It doesn’t stop there, because it is also home to a new menu that provides access to your Profile, Contacts, Applications, and Edit My Account options.

Sure the Contacts one isn’t that revolutionary if you are in your Mail account, but it will likely come in handy if you are out exploring another area of the Y! network.

All you need to do is mouse-over the area where your name is displayed (along with the arrow symbol) and the menu is revealed.

Just about everyone using Yahoo! Mail (Classic or the newer version) should already be seeing it there, as well as on your profiles pages, throughout  Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! News, and more.  Be sure to keep your eyes peeled.

They’re also already hard at work on the next batch of features, including the top-rated requests from users via the Yahoo Calendar Suggestion Board. So be sure to weigh in if you want to get your feature on the roadmap.

Our engineers are reviewing the situation, but in the meantime I wanted to confirm with you that we are aware and are on the case.  You should also know that in many cases users have been successful (attaching or downloading) after repeating the initial attempt.

We apologize for any inconvenience this is causing.

***UPDATE - 11/14/08***
Some adjustments have been made, and it appears that the issues should be just about completely resolved.   The engineers made some additional tweaks that are expected to further aid the situation.  We’ll be monitoring closely over the weekend and I should have more detail on Monday.

***UPDATE - 11/20/08***
I’ve confirmed that many users have had their issues completely resolved, but it appears that some of you are still encountering delays.  I am following up with the engineering team to get additional information.

Starting on Friday evening (November 7th) and continuing throughout the night, we are going to be undertaking extensive but essential work to our mail servers which means that some of you may not be able to access your archived mail folders or your mail overnight.

Please be sure to head over to our sibling blog for more information, and for status updates. And for the others reading … you can rest assured that I will do my best to get back to caring just about America as soon as I can.

You may remember back in January I posted about Jerry’s presentation during CES.  In it he spoke about a more open and social experience for Yahoo! users.  He also showed off the concept for Yahoo! Mail incorporating applications that leverage some of the social connections you have with others on the network.

Over the last few weeks there were two major developments that represent big steps in that direction.  First we have the changes to profiles.  More recently, Jay Rossiter (SVP who is helming the whole “open” thing) announced on Yodel that the doors for developers have officially opened.  Here’s a chunk of what he had to say about the plan.

Most obvious will be the social aspects. At a high level, we’re rolling out a social platform that will draw on the hundreds of millions of connections on Yahoo! – everything from random encounters with someone who commented on the same photo as you, to deep connections you have with friends who know nearly everything about you. By using the social contacts you already have on Yahoo! — through Mail, Messenger, Flickr, Finance, Fantasy Sports, etc. — we’ll make those social connections more active and useful. Most importantly, by enabling developers to make your social connections specific to the Yahoo! service you’re using, we believe you’ll enjoy some incredibly unique and creative new experiences that we would never have thought of.

Some developers were able to get a head start on this by participating in the Yahoo! Open Hack Day in September.  Developers spent much of the event working on applications that would benefit Mail users, but the concept spreads across the network.  Xoopit managed to pull down the best overall award with an application for Mail that gave users the ability to easily browse within Mail for media files that are attached to messages.

I know that this won’t answer all questions people have, but hopefully it’s reassuring to see what some of the stuff is building toward.  You can even take a gander at the Mail related section of Jerry’s video for a refresher.

This doesn’t really have anything to do with Mail, but it’s too important not to mention.  Today is election day, so if you have already done so…THANK-YOU.

If you haven’t, there’s still plenty of time to head over to your local polling location.  If you don’t know where that is, you can check the special Yahoo! Election ‘08 page for details.

A quick peek at the Yahoo! homepage will also reveal a special election day logo that asks about your voting activity.  It doesn’t ask you to declare what you voted for, just that you voted.

If you click on the NO button you will be directed to the same Yahoo! Election ‘08 page referenced above, but a YES gets you a wonderful affirmation of your contribution.

So make sure you earn yourself an updated Yahoo! Header!

Hope all of you out there have a happy and safe Halloween!