Set-up Mail on OSX Lion

Hi

Need an expert here.

Installed OSX Lion and set up my hotmail and gmail accounts using Apple Mail (updated version 5.0 I think?) and everything worked fine for a couple of days.

Now I can't send any emails only receive them. The sent icon continuously spins with the message smpt.live offline????? I deleted the accounts and tried to start again, but still offline.........

I have tried looking at various post's and for everything everybody is explaining to me simply does not work - I don't even get the same pop-up windows they are suggesting.

Found this from the MacRumors forums...

On the hotmail website I have found the following:
SMTP (outgoing) server: smtp.live.com
SMTP port: 25
If you run into problems sending mail, try "587" for the SMTP port instead.
SMTP SSL required: yes
SMTP authentication: yes
SMTP user name: your full Windows Live Hotmail email address
SMTP password: your Windows Live Hotmail password

Thanks for that. Did what you said and it still did not work - However, I noticed the time and date were wrong, so altered the time and date correctly and it worked...........? God knows.