Do you have an old email account that you don’t use anymore? Say, for example, that Hotmail account you created at your friends house when you were in junior high? That account that has some obscure combination of nicknames, important years, and inside jokes for a name? Like headbanger16-at-hotmail.com or skater132-at-hotmail.com.

Sound familiar? Here’s my advice: delete It! All they do is collect spam and consume valuable real estate in the series of tubes that we call the internet!

This old account of mine has only been abandoned for about a year. And I still log in occasionally to delete everything, including spam. I’m sure I know I’ve seen much more spam collected in a forgotten account – but 1175 is pretty decent. Especially considering Gmail empties the Spam folder monthly.

If, by chance, you still have that old Hotmail account for the sole purpose of using MSN Messenger, then you can disregard this entire post. But just so you know, you don’t need a Hotmail account to use MSN Messenger. Any email address will do.