Telnet problems...

Hi,
I am very new to Telnet, and was tried to access mail.hotmail.com on ports 25 and also 23, but it always came up with the message: "Connecting To mail.hotmail.com...Could not open connection to the host, on port 23: Connect failed". I have also tried putty but it wont work either. I don't think its my firewall, as I have no trouble connecting to 2 different unix shells. Its probably some painfully obvious reason, but any help would be appreciated. Thanks

There's a good chance hotmail tries to block access like this.
Is 23 the SMTP port? I doubt hotmail supports SMTP access; I believe it's IMAP

Thanks. I think 23 is SMPT. What is IMAP? Oh and by the way what is "telnet localhost" used for? Is this for networks?

localhost is another name for your machine. It links to your own computer's internal IP address (127.0.0.1)

basically, telnetting to localhost is simply calling up a command prompt to your own box.

IMAP is the Internet Message Access Protocol, usually used for Webmail applications.

There's a good chance Hotmail blocks unwanted access... so connecting directly is likely more complicated than its worth...

It must be my machine. I couldnt telnet localhost either, but I tried hotmail on SMPT on a
friends computer and it connected . Thanks for the help.

smtp by default is port 25, imap is 143 and pop3 is 110
and you won't be able to telnet to your own computer unless you have some service running, i.e pop3 smtp ssh etc...