Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Sending an Automated Vacation Reply With Outlook.com

Is it possible to set up a vacation bounce-back message in Outook.com Webmail?

Outlook.com, Microsoft’s successor to its old Hotmail service, does let you set up an automated reply to people who send you e-mail when you are away. To set up a vacation message, log into your Outlook.com account and click the gear-shaped settings icon on the right side of the mailbox screen. Choose “More mail settings” from the menu.

When you land on the Options screen, go to the “Managing your account” area and click “Sending automated vacation replies.” On the Vacation Reply screen, click the button next to “Send vacation replies to people who e-mail me” and compose the bounce message you would like your correspondents to receive as your reply.

Outlook.com gives you the choice of sending the reply to everyone who e-mails you, or just to people on your Contacts list. Unless you regularly get mail from people you do not already have in your address book, you may want to just send the bounce message to known contacts and avoid confirming your currently active e-mail address to spammers. When you have set up your message, click the Save button to activate the vacation reply.

People who send you frequent messages will get your automated reply once every four days to remind them that you are still on vacation, but Outlook.com skips replying to mail filtered into the Junk folder. When you return from your trip, retrace your steps back to the Vacation Reply screen and click the button next to “Don’t send any vacation replies.” Click the Save button to turn off the bounce message until your next break.

Electronic Arts Chief Resigns, Sending Stock Up

“After six years I feel it is the right time for me to pass the baton,” John Riccitiello said in a statement. He has been chief executive since 2007.

His resignation comes as traditional video gaming is facing increasing pressure. Retail sales are falling — they were down more than a quarter in the first 10 months of last year — as consumers took to less demanding, less time-consuming and less expensive games on their smartphones.

“E.A. is the face of the gaming industry at a time when the market is in some important ways going sideways if not downhill,” said Lewis Ward, research manager for gaming at IDC. “It has been outperformed by some smaller and more nimble companies.”

Larry Probst, the company’s chairman and former chief executive, will run Electronic Arts until a new chief executive is found.

The news, released after the market closed, pushed shares up by nearly 3 percent in after-hours trading. But after the market opened Tuesday, the shares fell sharply. In midday trading, they were down 8 percent from Monday’s close.

E.A.’s shares had increased sharply in recent months on the promise of new gaming consoles from Sony and Microsoft.

“E.A.’s strategy and future are rock solid,” Mr. Probst wrote on Monday in a post on the company’s blog. But the company simultaneously said it was less optimistic about its revenues and earnings for the current quarter than it was only six weeks ago.

At that time, it projected revenue of about $1.115 billion to $1.215 billion and earnings of 92 cents to $1.12 a share. The company now expects to come in near the low end or slightly below those estimates.

“It all comes down to accountability,” said Mr. Riccitiello in his resignation letter, adding, “E.A.’s shareholders and employees expect better.”

Mr. Probst, who was the driving force behind making Electronic Arts one of the biggest forces in the gaming industry, praised Mr. Riccitiello’s tenure.

But Colin Sebastian, an analyst with R.W. Baird, said Mr. Riccitiello “had some credibility issues, and on balance, investors will probably view the move favorably.”

Neither Mr. Riccitiello nor Mr. Probst was available for comment, a spokesman for the company said.

Electronic Arts, based in Silicon Valley, released the latest version of its best-known game, SimCity, two weeks ago. It sold 1.1 million units in the biggest SimCity debut to date, the company announced Monday.

But many of those players had trouble connecting online and staying connected. Joystiq, a gaming Web site, called it a “calamitous launch” and pointed out the game had a Metacritic score “lower than the abysmal Resident Evil 6.”

The company blamed the game’s unforeseen popularity for its trouble because it overloaded its servers. It was forced to offer players a free downloadable game.

“I know that’s a little contrived — kind of like buying a present for a friend after you did something crummy,” Lucy Bradshaw, the general manager for Maxis, the game’s developer and a division of E.A., wrote on the Electronic Arts blog. “But we feel bad about what happened. We’re hoping you won’t stay mad and that we’ll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent.”

Her post drew hundreds of comments, many hostile.

“Electronic Arts is certainly known for putting out some games that have a $60 price point and are positioned as a premium game but fall somewhat short of gamers’ expectations,” said Mr. Ward of IDC. “Whenever a customer feels he’s not getting a good value for a dollar, he’s going to take it out on you one way or another.”

Gadgetwise Blog: Sending Tweets by E-Mail

Soon you will be able to share your tweets easily, even with people who aren’t on Twitter.

Twitter, the social microblogging service, is introducing a new sharing feature that will let people pass along Twitter posts by e-mail directly from its site.

Here’s how it will work: When you see a tweet you want to send to a friend, place the cursor over the tweet. A list of links will appear below it in blue, just as it does now, but there will be an additional link, titled “More.”

Click on it and you will see a button that says “Share this Tweet via e-mail.” All you have to do is fill out the address, hit send, and off it goes.

The feature is being rolled out now — some people may find that they already have it. The rest will get it “over the coming weeks,” according to a Twitter representative.

There are some advantages to e-mailing tweets. For one, you can now more quickly ridicule someone’s post before an audience of select friends without going public. It also means you can expose people who have avoided Twitter to its siren call. Don’t count on them thanking you.