Pondus
1
system
2
Windows 7 users probably know this already.
Trillian does all the announcing of emails for me. 
system
4
Evolving Hotmail with IE9 desktop notifications
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2011/03/31/evolving-hotmail-with-ie9-desktop-notifications.aspx
it's still a useful information. Thanks for your posting