’s also impressed us enough to land in our10 DC Startups list. The basic idea is that HotPads will let you see, on a map, the houses that meet your search criteria. How that map is organized has just gotten a lot more useful. If you’ve ever wanted to find out for certain whether there was a bargain available in a specific part of town, the new visualization from HotPads can help you do just that....

Hotspot Robot, a new restaurant discovery site, launched today in public beta in New York City, along with Philly, DC, LA and San Francisco. The site if for foodies who follow publications like Zagat, NY Magazine, NY Times etc. and seek out Michelin starred restaurants. The site’s easy user interface asks for the type of food you’re looking for and your location, then allows users to search for the best, most critically-acclaimed foods and restaurants in each city by pulling information from a variety of national sources, including Zagat, Vanity Fair, Serious Eats, Gayot, Food Network Magazine, Epicurious, Michelin Guide, Saveur and regional sources like the LA Weekly, Time Out New York, Philly Hot List and the SF Weekly....