Microsoft recently announced POP3 support for all Hotmail users, finally freeing your email to be used anywhere-even from the vastly superior Gmail.

Over at the How-To Geek site (my other home), the Mysticgeek blog walks through the process of setting up Hotmail access using Gmail’s POP3 checking capability-including sending email using your Hotmail email address directly from Gmail. The setup process is fairly simple and nothing to new to most Lifehacker readers, but it’s a great guide to send to your less tech-savvy friends and relatives to help them consolidate their email into a single inbox.

Hit the link for the full walk-through, then check out how to use Gmail’s multiple inboxes to manage multiple addresses, or you can always just use Gmail’s email switching tools.

How to Send and Receive Hotmail from Your Gmail Account [Mysticgeek's Realm]

POP server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)
POP SSL required? Yes
User name: Your Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com
Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live
SMTP server: smtp.live.com (Port 25)
Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)
TLS/SSL required? Yes