When reading and answering email becomes a drudgery (and it does after one or two years), it's time to look for an alternative. Sending offline messages in Windows Live Messenger is a simple solution.

An OIM (offline instant message) can be sent to one of your Messenger contacts regardless of whether they're online or not, as long as you're both using Live Messenger 8 or later. The next time they sign in (or change their status from Appear offline to another setting) they'll see the message and can respond appropriately.

There are so many situations where we only want a short answer to a query or ask a short question that using email for the job seems just too much like hard work. As well, we've got to think of the person at the other end of this kind of email - when they get around to opening their email. Meanwhile, we (im)patiently wait for their reply.

Now you don't need to be sitting at your computer, hard at work on a task, your status set to Appear offline, and be peppered with offline messages mounting up in the taskbar. Use a setting in Live Messenger options so you can view offline messages at your convenience - click through to Tools - Options - Messages - Offline message settings and tick the Show a link to my offline messages in the main window box.

So next time you want to pass on a snippet of information or ask a question, use offline messaging to save both yourself and your Messenger contacts the trouble of writing, sending and replying via email.

A reminder, too, you can save lots of time sharing photos and documents by using Messenger's sharing folder. If you're the sender, open a conversation pane with the contact (even if they're offline), choose the sharing folder icon, and add the photos to the folder. As long as you leave the sharing folder open, the next time your contact signs in they'll start receiving the files.

Footnote: email is for the oldies.

Australia hasn't yet been added to the Windows Live Expo service but it's worth having a look at expo.org to what it's all about. Basically you can buy and sell products (think one very, very large garage sale) and check out and post details about local events. However, Expo is linked with your Windows Live ID (Hotmail/passport account) so you can restrict your buying and selling to just your family and friends on your contact list if you want. As well, you can create a community of people you'll barter with rather than the whole world.

Anyone signing up to a new Hotmail account immediately gets 1000 megabytes of inbox space. When you make the change to Windows Live Mail space is increased to 2000 megabytes. But what do you do with all that online storage space? Well, it's a great way (as well as being free) to use as backup storage - simply email yourself whatever files you want backed up.